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Setting Income Goals and Making Pricing Decisions with Tara Newman · Talk Copy to Me | Content + Copywriting Podcast

• 0:00
  I wasn't born an entrepreneur, like, I didn't have, like, my business hat on when I came out of the womb, , I am excellent in my job, and that kind of encouraged me to start my own business, but what I always say is, is like, no one taught me how to do this, like, I was taught how to write, I have degrees, multiple degrees in writing, I have practice in writing, but no one, anywhere, taught me how to run a business.
• 0:23
  And I always think that, like, I'm not alone in that, I think that so many people are just kind of come into this world so clueless Yeah, so, , my background is I have a master's degree in industrial organizational psychology, the psychology of business and work.
• 0:38
  I definitely have learned more about these things from my, mistakes and like lessons learned over, over years.
• 0:50
  And um, just when you think you figured it out and you've learned it, you need to learn some more.
• 0:57
  Uh, there is, there really isn't any there on this, on this journey.
• 1:01
  Yeah.
• 1:01
  And so I guess that that's maybe going to lead us into a great question.
• 1:04
  Like if someone is either starting a business or they're looking at their business in this very strange economy that we're currently living in, and they're trying to figure out like , how do I even set a goal for this year?
• 1:16
  Like, I remember I did pretty decently with my business in the pandemic, but it was shortly once things started to like, kind of, um, become a little bit easier again, that it felt so impossible to project because like.
• 1:29
  I had no clue what was happening in the world.
• 1:31
  How could I project what was going to happen in my business so looking at the fact that we are going to be really kind of paying a little closer attention to our finances, how does one go about kind of like reviewing and setting the income goals for a year ahead?
• 1:46
  , some of what I want to do though is set some expectations.
• 1:49
  Let's do it.
• 1:50
  Because, because I think that, you know, so many of us have access to the internet and to social media.
• 1:57
  And we go on and we see what people are posting.
• 2:00
  And I just really want everybody to hear it most likely is not real.
• 2:06
  What you are seeing online is not real.
• 2:08
  They are marketing messages designed to hook you on certain emotions so that you make purchases.
• 2:17
  I'm not saying everybody, but I'm saying in most cases.
• 2:21
  And so I want to talk about reality.
• 2:25
  And sometimes I'm not popular because I like to talk about reality.
• 2:29
  That's okay, me too.
• 2:31
  We can be the unpopular kid crowd talking about this today.
• 2:34
  I first want to touch on something you said about like the pandemic and doing well.
• 2:38
  So across the board, whether my clients are in the online space or their traditional businesses, the pandemic and the couple of subsequent years after that, 2020, 2021, were boom years.
• 2:52
  And you have to consider why.
• 2:54
  The government flushed.
• 2:55
  us with cash, whether it was through some kind of economic injury and disaster loan for a small business or tax credits in our personal lives.
• 3:04
  We had a lot of time on our hands to learn and to distract ourselves with activities of learning, working with a coach, you know, maybe highly focusing on one specific area of our business.
• 3:20
  Um, and so, and we had the energy and the capacity at that time.
• 3:25
  I don't think that I think right now what we're seeing, more so than a weird economy, is that people don't have the same energy and capacity that they had in 2020 and 2021.
• 3:38
  And I think what sounds like a I can't afford objection is a I don't have capacity objection.
• 3:44
  Yeah, I agree.
• 3:45
  And, you know, I said from the beginning when this happened, when the Fed started increasing interest rates, that it was going to shake things up.
• 3:56
  And so if you've started your business in the last 10 to 12 years and you felt like you were really successful and right now you feel like maybe you're stagnating or going backwards, now's the time to check in and say, okay, I want to acknowledge that there were things beyond my control that contributed to the luck.
• 4:13
  And success I've had over the last 10 to 12 years.
• 4:17
  And now going forward, I need to really look at my skill set.
• 4:21
  Yeah, I find that so interesting that you say that too, because I think right now a lot of people have that burnout.
• 4:26
  So not only is it not necessarily, like, the luck and the service, it's the, like, interest in the service, or the ability to want to do it anymore.
• 4:35
  Because I find a lot of the people that I will have conversations with where we talk about finances as being a stressor, maybe, in their business, there's also, like, demotivation.
• 4:45
  to run their business, which makes it a lot harder to go out there and earn money for something when you're not excited or interested in what you're doing any longer.
• 4:54
  Yeah, a hundred percent.
• 4:55
  I always say too, like, if I've somehow convinced you to go get a job, I've succeeded.
• 5:01
  Yeah, because it just means you didn't want to do.
• 5:02
  You just need to make a decision, you know, what hard do you want to choose?
• 5:08
  Because going back to work and working for somebody else might not sound like, you know, the joy of a lifetime and it may sound hard, but you know, running a business and sustaining your personal financial livelihood through small business is also challenging.
• 5:26
  and more challenging at times.
• 5:28
  So I want to go back to your original question.
• 5:30
  I just wanted to kind of set the expectation here.
• 5:32
  So, how to set a financial, uh, income goal, a revenue goal is a really great question to ask.
• 5:40
  And I think the other thing we need to do around expectation setting is, I need everybody to decide right now, who do they want to be?
• 5:47
  I liken an entrepreneurship, which in the definition talks about taking big risks.
• 5:52
  To the software developer coder who's willing to live in their parents dingy, dark, smelly basement eating ramen noodles for six years until their app is purchased.
• 6:03
  Most of us are unwilling to do that.
• 6:05
  We don't have the risk tolerance for it.
• 6:08
  So we are small business owners, we are freelancers, we are solopreneurs, we are, as Paul Jarvis says, a company of one.
• 6:16
  And that is an incredibly different perspective to operate your business from.
• 6:22
  . So if you're here to put food on your table and now there's a different segment here, 55 percent of U.
• 6:29
  S.
• 6:29
  citizens are coming from a dual income household.
• 6:32
  45 percent of our citizens are coming from a single income household.
• 6:37
  And I want to just, again, set the expectation that if you are a business owner who has a dual income household, you have a greater degree of, , range and latitude than someone who is a single income household who needs to put food on the table.
• 6:56
  And I want to acknowledge the that right out of the gates, right?
• 7:00
  Because it does impact how you make decisions, and it impacts the choices that you make for your revenue.
• 7:07
  We want you making wise, intentional, mindful decisions with how you allocate your, your money and your funds, even if you have someone who's got a backstop there for you with, with, income and benefits and all those things.
• 7:23
  So what we need to do is we need to reverse engineer the revenue goal.
• 7:28
  And this doesn't happen very often.
• 7:30
  Most people see their Instagram neighbor is crushing it there's these benchmarks around, you know, 10k months, but none of that matters.
• 7:39
  None of that matters.
• 7:40
  The only thing that matters is what you individually need to meet your personal obligations, your personal financial obligations, and achieve your personal financial goals.
• 7:52
  And that is how we set a revenue goal.
• 7:54
  You know, I want you to go back and I want you to look and I want you to acknowledge, yeah, things cost money, right?
• 7:59
  I want you to consider, do you need to save money or repurpose it?
• 8:08
  Or do you need to go make more money?
• 8:11
  And a lot of times we need to go make more money.
• 8:16
  And I think that's something that doesn't get talked about often enough because I am constantly.
• 8:21
  Like kerfuffled by the amount of online entrepreneurs that just keep reinvesting into their business, but without, I think, understanding what they're reinvesting in, you know, like money that could have been profit or saved, right, or banked for a future spend is now like in courses that they're taking and in programs that they're in.
• 8:42
  And I think that when we're setting income goals, part of it's fake, like really looking at what we're already spending and, and kind of like.
• 8:51
  Self analyzing, why am I doing these things?
• 8:53
  You know, like, , is this a necessary, um, especially like learning experience, is this necessary?
• 8:59
  Is it driving my skill forward?
• 9:01
  Is it going to allow me to provide a better customer experience?
• 9:04
  Is my business going to run smoother?
• 9:06
  , I don't see a lot of people doing that, which is confusing then when they're trying to set their own goals of how much do they need and how much do they spend but they shouldn't be spending.
• 9:18
  So the number one thing that people come to me with as like the symptom of what's going on for them, and I will tell you this is regardless of size business, I've got, I work with businesses that are 100 million in revenue and I work with businesses who are not quite making a sustainable income yet.
• 9:37
  , and the number one thing they say to me is, I don't know where my money is going.
• 9:41
  And so the first thing we do is we go and excavate and look under the covers and we find as many of the dollars and cents as we can find to show them where they're currently putting that money.
• 9:54
  But when you don't know where your money is going and when you don't have an organized system for managing your cash flow or you don't know what cash flow is or you don't think it's important because marketing efforts are more important or or a course is more important than You're going to not be on very stable footing when you're making growth decisions for your business.
• 10:19
  Yeah, I agree.
• 10:20
  And I feel like when I finally started being able to see my finances through more of a, like, profits and loss slash, like, segmented perspective.
• 10:30
  Like, well, here's how much money I spend on this type of category of money.
• 10:35
  It was kind of shocking for me to be able to then start making better decisions because I assumed, well, I'm not spending that much, so that's okay.
• 10:43
  , but the dollars weren't allocated, like there wasn't goals towards what they, the earnings were or the spending.
• 10:49
  So, it became a lot easier to make decisions when I understood where money was going to go or be saved to go later.
• 10:58
  Yeah.
• 10:59
  So I'm a profit first, certified profit first professional.
• 11:03
  And you know, one of the things that I want every business owner to be able to do is to make.
• 11:10
  mindful and meaningful business decisions in less than 15 minutes a day.
• 11:15
  And Profit First just happens to be what I found to be the simplest lens framework, if you will, to look at your business.
• 11:23
  Even if you don't implement it,, exactly as it, as it's mapped out in, in the book that Mike Michalowicz read, you know, I'm not a Profit First purist, but I like it as a framework and a lens to, to look at your business through, which is how I work on.
• 11:39
  reverse engineering that revenue goal.
• 11:44
  Now, the other thing that I want to say in terms of this is a lens and profit first and kind of what we were talking about is you hear 10k months, 10k months, 10k months, right?
• 11:57
  And What people don't realize is when you have a 10k month, that isn't 10, 000 that you're putting in your pocket.
• 12:05
  So that is not you paying yourself 100, 000 a year, okay?
• 12:13
  Out of that 10k per month needs to come profit for your business.
• 12:20
  that we take off the top.
• 12:21
  It's why it's called profit first and we put it aside.
• 12:24
  And that's like your cash cushion or your emergency fund, whatever you want to call it in your business.
• 12:28
  Something happens.
• 12:29
  You want to take a leave of absence.
• 12:31
  , business slows for a period of time, right?
• 12:35
  That's why businesses right now are struggling so much is because they didn't put enough cash aside when times were good.
• 12:44
  Because they never thought that times would not be good, so you want to take a little side for profit so you have some protection, some financial protection in the future.
• 12:52
  You want to be able to pay yourself.
• 12:54
  It is critically important that as a business owner you are paying yourself.
• 12:57
  If you are not paying yourself in your business, I hate the whole like then it's a hobby.
• 13:04
  Polarization because I, I don't want to say that, but if you're not paying yourself in your business, you're doing yourself a great disservice because you, you likely have the skills.
• 13:15
  My clients tend to be experts at what they do, and if they went and got a job at a nine to five, a traditional company, whether it's corporate, quote unquote corporate or not, they'd be making six figures.
• 13:27
  So 100, 000 a year, 10, 000 a month, like that's just not going to cut it because then you have to pay taxes and you have operating expenses on your business.
• 13:39
  And even if you keep things as minimal and as lean as possible, You still have those operating expenses, and at some point, you do want those operating expenses to increase so you can grow, so you can buy back your time, so you can create some space for yourself.
• 13:59
  Yeah, I'm so glad you mentioned growth, too, because I think that's another consideration when it comes to income goals.
• 14:05
  Like, you know, when you talk about reverse engineering things, I think There's that, that surface level where someone's able to say, Oh, I'd like to make this much, or here's how much I need to contribute to my family.
• 14:16
  So I'm going to set an income goal of XYZ.
• 14:19
  But that income goal itself cannot be stagnant you also then have to plan for growth so that you can spend more money in order to hire staff or invest in different products or in programs to help your business grow.
• 14:33
  Yeah, you know, um, Warren Buffett has a, a quote and he says, , be greedy when others are fearful.
• 14:40
  And Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy.
• 14:42
  And the way I kind of apply this to business is when everybody's out there spending money, times are good, right, like we saw even in 2020 and 2021, be conservative.
• 14:57
  Still make sure you're saving.
• 14:59
  Don't just go and spend, spend, spend, spend, spend because the money's coming in, and when people are being conservative, hopefully you've saved enough where you can go and be a little more aggressive and get ahead on your competition, right?
• 15:16
  Where you can start maybe doubling down on some things, some growth tactics, when other people are pulling back and saying like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I just got done spending and now I don't have anything left.
• 15:28
  Yeah, and I love that you mentioned the competition because I think the number one thing we should probably have said from the beginning is like what your competition is making or says that they are making should have no factor, obviously besides knowing what your industry is generally like charging for whatever you're selling, but your competition should not be the reason that you set your own income goals because you don't know what other people are making, you don't know what their business expenses and everything look like, and I hear so many people say, well, my competitor charges this, so I'm gonna charge that.
• 16:00
  This is what I mean.
• 16:00
  Like so many people enter this business world that with passions or with,, interest in wanting to like change the, world, start their own business, work for themselves, but they, . Do things that are not necessarily wise because they've never had been taught that you shouldn't just do what the person on the side of you is doing to get ahead for yourself.
• 16:19
  Once we reverse engineer that, that revenue goal and we start to look at it, we can then, start to create a plan.
• 16:26
  Like, What are you going to sell?
• 16:28
  What is your business model need to look like?
• 16:30
  What, what's the price point that you're going to be selling at?
• 16:33
  And that is going to be unique to you versus anybody else.
• 16:37
  But the number one bottleneck that comes up is pricing.
• 16:41
  Most people are not priced appropriately for their revenue goals.
• 16:46
  They're not comfortable establishing a premium price for their service and competing on something like maybe quality instead of price.
• 16:55
  Competing on price is a race to the bottom.
• 16:58
  Yeah, and I, the one thing I will say, I should probably have prefaced this when I just said the thing about competition is there have been times in my business where I did make financial decisions based on, industry.
• 17:10
  For example, when I did an audit of my business, probably at like year three, maybe, and I looked at my pricing and I realized I had been completely underpricing myself, which I was not aware of at all at the time because I was so focused on like my own business.
• 17:23
  And.
• 17:24
  Not comparing myself to others.
• 17:25
  So it is definitely good to understand what your industry is like, to understand what people are doing, but to adjust my statement, we shouldn't necessarily be trying to match our competitors or to do exactly what they're doing.
• 17:40
  Right, or to undercut them or to compete on pace or any of those things because it doesn't work for profitability.
• 17:46
  No, no, and just because like when we talk about things like undercutting , then you're just working yourself harder, and you may not even be able to give the quality experience to your clients for the amount that you're trying to, like, process through your business.
• 17:59
  You just become more burned out that way.
• 18:01
  Because I think income goals then have to be sustainable as well.
• 18:04
  Like how much can you give of yourself and your business?
• 18:08
  If you're not charging enough, then you're, you're kind of like running on that hamster wheel without being able to take that breath , to get off Correct.
• 18:17
  So, um, if you're looking to pay yourself 10k a month, which you should, if you're looking to pay yourself 100, 000 a year in, from your business, or even 80, 000 a year, depending on where you might live, then you're going to need closer to 200, 000 a year in revenue or 250, 000 a year in revenue to have a healthy, um, paycheck for yourself, but then also be able to, hire support in your business and pay them well.
• 18:53
  . And so they're committed.
• 18:54
  And so they do a good job as even though they might be a freelancer or a contractor.
• 18:59
  or whatever you have.
• 19:00
  And if you're going to be hiring an employee, then you're going to need the money to pay the taxes and whatever else you have going on with your payroll.
• 19:07
  So, you know, if you can look at your business through, how do I then go and get my revenue to 250, 000?
• 19:17
  So I have some buffer there and I have a healthy salary coming in, you know, use that as kind of like a journaling question.
• 19:26
  I love that you say that, use that as a journaling question, because I think there's so much more that goes into money and running a business with money that does rely so heavily on mindset and your preconceived feelings on money, like the stories you've told yourself about money over time, because, you know, that's kind of like a big hurdle that people who might be listening to this are hearing, where they hear you say, Oh, I should be making 200, 000, 250, 000 in my business.
• 19:54
  And they may question, well, how do I get from here to there?
• 19:58
  But that's also something that they have to process on their own, right?
• 20:01
  Like it's like there's no textbook they can read and just say, okay, well, I've done the research now and I can easily make this in my business.
• 20:09
  Yeah.
• 20:09
  So with money, there is always the behavioral.
• 20:13
  mental, emotional, generational, trauma, peace to money.
• 20:19
  You cannot escape that, it is there.
• 20:22
  You know, when I talk about money, I try and keep it as simple, as plain spoken, as practical as I can.
• 20:30
  Because once I can answer some questions from a practical perspective, I can see whether or not That is still creating a charge.
• 20:38
  So for example, I had a client come to me and she was really worked up about the fees that she was getting charged from like Stripe and from PayPal, right?
• 20:48
  Because she, all her life, was told that fees from a bank are bad.
• 20:52
  You've done something wrong.
• 20:54
  But in business, fees, those types of fees specifically are necessary.
• 21:00
  They're just the price of doing business and they come out of your operating expenses when we look at it through the lens of profit first, and they're already accounted for.
• 21:08
  So when I explained that to her, I said, okay, I said, here are the facts, those fees are just a part of doing business.
• 21:16
  That's normal.
• 21:17
  It's nothing to be ashamed of.
• 21:19
  And so if you know that this is normal and that it's already accounted for, and actually the more fees you have to pay, that means the more money you're making, does that change how you feel?
• 21:33
  Or do we need to have a conversation about mindset around that?
• 21:35
  And she's like, no, I'm good.
• 21:37
  ? So instead of getting somebody all twisted around in their mindset, as often happens, and they're overthinking, can we just look at this from a simple practical perspective and then red light, green light it, I think that it's kind of more like, that's also the part of growing as a business owner, is developing that trust in your own decision making, and developing the trust based on, like, the actual quantitative data that you've collected from your business.
• 22:04
  throughout, like, the course of doing business, right?
• 22:06
  I mean, like, I, I don't know if this is safe to say, but there's, when I hear this, it makes me think, like, numbers don't lie, right?
• 22:13
  So yes, and I say, I talk about this in terms of facts and feelings, so I just closed down a major program in my business that contributed almost a million dollars to my revenue over the last five years.
• 22:27
  And on paper, it looked great.
• 22:30
  Yeah, but it didn't hit what I call my triple bottom line.
• 22:33
  So you might hear businesses talk about a triple bottom line.
• 22:36
  And it's like how the profit how that affects the people.
• 22:40
  And in a lot of cases, they're talking about the environment, the environmental impact of these 500 companies.
• 22:47
  That's not me.
• 22:48
  However, I do care about the profit, my time, and my energy.
• 22:54
  tHat capacity conversation that we were talking about before.
• 22:58
  So while it was profitable, it was really hard on me time wise and you know, energetic capacity wise.
• 23:08
  Yeah.
• 23:08
  And so therefore I had to make a decision that was based more on feelings.
• 23:13
  Yeah.
• 23:13
  But I did have the facts.
• 23:16
  I was able to say, this works.
• 23:18
  Are you really willing to turn off this thing, this revenue stream that works and is profitable?
• 23:24
  Is your, your, my physical health, my, my time, freedom, my energetic capacity, more important to me than the financial piece and the profit piece.
• 23:38
  And that's different for everyone.
• 23:40
  Yeah.
• 23:41
  Remember I said, are you a single income household?
• 23:44
  Are you a double income household?
• 23:45
  And I will tell you that when I started this business, I would not have been able to make the decision that I made here nine years later.
• 23:54
  Because our situation changes.
• 23:56
  Yeah, which I think is so important, right?
• 23:58
  Because our, like, in, in the situation changing, your financial priority is changing.
• 24:03
  So I guess another follow up question I may have for you is, like, we talk about, like, setting the income goals and knowing how much you need and how much you should be aiming for, but what happens then when your priorities change?
• 24:15
  How does someone go about adjusting their income goals when they decide there might be a, like, a financial priority shift?
• 24:24
  Yeah, I think the best way for me to talk about this is just to share the experience that I've had over the last, last few months.
• 24:30
  So what I did was I went back to the Revenue Goal Calculator.
• 24:34
  And the first thing I actually started doing was adjusting my personal life.
• 24:37
  Adjusting what I was spending, what my husband and I were spending, how we were looking at our personal, ,expenses.
• 24:45
  Because they're so tied.
• 24:47
  If you want to live like a queen, the luxury lifestyle, your, your first class lifestyle, and I'm all for luxuries and thriving and all those things.
• 24:58
  What's going to cost you something?
• 25:01
  Is what that's going to cost you and your business worth it?
• 25:05
  And so I always look for like, me personally, where there's the balance.
• 25:09
  Where can I make more but work less?
• 25:16
  Make more profit, not even more revenue, but more profit.
• 25:20
  Keep more for myself and work less.
• 25:25
  Right?
• 25:26
  So first step, go back, what am I willing to trade off personally so that I don't have to take home as much income right now as I'm making this shift in my business?
• 25:39
  Then it was, okay, what in my business needs to now shift in terms of my investments and expenses?
• 25:50
  And that was really hard because I run a pretty lean business systems wise.
• 25:54
  My cuts were going to be people.
• 25:56
  Yeah.
• 25:57
  And what was going to be good for me?
• 26:00
  and my health, personally, was not going to be good for these contractors that I absolutely adore and love and care about in my business.
• 26:10
  And that was a really big lesson for me, that these decisions that I'm making that are good for me aren't going to be good for somebody else.
• 26:19
  . And so we, I then went and I ran some models.
• 26:21
  I didn't do, make any firm decisions.
• 26:23
  I just got it down on paper, looked at it and reflected on it for quite a while before I said, okay, like I needed time, like my body, my system, my, my nervous system needed time to get comfortable with the really big decisions that I was about to make and how that was going to impact the people around me.
• 26:43
  Yeah, I'd love to stay here for 10 seconds though, because I think that there is something I hear so often when it comes to personal, like personalizing money that I think people can take like as a value of what you just said.
• 26:56
  It's that like sometimes how other people make decisions with their money in their business does not reflect back on you as a service provider or as a business owner in any way.
• 27:08
  in your instance, you were making the best decision that you could make for your Own Business.
• 27:13
  And while it might not have been wonderful for contractors you were working with, that doesn't mean you didn't like them.
• 27:19
  It doesn't mean that they didn't do a good job.
• 27:21
  It doesn't mean that they have, like, everything that they need to succeed working with other people.
• 27:26
  But I think so often people personalize other people's business decisions at, you know, because it affects their own, that it's a really good reminder that just because someone chooses not to work with you, Now, whether they stop working with you in the future, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's about you or your own business, but it is about their business, and that's okay.
• 27:50
  Yeah, and I'm just, full transparency, that was really, really hard for me.
• 27:54
  That took therapy, that took You know, advisement from a coach that took conversations with my husband, that took conversations with the people that it was going to be affecting, really important conversations where I was giving them notice.
• 28:05
  And I was like, Hey, like I'm seeing, because my cashflow and my, and my numbers, my money and my business is so organized, I could say to them, so this is another benefit, right?
• 28:18
  Of getting intimate with your money.
• 28:20
  I was able to say to them, Hey, like these are the things that are happening.
• 28:25
  That's affecting.
• 28:26
  revenue in the business, profitability in the business, and it's going to come and it's going to affect all of us.
• 28:33
  You know, I'm giving it 90 days.
• 28:36
  Okay, we're down to 60 days.
• 28:38
  Okay, we're at 30 days.
• 28:40
  Here are the decisions, right?
• 28:42
  And we really chatted it through as a team.
• 28:45
  Which I think is great.
• 28:46
  I'm not trying to take away that it wasn't difficult, but being able to discuss it, I'm sure, made it, um, either more practical, like more able to happen, or at least better to process it because you were able to have those honest conversations.
• 28:59
  Yeah, and somebody might be listening to this podcast and might feel, like, super activated right now by this conversation, and I just want to acknowledge them and say, like, hey, I've been working on my money, my personal relationship with money for 20 plus years, okay, so.
• 29:15
  When you hear me say this was hard, but we're also able to have a conversation about it vulnerably and openly in front of who's ever listening to this podcast, and you might be like cringing and feeling shamey, or maybe you're judging me, right?
• 29:27
  I want to acknowledge the, that I've had 20 years of this under my belt.
• 29:31
  I went bankrupt and the things that I learned from that experience are coming in and helping me now.
• 29:38
  Yeah.
• 29:38
  Um, and I still felt like a failure.
• 29:41
  Yeah.
• 29:41
  I still felt like a failure.
• 29:43
  Right.
• 29:43
  And I think that's what's so important about it though, right?
• 29:46
  I forgot how you had mentioned this before, but you said something about like money being feelings and something else.
• 29:50
  Do you, do you remember what you said?
• 29:52
  Yeah, facts and feelings.
• 29:52
  Facts and feelings.
• 29:53
  And they're both very justified and they're both very real, right?
• 29:57
  You know, you knew after some time and having a very well organized financial system that you knew this would be the right, Potential decision, but there were feelings involved that , didn't make it necessarily feel that way, and I'm sure even, you know, processing it and going through it , that those feelings shift still, where you're like, is this the right decision?
• 30:19
  Did I make the right one?
• 30:21
  Because that's just human nature to kind of like second guess yourself, you know?
• 30:25
  You've been exploring your relationship with money.
• 30:27
  Maybe you can feel a little bit more confident.
• 30:30
  Maybe?
• 30:30
  Well, I'm guessing.
• 30:31
  I'm projecting on you.
• 30:32
  It was interesting because I second guessed myself all the way up to making the decision.
• 30:37
  Yeah.
• 30:37
  And then I made the decision, and then we executed on all the things that needed to happen.
• 30:42
  It took us 30 days, all the things that needed to happen to close this program and execute on this decision.
• 30:49
  And in the process of it, I felt so much lighter.
• 30:52
  Yeah.
• 30:53
  My, my, my health started to improve.
• 30:56
  Yeah.
• 30:57
  Um.
• 30:58
  sales started coming in from the offers that we were maintaining in a way that I was like, wow, like the evidence here around the decision was so enormous.
• 31:11
  And I always say that the most profitable thing you can do in your business is to make a difficult decision.
• 31:18
  Yeah.
• 31:19
  I also think, like, some of the more difficult decisions I've had to make in my life, it's the lead up to the decision that is always so much harder than the decision in itself or the experience of it.
• 31:30
  Like I said, things change in your life.
• 31:32
  Right?
• 31:33
  Nothing, nothing.
• 31:34
  And as business owners, we can't be, there is no status quo.
• 31:39
  Like there just isn't.
• 31:40
  And there's no, um, my business is flat.
• 31:44
  Like you're either growing or you're in decline and you have to really take responsibility for that in a way.
• 31:54
  Because when you do, it sets, it sets you free, right?
• 31:57
  And so, you know, not just looking at, okay, what, how do I reverse engineer this revenue goal?
• 32:02
  But asking yourself, where does your business fit in your portfolio of assets or money?
• 32:11
  Right?
• 32:11
  So when they talk about building wealth.
• 32:14
  They say like wealthy people have seven revenue streams, all different kinds.
• 32:18
  They might run a business, they might have stake in a business, they have stock, they might have dividends, they might be getting, um, affiliate income or royalties if they've maybe written a book or something like that.
• 32:32
  There's all these different, with rental income, there's all these different ways that.
• 32:37
  wealthy people create these seven revenue streams.
• 32:40
  And so I personally think the point of running a small business is to build wealth.
• 32:47
  It is to create financial stability and security for your family.
• 32:52
  Not the opposite.
• 32:54
  Yeah.
• 32:54
  Right.
• 32:55
  So how are you using your business as a tool to create financial stability?
• 33:03
  and sustainability and wealth for your family.
• 33:05
  And that becomes very easy when we start to look at it through the lens of profit first.
• 33:09
  One, we're making sure that you're being paid enough and that you can be contributing to a 401k or a Roth IRA or, you know, whatever you want to do there.
• 33:20
  And we make sure that you have profit that you're putting aside so that on a quarterly basis, you can take some of that profit as a distribution and either, either take the vacation or, you know, I know people like to put a pool in their yard.
• 33:32
  I did that or use that money and put it into other cash generating assets.
• 33:37
  So you don't have to continue to work as hard for your business as you might be right now, especially if you're just starting out.
• 33:46
  So really understanding and having an end in mind.
• 33:49
  And I think a lot of people either don't have an end in mind, like they don't have an exit strategy, like what happens in, I just was talking to a DJ and I'm like, okay, so like when you're 70, is this really what you're going to want to be doing?
• 34:03
  Or like people in the online space, I'm like, at 70, do you still want to be shaking your rear and your rump on reels?
• 34:09
  Like, is that what you want to be doing?
• 34:11
  Uh, cause I'm 47 and I don't want to do that.
• 34:14
  I think of this all the time.
• 34:16
  So, you know, understanding like what are you going to do with your business?
• 34:19
  And then everybody, so if you're in the entrepreneur, I'm, you know, eating ramen noodles in my parents basement, your answer is going to be, I'm going to sell my business.
• 34:27
  Yeah.
• 34:28
  And Tara is going to tell you that in most cases, it's worth nothing.
• 34:32
  Yeah, especially if it's a service based business, especially if you're a solopreneur.
• 34:38
  So your exit strategy has to be my business is keeping 40 to 50 percent of its revenue and I'm taking that and making sure that I am investing that.
• 34:48
  Yeah.
• 34:49
  In other cash generating assets, whatever your jam is, whether it's short term rental, long term rental, flipping houses, stocks, dividends, like whatever you want it to be, you know, that's not for me to advise and say, but my job is to make sure you have that cash.
• 35:07
  . To go and do that, and that you're not constantly reinvesting it, quote unquote, reinvesting it into your business, because your business is likely not an investment.
• 35:17
  All right, so I could keep you here all day talking, but so that way people are not literally listening to us for five hours.
• 35:22
  Let us kind of sum it up with what is something that if someone's listening right now and they hear us talk about setting income goals that can actually have profit within their business, thinking about the future as they make these business decisions, learning that they can make adjustments based on their personal life, their professional life, and the finances are gonna have to adjust.
• 35:44
  With those decisions, what is something that someone can do that's small because these are heavy big things what is a small thing someone could do to feel like they're making good income and Profit decisions in their business in the year ahead.
• 35:59
  So I want to, I want to do two things.
• 36:01
  First, I want to share that, you know, people hear me talk about money and They think like, wow, like, you know, she's got all this knowledge or whatever.
• 36:10
  And that's not me, but what about me, you know, and, and things like that.
• 36:14
  Until I started my business when I was 40.
• 36:19
  I handed every paycheck that I had to my husband I had, this is just what I saw growing up, I had this belief that like I was not good with money, that I was going to mess things up, that I was going to cause our credit score to decline because I wouldn't pay things on time and I would be super overwhelmed.
• 36:39
  And so I had given him my paycheck and I trusted him and he was very trustworthy.
• 36:45
  It's not what I'm saying.
• 36:46
  And so what I did was after the first year of my husband doing my books, was that I set an intention.
• 36:54
  I set the intention to increase my financial literacy.
• 36:59
  And it seems woo woo.
• 37:01
  It seems silly, but I increased my comfort with learning about money and understanding how it works.
• 37:09
  Right, so simple.
• 37:10
  I'm setting an intention this year to learn more about money.
• 37:15
  I'm gonna listen to one So if you're reading anything about money every day, whether it's on YouTube or a podcast, please be careful of TikToks and reels from money influencers.
• 37:27
  Try and read things that have a little more, fact based and discernment around them.
• 37:32
  The second thing, because I promised two, I wanted to give one that was kind of like mindset emotional, right?
• 37:38
  And the other one is Download My Revenue Goal Calculator.
• 37:42
  It is absolutely free.
• 37:43
  It is free.
• 37:44
  You can use it over and over and over again.
• 37:46
  Oh, thank you so much for sharing that with us.
• 37:48
  And you're already in a podcast player, everyone.
• 37:50
  So head on over to Tara's podcast and listen to her talk once this episode's done as well, because I know you have a lot of good content out there as well that people can listen to and.
• 38:00
  Learn more, maybe increase their own, , financial knowledge.
• 38:04
  All right.
• 38:05
  Perfect, Tara.
• 38:05
  I appreciate so much your time today.
• 38:07
  I think that this is such a good episode because money is so personal, even when it's professional, I think there's a lot to kind of hear and absorb, and I hope that everyone who's listening really gets a lot from our conversation.
• 38:19
  Thanks for having me, Erin.