Episode description:
In this episode, I am joined by Stacy Millard, an esteemed accountant and entrepreneur, who shares her extensive insights into empowering women-led enterprises. Throughout our discussion, we explore the multifaceted roles within financial management, emphasizing the significance of distinguishing between bookkeeping, tax responsibilities, and strategic financial oversight.
Stacy elucidates the importance of a robust financial plan that aligns with one's business goals, asserting that understanding the numbers is essential for informed decision-making. Ultimately, we aspire to foster a supportive community for women in business, encouraging a culture of collaboration and mutual growth.
Takeaways:
Chapters:
00:08 - Amplifying Women's Leadership
08:45 - Understanding the CFO Role
13:20 - Financial Literacy and Business Mindset
21:15 - The Importance of Community in Business Success
30:55 - The Importance of Financial Planning for Business Success
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Coco Sellman, the host of #WisdomOfWomen, believes business is a force for good, especially with visionary women at the helm. With over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience, she has launched five companies and guided over 500 startups. As Founder & CEO of A Force for Good, Coco supports purpose-driven women founders in unlocking exponential growth and prosperity. Her recent venture, Allumé Home Care, reached eight-figure revenues and seven-figure profits in just four years before a successful exit in 2024. A venture investor and board director, Coco’s upcoming book, *A Force for Good*, reveals a roadmap for women to lead high-impact, high-growth companies.
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Welcome to the Wisdom of Women Show.
Speaker A:We are dedicated to amplifying the voice of women in business.
Speaker A:A new model of leadership is emerging and we are here to amplify the voices of women leading the way.
Speaker A:I am your host, Coco Selman, five time founder, impact investor and creator of the Force for Good system.
Speaker A:Thank you for joining us today as we illuminate the path to unlocking opportunities for prosperity in women led enterprises by amplifying the voice and wisdom of women.
Speaker A:Today we have Stacy Millard, an award winning accountant, community builder, mentor and four time entrepreneur who has dedicated her career to empowering small business owners.
Speaker A:With over 17 years of experience in accounting and having supported thousands of small businesses, Stacy is passionate about making a positive impact on businesses and their communities.
Speaker A:That's really cool.
Speaker A:As the founder of Thrive Accounting, both a boutique Canadian accounting firm for small businesses, she provides comprehensive services tailored to unique needs of each business.
Speaker A:Through her various roles including hosting the Small Business School podcast and leading the small Business Club, Stacy is an ally for entrepreneurs seeking actionable advice and clear roadmaps to success.
Speaker A:So I'm so happy to have Stacey on the show with us today.
Speaker A:Welcome Stacy.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker B:I'm so excited.
Speaker A:As we always begin, I ask the question, what is one book written by a woman that has significantly influenced your life?
Speaker B:Okay, I love this question and I think the answer is going to surprise you because being a numbers person, you'd probably expect it to be numbers based, but it's actually not it.
Speaker B:One of the most impactful books by women was B by Jessica Zweig, which you're probably wondering why a marketing book for an accountant, right?
Speaker B:Outlook.
Speaker B:What I think people most often, often forget is that we need to be more than just our jobs.
Speaker B:Doesn't matter if you're a massage therapist or whatever product you're selling, your role is about selling that product.
Speaker B:As a CEO, as a founder, it's not just about doing the service or the product, it's about selling it.
Speaker B:And so even as an accountant, one of my favorite books is in marketing.
Speaker A:And you know, I'm just sort of reveling at this moment in how unusual it is to hear a finance person really come out and say that.
Speaker A:As we think about small businesses or any business, especially small businesses that don't have huge balance sheets, it's critical that we focus always on sales.
Speaker A:So in your experience, because I know you've worked with lots and lots of small businesses, what are the top challenges you see that companies and founders are facing when trying to grow.
Speaker A:Grow and scale.
Speaker A:And what are you giving them?
Speaker A:Advice?
Speaker A:How are you helping them overcome these obstacles?
Speaker B:I think the number one challenge in the middle of a scale, so we're past startup, but we're onto scaling.
Speaker B:Is the dynamic role that a CEO or the entrepreneur, the founder really needs to hold.
Speaker B:So you're thinking of all the different things like HR and finance and marketing and then you're trying to lead this team and it's how dynamic that role is and how different it is from when you started to where you're going.
Speaker B:You're always trying to find the people that can give you the advice to get to where you're going next, have enough information to make that decision and then there's a lot of pressure and then you've got the team.
Speaker B:I think that is actually the biggest challenge is having somebody be able to break that role down, to take the 50,000 foot view, not get stuck in the weeds of the day to day.
Speaker B:Otherwise you're not going to see the forest for the trees and that limits growth.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So it's being able to step out of that and really assess what do I need to be in each of these roles that I play.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:When you're trying to grow, you have limited time and you can't be solving problems in the weeds all day or you'll never be able to focus and do the thing that will actually company grow.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And I think that people typically, because I'm a finance expert, all of our advice is about a budget or tax savings.
Speaker B:But the financial numbers are proof of what's happening within the business.
Speaker B:Looking at numbers every month is necessary from both a planning and reflecting perspective.
Speaker B:Planning for the future and reflecting on what happened.
Speaker B:Because we are not going to know how to course correct without looking at them.
Speaker B:But it always goes beyond that.
Speaker B:Like if we stopped there of just like, oh, how'd we perform last month?
Speaker B:That's not good enough.
Speaker B:It's always about lead and lag numbers.
Speaker B:Accounting numbers are lag numbers.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:They're telling you historically what happened, but what are the actions we're taking?
Speaker B:So we're always looking at like, okay, what do I need to be doing?
Speaker B:How do I need to improve that reflection?
Speaker B:50,000 foot view, what's really going on?
Speaker A:I just want to acknowledge the difference between a controller and a cfo.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:If you have somebody who just gives you reports and helps you look at your finances, numbers and taxes, they're not really a cfo, they're just giving you regurgitation of your Numbers and they're not necessarily thinking strategically.
Speaker A:And what I'm hearing you say is that you're helping think about, well, this is where we are now.
Speaker A:What do we do?
Speaker B:Well, so I'd love to break down for people, there's sort of three roles I think your finance team should, should hold in your business.
Speaker B:You have this bookkeeper.
Speaker B:Depending on the size of your team, there might be somebody who's called a controller, which means they manage the bookkeepers of the bookkeeping.
Speaker B:Those people are not typically strategic thinkers unless that specific individual happened to invest time.
Speaker B:They're really about data entry and is the data correct.
Speaker B:And then you have a tax professional, somebody who's keeping up to date on the different tax laws and things like that.
Speaker B:And then the CFO is the critical thinker in our firm.
Speaker B:We have all three, but they're very distinct roles.
Speaker B:We have people in each of those roles.
Speaker B:Somebody responsible for thinking of the transactions and is the data.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Somebody who we have dedicated to tax so that we know they're staying up to date with the tax laws.
Speaker B:Because you can't do that and be a strategic thinker at the same time for the business.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like switching from HR to marketing.
Speaker B:It's so hard to change those hats.
Speaker B:So we try to have a person responsible for each one for the company.
Speaker B:A lot of times I see small businesses thinking they're getting all three from a single person.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You might get all three from a firm, but not from a single person.
Speaker B:And their expectation then obviously doesn't meet reality.
Speaker A:I've had that situation when you're growing at the beginning, maybe you can't afford a bookkeeper, a controller and a cfo.
Speaker A:So you pick one person.
Speaker A:If it's somebody who's more strategic, they're probably hating their life because they're doing all the daring is that it can be better augmented with a company like yours that can take some of those roles or maybe all of them until you're at a place where you can afford a full headcount.
Speaker B:If you've hit multi six figure figures, you should have a bookkeeper hands down.
Speaker B:You obviously have somebody doing the tax accounting.
Speaker B:Those two roles are really important.
Speaker B:The strategic thinker, like managers, their specific experience is harder to hire.
Speaker B:Now we have a ton of fractional roles, which makes it more accessible than it used to be.
Speaker B:That didn't used to be a thing.
Speaker B:But there's probably a gap in there that if you're not at that stage yet where you can hire a CFO like buy an hour with somebody, it doesn't have to be every month, but say to them like, hey, where would you look?
Speaker B:Or chatgpt, tell it about your business, where you want to go, what your plans are.
Speaker B:Same thing your CFO should be asking you and then say to it, what should I be looking at monthly?
Speaker B:And dive into the questions.
Speaker B:ChatGPT, you can upload spreadsheets and ask it to analyze.
Speaker B:There's so much opportunity.
Speaker B:But I think what people miss is the fact that they need that somebody doing that CFO role.
Speaker B:And if you're not going to hire it out, then you need to be prepared to have that hat and at least be looking, reflecting, and making an assessment of where were we, how did we do?
Speaker B:Did we perform based on where we were hoping to?
Speaker B:And then making some decisions about where you're going after.
Speaker A:What are some of the things that a, a real CSO will be looking for?
Speaker A:You mentioned before that one of the biggest challenges for a founder is that they're kind of having to live at the 50,000 and the 5ft and they're managing the team.
Speaker A:How do we think about a cfo, their role and what they focus on?
Speaker B:Mm.
Speaker B:Sometimes owners come up with the challenge.
Speaker B:And where I love to have that outside perspective as a CFO role is balancing out the numbers with other softer objectives.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So I often talk about how we want to pay our team well.
Speaker B:We want great relationships with them because we want to enjoy coming to work.
Speaker B:We want our customers incredibly happy with our services and we want to show up well in our community.
Speaker B:And we don't want the owner working constantly 24 hours a day, seven days a week to run a profitable business that makes money.
Speaker B:On top of that, we're like, oh my gosh, I don't know where to start.
Speaker B:Sometimes that outside perspective can be helpful.
Speaker B:If you are trying to fill that CFO role, the very first thing is understanding the three levers of profit.
Speaker B:Your overhead, your cost of sales or cost of services, and your revenue.
Speaker B:And knowing where you've got some challenges.
Speaker B:Typically, I see owners start with their overhead and they're like, how do I reduce this?
Speaker B:This is an area where you can make one decision that really makes or breaks things, and that's typically on rent or salaries.
Speaker B:Those are things that if you get into a contract on them, they're very hard to reverse.
Speaker B:I don't think people put enough time and effort into truly understanding rent.
Speaker B:I find a lot of people settle on that area.
Speaker B:They make some really long term detrimental decisions.
Speaker B:But that's an Other than those two categories, that's an easy box to check for.
Speaker B:Okay, here.
Speaker B:Then it starts getting into your cost of sales, your cost of what you're doing, and a revenue game.
Speaker B:In small businesses, our revenue game, typically sales, is the last thing we hire out.
Speaker B:As entrepreneurs, we know our vision.
Speaker B:It's harder to articulate to people.
Speaker B:We really need somebody in that specialized marketing role.
Speaker B:We have to be heavily involved.
Speaker B:But the cost of sales, it's all about the systems and the processes that you have in place.
Speaker B:And so really I'm telling owners like focus in those two areas.
Speaker B:What are you doing?
Speaker B:What are your systems?
Speaker B:How are they efficient?
Speaker B:What's the cost of your product?
Speaker B:How can you make that better?
Speaker B:How can you cut the fluff that you're paying for that no longer aligns with what the customer wants?
Speaker B:It's wasted money.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:We're looking at those types of things.
Speaker B:So I would say focus in those two areas.
Speaker B:Are you getting a great return on your marketing?
Speaker B:Are you getting great visibility?
Speaker B:How can you increase sales without increasing costs?
Speaker B:And then how can you deliver more efficiently?
Speaker A:There's so many pieces in that cost of sales, right?
Speaker A:The product itself or service, whatever those, you know, elements are.
Speaker A:And like you said, there could be lots of things.
Speaker A:You're assuming everybody wants these specific bells and whistles that you implemented five years ago, but are they really necessary anymore?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And what are the costs to those things?
Speaker A:I often find that the cost of marketing, if it's not well tracked, I mean, marketing is one of those things.
Speaker A:I remember with my board when I was growing Illumina, I actually had one person in my, my board of directors that said you need to spend more on marketing.
Speaker A:You have a system that's going, you're holding yourself back, you need to make sure you're watching it and you know what your metrics are.
Speaker A:But you really need to spend more here, not spend more until you have the go to market system that's running right?
Speaker A:Start small, figure out what works, measure, compare your conversion rates to your competitors, et cetera.
Speaker B:I think business advice is so particular.
Speaker B:Like there's so many nuances when we are trying to show up on a podcast or we're forced to provide advice in such bite sized clips that people think we're always just going to say spend less on marketing.
Speaker B:And for me, what I'm always looking at is like, what's your return on investment?
Speaker B:But like, how does it fit into the system?
Speaker B:So what you're talking about is like, perhaps if I looked at that business I would have said like, okay, well, we need to hit a certain target by a certain date.
Speaker B:So we have to have these results for this to work.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So we actually do want to spend more on marketing, but we want to spend it efficiently.
Speaker B:We still need to know what those channels are that are going to work best.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's so hard to provide these bite sized clips that we all want from a podcast.
Speaker B:And then also it's like, okay, what do you know about your business?
Speaker B:How does this advice that you're hearing fit into your plan?
Speaker B:I love that.
Speaker A:Great.
Speaker A:Tell us more about financial literacy and how much you probably work on that.
Speaker A:With founders, especially if they haven't run a business before, this is their first business.
Speaker A:How do you help with both the sort of nuts and bolts, but also the, the mindsets around financials?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, the mindset is a whole nother ball game.
Speaker B:But what I would say is there's so much chatter about how we haven't learned to budget, we haven't learned how to do our own taxes.
Speaker B:Conversations about money through childhood.
Speaker B:Realistically, when we are going into business, we just need to address.
Speaker B:We are, you know, nine times out of 10, we have a shortfall.
Speaker B:We have a weakness in that particular muscle.
Speaker B:We were not actually taught that.
Speaker B:So it's going to be an area that we just have to say, hey, I'm going to have to grow in this area.
Speaker B:But I don't know that we even look at where are my weaknesses?
Speaker B:Where am I going to have to grow as a leader of this company?
Speaker B:Is it through leadership?
Speaker B:Is it through selling?
Speaker B:Like, there's owners out there who really need to learn how to sell better.
Speaker B:We haven't addressed those weaknesses and financials.
Speaker B:Nine times out of 10, we got room to grow, room to improve.
Speaker B:We typically start with just the basics of how do you generate profit.
Speaker B:A lot of the mindset work comes into accepting why you would want to be profitable, especially for women.
Speaker B:When we go into business, there's a very altruistic I want to change the world tendency.
Speaker B:More and more we're talking about the finances behind it, but there's almost like a, ooh, you just want the money.
Speaker B:But we can actually have both.
Speaker B:When we set out and decide that we're setting the thermostat to having a very profitable business, one that everybody feels really good dealing with and achieve it, we need to open up those conversations and be okay with generating profits.
Speaker B:Because if you're not there, you'll spend every single cent the company makes and be stuck in the same pattern, we're talking to people about the three pillars, right?
Speaker B:Sales, cost of sales, and overhead.
Speaker B:Those are fairly simple.
Speaker B:But as we start getting more nuanced of, like, okay, well, why does your business operate in a certain way?
Speaker B:That's where we're starting to talk a little bit more about your specific business needs and strategy.
Speaker B:What I think is important for people to know, though, is business can be done any way you want.
Speaker B:There's so much possibility, and that's one of the most wonderful things, how creative we get to be in business.
Speaker B:What we need to understand is to do business that way.
Speaker B:What is it going to take to get there?
Speaker B:Maybe the road is longer than we want.
Speaker B:For example, I often see business owners who want to get paid from a business right away.
Speaker B:They need that salary.
Speaker B:So we make different decisions than somebody who's like, I don't need a salary from this business for 18 months, and so I'm gonna put it all back in.
Speaker B:And, like, our growth rate might be different, right?
Speaker B:So really understanding what do I need from this business, and then how do the numbers fit into this being okay?
Speaker B:Asking for help is the biggest thing.
Speaker B:Knowing that I've just got this muscle to grow, and one day I'm gonna know all about it.
Speaker B:My CFO is gonna list off all these numbers, and I'm gonna have known them already because I'm confident in this business, but being okay with being a student, learning and putting in the 10,000 hours that it's going to take to be an expert at anything.
Speaker A:And I would say it's 10,000 hours for every business you start, because every business is a new puzzle.
Speaker A:I'm on my sixth business now, and, you know, it's like I.
Speaker A:Every time I start a company, I have to.
Speaker A:I have to figure it out again.
Speaker A:It's faster now.
Speaker A:I know better what to look for.
Speaker A:I'm not completely running around in the dark, but it's not like I did it before.
Speaker A:So now I just do exactly the same thing again.
Speaker A:Every time you do it, it's a new dimension, a new organism you're dealing with.
Speaker B:One thing that changed in business, 2, 3, 4 for me was that I knew from experience in one that I actually could have went further faster had I asked the right questions.
Speaker B:And so I feel like I set the bar higher for myself.
Speaker B:I started asking the right questions.
Speaker B:If I wanted to hit six figures today, what would I do?
Speaker B:If I wanted to hit seven figures today, what would I do?
Speaker B:Whereas for the most part, when you're starting business One, you're not setting that bar high enough.
Speaker B:I think first time founders, we typically expect less of our people.
Speaker B:Whether it's subcontractors team.
Speaker B:I don't know why we think we can hire people for mediocre results and then get to unicorn status.
Speaker B:They didn't hire mediocre people at marketing and make it big.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:If you want to go big places, you need the right team to get you there.
Speaker B:There's people out there for everybody.
Speaker B:But you have to be able to assess those fits sooner.
Speaker A:Sometimes that is one of the big challenges.
Speaker A:Early on, do you need to take a a salary?
Speaker A:Can you decide not to?
Speaker A:Can you invest in the best people?
Speaker A:Can you hire three people at the beginning rather than one?
Speaker A:That's really about how much cash you have.
Speaker A:I know I don't have the specific statistics.
Speaker A:I can put them in the description below, but it's a lot less.
Speaker A:Women founders who go out and get capital of any kind, whether it's loans or an investor, it's a much lower percentage.
Speaker A:Women get to 6, 7 figures at half the rate that men do.
Speaker A:This comes from my experience as a founder that you need cash, you need to have some money up front in order to grow.
Speaker A:Thoughts on that?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I see people, for example, like if you had more cash, they would hire experts, they would hire management level.
Speaker B:They'd be able to grow faster where they take like this lower stair stepped approach.
Speaker B:So I agree with you wholeheartedly that we grow faster because we're not taking funding.
Speaker B:A friend of mine did take funding in her company and she said, I wanted to be able to pay myself.
Speaker B:And I think that women look at like, oh, I have to sacrifice, I'm gonna go with little pay.
Speaker B:And so that's one of the reasons.
Speaker B:But no matter which road you take, you have to be good with it.
Speaker B:Because if you do take funding, as women, we're pretty emotional beings, right?
Speaker B:So when you are taking funding, all of a sudden you have investors that are saying, are you doing the right thing with my money?
Speaker B:There's a different level of pressure that comes with that.
Speaker B:Do I think we need funding or not need funding?
Speaker B:I don't know that I have an answer to that.
Speaker B:But what I do think is you need to ask yourself how you go further, faster.
Speaker B:Dan Sullivan wrote 10x is easier than 2x.
Speaker B:And I just don't think that we ask ourselves those 10x questions often enough of how would I really go big?
Speaker B:We're always in the groove of incremental change.
Speaker B:How do we get One more person on the team this year.
Speaker B:We're not even doing the right work to have those massive results because we didn't ask ourselves how we get massive results.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:I'm a Dan Solomon fan, too.
Speaker A:Um, I'm a strategic coach.
Speaker A:Are you?
Speaker B:Are you a strategic coach?
Speaker B:I am not.
Speaker B:But that there's so much good stuff.
Speaker A:To learn from our male counterparts.
Speaker A:We can bring it back into these environments and infuse it into a feminine way of doing it.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:It is.
Speaker A:I love.
Speaker A:I love that you're asking.
Speaker A:What are those questions?
Speaker A:The questions you ask yourself at the beginning is different.
Speaker A:It made me think about when you're starting.
Speaker A:You do ask yourself different questions on a later company than the first one.
Speaker B:And I think it's not even necessarily about how do I do it as fast as my male counterpart or how do I do it this way?
Speaker B:But it's like, what are some of the things that we can take from what they do and then also infuse our own way of doing things to it?
Speaker B:They got those results, but they did it by doing abc.
Speaker B:And I'm not in line with that.
Speaker B:So I'm gonna adjust that, sacrifice this, but gain this and really just make it our own.
Speaker B:That's what business is like.
Speaker B:There's nothing out there that hasn't already been done pretty much.
Speaker B:So there's nothing new at this point.
Speaker B:And how do you make it your own and really enjoy the process?
Speaker A:Tell us about your perspective on community and why that's important, why it's important to you personally, how it's been catalyst in your own business and your own business growth, as well as how you see it operating with your clients.
Speaker B:Mm.
Speaker B:I think it's really funny because from a marketing perspective, there's books out there that are like raving fans.
Speaker B:And we're always talking about how our existing customers are the best referral sources and all of these things that are talking about the loyalty.
Speaker B:But then as we do business and as we're growing business, I don't know why that's not a focus for us.
Speaker B:And I think we forget about.
Speaker B:In chasing sometimes goals, we forget about the human aspect.
Speaker B:The businesses that I see that have done the most success recently are able to reflect to a team, to a customer, to a vendor, how important relationships are.
Speaker B:Quotes everywhere about your network is your net worth.
Speaker B:But beyond the fact that it adds to the bottom line, it's the experience of how you do business.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You talk about entrepreneurship like it's lonely at the top.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:You chose to do it that way, when you put relationships over the bottom line, and this is coming from a finance person, how wide that gap of how much effort you put into each has to be analyzed.
Speaker B:It can't just be relationships or you don't have a business because you spent all the money.
Speaker B:But when you can put relationships over the bottom line every single day, your community will show up for you, no matter who specifically you're talking about.
Speaker B:And so for us, we spend very little on advertising.
Speaker B:We spend a lot of our advertising budget on making sure our clients are happy and referring us every day.
Speaker B:I'm very giving with my time, and that's reflected in the way people interact with me.
Speaker B:Community shows up in lots of different ways.
Speaker B:Sometimes we're thinking about, did we sponsor a sports team?
Speaker B:Or, you know, how did you show up for the community?
Speaker B:But it's bigger than that.
Speaker B:You really need to understand how your business impacts the people you're doing business with.
Speaker B:Every one of those human connections you have, you need to understand how you're providing value to somebody.
Speaker B:Because if you can provide value to the team, to the community, to your customers, to your vendors, then you'll become a necessity instead of a nice to have.
Speaker A:I love what you're saying.
Speaker A:The experience of being in relationship with others and cultivating positive, caring, authentic relationships where you care about the person, the company that you're serving, people that are on your team, you know, the vendors you have care about them.
Speaker A:Truly, it's way more pleasant.
Speaker A:You don't feel afloat the way you were talking about.
Speaker A:You can't just not care and expect to do well beyond that.
Speaker B:I think it's interesting because you can walk into a room at a networking event and we could stand there together and be like, which one of these owners truly cares about the people they're in relationship with and the community that they're involved in?
Speaker B:Because you can tell in their bodies, in the way that they show up, the words they use, their behavior.
Speaker B:You have this confidence, this knowing.
Speaker B:Even if you're up against challenges, when you have community, there is a pleasantness to even the challenges, right?
Speaker B:You'll come out the other side.
Speaker B:But when you don't have community around you, when it's only about the bottom line or you and you're not doing it for the community, you can tell those are people who ask you for a sale before they say hi or know your name.
Speaker B:They're the ones who are undercutting their vendors.
Speaker B:And they're the people that maybe people talk about behind their back because they're like, oh, my gosh, I don't really want to do business with that person.
Speaker B:I personally would much rather be the person that everybody talks positively about when I'm not in the room.
Speaker B:There's a settledness to that, right?
Speaker B:I know I've done my best today, and people know if I made a mistake, it was truly a mistake, and I'm going to make it right.
Speaker B:There is a confidence that comes with that, and you can see that in somebody's energy and behavior.
Speaker B:And so I think it's really interesting.
Speaker A:Which goes back to what you were saying before about where you need to grow.
Speaker A:What a great place for any of us to begin and to develop our sense of confidence and gravitas as we're, you know, navigating being entrepreneurs, but to focus on being in good relationships, keeping our promises, showing up, listening, being wholehearted.
Speaker A:I always believe for myself that if my business is stuck, it's a reflection of some stuckness in me, some willingness to let go, some unwillingness to transform or heal.
Speaker A:I think something about that willingness to just keep growing along the way.
Speaker B:I think one of the biggest things, though, if somebody's listening to this, they're like, well, but everybody needs something from me, and I don't know how to manage all those demands.
Speaker B:And that somebody in a little bit of scarcity mindset, right?
Speaker B:If I had any advice for them, it would be, you can be kind without being nice.
Speaker B:And that's one of the biggest skill sets that you have to learn in business is like, how do you show up kindly?
Speaker B:So even when you're maybe having to increase fees for a customer, or you're saying no to a wage increase an employee's asking for, if you genuinely care about them and the relationship, relationships, you might be saying no.
Speaker B:So you're not being nice, but you're doing it in a kind and caring way.
Speaker B:That is what provides that settledness in business and the.
Speaker B:The quality of the relationships over just giving into the demands.
Speaker B:If somebody's listening and they're like, well, you just want me to say yes to everybody.
Speaker B:That's not what we're asking for.
Speaker A:You have to be very careful about your energy and time.
Speaker A:It can be part of your brand, right?
Speaker A:I'm a person who needs a lot of personal time.
Speaker A:I really have to insulate myself because I need a lot of boundaries.
Speaker A:I try to have as few people reporting directly to me, the people who do, and then I empower them to go out and do the other part, you know, to the rest of the team.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that's where going back to how you create your business is.
Speaker B:You know that about yourself.
Speaker B:You're like, okay, what are my strengths?
Speaker B:What are my weaknesses?
Speaker B:How do I have to do business to show up?
Speaker B:Well, how do I run this business so that I only have a couple of direct reports and then I've empowered them and I tell them, this is really important for me, that your direct reports feel really important to.
Speaker B:To you, to the business.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's the values that we project and the culture that we create.
Speaker B:But you've also created the system to work best.
Speaker B:With you coming back full circle, we really do need to look at how the finances support that.
Speaker B:If you've held that vision in your head for this is my business and this is how we want to operate and perform, then how do we make all the math work to create that?
Speaker A:Wonderful.
Speaker A:So I know you also have a podcast, the Small Business School podcast, and you also have the Small Business Club.
Speaker A:Can you tell us what those are?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:The Small Business Club really just started because I love community and connection.
Speaker B:I started it to invite people that I got to know that I wanted to connect together as a way of being like, hey, once a month, first Friday of the month, this is where we're going to be.
Speaker B:We can be in community together.
Speaker B:We get to connect.
Speaker B:And so it's a very informal place to network, connect, see some familiar faces you wanted to catch up on.
Speaker B:That's really how it started.
Speaker B:It's one of my favorite places to be on the first Friday of every month at 12 Eastern.
Speaker B:And that's about small Business school.
Speaker B:It's so hard to provide good quality advice, whether it's mindset or strategy for growing a business in the 30 or 60 seconds that social media thinks you can provide it in.
Speaker B:It started as just a place to provide that good behind the scenes what you really need to do to grow.
Speaker B:And yeah, just love it.
Speaker A:I think that's great.
Speaker A:So is the Small Business Club a physical club or is it something that you do online?
Speaker B:Yeah, it's an online space and anybody's welcome to join.
Speaker B:The more the merrier.
Speaker A:People can find that on thriveaccounting.
Speaker A:Co.
Speaker A:Correct?
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:Maybe you could tell us a little bit more about all of the services you offer and how somebody might get in touch with you and learn more about your really, I think, very special way of working on the topic of assignments.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So currently we serve Canadian small businesses.
Speaker B:We provide bookkeeping, payroll tax and CFO services.
Speaker B:I'm passionate about seeing Small businesses succeed.
Speaker B:That's why the club exists, to meet somebody else that could provide you advice to get further, faster.
Speaker B:Or the podcast exists, but you can also just find some free resources online that if you're not Canadian, it's like, okay, this is what I would be thinking about.
Speaker B:For me, I really am always open to a conversation or a DM that you're like, hey, I may not be a client.
Speaker B:Why?
Speaker B:That doesn't matter to me.
Speaker B:I want to see businesses succeed.
Speaker B:More specifically, I'd like to see more women business owners have the tools they need in scaling so they don't give up or that they go further, faster.
Speaker A:So, Stacy, what is a final word of advice, a word of wisdom that you'd like to offer our founders who are growing, plateaued, or struggling?
Speaker B:If I was talking to business owners, it's that you need to really spend some time studying that goal of where you're going and understanding full picture what that means for your mindset, who you need to be to lead that company.
Speaker B:What does the day to day look like and what does the financial plan look like?
Speaker B:That is what I'm seeing get in the way of people growing great businesses.
Speaker A:What is the goal, where are you going and how would your day be?
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:In order to get there, what does your day to day need to look like?
Speaker A:What's the person you need to be?
Speaker A:What do you have?
Speaker A:What thoughts do you need to have in your head?
Speaker B:But the numbers are sort of proof.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I find people put together this vision and it's like half of a puzzle.
Speaker B:And they're like, okay, so this is gonna work.
Speaker B:But when you put numbers to it, you kind of see the flaws.
Speaker B:You're like, oh, that doesn't work.
Speaker B:And so it's like telling you all those areas that you'll have a problem before you get there.
Speaker B:So when you're defining that vision, you bring the numbers into it.
Speaker B:You get to take all the risk out of it ahead of time.
Speaker A:I love that and I believe that too.
Speaker A:I feel like I until I have my financial plan along with my goals for my signing, my marketing metrics, like knowing how many leads do I need to get in order to get that many customers to get that much revenue?
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:Until I have a plan that fits together financially, I feel nervous, I feel overwhelmed.
Speaker A:But once I sit down with the numbers and I plan out the financial plan, how much am I going to spend on my people overhead?
Speaker A:How much money am I going to spend on marketing and sales?
Speaker A:How much does my product or service cost.
Speaker A:And then if I want to implement these strategies, how much does that cost?
Speaker A:Then it starts to become like, okay, well, I've got all kinds of choices.
Speaker A:When you start to look at it, you have to look at it.
Speaker B:I love that.
Speaker A:I wanted to let everybody know that Stacy has a free profit playbook@thriveaccounting.com and you're going to love this.
Speaker A:It's a concise guide that will help you understand how to have a profitable organization.
Speaker A:It'll enable you and your team to discern which methods are most suitable for your business.
Speaker A:If you have questions, you can reach out to Stacy and join her business club.
Speaker A:Together we can build our companies to be profitable and sustainable, doing good things in the world.
Speaker B:Thank you so much.
Speaker A:Thank you Stacy for joining me today on the Wisdom of Women Show.
Speaker A:Thank you for illuminating the path to unlocking opportunities for growth and prosperity for women led enterprises.
Speaker A:We value your leadership, your experience and your wisdom.
Speaker A:And be sure to check out the Growth Readiness quiz at a ForceForGood biz quiz to uncover where your insight is needed most in your business.
Speaker A:The world is made better by women Blend business.
Speaker A:So let's go make the world a better place.
Speaker A:Thank you.