37: Making Tough Decisions in Business to Focus on Profit

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People will not give you a hard time or question you to a point where

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it's uncomfortable when you tell them that you've done a financial analysis

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on it and it's no longer effective for you and your budget and your business.

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Welcome to the Know Your Worth Show, where we teach you how to think about

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your money differently so that you can achieve your sexy money goals.

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I'm Sydnee your money Maven and owner of Know Your Worth.

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And I'm Kristen Sid's Dimepiece bestie team member and busy mama

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twins here to make sure that those of us without a financial degree can

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still level up with each episode.

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Let's get started on reaching your next goal.

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Hello, welcome to the Know Your Worth podcast.

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I am one of your hosts, Sydney Conway,

Kristen: 00:00:42

And I am your other host, Kristen Fedeli.

Kristen: 00:00:44

Hi,

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and we are hoping you are doing lovely on this beautiful

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day, on this beautiful Tuesday.

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we are all in our feelings because we're coming to you with kind

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of a message about the Know Your Worth podcast, but also a little life lesson,

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because we've always shared with you pretty openly as business owners and,

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you know, our financial histories, we've already always been really vulnerable.

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So Syd, do you want to do the honors?

Kristen: 00:01:12

Mm

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Yeah, we we are, it's a bittersweet moment to say that

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we're putting the Know Your Worth podcast on a We're going

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to be in a holding pattern here.

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And you know, it's hard to say when we think we'll come back right now.

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We have just been kind of exploring a new season of life.

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And, you know, as I've talked about, I've moved into a new home.

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And school season has started for Kristen and the girls.

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And you know, on the Know Your Worth end, one of our key employees is out on

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maternity leave and we're so happy her and her lovely daughter are doing well.

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But it is putting a strain on some of the workload that we have.

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And we're just trying to make sure that we know what basket our eggs need to go in.

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And so for now we need to put the coins in the right box.

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The eggs in the right basket.

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Yeah.

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And when we were talking about this, you know, so it was like, I think it's

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important to say, you know, as business owners, sometimes you have to choose the

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thing that you, I don't want to say you don't enjoy the most, but we enjoy this.

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This is fun for us.

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So to like put it on hold is hard to do actual real work.

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And I've thought about the book, The Pumpkin Plan, a couple of times.

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So if anyone has ever read the book, The Pumpkin Plan, if

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you haven't, it's a good one.

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But the gist of it is as a business owner and really in life, I think, you

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know, when you're looking for returns on things, investments on things, so

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it's not just business but it's what on, on your vine of life and of business,

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When you have multiple pumpkins growing, and this is, you know, a little farming

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tidbit and gardening tidbit, if anybody out there is a gardener when you

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have, when you're trying to produce the largest fruits, you need to trim

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back the fruits that aren't as big.

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They're not as profitable, they're not as fulfilling, and you need

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to let grow the largest pumpkin.

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It's the pumpkin plant.

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So, you know, right now focusing on our main business plan of know your

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worth and our functions there is, that's our pumpkin we need to focus on.

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So it's a good book and you know, it's one of the things that's kind

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of been in the back of my head with this of, we need to clip back some

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of the smaller pumpkins to let the, the bigger one flourish right now.

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And when the bigger pumpkin flourishes, then we can come back and

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invest time, you know, talking to each other and talking to you and getting our

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message out that we feel is so important.

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But we want to thank you guys for listening.

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We have loved getting to know our guests that came on.

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We've loved connecting people via our guests and all the people

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that have reached out to us.

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And we also want to give a shout out to Jocelyn, right?

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And her Connected Through Content team.

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She is the one who produces our podcasts.

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She and her team do all our social media graphics and our emails and

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all the things that make this run.

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She's an incredible planner.

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She's incredible at what she does.

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So if anybody, you know, has a podcast, know that somebody that has a podcast

Kristen: 00:04:17

and they're looking for someone to help them in that arena, we would

Kristen: 00:04:20

gladly pass her information on because her, she and her team are the best.

Sydney: 00:04:23

Yeah, absolutely agreed.

Sydney: 00:04:25

We could not have done this at all for a year without her.

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For a year.

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For a year, with her knocking on our inboxes like, Girls, are you there?

Sydney: 00:04:36

She's great at following up in like a very nice way.

Kristen: 00:04:39

Yes.

Kristen: 00:04:40

That doesn't make you feel like a loser.

Sydney: 00:04:42

Yeah, she is fantastic.

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I would highly, highly, highly recommend her.

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And I guess, you know, kind of for the rest of this episode, I kind of want

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to talk about some of the decision making and planning that goes into.

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You know, this decision.

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And if you have something like this, that you're evaluating in your business

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and in your life, how can you tell when it's time to you know, try something

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new or to stop trying something new, you know, so a couple of things that.

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A couple changes I know in one of the last episodes we talked about too was Alex and

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I actually closed the Maverick as well.

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Our co working space that we had in Gibsonia and that was a

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really tough decision as well.

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But part of the reason for that was distance, travel time, you know, we moved

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so that was a big piece of it was the travel time every day was just too much.

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We weren't going to get there and it wasn't going to

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be where we spent our time.

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But aside from that, there was a big cost benefit analysis as well as there is with,

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you know, everything we do in business.

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So we took a look at kind of what the, the sales we were making from

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the Maverick from the podcast, and we took a look at how we were.

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Getting clients, what the effort was that was being put into getting clients.

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And kind of on both fronts, we realized that it wasn't necessarily

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that we weren't getting clients.

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It was that we weren't putting in the effort to get clients.

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So at the Maverick and at the podcast, you know, we've, we've put

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in good work to build the product.

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The product's great.

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You know, we love the Maverick.

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It was a great product.

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It was a great place.

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The podcast, we love the product.

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We love the product.

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We hope it's a great product for people.

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But bringing the people in is a whole separate stream.

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It's a whole separate entity of our workflows that we weren't focusing

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on at the Maverick and we weren't, weren't, we weren't really focusing

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on at the podcast and natural growth is absolutely possible and it's just

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slower over time and, you know, it was doing exactly what we wanted it to do.

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While we were doing it but to take it to the next level where the cost

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benefit would have been more on the benefit side, it would have taken

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a lot more effort and time on our parts for both kind of streams.

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Mhm.

Sydney: 00:06:58

So that's kind of where I came in and said, you know, if it's gonna, if

Sydney: 00:07:01

it's not just gonna take more money and then we can get You know, how much more

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money would it take to get new people in?

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You know, at the Maverick, it would have been more advertising dollars.

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That would have been you know, maybe more signage would have been probably

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more flexibility with the space and with the podcast, it's more advertising.

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It's more advertising dollars.

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So you have to weigh out what the cost benefit is for those advertising dollars.

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And ultimately how much of your time is it going to take to do that?

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If that's a space that you're in.

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So for us, we kind of realized that it just wasn't as efficient for us on

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the cost benefit side and some of the financial evaluations that we did, and

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modeling and budgeting that it just wasn't going to be as efficient for us

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and as effective as it could have been.

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So it won't be as financially effective for us either.

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I think the other side of being a business owner is to the emotional side

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of not wanting to appear like a failure and not wanting to let yourself down,

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not wanting to let other people down.

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What will other people think?

Kristen: 00:08:04

And in the end you kind of have to give yourself grace

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that you're only one person.

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Like when I look at you and Alex, like, The Golf Academy, the Maverick,

Kristen: 00:08:14

the podcast, Know Your Worth, buying a new house, getting a new dog,

Kristen: 00:08:18

traveling to Germany, like something has to give at some point if you

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want to not drown in your own tears.

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And so, yeah.

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And same with my own life.

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I mean, I know that there are things business related and non business related

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that I have to take a look and be like, if I want to be a functioning human every

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day that can interact appropriately, then And not just break down in tears

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in the middle of giant Eagle, then I probably have to cut some things out.

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So I think it's getting like really honest with yourself as a business

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owner in person of what are you bringing your best effort towards?

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And what are you just making yourself do because you're too proud to put it down.

Sydney: 00:08:53

Yep, absolutely.

Sydney: 00:08:55

And I think one of the things along with that of like, I was really

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uncomfortable initially to tell people that we were closing the Maverick.

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Because that was such a kind of like, you know, more people around us.

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Friends and family knew that we had the Maverick kind of more than the podcast.

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I think that, you know, just that they've been there, it was more known

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to the people I was going to have to like tell, you know, Hey, we're closing

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the space you drive past every day.

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We're putting up a sign that's going to say it's open for

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lease, you know, so we're done.

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And that that was more of a gut check for me with like,

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what are people going to think?

Sydney: 00:09:33

You know, that was kind of the first step.

Sydney: 00:09:35

And I will say that.

Sydney: 00:09:39

People will not give you a hard time or question you to a point where it's

Sydney: 00:09:44

uncomfortable when you tell them that you've done a financial analysis on

Sydney: 00:09:48

it and it's no longer effective for you and your budget and your business.

Sydney: 00:09:54

Because people were like, Oh, Oh shit.

Sydney: 00:09:56

Like, you know, this is, she took it seriously.

Sydney: 00:09:59

Like, and not like, Oh, they have no money.

Sydney: 00:10:01

It's.

Sydney: 00:10:03

Oh, the cost benefit isn't there.

Sydney: 00:10:04

This is an emotional decision, but it's an unemotional decision at this point of,

Sydney: 00:10:09

you know, and I don't know if it's just because, you know, the people that I'm

Sydney: 00:10:14

telling this to, like, know that that's my job as well, you know, to be able to

Sydney: 00:10:18

analyze things from that perspective.

Sydney: 00:10:20

But, you know, there was a lot of, there's a lot of times where I don't want to do

Sydney: 00:10:23

something or I, you know, to tell my.

Sydney: 00:10:25

My you know, family or my friends like, oh yeah, I'm not going to do that anymore.

Sydney: 00:10:29

And I'm like, aww, really?

Sydney: 00:10:31

Are you sure?

Sydney: 00:10:32

Are you sure you don't want to do it?

Sydney: 00:10:33

You don't

Kristen: 00:10:33

sure?

Kristen: 00:10:34

Like

Sydney: 00:10:35

you sure?

Sydney: 00:10:36

You know, and there's a lot of times where you get that and you're

Sydney: 00:10:38

like, okay, maybe I'll go do it.

Sydney: 00:10:40

You know, like, fine, I'll go do it.

Sydney: 00:10:41

Where, but if you say actually I ran the numbers and it's just not

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financially responsible and you know, I need to protect my time a little bit.

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So, and making sure that my life is efficient and the numbers

Sydney: 00:10:53

don't support me continuing this.

Sydney: 00:10:54

Yeah.

Sydney: 00:10:55

So it's, it's bittersweet and we're going to miss it, but this is what's best for

Sydney: 00:11:00

my business and for my family's budget.

Sydney: 00:11:03

A lot of times people are like, Oh yeah, that's cool.

Kristen: 00:11:06

Okay.

Sydney: 00:11:06

Nevermind.

Sydney: 00:11:07

Yeah.

Sydney: 00:11:08

I can't argue.

Kristen: 00:11:08

like, yeah, the more resolute you are in what your decision is, the

Kristen: 00:11:13

less people are going to question you and the less they're going to talk about it.

Kristen: 00:11:15

Cause what is there to say?

Kristen: 00:11:17

These are my reasons.

Kristen: 00:11:18

I'm sticking to it.

Kristen: 00:11:19

I'm not open to discussion or any of anybody else's viewpoints.

Kristen: 00:11:24

I didn't ask for them.

Kristen: 00:11:26

Thanks a lot.

Kristen: 00:11:27

See you later.

Sydney: 00:11:28

Yep.

Sydney: 00:11:29

Exactly.

Sydney: 00:11:29

Exactly.

Sydney: 00:11:31

So I think if you're someone that's in a hard spot for your business and

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you need to make changes, you need to you know, cut an income stream.

Sydney: 00:11:38

You need to let go of someone.

Sydney: 00:11:40

You need to pause on a service.

Sydney: 00:11:44

The clearer you can be about it, the better.

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Because when you're wishy washy, there's a lot of room for interpretation,

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and if you need to make sure that you're clear on it, find the data to

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support it too, in your own, you know, as much as you can find the data.

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And if it's not, if it's a completely emotional decision of like, this is

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just wearing on you, stick by it.

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Like, if it's something that is just draining you from your heart and soul,

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and you can't put a number to it.

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You just need to stick to it.

Sydney: 00:12:18

You're making a decision, just be clear and be honest with people,

Sydney: 00:12:22

and they'll respect that more than anything else, I think, too.

Sydney: 00:12:27

Yeah.

Kristen: 00:12:27

So with that being said, that's our last piece of advice

Sydney: 00:12:31

Yeah!

Kristen: 00:12:31

as we roll back the red carpet and we really appreciate

Kristen: 00:12:37

you guys for following along and watching and stay tuned for what

Kristen: 00:12:39

Know Your Worth is up to next.

Sydney: 00:12:41

Yeah, and if you get through all of our episodes and you end up on this

Sydney: 00:12:44

one, you're curious about something, we didn't get to a topic that you were really

Sydney: 00:12:48

looking forward to hear, our emails are always open info at knowyourworthpgh.

Sydney: 00:12:53

com.

Sydney: 00:12:54

Send us your questions, reach us you know, on Instagram.

Sydney: 00:12:57

We're still gonna be fielding comments, questions.

Sydney: 00:13:00

We're still going to be, you know, showing up probably a little bit more

Sydney: 00:13:02

live on Instagram now and making sure that we're still engaging with, you

Sydney: 00:13:07

know, the audience that was with us and our clients and you know, the,

Sydney: 00:13:11

the spaces that we want to be in.

Sydney: 00:13:12

So reach out to us, let us know if you have any questions, any concerns,

Sydney: 00:13:17

anything you want to talk about.

Sydney: 00:13:18

And we will, we will always be here to answer you.

Kristen: 00:13:23

So it's the money maven and the dime piece besties signing off.

Sydney: 00:13:27

Lining off.

Sydney: 00:13:28

Thank you so much for listening.

Sydney: 00:13:30

And enjoy this Tuesday.

Kristen: 00:13:33

Bye.

Sydney: 00:13:34

Head to your regularly scheduled programming.

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