Shownotes
Ean Price Murphy helps successful entrepreneurs set up an easy spreadsheet-free cash-management system that works with your existing habits to get you at a glance clarity … so you don’t have to learn accounting to be permanently profitable.
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Highlights:
- (00:00:13) - Introduction of today's guest - Ean Price Murphy
- (00:17:43) - Give every dollar a job and give every dollar a home.
- (00:19:39) - Juggling money around, luck of integrity and responsibility
- (00:22:19) - Don't treat your finances like a yo-yo
- (00:23:36) - How to figure out your business maths and what really matters in the end
- (00:26:59) - Ideal place to start with when trying to figure out the purpose of your business.
- (00:35:10) - Pricing & Value, 2 ways to decide how much to charge
- (00:36:46) - Simple maths formula to figure out how much your business needs to make per year
- (00:40:32) - How to figure out your initial investment to start a business
- (00:45:33) - Ean's story about overcoming bankruptcy in her early 20s
- (00:53:21) - What happens when you declare bankruptcy
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Transcripts
Welcome to the Success Inspired Podcast, a business and personal development
Speaker:podcast to help you accomplish more in life and realize your true potential.
Speaker:And now here is your host Vit Muller
Speaker:Hello.
Speaker:Welcome to another episode on the success inspired podcast.
Speaker:I'm your host.
Speaker:And my guest today is a survival for personal bankruptcy in her early twenties.
Speaker:That started her on the path of financial literacy.
Speaker:She was not born an accountant yet.
Speaker:She managed to turn that experience around, into launching
Speaker:a successful bookkeeping business.
Speaker:Fast forward to now she helps accomplish intrepreneurs to set up an easy
Speaker:spreadsheet, free cash management system that works with their existing
Speaker:habits to get them at a glance clarity.
Speaker:So they don't have to learn accounting in order to be permanently profitable.
Speaker:And who wouldn't want that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So please welcome to the show Ean Price Murphy.
Speaker:Thank you,
Speaker:creativity in the show in
Speaker:great to be here.
Speaker:So I've already introduced you a little bit, but what's something
Speaker:that not many people know about you.
Speaker:Oh, I'm kind of an open book.
Speaker:I think most people know quite a lot about me.
Speaker:You know, all of the things that people don't know sound a
Speaker:little, a little stereotypical.
Speaker:I love to travel, but, for me that means that I had the opportunity
Speaker:to, study salsa dance in Havana.
Speaker:So there we go.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:And what's been happening in the wall of academy.
Speaker:Thankfully very little numbers are very reliable and they're very
Speaker:calm and, and, they either, they either make sense or they don't.
Speaker:And if they don't, it's one of the only places in the world I've found
Speaker:achievable perfection, you just got to keep looking, you'll find the
Speaker:problem and you can always solve it.
Speaker:I spoke to someone the other day about that.
Speaker:Say, you know what?
Speaker:Like you could work with people.
Speaker:You can, you can work with designers or, you know, you can do all these
Speaker:other things, but there's one area of business that you can always rely on.
Speaker:You don't have, there's no pitching.
Speaker:It's, it's always going to be true.
Speaker:It's no lying and it's numbers and it's counting always rely on that.
Speaker:And there's a, and there's piece of that as well.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:I think so
Speaker:what do you like most about your, your, your line of work other than this?
Speaker:Well, I mean, I, I, what I, this is, I don't know that I
Speaker:love this about my industry.
Speaker:But what I love about my job specifically, or the company
Speaker:that I run is that it really is bringing those two things together.
Speaker:It's allowing me to have that ability to achieve perfection, which I definitely
Speaker:like, but because I, myself, I'm a small business owner rather than
Speaker:working in a corporate accounting firm.
Speaker:I still have the ability to interact, with really interesting,
Speaker:fun people on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker:And, you know, we, we work with people that are doing really
Speaker:amazing and cool things out there.
Speaker:And so being able to sort of, you know, support that and be a part
Speaker:of that is really satisfying to me.
Speaker:And, and I love working with business owners who are ready to make that
Speaker:transformation because watching that.
Speaker:Cloud lift, you know, the CS part, the numbers suddenly makes sense
Speaker:to them and their shoulders drop and they breathe a sigh of relief.
Speaker:you know, to me, that's, that's, that's my food.
Speaker:I live for that.
Speaker:And, and it's so nice to be able to have both of those together in the same place.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:And you're totally right.
Speaker:It seems to, to lose passion for, for what you initially may have left when you, when
Speaker:you not always, but not, not always the case, but, you know, in some cases in a,
Speaker:and I have noticed with some people that are, that I know, in, in, in an example
Speaker:of accountancy, initially they love it, but then they go into the corporate gig
Speaker:and, and it just, you know, it's all structured and, and, and you're just.
Speaker:You know, not being an employee it's, it's bad.
Speaker:I mean, it's nothing about that.
Speaker:About, you know, in some cases it just becomes like tutored
Speaker:or teen you're too constrained.
Speaker:It's too many roadblocks and you have to report and, and it just becomes, it
Speaker:becomes too much of a job and less of a, something that you initially like
Speaker:it because you really like loved it.
Speaker:You kind of lose the passion out of it.
Speaker:And I know a few people that, that have been too, and yeah, it's kind of sexy.
Speaker:It does suck in a lot of times it's just being, separated from the, the,
Speaker:the results that you're producing.
Speaker:You know, if all you're doing is producing the reports and not being able to see
Speaker:how that affects the decisions and being able to help people make smarter choices.
Speaker:You better hope that you've got great coworkers that you really
Speaker:like.
Speaker:Some decisions that numbers can help business owners make.
Speaker:I mean, what, what can it help them with?
Speaker:That's why I love them as I, you know, for me, I think that, especially in
Speaker:sort of small business or, or lean and mean organizations where it's
Speaker:one to three partners, you know, less than 20 employees or sometimes down
Speaker:to just one person themselves, it's so easy to get caught up in what you
Speaker:think you're hearing the trends are.
Speaker:Or you've had a brilliant idea in the middle of the night, or, you know, you
Speaker:just sort of have this gut instinct that this, this is really where we should go.
Speaker:And all of that is great and really important.
Speaker:We need that spark of creativity and it needs to be balanced
Speaker:against the reality of the numbers.
Speaker:So, you know, when.
Speaker:Because this is at least in the U S you know, 50% of small businesses go
Speaker:out of business in the first year.
Speaker:And 70% are out of business.
Speaker:After five years of the businesses that fail almost all of them, 82% say
Speaker:that it was cashflow was the reason that they went out of business.
Speaker:So not that people weren't super excited about buying their products or that they
Speaker:couldn't find the right path to market, but that they didn't know how to manage
Speaker:the cash so that they had the money that they needed when they needed it.
Speaker:And to me, that is a giant tragedy, right?
Speaker:And so either that's because you get this middle of the night, brilliant
Speaker:idea, but you haven't tested it enough.
Speaker:And so you waste a bunch of time and money trying to sell something that
Speaker:people aren't interested in buying, or they are really interested in buying it,
Speaker:but you haven't really thought through.
Speaker:The, the cycle of how we're going to get this product out.
Speaker:How much time do we need?
Speaker:How much is it going to cost us?
Speaker:Where are we going to get that money from?
Speaker:You know, and so explosive growth can take a company down.
Speaker:And we saw that however many years ago, it was 10, 15 years ago.
Speaker:Anytime a small company would end up on Oprah's list.
Speaker:They would like be blown out of the water.
Speaker:And, and a lot of them had to fail because they couldn't keep up with
Speaker:this insane demand that they had no structure or systems to handle.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So chaos.
Speaker:So we like to go from chaos, chaos to clarity so that you can see
Speaker:what's happening and then make really wise decisions around it.
Speaker:You can temper your feelings about something by saying, well,
Speaker:but this is what the numbers say.
Speaker:Now when we can talk about the Kaos example, why do you think it is it, is
Speaker:it because they suddenly get so many new customers, they can't handle it.
Speaker:And the reason why they fail while it puts them down is because of the
Speaker:overwhelm, the quality then goes down, which then affects the reputation.
Speaker:And then it goes like demand goes quickly up and then quickly
Speaker:down, is that what is your right?
Speaker:or it just goes, it never goes down because they can't fulfill
Speaker:the obligation that was created and they have to refund the money.
Speaker:So they, you know, there are businesses that go out of business with people,
Speaker:clamoring for their product, but if their supplier shut down, if they had
Speaker:a single source and their supplier shuts down, or if they, you know,
Speaker:live in an area where they can't get the right kinds of employees in.
Speaker:You know, if you're, even if you're just selling pizza, if you don't have somebody
Speaker:to make the pizza, you got no shop.
Speaker:And, and so often in small business, what happens is the owner
Speaker:ends up trying to do everything.
Speaker:And sometimes it ends with right with them having a heart attack, you know,
Speaker:like it ends one way or the other
Speaker:quite literally, you're not joking here.
Speaker:That's actually what happens here
Speaker:quite literally.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And that happens in corporate as well.
Speaker:Just people don't see the, the fallout the same cause usually they have a really
Speaker:strong health insurance and pension plan.
Speaker:So there's, there are risks to being a small business that that
Speaker:really aren't anywhere else.
Speaker:But the rewards also, you just don't find the rewards anywhere else.
Speaker:You know, it's really interesting how you unpack that.
Speaker:What is, and this is what helps me plan understand what helps people
Speaker:buy into the idea of the number's been really important and planning.
Speaker:Cause like when you unpack it like this, what are all the different consequences
Speaker:from your business can crash down to your health, to your relationships.
Speaker:I mean, if your business going down and you're taking it on yourself, you're
Speaker:the business owner that in Australia fix everything and you're just flipping the
Speaker:heads, changing the heads in one day.
Speaker:Like it's not human possible at all to be productive.
Speaker:You're going to go nuts.
Speaker:That's going to affect your, you know, what happens at home,
Speaker:your relationship, your health.
Speaker:And then, I mean, I would, I would bet there is even cases that, that
Speaker:led into homelessness or whatever, you know, like it's it's yeah.
Speaker:It's consequences.
Speaker:So where's the fight balance though.
Speaker:Like how do you, how do you balance it out between, you know, there's,
Speaker:there's a level of in business, there's a level of embracing bit of chaos.
Speaker:to perfection because perfection kills progress.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:We know that.
Speaker:So you can't always like have it all laid out.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:And then go because then, you know, moving and you need to move and move.
Speaker:What I mean by move, you need to start making some profit.
Speaker:Sometimes that requires a bit of, a bit of chaos and bracing level of
Speaker:chaos, fixing things, improving things, tweaking things, optimizing it as you go.
Speaker:So where's what would be the right balance?
Speaker:What would you, your vice sort of be on, on that?
Speaker:A lot of that has to do with the personality of the business owner
Speaker:and what their resources are.
Speaker:So if you're, you know, a single mom who has a job and you're starting a
Speaker:side hustle on the side, you know, making candles, whatever, and.
Speaker:You want to know, like when can I leave my full-time job and really do this?
Speaker:There's going to be a period in there that's tight.
Speaker:And, so the numbers will help, you know, what's the income I need to
Speaker:replace in order for me to do this.
Speaker:you know, I th I think it's, it's like jazz, right?
Speaker:It has to be half structure and half chaos.
Speaker:Otherwise, if it's only chaos, there's no music.
Speaker:And if it's all structure, it's boring.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So being able to find, and so I, you know, I really think of the reason I say jazz,
Speaker:partly because my father's a jazz musician is because it is the structure that allows
Speaker:the improvisation to be music instead of.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because you need to be able to pivot in business as well.
Speaker:There's trends there's yeah.
Speaker:You need technology that you might want to use.
Speaker:There's new ideas, new, new ways to do things.
Speaker:So yeah.
Speaker:That's definitely, you need that room for creativity to be
Speaker:able to leverage off, off that.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So in the idea of, you know, our mom, who's making candles, that's
Speaker:her middle of the night idea, right?
Speaker:Oh, I'm an, I know how to make candles.
Speaker:My friends say they want them, I'm going to try it.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:Well, before you go out and spend your entire life savings on
Speaker:wax, how do you do a small bat?
Speaker:And, or even before you make a batch, how do you say I, you know, everyone's
Speaker:telling me that this is a good idea, which is not the right question to ask
Speaker:the question is, would you buy from me?
Speaker:Would you buy this?
Speaker:Because everyone's going to tell you, it's a good idea.
Speaker:They love you.
Speaker:They want to support you.
Speaker:But if you ask them, would you buy one, you might get a very different answer.
Speaker:And so that's what matters, right?
Speaker:Is not.
Speaker:Do you have a likable product?
Speaker:Do you have a, a sellable product?
Speaker:And then is that a profitable product?
Speaker:People liking your product?
Speaker:Doesn't turn into doesn't turn into profit.
Speaker:No people buy it.
Speaker:Can can, unless you mismanaged the money.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:And so same thing, if you, if you fail to factor in the labor time, right?
Speaker:If, if she's just thinking about the cost of the wax and the Wix and the
Speaker:jars and forgets to say it takes me, you know, six hours, it takes all
Speaker:day Saturday for me to make this.
Speaker:So now I have to hire some help to make sure that, you know, the house is
Speaker:cleaned to the kids are fed or whatever.
Speaker:Cause who knows, like there's other labor factors that need to be taken in.
Speaker:And so even cause that's where most people go, right?
Speaker:Well, I'll just sell more, but if you don't have a healthy profit
Speaker:margin, if you're not pricing correctly, You're you're just
Speaker:burning your way down to bankruptcy.
Speaker:it's actually a really good point.
Speaker:You're right, because you got a, you got a cost per product per
Speaker:each unit and it's, you know, it's not too difficult to work it out.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You've got the material used, you've got the cost of the production,
Speaker:if it's possible to calculate specifically their product.
Speaker:so that's, that's that, and then you've got, obviously your, your
Speaker:fixed costs, your company costs your everything else that you need to
Speaker:pay to keep your company running.
Speaker:so that's an important, yeah, that's an important distinction to
Speaker:make now how what's the best way to go about it because like, okay.
Speaker:The cost of the production associated today, you know, that's, that's
Speaker:an easy one, but how do you try to see how it can best say this?
Speaker:how do you best work out a financial plan?
Speaker:How do you best, how can business owners out there best.
Speaker:Structure it, the financials around it.
Speaker:Let's say if you have, yeah, because like, because ultimately you're gonna,
Speaker:you're gonna put that price in there as well, because you want to make a profit.
Speaker:Like if you sell like an example of that lady, right.
Speaker:You're selling one candle and you know, okay, this is how much it costs
Speaker:me for the box for the, for the notes.
Speaker:And then many decoration, maybe I'm putting on a little pieces of
Speaker:decoration and how many pieces.
Speaker:And I know the exact cost of that.
Speaker:And then on top of that, I've got, these other costs.
Speaker:So how do you, how do you calculate these other costs?
Speaker:on top of that?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So the idea is to keep those other costs as low as reasonable.
Speaker:And what I mean by that is you have to know the difference between what is an
Speaker:expense and what is an investment because marketing, if you're doing it right.
Speaker:And if you're measuring it, isn't.
Speaker:It's money that you spend that will bring you back more than you laid out
Speaker:at some point might not be right away versus an expense of paying rent.
Speaker:Once it's gone, it's gone, right?
Speaker:There's no, there's not going to bring you money back in,
Speaker:unless it's a storefront rent.
Speaker:so, you know, if we just continue with this exam or let's switch
Speaker:it up, let's find a new example.
Speaker:What about a photographer?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:A photographer has to have a location to shoot.
Speaker:So, so the photographer would, you know, digital.
Speaker:So there's their sort of equipment cost, which is a one-time cost and
Speaker:some things that need to be replaced.
Speaker:mostly
Speaker:the microphones, the lights, all that.
Speaker:there's their time and labor.
Speaker:maybe they need a photo assistant.
Speaker:Maybe they don't, but they, but they'll need somewhere to shoot.
Speaker:And again, some photographers get very creative and do
Speaker:outside portraits to avoid that.
Speaker:So, you know, if, if the decision is I need to pay rent
Speaker:because that's an investment because I need to have a studio.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:So then you have to think about, well, what's the rent on your studio and if you
Speaker:charge $250 for a portrait session, how many portrait sessions do you need to do
Speaker:in a month in order to be able to pay?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And is that a reasonable amount because people also forget when you're
Speaker:a business owner doing everything yourself, you really can only be
Speaker:producing about 40% of the time.
Speaker:You really need 60% to do the admin and the marketing and the sales and
Speaker:the contracts and the follow-up and the, you know, all of that other thing.
Speaker:And so people think they can work 40 hours and that gets them 120 hour
Speaker:work week and it's not sustainable.
Speaker:So being very clear about, you know, when I sell a portrait package,
Speaker:there's not just those direct costs that you were talking about and the
Speaker:indirect cost of overhead, but also all of the ancillary costs around it.
Speaker:How, how long does it take me to get a new client?
Speaker:How much does it cost me to obtain that client?
Speaker:And those are all things that are a little bit harder to pinpoint.
Speaker:And that's why, you know, the I'm deeply in love with the system that I
Speaker:teach, which is not my own it's based on the book profit first by a guy named
Speaker:Mike because yeah, he's a good guy,
Speaker:a really good book.
Speaker:I've got to get him a bookshelf.
Speaker:It's called life in half a second.
Speaker:Anyway, anyways.
Speaker:So that his system essentially comes down to give every dollar a job and
Speaker:give every dollar a home meaning put money that has a different purpose
Speaker:in an actual different bank account.
Speaker:So you have a bank account for your direct costs for the production costs.
Speaker:Really good point.
Speaker:That's a really good point.
Speaker:You know, I actually, this is funny that you say, cause I've, when I was,
Speaker:I was running a gym a couple of years back and I was about to have some
Speaker:employees for the first time and I kinda just did it like intuitively.
Speaker:I just, I just knew that, you know, like you've got to pay super and
Speaker:superannuation here in Australia.
Speaker:you guys don't have superannuation in the U S do.
Speaker:Nope.
Speaker:some other crazy.
Speaker:Oh, it's not a tax.
Speaker:Oh, it's kind of a, it's not a tax.
Speaker:It's like a, for your retirement.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, right.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:no, we gotta do that over here.
Speaker:Like our social security, we have to pay into social security,
Speaker:but yeah, so we got a superannuation, work, the, the insurance, the word cover.
Speaker:anyway, so you've got these, and then you, obviously, you got your taxes
Speaker:associated with everyone's, everyone's wages that you need to deduct.
Speaker:So obviously pay them their weekly or fortnightly, whatever their paychecks,
Speaker:but, you know, there's as that mom.
Speaker:And so what I did is I had, I had an account for the superannuation, what I
Speaker:would accumulate the 99.5% from every time I did a pay rent, I had another
Speaker:account for, for the taxes and then the third account for, there was a third
Speaker:account for something else, but yeah.
Speaker:Continue because that's actually, that works as long as it goes
Speaker:to that moving things around.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And, and, and that's, I mean, that is the system, right?
Speaker:It's it's there, the book has an outline of a more sort of intensive
Speaker:and structured approach to it.
Speaker:But the reason that it's so great is because it does, it works right.
Speaker:Then you can look at your bank balance and say, I've got
Speaker:enough, or I don't have enough.
Speaker:And so that's where you begin to borrow from other places.
Speaker:But at least if you're borrowing from other places, you know, that
Speaker:something is going wrong, right.
Speaker:I should be able to cover my overhead out of my overhead expense.
Speaker:I've over committed to something in some way, or I have failed
Speaker:to meet my sales target.
Speaker:And so now I have to go steal from the government essentially by borrowing
Speaker:from the funds that I owe them.
Speaker:Hopefully I'll put it back before I have to pay it.
Speaker:And so it's an, it's an early warning system to say I'm running out of money.
Speaker:I can't make, I can't meet my obligations because that's what
Speaker:business owners want to know.
Speaker:They don't care much about any of the stuff that accounting cares about right.
Speaker:While they want to know is like, am I good with the government?
Speaker:Have I paid what I needed to pay?
Speaker:And have I paid the least amount that I can legally get away with?
Speaker:Is anyone coming after me?
Speaker:I don't even know.
Speaker:Nevermind the government by your employees, like you have an
Speaker:obligation to pay your employees.
Speaker:Like I've been, I've experienced so many times, like I've did
Speaker:something for somebody and, you know, I wasn't even an employee.
Speaker:I was just like doing some, you know, invoicing them for some
Speaker:services that are provided.
Speaker:They didn't pay me, you know, like they did not account, they didn't
Speaker:manage their business properly.
Speaker:I don't know what they did with their money, but like I had to
Speaker:harass them for a month, four months, four months, four months.
Speaker:It took a year.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like 15 months to get paid.
Speaker:So to anybody out there, you guys listening and you feeling like
Speaker:I've got a business and it takes hustle and you know, sometimes you
Speaker:need to like kind of, take risks.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You have to take risk, but you also have to be responsible to the
Speaker:people that are working for you that are providing you service.
Speaker:That helps you grow.
Speaker:Like if somebody did service for you that let's say, if somebody build you a website
Speaker:that has help you acquire new customers, you got to pay that guy or that lady,
Speaker:whoever did it, you got to pay them.
Speaker:If you have an employee and they're working their butts off
Speaker:for you, you have to pay them.
Speaker:That's an obligation.
Speaker:So, I'm, I'm ruthless on that.
Speaker:Cause I, I hate when people do think that, because it's, because it's, it's
Speaker:because the money is in the account.
Speaker:But they feel like it's, it's their money.
Speaker:It's not their money.
Speaker:It's someone, someone else's money that they need to pay out.
Speaker:And so the idea of having that structure and that discipline and having it in
Speaker:individual accounts and being honest and being ruthless to realize that that is it.
Speaker:Now I've put those money in there.
Speaker:That's no longer my money and I'll have to work with what I've got left
Speaker:and that's how it keeps you honest.
Speaker:And so we actually recommend that there be a specific account for the
Speaker:owners pay, because again, you know, a lot of times owners are treating
Speaker:their finances, like a yo-yo.
Speaker:And so they, they go without a paycheck for six months so
Speaker:they can pay everybody else.
Speaker:And then they get a big payment and they take it all and then it
Speaker:starts the whole cycle over again.
Speaker:And so being able to have a, an amount set aside so that again, you can see
Speaker:am I being paid a reasonable salary based on what my business can actually
Speaker:afford, rather than just what I need to take home or what I feel like taking
Speaker:today more often than not businesses can actually afford to pay their owners
Speaker:more than the owners are taking, because they're paying too much for overhead.
Speaker:And so again, once that becomes clear, I should be able to pay myself
Speaker:X percentage out of my business.
Speaker:And the reason that I can't is because I'm spending too much on rent.
Speaker:Now I have a reason to go look for a cheaper rent right now.
Speaker:I have a reason to negotiate with the phone company, or now I have a reason to
Speaker:come to the employees and say, we need to be more efficient with what we're
Speaker:doing, because if I can't get these costs down in a nice way, I'm going to
Speaker:have to start cutting and burning and, and finding the way to sustainability.
Speaker:Just while we're talking about the, the calculations, right?
Speaker:The examples of, you've got your fixed cost and then you get your, you get
Speaker:your cost per product sold or cost per particular service provided.
Speaker:Let's say if it's a day of photo shoot.
Speaker:So therefore the blueprint or like a simple formula for anybody out there,
Speaker:be, workout what's your minimum.
Speaker:What's your minimum amount that you need to spend in order to be operational.
Speaker:So what's the minimum amount that you need to put into your
Speaker:marketing, to acquire customer.
Speaker:What's the minimum amount to, you need to put into the systems.
Speaker:Let's say, if you buying a software to manage your, your workflow and manage
Speaker:your team, what's the minimum amount of things that you know, that you need to
Speaker:pay for so that you know, what that fixed costs total fixed customer needs per, and
Speaker:let's say generally we like per month.
Speaker:but it doesn't have to be whatever works for you.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:and then work out, obviously what's the service or product that you want to offer.
Speaker:Who's the ideal audience?
Speaker:Who is your market?
Speaker:Are they, you know, low income, middle income, high income earner.
Speaker:He's your, you know, and then is your service tailor to those and
Speaker:then that will then govern, okay.
Speaker:How are you going to price it from, from a marketing perspective?
Speaker:But sometimes if you price it too low, might not be appealing.
Speaker:You might have to price it higher, whatever you do there, but work out how
Speaker:much you want to charge for what you sell.
Speaker:And then quite easily you'll then work out how many of those units you need to
Speaker:sell in order to cover your fixed costs.
Speaker:But the way I do it is you need to, I was kind of ask you about, I'm
Speaker:going to give you the answer, but let me just finish this and then
Speaker:you can expand on that because I'm sure there's more that goes into it,
Speaker:but then you need to also work out.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So out of those units that you sell, out of what you sell the product or service
Speaker:out of what you sell their work out, what's the, net net, the gross profit.
Speaker:That's a gross profit.
Speaker:So the profit would be debt.
Speaker:What's the fixed cost.
Speaker:That way you've got the cream on top.
Speaker:That's like your gross profit.
Speaker:And I've worked out.
Speaker:How many of those.
Speaker:you need to sell or basically divide your fixed costs by the gross
Speaker:profit tells you how many units you need to sell and that's your yeah.
Speaker:And that helps, you know, how many need to sell.
Speaker:And then obviously on top, it you've got taxes.
Speaker:So you need to take those into account too, but they're just get the
Speaker:director to have your gross profit, which then turns into net profit.
Speaker:Would that be like a simple formula for somebody out there thinking,
Speaker:Hey, I've got this great idea.
Speaker:I want to sell this widget.
Speaker:How do I get to start it?
Speaker:How many of these would I need?
Speaker:So the short answer is yes, no.
Speaker:And the reason I say no is not because that isn't exactly the formula because
Speaker:it is it's that simple and formula don't co-exist for most business owners,
Speaker:most business owners would rather pull their teeth out than do that.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And
Speaker:would that be an ideal, like if people did that,
Speaker:it would be a great place to start, but again, back to this idea of
Speaker:half structure, half chaos, it doesn't matter what you plan.
Speaker:And this gets back to what you were saying, right?
Speaker:You can plan all you want, but you're not taking motion.
Speaker:And so you're not seeing what really works.
Speaker:So I always like to start with, what problem am I solving for my ideal client?
Speaker:Is it the problem that I really want to be solving?
Speaker:Like, do I enjoy this work?
Speaker:Is this the work that makes me happy and let that kind of carry
Speaker:through some of those other answers?
Speaker:So again, I could be doing the same work that I do now in a corporate
Speaker:environment, and I would be much less.
Speaker:So it's, it's, it's crucial to know, not just that you like to do the work that
Speaker:you do, but who do you like to do it with?
Speaker:In what circumstances?
Speaker:Over what time, you know, how do you create your ideal environment and
Speaker:then who does that most appeal to?
Speaker:And that's your ideal client?
Speaker:Not a 30 year old man who lives in a suburb and has three kids.
Speaker:Like, unless you're a 30 year old man that lives in suburban has three kids.
Speaker:I don't know if that's really your ideal, like why, so, so you know,
Speaker:and I know I'm saying that this is a numbers person and then suddenly
Speaker:getting all the way from the numbers, but that's because again, I, I see so
Speaker:many business owners get held up by the, how do I even begin to think about it?
Speaker:Figuring out what it costs me to to get a client, if I've never had one, right.
Speaker:That, that thought alone is enough to stop anybody in their tracks.
Speaker:And so I go forget it.
Speaker:If you don't, if you don't know it yet, don't worry about it.
Speaker:Worry about what is it you want to do?
Speaker:Who do you want to do it for?
Speaker:And how are you going to explain how you are solving this problem
Speaker:better than anyone else for them?
Speaker:Not in general for them again, bookkeeping, right?
Speaker:It's not rocket science.
Speaker:If someone asked me what makes me better than another
Speaker:bookkeeper, I can't answer that.
Speaker:I hope that all bookkeepers.
Speaker:I know that they aren't, but I hope that all bookkeepers are.
Speaker:Honest, careful, you know, ethical detail oriented.
Speaker:I'm not different.
Speaker:That's the baseline.
Speaker:The only thing that makes me different is me.
Speaker:So if you like my personality and if you like the way that I work,
Speaker:great, we'll do fine together.
Speaker:If you are someone who wants to be able to call me and get me on the phone anytime,
Speaker:day or night, that's not how I work.
Speaker:That's not going to work for me.
Speaker:You're not my ideal client, you know?
Speaker:So you need to find someone that's a good match businesses, shockingly, like dating.
Speaker:So, so then from there you can begin to say, what is the value that I'm providing
Speaker:to this person back to our photographer?
Speaker:The value that I'm providing is not a picture.
Speaker:It is capturing a moment in time so that you can share it with others.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:This is what my kids looked like at age, whatever, you know, this
Speaker:is what my grandparents looked like before they passed away.
Speaker:It's it's documenting the moment, the important moments in our life.
Speaker:I did not thought, are we going to talk about like, you know, like I thought
Speaker:we're going to talk about lots of numbers.
Speaker:We are, we are, but we are, and this is so important for people to
Speaker:understand this is just, you start unraveling it, it goes much more.
Speaker:It goes much more in depth.
Speaker:And there's so many like lateral consideration.
Speaker:This is actually a really good one that you just said, this is,
Speaker:this is marketing one-on-one.
Speaker:And like, I don't know if it's going to be part of the recording, but at the
Speaker:beginning we were just speaking something and I was talking to you antibody.
Speaker:You know, one of the most, one of the most powerful skills that any business owners
Speaker:need to learn and should learn when they start is the power of copywriting, because
Speaker:everything is marketing any business.
Speaker:And I don't care what business you're in.
Speaker:You need to be able to market.
Speaker:That means you need to be able to Conway your message to your target audience.
Speaker:And literally the way you write things is what's going to either make
Speaker:your advertisement convert or not.
Speaker:And in that example, you just said, well, what is the photography?
Speaker:It's not, you're not selling a picture.
Speaker:You're not selling a, you know, a snapshot.
Speaker:Here's a, a digital file of an image.
Speaker:It's the capture that experience to capture that moment, right?
Speaker:So it's understanding how to play on the wards and get to the root of what you're
Speaker:truly what the, what the true value.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And so it's just a picture.
Speaker:You can do that on your iPhone.
Speaker:Why would I pay for that?
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:So, so, you know, so back to the planning phase, if you're trying to
Speaker:work out okay, how many things I need to sell to cover my , my fixed costs.
Speaker:Obviously, once you work out, who's your ideal market and what, what you
Speaker:truly love to do in consideration also your lifestyle as well, right?
Speaker:Like it's got to work for your lifestyle, not just what you want to do, but
Speaker:it's got to work with your lifestyle.
Speaker:like in your case, like you said, you're not just going to be picking up
Speaker:phone for, for anybody just like on the fly, because that wouldn't suit your
Speaker:lifestyle and that's, and that's great.
Speaker:so, so that's all day and then you need to work out.
Speaker:Okay, well, what's going to, how am I going to optimize it?
Speaker:Like, if I know I need to sell this man, It's the ancillary costs,
Speaker:like you said, how long is it going to take me to sell those?
Speaker:So one of those things that's going to influence that is how
Speaker:well, how quickly can you sell it?
Speaker:How quickly can you market something?
Speaker:And how can you shorten the path from somebody's eyeballs landing on your
Speaker:ad for the first time to them opening up a wallet and signing up, and that's
Speaker:marketing and sales, conversion, and copywriting, and many, many
Speaker:other things that are going there.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:And so the reason that, that I think that that piece is important
Speaker:and framing it is important.
Speaker:And knowing what the problem you solve is which is marketing is
Speaker:because that affects your pricing.
Speaker:Because if you're saying this is me capturing, you know, a moment that
Speaker:you wouldn't have access to with your iPhone, no one else is going
Speaker:to be able to make it in this way.
Speaker:Then.
Speaker:You can charge, essentially whatever you want, the more you charge the
Speaker:different that your ideal client changes.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So if you wanted to do that for high school seniors, you wouldn't be able to
Speaker:charge necessarily $5,000 for a portrait because that's not in their budget.
Speaker:So that's a disconnect, but if you're talking about a
Speaker:high-end wedding photographer, go for it, that's probably low.
Speaker:So again, that's how, what you want and your pricing interfaces
Speaker:with your ideal client.
Speaker:So how that gets back to what you take home, et cetera, et cetera, the price of
Speaker:it is you, you then, I mean, what often happens is someone says, oh, I'm going
Speaker:to be a high end wedding photographer.
Speaker:I'm going to charge $10,000 a day.
Speaker:So now I have to justify that by rolling up in a really nice car and
Speaker:having the nicest camera and the best lighting and three assistants
Speaker:and a hair and makeup team and no.
Speaker:You've just, you've just taken a $10,000 income and dropped it down
Speaker:after you pay out all of those people.
Speaker:Maybe you're keeping a thousand, what a terrible business model.
Speaker:So every time you invest a dollar in any expense, anytime
Speaker:a dollar leaves your doors.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:What is it that this is going to bring back to me?
Speaker:How is this going to allow me to charge more?
Speaker:Because if spending all of that money allows you to go
Speaker:from charging 10,000 to 20,000.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:But if it doesn't, if, if your, if your ideal client feels like the market value
Speaker:of what you're presenting is 10,000, then you want to keep your costs as
Speaker:low, as reasonable so long as it doesn't affect the quality of the product.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And then you've got two choices to make as well on that front.
Speaker:We thought when you talk about pricing, right, you can either try and.
Speaker:Trying to set your price based on a market pricing, based on a perception
Speaker:of what, like the market would be willing to pay, but then you're kind
Speaker:of playing the same game, like everybody else, and you're competing on price.
Speaker:And then the moment you start to do that, it might make you want to even
Speaker:start doing discounts and special deals.
Speaker:And it's just like a way down the rabbit hole option two is
Speaker:you can say you can sell based on a value, leveraged the value.
Speaker:So raise the value of what you're offering.
Speaker:Therefore you can raise the price.
Speaker:And so you no longer, you no longer competing on the price point with
Speaker:everybody else, you enter your own vacuum, you enter your own space
Speaker:and that's where you want to.
Speaker:Because that's where you're going to like, raise your prices, double your
Speaker:prices, even then you're competitive, but you will still sell as long as the
Speaker:value that you provide is much greater.
Speaker:And if you can convey what's the return on the investment for the customer
Speaker:in a clear way and predictable way and way that you've got, tried and
Speaker:proven with bunch of other customers strengthened wave some social proof.
Speaker:And then, then you're winning.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And so the, the way that I approached the money numbers after knowing all of that is
Speaker:to say, how much do I want to bring home?
Speaker:How much do I want to pay myself?
Speaker:And, and then watching the profit margin, how,
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:It's even right.
Speaker:It's even more than that because the idea is if I know that I want to pay
Speaker:myself, I don't know, $75,000 a year, then I would say, okay, so that.
Speaker:That's how much I want to take home and I can use the profit first
Speaker:framework to say, what percentage of my overall income should my wages be?
Speaker:Well, let's call it 40%.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So 40% goes to me, 5% needs to go, or 10% needs to go to just pure profit.
Speaker:That's my cushion.
Speaker:That's my emergency fund.
Speaker:That's my, what happens if things are suddenly the global
Speaker:pandemic happens, right?
Speaker:Where's, where's my business emergency fund for growth, for
Speaker:emergencies for all of that.
Speaker:So I want to set that aside.
Speaker:I want to set aside the money for taxes, and then I want to set
Speaker:aside the money for my operating expenses and for my direct costs.
Speaker:So that means whatever I need to do to cover all of that production cost,
Speaker:because those are the costs I know, right.
Speaker:I know how much it costs me to make a candle.
Speaker:I know how much it costs me to pay the taxes on that.
Speaker:Then whatever that number is, that has to be 60% of something.
Speaker:So if I want to pay, if I'm saying that a healthy business would pay
Speaker:its, its sole owner, 40% of the income, then, then everything else
Speaker:has to fit into the other 60%, right?
Speaker:The taxes, the profit, the owners pay, et cetera.
Speaker:And so that's what I say was okay, so, so what is that number?
Speaker:I have to actually pull my calculator out cause I can't do math in my head.
Speaker:So if I were to say, and this is so much easier than all of
Speaker:those other calculations to say, what is, what did I say?
Speaker:75,000 divided by 40%.
Speaker:A hundred and eighty seven, five hundred.
Speaker:That would be my sales target to know that I'm, that I'm able to cover all of my
Speaker:expenses, my production costs everything.
Speaker:And that's how I know that I can take home what I want to take home.
Speaker:That's awesome.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So
Speaker:much simpler, so much simpler.
Speaker:And then you break it down on divided by 12.
Speaker:So, you know, what's your monthly, and then you break it down to how many
Speaker:things you need to sell per month, week, day, and then off that you're all off.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:What's your conversion?
Speaker:How many sales calls do you need to make?
Speaker:If you know that if you do 10 sales calls and you sign up five customers,
Speaker:that's 50%, you can then play on there.
Speaker:You can unpack the rest of the numbers, and then that forms your KPIs
Speaker:or your KPIs, your key performance activities that drive your KPIs.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:And so now you only have to look at two numbers every month.
Speaker:Did I hit my sales goal and is my business banking.
Speaker:Staying the same or getting better.
Speaker:If it's getting worse, I have to make an adjustment because
Speaker:something has been happening.
Speaker:One of my costs has been creeping somewhere doesn't matter which one, right.
Speaker:We all get obsessive about line items and budgets.
Speaker:And, oh, I spent over $10 in this category, but I spent
Speaker:under 70 in that category.
Speaker:So now what do I do?
Speaker:And it's so complicated and it doesn't need to be, all you need to know
Speaker:is what is my sales target for the month and is my bank balance holding
Speaker:strong or getting better the end?
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:That's it
Speaker:simple, simple.
Speaker:I think we've unpacked the whole thing.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:You know, this is, this is so much value.
Speaker:I mean, I'm sure there's somebody out there right now, listening that was
Speaker:considering maybe starting a business and it was all, you know, a bit bit unclear.
Speaker:so I really hope that we've kind of helped somebody, clear that up now.
Speaker:I have one more thing to add on that, which is when you're starting a business,
Speaker:you know, you're not going to start with whatever, 187,000 in sales a year.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So whatever the divided by 12 is, let's just round numbers.
Speaker:Let's call it 10,000 while you're starting out.
Speaker:If you know that you need to be bringing in 10,000 in order to be
Speaker:able to pay yourself what you want.
Speaker:And, you know, you know that that's not going to happen through sales.
Speaker:The question is where is that money going to come from then?
Speaker:And so now, you know, I have to be able to invest $10,000 of my own
Speaker:money into this company a month to be able to pay all of the things.
Speaker:And so that's how I can see when my earned income starts coming up.
Speaker:Then my investment starts going down.
Speaker:But if I know that I only have $50,000 to start a business with, I now know I
Speaker:have about a five or six months, runway..
Speaker:Yeah, that's, that's actually really good.
Speaker:So bring it full circle all the way to the beginning, because we kind of
Speaker:covered only the, under the assumption that you already kind of operational.
Speaker:So this is actually really important.
Speaker:Like how much money you actually need to get started because bootstrapping
Speaker:it with nothing is super scary.
Speaker:And the likelihood that it's not going to work out is much, much higher because when
Speaker:you are not winning, you're not funded.
Speaker:Then you're more stressed when you're more stressed, your IQ goes down, it
Speaker:means you're more stupid and you make more, you know, you get worse decisions.
Speaker:So it actually is so important.
Speaker:So on that example of somebody transitioning from, let's say, they've
Speaker:got a job and they want to start, you know, their candle business.
Speaker:It is scary.
Speaker:And the best thing you want to do actually is because you've
Speaker:got a bridge already built.
Speaker:You've got one bridge there.
Speaker:You've got your income from your job.
Speaker:This other thing is not making any money.
Speaker:You got two options.
Speaker:I mean, you could go all in, which means you're going to have all the time on
Speaker:to learn that, which is, which is good.
Speaker:That's your leverage more time, but no income until they do.
Speaker:Or you could work extra at night building this thing, building that
Speaker:little bridge by bit by bit, but having that security of income, therefore
Speaker:less stress, also more workload.
Speaker:So it kind of, yeah, you kind of have to make it, make it, make a choice on that.
Speaker:but I think that's a better option.
Speaker:I think that's a better option slowly, at least at least to get to
Speaker:50% or at least establish systems establish your, operational workflow.
Speaker:So you have a clarity because if you do the first option and you
Speaker:got nothing, then you got chaos.
Speaker:But if you start with an established way of.
Speaker:establish, like if at least you got a plan, like established marketing plan
Speaker:and you've got a clarity and you've got your collateral ready for marketing, and
Speaker:you've got your production processes.
Speaker:Well, that's much easier to then go all in
Speaker:and I would say eat right even so, so I think a lot of people
Speaker:start with collateral before they have proof of concept.
Speaker:So I see a lot of people say, oh, I haven't started selling yet
Speaker:because I've been spending all my time building, building my website.
Speaker:Well, unless you plan to sell online, even if you do plan to sell online, like, are
Speaker:you sure somebody wants to buy this yet?
Speaker:Don't don't print a business card.
Speaker:You know, if someone wants your info say, oh, I'll just send you an email right now.
Speaker:I'll text you right now.
Speaker:Give you the info right now.
Speaker:Yeah, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's the whole, like, don't, don't aim for perfection.
Speaker:Like don't worry about business cards.
Speaker:Don't worry about that.
Speaker:You can do it through an email.
Speaker:You can do it.
Speaker:You don't even have to have a few.
Speaker:You can just go with your own Gmail, prep, Gmail.
Speaker:Don't worry about domain go from there.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Because essentially it doesn't really matter that much.
Speaker:Like at the end of the day, like if there is a value behind what
Speaker:you offer, people don't care.
Speaker:Whether it's the MDM or it's a fancy website, like that stuff matters
Speaker:later when there's you want to scale.
Speaker:But if it's just like, we're looking for one or two or three customers
Speaker:who want to buy a couple of candles, literally just check it on Facebook,
Speaker:show them a picture of the candles, tell them about, you know, how they smell.
Speaker:And then literally I was like, who would want to, like, we wouldn't
Speaker:want to buy I'm building fi you know, I've got 10 next week.
Speaker:I'll have 21st people then put the hand up, I'll be me and I'll send you them.
Speaker:And then that's your proof of concept.
Speaker:And then exactly.
Speaker:And then the best, next thing you want to do is get them to get
Speaker:them to, you know, record a video or write it's just a Memorial.
Speaker:So you've got some sort of.
Speaker:Then build your website, put it on there as an example.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, exactly.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:Otherwise you're building a website that nobody cares about, and then
Speaker:you're going to have to try and go and get that social proof when
Speaker:you could have had that all along.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I mean, it's one of the things I really love Kickstarter about where you can
Speaker:create a project and see who funds it.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Sometimes it will be funded by people who just like doing that stuff, but it's
Speaker:a great way to see, you know, what, now that I'm ready to move beyond friends
Speaker:and family and my local influence will strangers buy this from me and
Speaker:without risking a dime of your own.
Speaker:And, and I think it's a good, it's a nice way for some kinds of products
Speaker:and services to, to test it out.
Speaker:And then your production
Speaker:is covered.
Speaker:Yeah, actually Kickstarter's a really good, really good smart option.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:now at the beginning I introduced you in, you went through a bit of a bit of
Speaker:a hill when you were in your twenties.
Speaker:Tell us about, tell us.
Speaker:Oh, was it like overcoming bankruptcy that goes, you know,
Speaker:that term it's super scary for.
Speaker:Some was like, you know, oh my God, this is debt.
Speaker:That would be my end.
Speaker:But is it really, I mean, you've, you've done well.
Speaker:So tell us about that experience.
Speaker:. So it happened because I was raised in a very sort of typical middle-class
Speaker:household, you know, there wasn't a lot extra, but we, you know, we, we always had
Speaker:shoes and food and, you know, got got by, but, but nobody ever talks about money.
Speaker:And so, you know, when I, when I began to be more independent, I did not have
Speaker:any guidance on how to create a budget.
Speaker:You know, I knew don't spend more than you earn, but what happens when
Speaker:you find yourself in my position where you're working for minimum wage
Speaker:and it costs more than that to live.
Speaker:And so you try to add a second job.
Speaker:But it still costs more than that to live.
Speaker:Well, if you are a dummy like me, you get a credit card.
Speaker:And so that was what happened.
Speaker:I got a credit card to try and just get me through.
Speaker:And within a few years I had tens of thousands of dollars on my
Speaker:credit card for gas groceries.
Speaker:Utilities like it was cost of living.
Speaker:It was horrible.
Speaker:And I didn't understand, you know, that I was paying like 15% interest.
Speaker:And so every month that I was making a payment, I was not
Speaker:getting my debt down at all.
Speaker:you would just, you just
Speaker:kept paying the interest.
Speaker:That sucks.
Speaker:It was horrible.
Speaker:It was horrible.
Speaker:And I went to a debt consolidation company and they charged me a fee,
Speaker:but then they weren't actually able to lower any of my rates because I am
Speaker:already a good arguable and I'd already called up the credit card companies.
Speaker:And, and I finally just gave, I gave up, I literally gave up and it took my
Speaker:mother looking at me and being like, you just, you have to declare bankruptcy.
Speaker:Otherwise you're gonna, this is going to be the rest of your life otherwise.
Speaker:And it was devastating.
Speaker:It felt like such a failure.
Speaker:You know, I take my word so seriously.
Speaker:If I tell you I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it.
Speaker:And so I had this, Overinflated sense of moral obligation to the
Speaker:credit card company who had never done me any favors, but I felt like
Speaker:I told them I would pay this bill.
Speaker:I should pay this bill, even though I had paid it four or five times
Speaker:over, it's just that they were taking all of that as interest.
Speaker:So the deal that I made with myself was if I go into bankruptcy,
Speaker:I'm never going into debt again.
Speaker:And so far that's been true and was, you know, it's been more than 30 years now.
Speaker:So, maybe almost for almost 30 years, I'm only 51.
Speaker:And, and so I had to then learn about money.
Speaker:Cause I didn't know how it really worked, you know, other
Speaker:than spend less than you are.
Speaker:And, but that's not enough, right?
Speaker:Because the time and the energy and all of that.
Speaker:So, so I became a bookkeeper.
Speaker:I, I, my, the last job that I had before bankruptcy, I was an office manager and
Speaker:learned bookkeeping as part of that.
Speaker:But when I asked for a raise in that job, she kind of said, no,
Speaker:I don't want to give you a raise.
Speaker:I was earning $9 an hour.
Speaker:She offered me 9 25.
Speaker:That was not gonna do it for me.
Speaker:So I went out on my own and started being a freelance bookkeeper and was immediately
Speaker:able to charge 25 because that's what bookkeepers get paid or did back then.
Speaker:And so now I was in charge of my own income.
Speaker:I could make these decisions about who I wanted to work with and, and
Speaker:the world opened up for me and I was able to make all these decisions.
Speaker:So I really enjoyed that part of bookkeeping, but the longer that I
Speaker:did bookkeeping, the more often I heard the questions that business
Speaker:owners were really asking, which was, oh, my books are balanced.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:Can I afford to.
Speaker:XYZ, can I afford to buy new equipment?
Speaker:Can I afford to hire an assistant?
Speaker:Can I afford to start a new product?
Speaker:And I was like, I don't know, that's not bookkeeping, but I don't
Speaker:like having questions like that.
Speaker:Sit on answered.
Speaker:And so I began to sort of look for those answers myself, and it led me to
Speaker:learning way more than I ever wanted to know about marketing and pricing and, you
Speaker:know, fulfillment, and cash management since that's the key to everything.
Speaker:And so that's how I ended up here, you know, and it's, it's been amazing.
Speaker:I have my own business with 15 employees now.
Speaker:And, again, if I had been somebody else's employee, I never would
Speaker:have gotten to where I am.
Speaker:So I'm really, really grateful that I got such a strong message so
Speaker:early before, you know, I didn't, it wasn't my business when I was.
Speaker:I didn't ruin my life savings and my retirement fund on it.
Speaker:So of all of the terrible ways it could have happened, it really
Speaker:was kind of the best way possible.
Speaker:and I'm very grateful that I was able to turn it not only into a learning
Speaker:experience, but into the thing that I feel like it gives me an edge.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I'm very compassionate with people who are like, I don't get money.
Speaker:I'm not a money person.
Speaker:I don't understand it.
Speaker:It's overwhelming.
Speaker:It's frustrating.
Speaker:I just want help.
Speaker:And I go, I've been there.
Speaker:I've done that.
Speaker:Yes, I can help you.
Speaker:It's like learning to drive a car.
Speaker:Feels terrifying at first, but pretty soon it's super easy and
Speaker:we just take it for granted.
Speaker:That's what I say.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Don't be afraid of failures.
Speaker:Failures is it's not a failure.
Speaker:It's a learning point that moves you forward.
Speaker:And there's actually so many benefits for you there, right?
Speaker:Like one number one you've been through it.
Speaker:So you know what it feels like.
Speaker:You never want to go back.
Speaker:Number two, you've got a great selling point, right?
Speaker:You've got, you've been there.
Speaker:You've got, you've got a.
Speaker:You got to prove.
Speaker:So if you can join the costumers, yeah.
Speaker:Great selling points.
Speaker:So, I bet that if somebody asked you, if you could, you know, wave
Speaker:a magic wand, what do we call it?
Speaker:would you want that experience to have to have had happened or not?
Speaker:And I bet you would say yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Now what happens, when you do declare bankruptcy
Speaker:us.
Speaker:And part of the reason that my mother advised me to do is because
Speaker:the laws were about to change.
Speaker:It wipes out all of your consumer debt.
Speaker:So it doesn't wipe out, government loans necessarily.
Speaker:and it allows you to keep some of your essential assets.
Speaker:So I didn't own a home or a car at the time, but if I had those
Speaker:likely would have been protected.
Speaker:And so it just reset me to zero and it gave me a terrible
Speaker:credit rating for seven years.
Speaker:But other than renting apartments, You know, which I was living
Speaker:in Brooklyn at the time.
Speaker:And back then nobody checks your credit rating.
Speaker:They just wanted to get paid in cash every month.
Speaker:that was really the thing.
Speaker:It, you know, it had far less effect on my life than I assumed it would,
Speaker:which was also a little bit of a shock.
Speaker:You know, credit is important, but it's not the be all end,
Speaker:all bad credit is not the worst.
Speaker:It doesn't mean you're a bad person, right.
Speaker:Or that you've done something wrong and there's so many ways to repair it now.
Speaker:So basically the main thing is that you, you wouldn't be able to get any
Speaker:line of business loan or a house loan for, for that period of seven days.
Speaker:And what happens to that, to the, to the money that you owed to those credit
Speaker:card companies, does the government take over and then you have to repay it to
Speaker:the government over, but there's no more interest or like it just gets waived.
Speaker:It just got wiped away.
Speaker:I just didn't owe it anymore.
Speaker:Sounds like a blueprint to me.
Speaker:I mean, yeah, right.
Speaker:I'm sure someone out there is doing it on purpose and you know, God love them.
Speaker:I, that was, that was not my ethical plan, but
Speaker:yeah, it's not ethical.
Speaker:It's not ethical to do it.
Speaker:Don't do it.
Speaker:Don't do it.
Speaker:It's a bad idea.
Speaker:But if you have to do it, it's good.
Speaker:You, no, it's good to know.
Speaker:It's there.
Speaker:If you, if it truly needed, then it's dead.
Speaker:don't, they'll go down to the, you know, and I don't want to go old depressing
Speaker:year, but I'm sure that there's people that, you know, didn't manage it well,
Speaker:and they didn't know about what it means.
Speaker:And they thought like, this is the end.
Speaker:Then they took their life, you know, like it's, it's done.
Speaker:Like it's, like I said, it's, it's not, it's not the worst.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:It's a renewable resource, right?
Speaker:Time is not renewable
Speaker:hurt your ego a little bit because
Speaker:it really hurts your ego.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:But again, you know, you got to sacrifice something to move
Speaker:on, let go, or be dragged.
Speaker:So Ian, so, I really enjoy.
Speaker:How can people find you if anybody needs, you know, your services for
Speaker:example, or just wants to check out your stuff, where can they go?
Speaker:So, I'm going to tell them to go to your site, cause that's the most
Speaker:direct they're already in your system.
Speaker:So if you go to the success podcast.com forward slash Moxie, you'll find me.
Speaker:Yes, it's a
Speaker:success inspired.
Speaker:Oh, I was close.
Speaker:You know what?
Speaker:I'll do that
Speaker:for you here.
Speaker:You do that part for me.
Speaker:So I'll see, where can they find me?
Speaker:And if they want to listen more, if they want to find out more,
Speaker:you've been on many other podcasts, you've got articles, right as well.
Speaker:You got some really amazing online courses as well as super easy digest
Speaker:in great for anybody out there.
Speaker:we're all stuck at home right now.
Speaker:And most people are because of the bloody COVID thing.
Speaker:So what you guys can do.
Speaker:Go to success in spot podcast.com/moxie.
Speaker:That's success inspired podcast.com forward slash M O X I E.
Speaker:And you'll be directed to an online course that Moxie has.
Speaker:and if you want it as like a $97 online course for understanding better
Speaker:financial management, and if you've got a couple of other courses, if you want
Speaker:to get more premium, like a support from Ian directly, I think there's
Speaker:even like a one-on-one or something.
Speaker:So go check it out, guys, if you want to, yeah.
Speaker:Get Ian to help you.
Speaker:if you just want to check out in stuff, I'll put all the
Speaker:links in the show notes as well.
Speaker:Include Indian socials, just go check her out.
Speaker:She's got amazing stuff and I love, I love what she does.
Speaker:and once again, thank you so much for being on the show.
Speaker:Appreciate you.
Speaker:I appreciate taking the time out of your day and, and you know, spending this
Speaker:hour providing so much value, this is what it's all about, providing value and
Speaker:trying to inspire people to achieve more in life and accomplish, what they desire.
Speaker:so it's been amazing.
Speaker:And is there any, not Annie actually quite specific, what would be the top
Speaker:three takeaway points that you'd like the listener to walk away with today?
Speaker:I would say if nothing else find that savings account that it's attached to
Speaker:your checking account and start putting in 1% of your income away as profit.
Speaker:See how fast that grows and see if that inspires you to take further
Speaker:action, to give every dollar a job and give every dollar a home.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:That's number.
Speaker:That's the only one.
Speaker:I mean, you can read the book too, if you want.
Speaker:There's plenty.
Speaker:I can keep going.
Speaker:I can give you all kinds of things, but I think it's good
Speaker:to focus on one thing, right?
Speaker:There's that book?
Speaker:The one thing, just do that one thing.
Speaker:That's the first step I had that
Speaker:recently, , focusing on your right, next thing, that one thing that you
Speaker:want to implement, let's say in your business that will properly forward.
Speaker:Otherwise it's chaos and you do it trying to do too many things
Speaker:at once is never going to be good.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Great advice for those of you listening right now is this
Speaker:to you, a message to you.
Speaker:Thank you for listening today.
Speaker:If you enjoyed this interview and please share it with your mates that
Speaker:you think would also benefit from listening and understanding a bit
Speaker:more about financial management.
Speaker:There's links on, on my website, on the podcast, you can just easily share it
Speaker:and people can listen to it for show notes, full links, and extra tips to
Speaker:help you accomplish more in life and realize that your potential, please
Speaker:go to success in spot podcast.com.
Speaker:Thank you and have a great rest of your day, everybody.
