Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Natalie Bullen. Natalie is a licensed financial advisor and money mindset coach. She is the owner of Unapologetic Wealth where she encourages her community to improve their relationship with money through working on their mindset and giving them the tools they need to step into the wealth they deserve and desire. We talk about money mindset, pricing mistakes to avoid, and how you can start charging your worth!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Employees have very few expenses.
• Having a $100,000 salary is very different from having a business that turns over $100,000 per year.
• Turnover is very different from actual gross profit.
• In order to make any money having your own business – there are always going to be expenses.
• You will hinder yourself by trying to do it all on your own just to save money!
• If you have a business that can’t pay you – you have a liability.
• You don’t know what your client can afford, they are strangers to you!
• Don’t decide what someone else can and can’t afford.
• We are not in business to please our clients or make solutions cost what they can afford. We are in business to grow our impact, influence, and income.
• Why would you push someone into a solution that wastes BOTH of your time?
• If you raise your rates, it will be easier to get clients because people know you are serious.
• It is all about priorities and what is important to each person as to what they will be willing to spend more money on.
• You need to offer the next level for your clients – so there is somewhere else they can go.
• You don’t have to buy an Aston Martin if you’re wealthy!
• Money is NOT evil.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

Never assume someone can’t afford something you offer! You don’t know their priorities or income.

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS

• An introduction to Natalie 04:49
• Money mindset 09:46
• Pricing mistakes to avoid 17:01
• It’s ok to charge your worth! 18:51
• How to be confident charging more 34:25

CHECK NATALIE OUT:

Website

Instagram

Facebook

Transcript

Teresa: Hello and welcome to this episode of the podcast, how are you doing? So we are getting very close to the point in which I'm going to change the name of the podcast. So I wanted to make sure that you've got sort of plenty of heads up before we do it.

I think it's actually happening in two episodes time, um, that you'll get a new intro and outro. You'll get maybe slightly tweaked the way we do it. I haven't even decided yet if I'm totally honest. The list of things that I've got to do to get ready for the rebrand and the website is huge. So big. Also at the same time, I decided I might try a different email system because although I love Kajabi and it's brilliant because it does all of the stuff in one, uh, we're also creating a quiz and in order for the quiz to be really good and give you specific answers. I need an email system that can work a bit harder than the one that then Kajabi can do currently. So, uh, yeah, there's a lot on our plate this month. I am working the team very, very hard. Uh, they all being amazing and getting stuff done. So, um, it's been a busy, old time, but like I said, it's coming.

You don't need to do anything. You just make sure you're subscribed to the podcast because the podcast will stay subscribed. The name will just change for you. So hopefully you shouldn't lose me or anything like that, but make sure that you've hit that subscribe button wherever you listen. Okay. So this week we've got an interview and it's with the amazing Natalie Bullen.

We're so good. I can't even tell you, I loved this interview, but let me tell you a bit about Natalie first. So Natalie, through her work as a financial consultant business coach and banker, she discovered that the biggest hindrance to financial freedom is mindset totally. Realizing that many people's view of wealth is unattainable or they see as unattainable or something that's simply for those people. Natalie has an ambition to shift her perspective for everyone she meets by encouraging them to improve their relationship with money. Growing up in one of the poorest states in the country that Alabama native witnessed firsthand, how impact.

Uh, see, this is me trying to read again. I hate reading. How the impact of financial illiteracy. I can't read. I'm going to have to get some lessons in how to read and economic deprivation can have on a community determined not to be another statistics, Natalie worked tirelessly to establish herself as the go-to guru for all things finance.

And it was great. Actually, what I really particularly loved about this talk is Natalie's not just talking about the money from a mindset point of view. So she's not just going, you know, Manifest it, and that will come. She's also very practical and talks about some very practical things. So I really, really liked that.

I think I said last week on the podcast that she spoke for my events, that when the doors open again to the membership, all the past recordings and, and events are all up there, so you can see them all. But yeah, when I had her at the event, she was so good, so, so good. So I think you're going to love this episode and get lots from it.

So without further ado, here's the lovely Natalie.

So I am really excited today to welcome to the podcast the lovely Natalie Bullen. Natalie, how are you doing?

Natalie: I am well, thank you so much for asking, how are you?

Teresa: I am, I am good. Um, I was just saying before we go on I've been a busy week. I've been speaking and I'm just a little bit worn out. But I'll be fine.

I am all good. You have come on this call given me so much energy and don't you just love it when like, Um, in fact, I was talking about this just literally at this event about like some people you step into their energy and it's like, 'Ooh, that's not nice.' And then some people, you step into their energy and it's like roof, like, so that's what I got when you came to the call.

So that's awesome. So Natalie, I'm excited about today's conversation, but before we get started on it, I start my podcast the same way every time, which I'm sure. Well for me, I feel like it bores my audience, but it's important. So can we start off by you telling my lovely audience who you are and how you got to do what you're doing today?

Natalie: Yes, I am Natalie Bullen, um, licensed financial advisor and lay mindset coach owner of Unapologetic Wealth. I have had an affinity towards money since my teenage years. I started my first business when I was nine years old, selling key chains at a uniform store in mobile, Alabama, where all public school children are required to wear uniforms.

And I learned that I knew something about money. It clicked for me in a way that it didn't easily click for others. And as I got older, I started to see how differently black people, especially women were treated when we didn't have money. And why the wealth gaps seem to be getting wider, even though America seemed to be getting wealthier, we are getting wealthier, but the country was getting wealthier.

So I went to undergrad and I got a business degree and it didn't solve any of those questions for me. And I got an MBA. And it didn't really solve a lot of questions for me either. And so, I said, you know what, I'm going to do something about, I'm going to start speaking on my free time. I'm going to volunteer.

And I did over 200 free financial literacy seminars at churches, universities, um, even homeless shelters when they were about to release people back out into new world where they're gonna be paying their rent again. How do you get back acclimated to having bills? And I guess it never dawned on me to monetize it because, you know, Patriarchy.

And eventually I say, you know, I'm going to strike out on my own. I'm going to coach people. And I was gonna coach them on financial literacy. So I had a workshop planned. It was, that'd be retirement plans for entrepreneurs. And I had flyers and citing. No one registered. Crickets for me with my energy. Can you believe it?

And so I boldly hopped in people's DMS and went, Hey, What are you come to know workshop? Like, why didn't you register? And they sheepishly told me one after another. 'Natalie I don't have any money to retire.' My business barely even pays me nearly my, my business barely even makes any money. How could I, how could I save for retirement?

I was intimidated by you. You're so much further ahead than me and naively I would go, 'Well if you run a business, how could you be broke? Why would you quit your job to run a business that doesn't pay you?' And I realized this is really common. It's really prevalent. The struggling artists, um, work for free, this bro marketing that tells you to give it all away and that people will pay you.

And I said, this is it. This is it. And, and I really got into towing with teaching people. This doesn't have to be the case. You got as much money as you want to. This is your business. Go out and make it happen. Right? And so giving people the tools to step into the wealth that they deserve and desire has come an elevated level of my financial literacy manager.

Teresa: I love that. Like, I love the fact that you identified something really young, but it was like in, you built in you, but, and also I love the fact and not that this is something to love, but that you went on a search to get, you know, to understand this better. And you went and did, you know your degree and your master's and, and yet it didn't solve any question or answer for you because of exactly the problem that it is, isn't it?

Natalie: Yeah, because there's not a. It's not a, an educational problem. It's socioeconomic. I would have needed to have gotten an entirely different degree. Business degrees only teach you how business is make more and more money by ever increasingly schemey tactics or clever tax strategies.

Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I love the fact that you did that.

And then you went out and did all these amazing workshops with people and then help people. And like that's in your DNA, that's in your blood, isn't it? Like, people don't, like I often talk about when people have a business. Like I worked with people who love what they do, because I don't want to work with someone who doesn't adore what they do.

Or yeah we all have bad days, but you know what I mean? That it drives some passion that they want to make a difference in whatever part of the world that they are in. Because that means a lot to me, rather than just someone saying, 'Well, actually this is a good way of making money. I could probably do this.' Like it's got to come from that passion.

Hasn't it. And I love that, that your state, which is ACE. So. Let's talk about, and, and this is such a big, amazing subjects to talk about, and it's something that's new to me. Okay. So to give you like a little bit of a background and you know, my listeners might know this and I might have talked about it before, but I came from a fairly working class family.

My, both my parents worked, we never had money. Like we were never wealthy. We were probably the poor children in school. And. I didn't know, because I didn't know money mindset was even a thing. But when I started to discover and learn and look at this, I started to realize that, that my family and I had a very bad money mindset and we were, I was brought up with a bad money mindset, but I didn't realize the impact into which it would have in me and my business.

So the fact that you identified that these people have got their own businesses and they weren't doing, weren't bringing in the money. Did you see that that was just a money mindset thing? Or do you think, because obviously you come from a practical point of view with money as well, don't you, which is, you know, so is it just one thing or is it both?

Natalie: It's both it's money mindset, but it's also lack of business acumen.

We are taught to be employees and employees have fairy few costs. Sure they take taxes and social security and things like that. But in general, other than being in dress code and driving to work or riding public transportation, what is your cost as an employee? There really is none. So you get what's left, you get the salary that the company can afford to pay you after they paid all of their other expenses.

But we're shielded to that. What company have you ever worked for where you read the company's annual balance sheet?

Teresa: None.

Natalie: To know how their much their gross revenue, what was the gross revenue of any company you've ever worked for in your life?

Teresa: Wouldn't have a clue.

Natalie: No one does. So see, we're seeing the end result, a 70 pound or 80K year role or the $100,000 salary.

We're seeing that in number and trying to base our business on that number. Instead of the gross revenue number or the taxes or the insurance or the net profit and loss of the firm. See, we don't have that data. And if you worked for a publicly traded company, the data's out there, we are taught to look at, we wouldn't know what to do with it if we did.

Most people do not know how to read financial statements. So when they come into their own business, their first thought is, let me just replace my salary. But having a $100,000 salary is not the same as having a business that grows is $100,000 a year. You cannot conflate those two numbers. They're not the same.

And people don't realize the expense, how much money it costs to run a business, the website and the hosting, the coaches, the tax liability. You're used to your taxes being taken out of your paycheck when you're self-employed, you're responsible to pay the IRS and a miracle quarterly.

I've met entrepreneurs who weren't paying quarterly taxes because no one told them that they were supposed to. Right? And they get with me and find out that they'll 10, 20, 30 jade. If it's mindset, for sure. There's a mindset that gets pushed down on women as nurturers, that we should work for free.

That that makes us good people that we should help people. And that is helpful and nice. Oh, they should be nice when they don't meet. We should be nurturing and nice and helpful and, poor are apparently, and there's nobility in that somehow. But there's also lack of business acumen that makes a woman go, 'Oh, I can coach someone for 50 bucks an hour because I made $25 an hour. So I'll just double it.'

If they knew all what went into the cost of their business, they would realize it's impossible for me to coach someone for 50 bucks an hour. So I do both right. I bring my financial literacy and my financial advisory services and I do a complete money assessment of financial review.

And then I, I let them know where they're doing great and I let them know where they should kind of watch. And then I let them know action steps. They must take it back to buying more life insurance or hiring an accountant. Right? A lot of times we don't know the difference. What's the difference between a CPA, a CFP and an EA.

And that's just this. So people get intimidated and they just hire no one. Right? That's the solution. I don't know. So I'll just do nothing. I empower them to make a decision and then we look at their mindset and their pricing. So. Now that you realize if you don't look at the money first, then I sound woo woo.

Oh, just charge more, just charge, more, charge your worth. It all, it all sounds contrived. But if I lay out your financial statements for you and show you how you're losing money this way, and you'll never be able to pay off your house or fund your retirement or retire your husband or pay for your kids' college.

Well, then raising prices is gonna lay and you're, you're listening to me now. It doesn't just found that like manifest your wealth. It sounds like here's a plan.

Teresa: There's a reason for it.

Natalie: Exactly.

Teresa: You've said so much in that I want to just like pick out a few key bits. So one thing that you said, I think, which is so like, I know I was this for sure was definitely the, this is what I earn, so this is what I want to make as a business owner.

So that. And I still think many business owners just look at turnover like, and don't you think we were chatting before we got on about, you know, some types of people in the business that don't resonate with us. And there are some people out there and my audience will know very well that I'm not a big fan of like, you know, and six figures in five minutes. But the thing is its turnover and they don't tell you the full picture.

So yeah, you could have a launch of something or other that, that brings you in six figures, but they might have spent five figures getting to that point. And therefore what's the point. And I think that's something that that's where the acumen comes in. Isn't it? That's where the, the knowledge of being a business owner and understanding the business, rather than just saying 'Great, I've hit six figures.' Or 'Great, I now bring in five grand a month.' it's got to work. Hasn't it with everything else.

Natalie: I agree. I think that's why it's important to get what people who are transparent. Um, Denise Duffield-Thomas is very transparent, she sends emails that break down all the numbers for her launch to let people know how much she spent and how much she made.

I will also say if you're expecting to make six to seven figures and not have any expenses that you shouldn't bill into business, there will be some expense, period. I don't care if you don't hire anybody, I don't care at some point you have to pay something and you hinder yourself trying to do it all yourself to save money.

I would rather have a business that makes $50,000 a month that has $20,000 a month in expenses that a business that makes 5,000 a month that has two ledger books and expenses, because I'm trying to bootstrap it all myself.

Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think that's a really important thing to talk about.

The other thing that you said that I think. I'd really like us to hit on is the fact of angio, right? This is predominantly women that think like this, the fact of A. They benchmark their pricing based on, oh, well, this is what I earn as a salary. So actually I'll just charge this and B. That they feel like they can't or they shouldn't charge. They've got to be nice. They've got to be kind. They've got to not be ruthless, not be greedy.

And isn't it funny? The, the language that we use for male and female, when we talk about money is like a guy who charges his worth and goes out there and, and earns good money, we say earns good money he does well. A woman is like cutthroat or ruthless or a bitch or, you know what I...