My company, The Freelance CFO, has been around in various iterations for about 10 years now, but I really went all in full time at the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020 after being let go unexpectedly from my day job. Because I had a solid financial foundation in my business, I was able to survive and thrive.

Cliches aside, I want to change the world. I want to change the way our workforce is treated and in order to do that, I needed to create my own workforce.

If you are still working a corporate job and that’s benefiting you, great! If you decide to job hop or leave corporate altogether, remember that it’s a transactional relationship. Don’t feel guilty for your coworkers or your boss. When it’s time to go, it’s okay to let go.

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DISCLAIMER: I am not a financial advisor and this is not financial advice. My podcast is for educational purposes and is my personal opinion only. To make the best financial decision for your situation, please do your own research and if needed, seek the advice of a fee-based, fiduciary.

Music credit: Neon Fairies by Wolves 

A Podcast Launch Bestie production

So I've had my business in some capacity for 10 years now, the

freelance CFO has had different names, different faces, different iterations.

And I went full-time.

With it being my sole source of income in March of 2020 during the

pandemic, because the day job that I had taken on for a break and to help

make qualifying for house easier, let me go really unexpectedly.

And I was overwhelmed, nervous, shocked, and panicked.

And that was about.

Probably the first 48 hours I think was really a rollercoaster of emotions.

especially having not seen it coming, I was let go with two days notice,

because the company that I worked with worked with a lot of restaurants and

construction industry of businesses, which meant that when everything

closed down, their cash flow dried up and they were in survival mode.

Now my business had been running all along and in the background would be

running it working, you know, an extra four to eight hours every day on top

of my day job, to make sure that I kept going, kept the clients taken care of.

And it was really building this company that I was so passionate about.

And when I ended up making the jump to full time, I had the

repeating discussion with my.

Sweet husband, who was really stressed out by the thought of me

going full-time in my business.

And we've had this conversation in the past and you know, the

decision of, do I look for another job or do I decide that this is it?

And this is going to be what I do.

And I was done.

I had compromised three years earlier and taking this job on

for a few different reasons.

It let me.

fung shui what I had going on, um, in my business, you

know, restructure some things.

And that felt really good to me.

That felt really expansive.

It gave me a little bit of a break and this time, this

was the final straw for me.

So despite it being terrifying, cause I am the primary earner and

now the sole earner in our household.

And we just bought a new house, with a much larger mortgage in a different

state, six months earlier removed.

My husband is actually still living and working in Oregon where we moved from.

And I was living by myself in this house in a new state

with no job during a pandemic.

And had I not had all of my financial shit together in my business, had I not

been treating it like a business and paying attention to it and reviewing

profit margins and all those things.

that so many of us are guilty of not doing or not understanding

how to do it properly, right?

Because we're not taught this in high school or college.

If you went to college and you know how this works in the real world.

So I had set up a business that was profitable.

That was less than full time in order to make a full-time salary.

And I actually made up my salary and then some in a little under six months

from the time that I was let go.

So I was let go in March of 2020, and in September, I was

consistently supporting our family.

I was lucky enough that I had a severance.

You know, my husband ended up leaving his job in the middle

of all of that, and we've done.

We've made it.

And on top of that, we have grown 300% in 2021, over 2020 hired employees,

which I never thought I would do.

And I attribute all of that to having.

My financial house in order now, does that mean that I paused on a lot of my

investments and a lot of my retirement.

Absolutely.

That slowed way down during that time, because I knew that I needed

to prioritize paying mortgage, paying the bills, you know, keeping.

Income coming in, keeping food on the table.

And now over the last six months, we've actually been able to put a more

robust retirement plan in place and start playing a little bit of catch up.

But because I had a severance that I was able to get, I had clients

that I already had in place.

I had a profitable business that was already running and throughout

all of that, I had clients that knew that I had a day job.

And then they knew when I made the jump to being full-time and having

this be my only source of income.

And I think sharing a lot of this journey with them has been really helpful because

I've had their support and not only have I been completely referral-based,

my whole business is based on referral, which is amazing because, you know,

we have clients that we've worked with for years now, they refer their

friends, their colleagues , anyone that they can to come work with us because.

It's not just a know like trust factor.

We're not looking at clients, from this purely salesy tactic, we're looking

for clients that want to work with us.

For the next 10 years that we want to work with, that we get really excited for.

And a big part of having taken that day job on before for me was so that we could

restructure our offerings, our pricing, and who we worked with to do exactly that.

And so it really primed not only myself, but the business to be able to take off as

soon as I had the creative capacity, which being, let go from my job provided me.

I now had so much mental bandwidth and clarity, and I had the

financial system set up the taxes, uh, payroll, quarterly estimates.

You know, I had all of these things running.

I had profitable services and I was able to do that and scale it up, but also then

have the bandwidth to be reaching out to be doing education, to be, you know,

working on our social media presence.

And I'm not here to tell you that you need to post on social media 35 times a day.

I am a firm believer in taking care of yourself, taking care of

your current clients, and then working on your sales pipeline.

Because if you have clients that are aligned, that you really love

working with, keeping them is one of the easiest things that you

will ever do for your business.

And then bringing new clients in is gravy.

Right.

If we have a profitable business and our numbers support what we're doing, then

there's no reason that you need to be scrambling for new clients all the time.

You know, it's not the shiny object syndrome.

You need to be able to focus on what brings the income in and what keeps the

lights on for lack of a better term.

So how do we push through the fear and the anxiety and the overwhelm when

we're making a decision to go full-time.

Or the decision may be, is made for us, or we feel a little bit nudged along, and I

want you to understand that not everyone is meant to run their own business.

Not everyone will thrive in that situation.

And you need to get really honest with yourself I think owning a business

has that plus therapy have been two of the most brutally honest mirrors on

myself that I have ever had in my life.

Where are we doing things that work for us?

Are we actually happy with the thought of our personal livelihoods.

If you ever think about hiring employees, our employees livelihoods,

you know, there's, there's this pressure that comes whether you're

an employee working for someone else.

And there's, there's no shame in that.

First of all, if it works for you, by all means, I have been in and out

of corporate for the last 12 years.

And it was great for what I needed for my skillset, but it was not for me.

Long-term and I kept dipping my toe back in and like, oh, maybe

this time, maybe this time.

And the last job that I was at was the perfect.

If I could have designed a corporate job that met every single

requirement, I asked them it was it.

And by the second year I was still feeling absolutely stifled and.

I wanted to change the world.

And I know that that is so cliche, but I want to change the way in which our

workforce is treated and in order to do that, I needed to create my own workforce.

So how do I make the jump and how do I start creating these positions?

Well, again, it comes back to understanding my profit.

Knowing my numbers, knowing what my business expenses are and knowing

what I have available to spend.

And so I baby stepped it for quite a while.

hired my first VA, I think in 20 15, 6 years ago, maybe longer, I think 2015.

And it was the best thing I ever did.

I don't work with that person now.

I have a few pretty long-term team members, but learning how to.

I think it was failing quickly.

I've heard someone describe it as, and I've not had, you know, none of

them were big failures, but failing in the regard to how quickly you

make a decision that is aligned.

So I brought someone on, they were absolutely knowledgeable,

but they ended up not being the right fit for my personality.

You know, we weren't the right fit and understanding that

that's not a reflection on you.

But that instead, it's an opportunity for you to find someone that

is more aligned or that works better with your personality.

There are millions of people in the world that are qualified,

you know, for things that you may need help within your business.

That doesn't mean that they're all going to have the personality that

you need to work well together.

So bring them on, do a test project, listen to your

intuition, listen to your gut.

I'm a really firm believer in that, and it will be easier to listen.

The more experience that you have with doing that.

So as we're working through this process and you are failing quickly,

you're learning so much, you're doing the same thing with your clients now.

I want you always providing, you know, the top tier service that

you can for the service offering that you're providing, right?

We're not here to do half-assed shitty things, but when something is not

aligned, when it's time to raise pricing, when it's time to change your service

offerings, and this is something that I have struggled with over the years.

And I think a lot of us struggle with letting clients go.

When the client relationship is no longer working now, it doesn't have to be.

Broken to not be working your client, doesn't have to be an asshole many times.

They won't be, maybe you've raised your prices and you haven't

increased your prices for them.

So you're feeling resentful.

Maybe this client asks for more than you're willing to give.

And when you first started, you didn't have firmer boundaries.

And so they're used to getting, you know, a same day response for you

or a same hour response, and you can reinforce and reinstate your boundary.

And if those boundaries are not honored or you know if, you get

a message from them and your stomach drops or you feel anxious.

It's pastime to let them go.

And not just for yourself, but you are now doing them a disservice.

So with all of this, as you are building your business, and as you are making

the decision to jump to full time, to increase a side hustle, having

all of your numbers, Laid out so that you understand are you profitable.

And if you have a corporate job, use the shit out of that

corporate job to test the waters.

You know, we're here business in the evenings, working on the weekends, working

on your lunch break before you go to work.

I don't care, but fail quickly during that time, because you have

a fallback, you have potentially the financial ability to hire help.

To not put all the pressure on your budding business, right.

It doesn't have to support you right this second.

If you can keep a corporate gig, even if you need to go part-time at your

corporate gig, do it look for another one.

Like now is the time to be switching jobs.

If you need something that's more flexible.

To be able to grow your business and or to be able to increase your overall earnings.

Like there's no reason that you can't job hop.

I job hopped from 24,000 a year to just shy of six figures in six years.

Yes, my skillset improved dramatically, but it's been shown that changing

employers, every, I think year to two years can increase your earnings

substantially over being promoted or changing roles, even within that company.

The most value that you will ever have to a company is in that hiring process

when you're an asset that they want.

Now, the one thing that I want to remind you of is if, and when it is time to make

the jump and you are feeling anxious and nervous, and yes, you've ran the numbers

and yes, it checks out and yes, you have money in savings and, you know, it's time.

And you're maybe dabbling on the edge of burnout.

I would love for you to be out before.

That's the case.

You need to understand if you start to feel even an ounce of guilt or loyalty

to the company that you're at with very, very few exceptions, remember

that you are at that company for as long as it has beneficial to that employer

or that company for you to be there.

And you need to treat that opportunity, the exact same way.

They are valuable to you until such time as it is not benefiting you.

And that is okay.

This is a transactional relationship.

You are not responsible for your coworker's workload.

You are not responsible for your boss and you are not responsible for your clients.

You are able to leave because it is purely a contracted engagement and relationship.

And when it is time to go, it is okay to let go and to jump into whatever

it is, whether that's your business, whether that's taking a full ass

break, you don't owe them a three month window where you, you know, work

part time and you answer questions.

Boundaries become really important here.

And I want you to remember.

That they would not hesitate to let you go.

If your role, your pay, their finances, any of those no