BIO: Susan Frew is a renowned entertaining, and value-driven speaker and thought leader. She has coached hundreds of companies and non-profits to great success.
STORY: Susan left an unsupervised employee in charge of her coaching practice. This employee left her with a million dollars in debt.
LEARNING: Trust but verify every single employee. Get on-time and accurate monthly financial statements. Put in place metrics of accountability.
“Get your own mail. If I had been getting my mail, this wouldn’t happen.”
Susan Frew
Guest profile
Susan Frew is a renowned entertaining, and value-driven speaker and thought leader. She has coached hundreds of companies and non-profits to great success. Susan and her husband, William, grew their trade business by 535% in just one year by creatively using seven deceptively simple tools coupled with some good old-fashioned elbow grease. As a result, Sunshine Home Services now boasts a coveted spot on the INC 5000 List as one of the INC Best Places to work.
Worst investment ever
Susan’s husband started a plumbing business while she was running a coaching practice. Her husband’s business grew so much that she decided to leave her practice and join him.
But with time, Susan started speaking again and got busier and busier. She was traveling a lot for her speaking engagements. So she had to leave the practice to an employee to manage it while she was away. The mistake she made was to advocate and dump all the work she didn’t want to do on the employee instead of delegating strategically. She also didn’t have the proper supervision in place. This employee was allowed to get Susan’s mail, use her credit card, and access her bank accounts and other accounts.
One Saturday, Susan got a knock on her door, and it was the postman with a letter saying that she owed the IRS $498,000 in taxes and fees. She also had a $209,000 fine for not supervising her employee.
Susan had put her employee on a Pay Plan, which she thought was genius at the time. The employee would get a bonus every month if she stayed on budget. Her way of staying on budget was to short the bills. So if, for instance, the practice owed the IRS $5,000, she’d pay $4,000. What she didn’t realize was that the IRS would eventually match up the W2s with all the 941 deposits and signature sheets Susan would submit.
Peeling back the onion even further, Susan found out that the employee had used her tire account to buy tires for the cars of everyone in her family. She’d use one of Susan’s gas cards to fill her car. She even bought tools at the local parts store on Susan’s account. On adding up all these purchases, Susan was a million dollars in debt.
Lessons learned
- Trust but verify every single employee and put in place metrics of accountability.
- Don’t dump your work on someone else; instead, delegate strategically.
- Don’t take yourself too seriously.
- Have an outside bookkeeper who has no emotional attachment to your office manager and is a very strong taskmaster.
- Exit before it tanks.
Andrew’s takeaways
- Get on-time and accurate monthly financial statements.
- When you make a mistake, be vulnerable with a small group of people you trust and then move on.
- Ultimately, profit solves so many problems. So focus on building profit for your business.
Actionable advice
Have a proper understanding of your financials and watch that money.
Susan’s recommendations
If you’re running a company, Susan recommends making time for self-care to stay in good shape. Self-care will make you focus better, make you stronger, and give you a better opportunity to make better decisions.
No.1 goal for the next 12 months
Susan has a five-year plan, starting next year, to look for an exit for the company. She’s working on building a healthy EBITDA number while still serving her clients exceptionally.
Parting words
“Surround yourself with loving, supportive people that you can trust because you need them.”
Susan Frew
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