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How to Create a Generous Business: Leverage Your Profits

By |2021-04-08T14:28:50-07:00November 24th, 2020|Categories: Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , , |

I’m a big proponent of using a money system in your business for many reasons. One of those is the way it can make giving away money, or donating, so much easier. Today, we’re focusing on how to use your profits to be able to give freely in your business. In my series on money mapping, I wrote about setting up a profit account like the Profit First system suggests. I’ve also written about how you might use that profit account to donate money. This post will be a more in-depth exploration of those concepts, so go ahead and read those posts if you haven’t already!

The Purpose of Profit

In my post “The In-Depth Guide to Mapping Your Money, and How it Can Fortify Your Business, Part II,” I describe the profit account in a money system this way:

The profit account accumulates and then is distributed quarterly. Business owners are encouraged to use their Profit Distributions to reward themselves for their hard work. This keeps the owner excited about and invested in the business. It also discourages any tendency to reinvest everything back into the business, or over-save.  Rewards can range from a day out to charitable giving, to really anything you want!

Note that last bit: charitable giving. Recently, I’ve made a couple posts about how to figure out what we really want to spend our money on. It has to do with our values – when we know what’s really valuable to us and we think about how to get that, we can spend our money in ways that are the most purposeful and fulfilling to us. We can spend in a way that brings us that feeling of “enough.”

Lynne Twist, author of The Soul of Money, describes this phenomenon this way: “When people were able to align their money with their deepest, most soulful interests and commitments, their relationship with money became a place where profound and lasting transformation could occur.” Imagine doing this every quarter with your quarterly profit distribution! To create a generous business and get the most satisfaction from your profits, I encourage you to engage in some soul searching. Think about what the word “generous” means to you and what you might do with your money to embody this word.

A Generous Business is a Happy Business

One suggestion I’d like to make here, is sharing your profit distribution in the form of holiday bonuses for any employees or independent contractors you work with. Appreciate the work they do by sharing your profits. Receiving their thanks and building up a relationship of mutual appreciation can be one of the most satisfying ways to use your profit distribution. It can also improve the overall quality of your work life! Because I advise clients to use the money accumulated in their profit account every quarter, the last distribution of the year comes up during the holidays. This is the perfect time to show employees some appreciation.

Be For Your Community

This year has given us more opportunities than ever to show up for our community as small business owners. I encourage you to think about organizations in your local community or on a larger level that you would like to show visible support for with your business. I wrote a post about thinking about your business’s role in your community called “How to Step Up for Your Community as a Business Owner,” that you might like to read to get some more thoughts on this subject.

One way your business can give (that’s coming up soon!) is by participating in #GivingTuesday on Tuesday December 1st. Here’s their guide for small businesses who want to participate. For GivingTuesday, At Peace With Money is supporting Violence in Boston and Second Harvest Food Bank, just to give you some ideas!

I hope this post inspires you to be generous this season! If you would like to work with someone to develop a money system which enables you to feel abundant and be generous, schedule a curiosity call with me. I’m happy to chat and see if we can work together.

☮

Angela

Image: Kelly Sikkema 

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My Current Financial Goals!

By |2021-04-08T15:21:07-07:00September 3rd, 2020|Categories: Financial Clarity, Personal Savings|Tags: , , , , , , |

So frequently, I talk about goals and planning and money systems here. But rarely do I share with you what’s going on behind the scenes for me. Today I want to give you all a look into my financial goals, and how systems work in my business.

System at Work

In my own business, I use a money mapping system that helps me allocate funds from my business for different purposes. If you haven’t read my full series on money mapping, I recommend doing so by clicking on the links above. My money mapping system helps me to allocate a portion of the income I make for saving up for my financial goals. I have a habit of over-saving, so it’s important for me to have a system in place that helps me navigate how much to spend and how much to save. If this sounds familiar to you too, check out my article on over-saving, and how overcoming it can help you! Making this discovery has definitely been helpful for me.

Goals: Big and Small

The goals that I’m currently leveraging my money system to save up for range from small things to big life events. Last November, I bought a 2016 Rav-4, so one of the goals I’m working on is paying off my car loan. I am also saving up to do a motorcycle tour of New Zealand! Originally I had a target date for this goal, but now things depend on when COVID-19 is no longer an issue, so things are a bit more flexible. You can read more about my motorcycling journey (and how being a small business owner helped me with that!) here. My last goal has less to do with saving and more with just practicing good financial hygiene. My husband is hoping to retire soon, so we’re keeping an eye on our spending to make sure we can live within our means when that happens!

Hopefully this post has given you a flavor for my goals, and helped you think about what yours might be too! For more help here, check out my article “Know Your Money Why.”

☮
Angela

 

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How to Do a Business Check-In

By |2020-07-31T15:24:48-07:00July 31st, 2020|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset, Small Business|Tags: , , , , , , , , |

So, how is your business doing these days? We find ourselves just past the halfway point of an exceptionally challenging year.  It’s likely circumstances in your business and your life have changed. Now’s the perfect time to take a pause and check in with your business. How are you doing with your goals? In the thick of things, sometimes our focus on our goals can get a little murky. Below, I share a process for reviewing your business with an eye towards those goals, and celebrating what you’ve already done. Here’s the step-by-step:

Review

When you take a look at the goals you’re working towards, it’s easy to get bogged down by focusing on what you still need to do. Instead, train your focus on what you’ve already done.

Start by making a list of milestones you’ve hit or steps you’ve completed. Rifle through your day planner or old to-do lists if you need a refresher. Go back through the year, month by month. Especially because it’s likely this year required you to adapt to COVID-19, there are likely some changes to note.

Now, it’s time for a little introspection. Take stock of all the actions you’ve taken towards your goals, and then ask yourself a few questions: How do I feel about this goal? Do I still want to achieve it by the end of the year? Is that feasible? At what pace have I been able to work toward this? What’s my capacity been like?

Don’t be afraid to drop things or add new things. Some goals may simply no longer excite you, or you may have realized that another objective is more important or time sensitive.

During this review process, it’s also helpful to take a look at the systems and work routines you have in place for your business. For example, you may have set an intention to review your numbers once a week, or you may be trying out the a money mapping system. Evaluate the effectiveness of your systems and routines. Are they working for you? Do you have time to do these things? Are you consistent? You may find that your routines need to be simplified or tweaked to be more pleasant or attainable. Or, you might find that your systems and routines are working just fine! Both are vital evidence when checking in on your business.

Finally, it’s a good idea to check in on how much you’re earning. Perhaps you’ll want to take time to consider your hourly wage, or look into revenue cycles in your business. Checking in with where your business is at financially is key in this step.

Learn and Adapt

Next, it’s time to use all of that evidence you’ve gathered to adapt your goals and practices. First, notice if you have any goals that you are either discarding or adding. Then, examine the pace at which you’ve worked on your goals. These pieces are important when it comes to planning out the rest of your year.

I recommend drawing or writing out a map for the next six months. Include any events relevant to your business, like conferences, trade shows, or gallery openings. Then, begin to write in milestones you hope to meet in the next six months. Make sure these are realistic! Don’t pressure yourself to level up in three months if it took you six to get where you are now. Instead, allow yourself the space and time to achieve things incrementally.

When you’re making your plan, be sure to adapt your goals to what’s worked so far this year. If you really love a certain routine or feel fired up to keep working toward a certain goal, go for it. If you’ve stalled on a project because you need to do more research, carve out some time to go back to the drawing board. When charting your course, keep your own needs and preferences in mind.

Now that you’ve reviewed your work so far and adapted your strategies and goals appropriately, it’s time for the next few steps. These are intended to really up the feeling of getting a fresh start, while enjoying your business for what it is: a way to meet your life goals.

Refresh

For an extra dash of clarity and focus, include a refresh in your review process! Now is the time to do whatever necessary maintenance you might need to grease the wheels of your business. You might clean your workspace, clear your inbox, or centralize your passwords. Attend to your physical and digital spaces. Check in with your finances, and schedule an appointment with a bookkeeper.

This is usually my favorite part of the review process, because I make time to do all the little things that have been nagging me, like scheduling lower priority appointments, finding that one piece of paper, and sometimes making a new goal chart for myself. Giving yourself the space to get organized can save you time and effort down the road.

Celebrate

Go back to step one, and take stock again of all you’ve done this year, including this review process. Chances are, you will find you’ve done quite a bit of work towards your goals, no matter how close you might be to completing them! Take some time to celebrate all the work you’ve done. Treat yourself to an afternoon off, a fun or inspiring event, or whatever you’d like to do to celebrate your achievements so far! Being a solopreneur is hard work. If you’ve done the work, you deserve to cheer yourself on once in a while.

I hope this outline has given you some ideas for checking in with your goals and your business. If you’d like someone to engage in this process with you, this is something I love to do with my bookkeeping and coaching clients. Please feel free to review my services and schedule a curiosity call.

☮

Angela

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The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Business

By |2020-07-10T13:20:06-07:00July 10th, 2020|Categories: Profit First, Taxes|Tags: , , , , , |

Today I am excited to bring you a client success story. With the tax deadline coming up swiftly, tax preparations have been on my desktop and my mind. But they haven’t been weighing down my clients, because of the tools we use to prep for tax season.

The Story

I have one client that I’ve worked with for several years now. In the beginning of my time working with them, taxes were a huge, stressful burden. By using a money mapping system that relies on Profit First principles, we were able to start setting aside money to pay taxes. In 2019, the client had an excellent year and made a lot of money. In ordinary times, this would be great. However, because we faced lower income this year due to the pandemic, if we hadn’t saved ahead of time, we would have found ourselves in disaster come tax season. Thanks to the money system we instituted, we had our tax payments completely covered, even with lower revenue this year.

The Success

Now my client and I are happily relishing in a worry-free tax season. Saving for taxes is one of the best things we’ve done for this business. It’s helped us avoid a lot of sticky financial problems and kept things running smoothly.

Our success is all thanks to the money mapping system we use. I’ve written a series on money mapping that you can read through to get a sense of how to put this tool to work. Aside from tax season, it has a lot of other benefits, like reminding you to save and making your work in your business feel meaningful. This process of creating a money system is a big part of what I do with my clients. You can book a curiosity call with me if you want to know more about how the process might apply to you.

A Little Reminder

Just in case you don’t get my newsletter, here’s a PSA: By July 15th, your 2019 taxes are due to be filed and paid, if you owe. You are also required to turn in your first and second quarter estimated taxes for this year. Please read my article on 5 Steps to Get Ready for Tax Time to get prepped. I’m also happy to offer my services – please don’t hesitate to reach out. 

☮

Angela

Image by Javier Sierra 

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How to Step Up For Your Community As a Business Owner

By |2020-06-10T10:17:45-07:00June 10th, 2020|Categories: Money Mindset, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , , |

Community is absolutely key to the business owner. Recent events have called on us over and over to think about how we’re all connected. The COVID-19 pandemic made it more obvious than ever how we all depend on each other, while the protests happening around the country call on each of us to reflect how we interact with each other and the ways we enable racist policing to continue. Throughout all of this, one of my main pieces of advice has been to stay checked in with other business owners, clients, and other community members. From staying in touch with your audience via social media like Bri Crabtree, to leaning on your money team to make financial decisions, community is very important to a business. No solopreneur exists in a vacuum. So, during this time of unrest and reckoning with our racist past and present, it’s important that we each recognize our responsibilities as community players. 

In this post, I’ll talk about the importance of taking time to reflect on your role in your community, and what you can do now to support Black lives. Whether its fellow business owners, youth in your community, or medics and community workers, many people are in need of support and resources. This is our opportunity to step up as business owners. Let’s dive in: 

Reflect

Take time to consider how you’ve shown up in your community prior. Whether it was donating your goods or services to a local fundraiser, or starting a project that raised money for a specific cause, consider your past efforts. If you’ve never embarked on a project like this, have you had any ideas about it in the past? Reflect on your values and your personal desires to get involved and be supportive to others. What motivates you? It is to your great benefit to build a network in your community of people and causes you support, and who support you in turn. 

Reach Out for Feedback

Ask friends who are involved how your business could support community efforts. If you have friends who are currently involved in anti-racism work, ask them how you could support them or amplify their message. You’ll likely receive some fresh suggestions.

Take Cues From Other Businesses

In my newsletter this month, I highlighted Ben & Jerry’s statement on recent events, “Silence is Not an Option.” Along with this statement, they have also released a new flavor that benefits four different organizations “working on the front lines of the peaceful resistance, building a world that supports their values.” While Ben & Jerry’s is a fairly large corporation, their example is inspiring for businesses of all sizes. 

Here’s an idea more to scale for many of us. Many solopreneurs on Instagram are participating in the #amplifymelanatedvoices challenge, to uplift Black and Brown solopreneurs. Quieting their own social media presences and spotlighting these creators helps them materially, but also creates stronger networks of community among these solopreneurs. Some business owners have also been donating free services or products to Black people and organizations. For example, I’ve seen several herbal apothecaries that are offering free herbal products and consultations for Black people and organizers. 

Do some research and find out what others in your industry are doing, and how businesses in your area are responding to the moment. Then think about what you can do for your community that is authentic, helpful, and realistic given your resources. To ensure your actions are concretely helpful to the Black community, check out this read on do’s and don’ts of allyship. 

Consider Your Resources

All businesses are not alike, and while you may not have the resources to release a new ice cream flavor, perhaps you can use your platform to speak out. Simply adding your voice as a business owner to the current discussion around the importance of Black lives and the horrors of police misconduct can be helpful. The same goes at another time for another issue.

Perhaps you can donate your time or services to a cause, or offer them for free for Black or low-income people in your area. You might create a fundraising offering, where a certain percentage of proceeds goes to fund an organization in your community. If you get creative, there are many ways to chip in and stay in your business’s budget. Next week, I’ll be talking about how to use money mapping to figure out how much you can give to causes. Stay tuned for that. 

Above all, remember that whatever effort you make to contribute to your community, if you make it with good intentions, know that it will be appreciated, and likely returned to you down the road. The more we create good networks that are based truly on helping each other, the more we can each succeed in our endeavors. If you’d like another reflection-based exercise to go along with all this, check out my posts on how to do a mid-year review. 

☮

Angela

Image by Joan Villalon

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How to Prepare Your Business for a Fulfilling Last Quarter

By |2021-10-08T11:29:12-07:00October 8th, 2021|Categories: Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , , |

Preparing your business for the final quarter of the year is crucial to both business profits, and your own personal fulfillment. It’s easy to get caught in the holiday rush. Instead, set aside some time to be more intentional. Think about how you want the next three months to go.

Today, let’s talk about a couple different exercises you can use to reflect on your year so far and plan for the time ahead. If you’re feeling ready for a fully fleshed-out review process, you can also check out my article on doing a business check-in.

Reflect and Celebrate the Past 9 Months

Take some time to acknowledge how far you’ve come in the last nine months. If you set yearly goals, check in with the progress you’ve made. Then take a look at all the other things that came your way this year. Even the most focused of us get sidetracked by one thing or another. Running a small business involves a lot of surprises and opportunities. What did you do this year that was unexpected? What are you glad you had the chance to do or participate in? 

Take stock of all the progress and change from this year. If it doesn’t feel like much, compare where you are now to this time last year. Celebrate and congratulate yourself. If you have a profit account, distribute your profits and reward yourself. 

Review and Tweak Your Goals

Now, take another look at any goals you’ve set. Ask yourself a couple questions about them:

  • Do you need to tweak them or change them to make them more realistic?
  • Do they still resonate with you?
  • How can you reach out for support with meeting these goals? 

Factor in the holidays and make sure you’re giving yourself the time and space you need for other parts of your life as well. Any income goals you’re working toward should be based on your actual lifestyle needs, not just numbers that sound nice.

Backwards Timeline

Once you’ve got your goals in place, it’s time to make a plan to reach them over the next three months. One technique I love for charting a path toward goals is called backwards timelining. Essentially, this means is planning backwards from the point in time when you want to have achieved the goal. Make a plan for each goal, divide the plans up into baby steps, and map them out over time.

In this case, you would plan backwards from December. I highly recommend that you also plan to take some time off for the winter holidays, so factor that into your plan! If you don’t want to be working up until the 31st, start your timeline at Friday December 17th, or a similarly spacious date.

Along with considerations for what will likely be a busy holiday season in your already full life, it’s important to keep your time optimism in check. “Time optimism” refers to a person’s tendency to overestimate how quickly they’ll be able to get a specific task done. Especially if your plan to reach a goal requires doing tasks you’re less familiar with, it’s important to ward against time optimism. You’re likely unsure how long those unfamiliar tasks may take to complete. A simple technique to give yourself ample time to complete a task is to simply double the amount of time you think you’ll need.

If you enjoyed this resource on preparing your business for the last quarter of the year, you’ll probably also like reading The Cash Flow Reboot Guide, my free eBook on adapting your business to changing financial circumstances. It’s 9 pages and full of quick tips and ideas to help you plan out a stellar last quarter of 2021. Download it for free here.

☮

Angela

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez

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Boost Your Happiness By Clarifying Your Lifestyle Costs

By |2021-10-01T15:08:59-07:00September 24th, 2021|Categories: Personal Savings, Personal Spending, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , |

Your business exists to support you; to fulfill your needs. If you don’t have a clear picture of what those needs are, it can be difficult for your business to fill them.

That’s why it’s so important to have a clear idea of your lifestyle costs. This gives you a foundation for your income goals. Here, you can clearly see the relationship between your personal and business finances. Below, let’s talk about a couple reasons why getting clear on your lifestyle costs is key.

Set Clear Goals

When you are clear on your lifestyle costs, you’re able to set income goals in your business that reflect how much money you actually need to live a satisfying life. You can make decisions about how much of your lifestyle costs you want/need your business to cover. As your business grows to support you, you gain a sense of fulfillment from running your business, and living an abundant life.

“Fulfillment” is a great destination – figuring out what income number feels like enough to take you there is the important part. Your income goals provide you with a roadmap for your business, so making sure they’re based on covering your needs and wants is paramount.

Create a Solopreneur Paycheck

Your solopreneur paycheck, or owner’s pay, is the result of a finely-tuned money system that connects your business and personal finances. You can create a regular monthly paycheck for yourself, even if you don’t have a regular income. This can be especially helpful for people who go through feast-or-famine cycles in their finances, like performers or realtors.

Money-mapping is a great visualization tool that can help you build a solopreneur paycheck. Understanding your lifestyle costs and how much you want your business to support you will help you start to fill in the blanks.

How Do I Figure Out My Lifestyle Costs?

Ok, you’re sold. You’re ready to figure out how much your lifestyle costs, so you can start incorporating this figure into your business goals. So, how do you figure them out?

I have a couple resources for you! First off, the process of doing this is outlined in How to Tailor Your Income Goals to Your Lifestyle. This process mostly discusses things from a manual, paper-tracking point of view, but I also recommend using money-tracking software if you’re looking for a digital solution. Lastly, if you’re more of an audio/visual learner, you might like to hear what I had to say about how to define your lifestyle costs in last week’s episode of Financial Self Care Friday.

If you enjoyed reading this, you’d probably enjoy my free eBook, 9 Secrets to Financial Self Care. This 12-page e-Book will give you nine different steps to take towards creating a solid financial self care routine.

☮

Angela

Image: Eye for Ebony 

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