Business Strategy for CPA's

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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I have four clients who have similar businesses. Very similar women from the same town. Yet they’re in different places in their business. Why? Because of the thoughts, beliefs, perspectives and filters that they have.

This is the power of the mind to shape what you create.

In this episode I want to dive into how your thoughts create your life.

Back in Episode 022, I talked about unintentional thoughts which inform unintentional feelings and emotions, out of which you make choices, which lead to your actions, which yield your results. And you compile your results over time and that’s how you create your life.   

If you want to change your life and grow your business, you need to change your thoughts. If want to get to the next level, you’ve got to develop a new series of thoughts, a new perspective, and have new filters so that you can create the next level of what you want in your life. You have to change your thinking.

You have to examine your unintentional thoughts so that you don’t live your life by default. What I want for you is to be thinking intentional thoughts.

You need to be thinking intentional thoughts to generate the feelings that you want to feel, to make the choices you want to make that are going to lead to the actions and results that you want to get.

And if you’re not getting what you expect to get, then you go and create it for yourself.

This is one of the things that I do with my clients. To help them imagine the business that they want to have, the life that they want to have. Head on over to my website if you’re ready to get the clarity that you’re looking for.

What was your takeaway from this episode? Come share in the She Thinks Big private Facebook Group. It’s free, and it’s the best place to be if your big ideas need airtime and support to grow.

Watch: Awareness Test

Work with Geraldine Carter:

Strategy Session

1:1 Coaching

VIP Day

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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It’s the end of the quarter, and I want to know if you’re on track and if you met your Q1 goals. And today I today I want to talk to you more broadly about setting goals. Many of you set goals, many of you don’t. So I want to share with you

1. How you benefit from having clear goals
2. What topics or KPI’s you might set goals around
3. Setting ranges
4. What’s great about quarterly goals
5. Address the emotional aspect around goal setting, because many of you get tripped up here in a few key ways
6. #1 Mistake I see my own clients make when setting goals - so I will share that at the end.

   Goals in your business are like the rudder is in a sailboat. It helps you track a course. It helped you go in the direction you want. You catch/harness the energy of the universe in your sails, and your goals point you toward where you want to get.  If your boat doesn’t have a rudder, it just gets blown in the direction of the wind. If your business doesn’t have goals, it’s going to float along with the whim of the month.

   Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland, If you don’t know "If you don't know where you're going, any road'll take you there". Yogi Berra said, You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there. 

   Goals help to design where you want to go. It’s in the process of setting goals that you gain clarity of what you need to do to achieve your goals, and it / they also help you determine your priorities moving forward.

   Clear goals also show you where you need to focus your time, and where you need to focus your mind. It’s with your mind that you create your business and your life, so reigning in your thoughts and pointing them all in the same direction will enable you to achieve your goals more quickly.

   Setting goals helps you identify what is working in your business, and what is not.

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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Do you have trouble making decisions quickly and with clarity? Do you get stuck spinning, thinking the same thoughts again and again with no new insights? Do grapple, overthink, and wonder if you're missing something?

In today's episode, I offer up a simple and easy-to-use tool for making better decisions faster and with increased clarity. 

I use the analogy of Mendel (did you know he was a monk?) and his pea plants, to help illustrate how your thinking can be spread out to better see information that is hiding right in front of you. 

The challenge is that, in making a decision, people tend to focus on the "fear" box of the matrix, and then fixate on it, as if that particular outcome is a highly likely occurrence - which, usually it is not. Or at least, it's effects can be mitigated with appropriate forethought. 

What they miss seeing, because they are fixated on the "fear" box, is a more legitimate concern, hiding in plain sight in another part of the quadrant, that is a much more likely scenario, and, a worse outcome. 

I walk through 6 examples to illustrate how this plays out, and provide you with a blank template tool that you can easily use when faced with a decision that has you stuck.  You can download it here. 

***NEWS FLASH*** 

If you are looking for clarity around one or two key topics in your business, consider a Lightning Strategy Session. In 45 minutes, we can help you find the clarity you need and deserve to run your business better. The price goes up to $497 on May 1st, but you can book one now for $297. Know that I would love to help you grow your business. 

What was your takeaway from this episode? Come share in the She Thinks Big private Facebook Group.  It’s free, and it’s the best place to be if your big ideas need airtime and support to grow.

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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Do you have your sights set on a conference or event that you want to speak at? How can you increase your chances of being chosen? Today I talk with Julie Fry, the owner of Business Among Moms, and the Business Among Moms Success Summit.

Julie tells us her best Do’s and Don’ts around the process of applying to speak. We also talk about how to get the most out of attending a conference, what to think about in advance, and who you might want to speak with.  

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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Your questions around financials and KPIs in your business get answered in this conversation with Hannah Smolinkski, of BrightenUp Financial. 

As a Virtual CFO, Hannah is a strategic partner in the financial side of owners' businesses. 

We talk about the importance of tracking Key Performance Indicators, which ones to track, and what each one can reveal. A favorite is Net Cash: a measure of your overall debt. It's not on your Balance Sheet: you need to calculate it by hand. 

We talk about how women differ from men in running their businesses, and that it is borne out in the numbers. 

We also include a number of links to resources you might find helpful in managing the numbers in your business. 

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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In Part 2 of this series, we find the rest of the $50K hiding in plain sight in your business. Common places include: -Opportunities flying past you unseen -Losing money to bad hires and subcontractors -Clients who are lovely people but who are energy drags as clients -Underestimating RFPs -Bonus for those who bill insurance: not staying up-to-date on billing schedules. 

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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I list out 10 places I look in my clients’ Profit and Losses, while I cross-reference their calendar, to find more than $200,000. Of course, most people are not leaving money on the table in all ten of these places. But it’s not uncommon for me to have clients who are leaving $75,000 on the table, every year. 

Easy targets are areas around unclear or weak boundaries: friends-and-family discounts, last-minute cancellations, and scope creep. 

Another place to look is pricing: many of my clients have not increased their rates in years – not just to cover inflation and cost of living increase, but to reflect their increase in value as their skills grow. Women also tend to undervalue their services by 28% compared to men who do the same work, according to a recent study by Freshbooks. 

In a recent article, Natalie Eckdahl, host of the Biz Chix podcast, discussed how women entrepreneurs are creating their own glass ceiling when it comes to rates – that women themselves set. 

Raising your rates to reflect the value you offer, either in services or in RFPs, is the single biggest lever for finding $50K hiding in plain sight in your business. 

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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If you struggle with email, if your gmail inbox is a source of distraction, stress, and overwhelm, and if you tend to your email in an order that is not based on importance or priority, then this episode will be a huge help.

Inside an hour you can set up a simple system of labels that will help you right away. You will get that time back in no time.

Use categories of labels: one by priority, and another by topic. 

See the screen shots of my own label system and grab the PDF download of the steps - both available in the shownotes. 

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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Many of us have an undercurrent of self-doubt running inside.

Perhaps it got put in place from a lifetime of others around you doubting you, doubting themselves, or even doubting others. Perhaps it came from a series of life experiences where you thought you knew what you were doing, but then... turns out you didn't.

No matter where it came from, self-doubt is likely to be showing up somewhere in your business. Here is how it shows up in my clients' businesses:

1. Paralyzed. Knowing what needs to be done, but not doing it. Just getting the basics done, but not reaching up for the next level of growth. 
2. Undercharging. Most of my clients are undercharging by significant amounts. Not just $5/hr. Often by 10-50% under what they could be charging, and what the market around them is charging. (I'm not advocating for price-gauging or ripping people off. I'm advocating for you charging what the value of your services is worth to people.)
3. (2b.) Fear of raising rates. "What if people hate me? Will I lose clients? Will they be mad? Are you sure I can do this?" All those questions lead to the fear, that keeps rates stuck where they are. 
4. Trying to do too much. As in, if you can get everything done, and make it all happen, and get your ducks in a row and poop in a scoop, that will somehow prove that you are actually ok. It looks like trying to be super-hero-amaz-a-mom, or any other cape that gets donned. 
5. Stuck in indecision. Can't decide, can't decide, can't decide... do nothing. 
6. Not trusting yourself... that you can handle whatever shows up. See #5, and #1 - they are interconnected.
7. Excellent Game-Face. To cover up faltering self-esteem. Which means you hide out, limit yourself, and don't put yourself out there... so the very people who need you cannot find you or your services. 

You can address your self-doubt, and loosen its grip. There are many ways; find 5 tools by downloading the PDF "How to Turn Self-Doubt into Confidence" here. 

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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