Profit Is A Choice

As owners, we build and build and work and work on our business. But what happens when we need to step away for a time? Can the business move on without us? What if we are out for a hot minute and someone needs to step in on our behalf, have we established a company that they can move into? On the podcast today, we will look at the areas we need to consider for continuity of service if we, the owner, need to take a sabbatical.

Today I'm bringing you a replay of a podcast that we launched in the first few months of our podcast back in 2018. This particular podcast was in response to a question that Tracy Taylor emailed and asked me about how she could figure out her financials backwards. I work with my clients to create a top-down and a bottom-up model of their financials. And on this episode, you will hear Tracy and I work through her numbers, I want you to really listen in for some actionable takeaways so that you can look at your business financials backwards.

• Strategy

• Intention

• Process

• Plan

• The biggest challenge to my business has been rebuilding and learning how to market myself in a new environment. Tracie Taylor (04:37) 

   

• The missing pieces I needed in order for me to grow were finding a business coach to work with and creating and organizing the financial systems. Tracie Taylor (10:00) 

   

• Pricing plays into marketing and we need to ask ourselves who is our ideal client and what are the services and packages we offer? Michele (11:20) 

   

• Success happens by making sure the financials and marketing are working together. Michele (12:07) 

   

• Where the company is, where you live and the clients you serve can be different things. It is that personal conversation that needs to be had to understand what is fair and reasonable when pricing and charging for your ideal client. Michele (55:34) 

• Email: [email protected]

• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting

• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Website: ScarletThreadConsulting.com

• LinkedIn: Michele Williams

• AIM Masterclass - Watch now

• Understanding Your Financials™ Course

Joining me on the podcast today is Jack Tompkins of Pineapple Consulting. Jack and I met back in 2019. And we shared the love of numbers and metrics instantly. Jack and I began working together early in 2020 to bring visuals to my clients and now we have joined forces to create matric solutions, a software application for creative business owners, and to give you the ability to see your KPIs in a quick visual dashboard. And so today on this show, we are going to talk specifically about the power of seeing your financials in one place and at one time.

I am so excited to have Carol Lang, of Carol Lang Interiors in NJ, on the podcast with me today. Carol is an excellent designer who has really learned to create her own path forward in this industry. We will be sharing her journey of discovery to clarify what she wants out of her business, and how that work is iterative and ongoing. I hope you enjoy!

• Strategy

• Flexibility

• Decision criteria

• Intentional growth

• I thought this is big. I'm doing this by myself and I could use an expert to help guide me. You gave the analogy, you know, it's a lot harder to turn a cruise ship than it is a little speedboat and I thought oh, I'm a speedboat. Carol Lang (4:21) 

   

• The staffing decisions that I make are to be made so that I don't need somebody sitting next to me all the time. And that if I can build a team of people, anywhere on the East Coast, that's a great thing. Why not take advantage of resources that are out there that I might not have available in my, little neck of the woods here in New Jersey. Carol Lang (10:44) 

   

• One of the most clarifying moments for me came when I did the strategy work that you've done, and I said, what do I want to do? What is your why? What is your mission? What is your vision? Michele (19:20) 

   

• I chose to wait to really blossom, if you will into the fullness of what I wanted to do without regard for I've got to be home at four o'clock and have dinner on the table and what's in the crock pot and what's in the airfryer. Michele (32:02) 

   

• If you really sit back and ask yourself, why you aren't doing what you think you want to do, or know you want to do. It's because we're either afraid of the outcome or afraid of what's going to happen. (Michele 40:36) 

   

• It's been really fun to be able to build on all of these little pieces of my life and history and make sure that it can come together in a in a way that is unique and different than what other people are offering. Carol Lang (43:26) 

• Email: [email protected]

• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting

• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Website: ScarletThreadConsulting.com

• LinkedIn: Michele Williams

• Email: [email protected]

• Website: http://carollang.com

• Instagram: @CarolLangInteriors

• Pinterest: @CarolLangInteriors

• Facebook: Carol Lang Interiors

• AIM Masterclass - Watch now

• Managing Business Growth Expectations for Interior Designers Ep 115 with Jeremy and Chandler Quarles

• How to Create an Interior Design Business to Sell Ep 171 with John Warrillow

On the podcast today with me, again is Kelcee Sparks. And she is the Director of Operations and Success for Scarlet Thread Consulting. You might remember that Kelcee and I did Episode 168, together on how to hire an operations person for your design firm. And in that episode, if you haven't listened you may want to go check it out. We discussed operations, building trust, working within your zone of genius and process, we really focused on what an operations person did and why you might need one. Today, we're going to go a little bit deeper. And we're going to really focus on the details of being ready, creating the first steps to move in the direction of hiring an operations person, we're going to talk 30-60-90 day plans. And we're also going to talk about creating a hybrid, so that sometimes the person may be in the office, and sometimes they may be working remotely. And so I hope that you gather a lot from this and are able to put it into practice.

• Client Experience 

• Team Management

• SOPs

• Communication

• Having either an additional resource that can work remotely that can do those tasks, or allowing your boots on the ground in office person time to be able to focus on those tasks could really benefit the company to have some very dedicated and focused time to accomplish the task before them. Michele (7:57) 

   

• That's where your clients see the biggest benefit from our operations support that we provide them in the program is because they do have to stop and focus on the bigger picture. Kelcee Sparks (8:44) 

   

• The five areas that we focus on are the client experience, team management, project management, vision, and clarity. From that, you develop a plan for our clients that says, here's where we need to start. Michele (14:53) 

   

• As operations people, our expertise is breaking those big goals down and realistically setting expectations for you and for us. Kelcee Sparks (16:36) 

• Email: [email protected]

• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting

• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Website: ScarletThreadConsulting.com

• LinkedIn: Michele Williams

• AIM Masterclass - Watch now

• How to Hire an Ops Person for Your Design Firm Ep 168 with Michele Williams

• How Successful Interior Designers Delegate to Their Team Ep 135 with Michele Williams

• The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months by Brian P. Moran

Do you currently create a budget for your new year and then manage to it? If so, you are going to enjoy this podcast. If not, I ask that you listen with an open mind and perhaps are swayed to begin this process of financial management. Either way – let’s talk about budgets and how to manage to them effectively in your firm.

• Create a budget

• Anchor points

• Review

• Plan

• Creating a budget can be a very detailed, arduous task, or it can be an opportunity to create a financial pathway to success. Michele (2:31) 

   

• The first step is to create a budget. I love to create mine simply by going into my QuickBooks Profit and Loss statement for the prior year and downloading it into Excel. The beauty of this is that it allows my budgeting to match line by line to my accounting software. Michele (3:01) 

   

• Creating a plan for the income that you expect is crucial to your ability to manage your finances with reduced stress. Michele (7:28) 

   

• That is the beauty of a budget. It is a blueprint for spending. It is like creating your meal plan or packing list for a trip and then going a bit on auto pilot knowing everything will work together. Michele (10:57) 

• Email: [email protected]

• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting

• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Website: ScarletThreadConsulting.com

• LinkedIn: Michele Williams

• AIM Masterclass - Watch now

• How to Easily Set Reachable Money Goals in Your Design Firm Ep 138 with Michele Williams

• How to Easily Manage the Money Goals In Your Design Firm Ep 140 with Michele Williams

Joining me on the podcast today are Paige Risley and Beth Moffatt of We Recruit Well, both of these women have worked in the online space, both in positions of being virtual assistants. And now they have pulled together their resources and created a company, We Recruit Well, where they help place online resources for your company. And so we're going to talk today about what that process looks like, how to be prepared for hiring, and how to make sure that you are matched with the correct person.

• Online Assistance 

• Hiring 

• Preparation 

• Interviews 

• We're looking specifically for somebody that can fit and work with that specific business owner and within their industry. Paige Risley (10:19) 

   

• I think many businesses have learned over the last two years, that there is an opportunity to find candidates with higher skill sets and the pandemic has shown us that remote works. I can imagine the virtual world has exploded over the last two years because people are realizing you don't have to be beside me. Michele (20:28) 

   

• We can help you talk through all the different areas where you see gaps, and help you figure out how many hours a week you may need. But I will tell you, I don't think we've ever had anyone start out at 5 or 10 hours a week that didn't immediately grow to 20, 30, even up to full time. Beth Moffatt (22:25) 

   

• We want to see someone who really wants to serve, it just really lights their fire to serve other people. Beth Moffatt (33:46) 

   

• I think that trust is a big piece of it. I know that all the people on my team helping me, are here to try to help me do all the other things so I can go do the work I do best. Michele (36:26) 

   

• A personal indicator that I need help is I am not sleeping at night, I don't want to get out and go on my run, I am exhausted and my brain doesn't shut down. That's an indication I'm doing too much and I need help. I need to start off-boarding things. You don't want to get there. The joy of that virtual assistant is if you bring somebody in at 5 or 10 hours a week, they have plenty of room to grow with you. Paige Risley (46:13) 

   

• When a company itself works well internally, and the overflow of that, to the companies that have the ability to work with them in some capacity, it's heightened and noticeable. Michele (50:05) 

• Email: [email protected]

• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting

• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Website: ScarletThreadConsulting.com

• LinkedIn: Michele Williams

• Email: [email protected] 

• Website: WeRecruitWell.com

• LinkedIn: We Recruit Well  

• Facebook: We Recruit Well 

• Instagram: @werecruitwell 

• Pinterest: @werecruitwell  

• AIM Masterclass - Watch now

• EP 134: How to Hire the Best Assistant for Your Interior Design Business with Laura Licursi

• EP 135: How Successful Interior Designers Delegate to Their Team with Michele Williams

• EP 168: How to Hire an Ops Person for Your Design Firm with Michele Williams

Joining me on the podcast today is Peter Lang, owner of the designer CPA, Peter and I both have a heart for supporting this industry with good financial practices and understanding. And today we're going to talk about what we see as kind of the lifecycle, if you will, of bookkeeping and bookkeeping needs and the overwhelming hole and desire in the industry to have better bookkeeping practices. So I hope you enjoy the podcast and are able to see where you fit in the bookkeeping trajectory.

• Bookkeeping 

• Accounting 

• Hiring 

• Internal processes 

• When all the work comes, whether it's the accounting, the bookkeeping, or the financials, you're going to start seeing fracture points in a business; when the weight comes in, you're going to see the weak links. Michele (3:19) 

   

• The longer you wait to start, the longer it's going to take to fix and then it's just like a snowball and you just don't want to get there. So, starting off on the right foot and making sure that you find the right person for your business. Peter Lang (24:36) 

   

• Don't forget that you can charge admin fees. So, if you increase your rates to include some administrative costs, or to really have a true understanding of what it takes to run your business, you can build into your fees to have the support for somebody to do the billing and the reconciliation. Michele (25:50) 

   

• Our job and our role is to support what is best for that client to give them information, to help them understand so that our clients can make the best decision for where they want to go in the business and what they want to do. Michele (46:23) 

   

• Just because you have a great situation today doesn't mean it's going to be a great situation in three months from now or next year. Peter Lang (52:16) 

• Email: [email protected]

• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting

• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Website: ScarletThreadConsulting.com

• LinkedIn: Michele Williams

• Website: TheDesignerCPA.com

• Facebook:TheDesignerCPA

• Instagram: @thedesignercpa

• Twitter: TheDesignerCPA

• Email: [email protected]

• AIM Masterclass - Watch now

Each year we go through a process of setting our financial goals for the following year, or at least we should. And I don’t use the “should” word without consideration. Many of us hate to be told what to do, so my hope is that in this podcast you understand the why behind it and you decide for yourself that you ‘should’ create financial goals.

• Metrics

• Financial goals

• Top-down

• Bottom-up

• Taking the time to really understand my financials was a life and business saver for me – and it can be for you. Michele (2:27)

   

• Top-down financials allows you to begin with the total sales or revenue you want to bring in. When we use this method, often we are comparing it to the prior year and choosing either a number or a percentage increase. Michele (3:03)

   

• Bottom up starts with defining out the net profit and how it will be used. Many start by creating their salary first, then taxes and company profit, bonuses, etc. and adding all that up. Michele (4:56)

   

• Creating this high-level financial set of goals will allow you to do other financial tasks to truly take control of your numbers. Michele (7:45)

• Email: [email protected]

• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting

• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Website: ScarletThreadConsulting.com

• LinkedIn: Michele Williams

• AIM Masterclass - Watch now

• A Well-Designed Business by Luann Niagara & Friends

• Backwards Financials For the Win Ep 11 with Tracie Taylor

• Understanding Your Financials™ Course

With me today is Rachael Bozsik, an international speaker and the “go-to” elite personal branding coach for high achieving interior designers. Rachael has been featured in Forbes, Glamour, at Harvard Business School, Oprah’s Leadership Academy and more. Our conversation today will focus on building out your niche, your authority and your visibility to attract your ideal client and keep your pipeline full.Topics Mentioned:

• People pay more for a specialist 

• Confidence is a muscle to be flexed 

• Create leveraged trust 

• Have a velvet rope policy 

• What I recognized was, it's an issue in personal branding. They needed to identify who they are and how to market themselves. Rachael Bozsik (7:03) 

   

• If we focus on the not yet, it leads to anxiety, because all we can see is we haven't made it, it's on the horizon. But if we stop and look backwards, and balance that out, we can see what we have accomplished that has prepared us to be where we are and for what we're going to do. Michele (15:17) 

   

• It's usually a disconnect between understanding the value and quality of what you're already putting out there and being able to capitalize on that, and the velvet rope policy. Michele (32:35) 

   

• If you want to be solid, you cannot be positioning yourself as a general expert. Rachael Bozsik (33:04) 

• Email: [email protected]

• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting

• Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL

• Website: ScarletThreadConsulting.com

• LinkedIn: Michele Williams

• Website: RachaelBozsik.com

• Instagram: @rachaelbozsik

• Email: [email protected] 

• AIM Masterclass - Watch now

• EP 027: Referrals Without Asking For A Full Pipeline with Stacey Brown Randall

• 142: 3 Reasons to Take Your Design Business on Vacation with Michele Williams

• EP: 150: 6 Layers of Referral Strategy for Your Interior Design Business with Stacey Brown Randall