So I have one big question for you today…
How long are you going to keep spending like this?
I know you’ve struggled for money in the past. Let’s be honest, we all have at some point! But right now, your business is doing really well.
When your business starts making money, most people (understandably) go through a phase of splashing the cash. A new phone; upgrading your laptop; investing in a better webcam or microphone for your videos; subscriptions for more tech or the latest software that pings up in your feed and promises to make your life easier.
The problem comes when before you know it – even though you’re selling more and bringing in more money – you’re not making any more profit. Your costs are rising as fast as your revenue, because you’re spending more and more on ‘stuff’. Which can all start to feel a bit soul destroying!
So what can you do about it?
Well – there is NO shame in admitting that you’ve been overspending. We’ve all done it from time to time. Especially if you had no money for a long time (again, no judgement – we’ve all had no money at some point) and lots of the upgrades you’ve been spending on feel long overdue.
But it’s time to stop and take stock. You need a PLAN for your money and to actively grow your wealth, rather than just paying out more and more!
To start with, grab your business bank account statements. It’s great if you’ve got them on paper and you can work through them with a highlighter. If not, get your online banking open, so you can see what’s been coming in and going out.
In an ideal world you’d look over the last three months BUT if you’ve only got time to go through the last one month, just do that. Don’t let the idea that you’ve ‘got’ to do three months be the thing that stops you, otherwise you won’t make any progress at all.
Look through your bank statement for the last complete month. Which of your outgoings are essential? Which are non-essential?
Categorise which outgoings are regular payments and which you paid as a one-off, that just happened to go out that particular month.
You’ll end up with two lists and from there you can work out which costs are ‘must-have’ and which are ‘nice-to-have’.
And when you look down the list, you might also realise that things are being duplicated. Maybe you’re paying for something like LeadPages or email software but now that you use Kajabi, you could do it all in one place.
Maybe you’re paying for a platform you used to host a course on but you’re no longer actively promoting it. And you could temporarily downgrade to the free version, until you decide what you’re actually going to do with the content.
Maybe you’re paying for subscriptions you’d totally forgotten about or for memberships you’re no longer using.
I closed my own membership last year, after I decided it was no longer aligned for my business. But one thing I learned from running a membership was that there were some people who paid for their subscription month in, month out and when I looked on the platform, they hadn’t logged in for more than six months. What a waste of money that is! So I drew a line under it.
And if you’ve got things you’re not using, maybe it’s time for you do the same and draw a line under them too. So have a look through your list quite critically and work out the best way forward for you.
One of the BIG advantages of going through this process is that it can also highlight if and where you’ve been overspending. Once you have that insight (and the numbers never lie!), you can make proactive decisions about what you want to change.
A final step that may be seem obvious – but that so many business owners overlook or never focus on – is to look at the actual amount of profit you’re making, rather than just your sales and turnover.
If the only time you hear about profit is at the end of the year, when your accountant tells you what your business made and how much tax you need to pay, it’s far too late to do anything about it.
Instead, profit is a figure we really do need to be looking at every single month. If you use online accounting software like Xero or QuickBooks, you can log in and see money in, money out and what your profit is at any point. It’s just making the time to do it.
And that’s the problem with all this stuff, isn’t it?!
Making the time to actually get it done!
And that’s exactly where I can help you – because it’s specifically built into my Magnetic Wealth™ programme!
Once a month, we have an Implementation Session together, where we log on to Zoom over lunchtime (so you can turn your camera off and eat your sandwich at the same time, if you want to!).
We spend about 15 minutes looking at your assets, your liabilities, and your profit. And when I say we look at it, I mean we each look at our own. We’re NOT sharing any of these figures with anyone else. It’s just about keeping yourself accountable and blocking out the time in your calendar, so you can take and feel in total control of your money.
And then we use the remaining hour of the session to work on whatever is going to move you forward on your financial journey this month.
It might be doing what we’ve talked about today – sitting down and going through your bank statements. Carving out the time to take action and once you’ve done it, it’s done.
Then next month, maybe you want to spend that time working out how much you need to be paying in your pension. You might decide to look at your life cover; to spend an hour setting up your new ISA or to start thinking about investment properties and where you might like to invest.
Basically – whatever the next thing on your wealth growth journey is, that’s what you spend this time doing.
And I know this can all feel a bit difficult, because sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know. When it comes to managing your money and growing your wealth, it can feel hard to know what to do for the best, let alone HOW to do it. But that’s the wonder of this programme!
The training sessions that are built in – month by month – allow you to learn ALL the stuff about finance and growing your wealth that you were never taught at school.
Like how to organise your bank accounts; how to get paid the same amount every month (no matter what happens in your business); all the things you can do with your money to build wealth for you, wealth for your family and wealth for the future.
We’ll talk about everything from setting up a charity to different investments like ISAs and pensions and VCTs. We’ll talk about the common things and some of the more uncommon things – and provide a safe space for you to ask ANY of the questions you want.
You’ll get to work 1:1 with me, too. Every quarter, we’ll get together to talk about your plan and your goals and help you take the next step forward. It’s a completely tailored wealth plan for you BUT with the support of other amazing entrepreneurs who ‘get’ it (which is just incredibly powerful).
So if that sounds good and you’re ready to take control of your money; control of your spending AND start truly building your wealth, like never before – here’s where you can get all the details about Magnetic Wealth right now.
If you’ve got any questions or if you want to chat it all through, just click here to message me personally on Facebook.
I’d genuinely love to welcome you in and support you on your journey, too….
And have fun getting to grips with your statements!
Until next time,
Claire