[JOE SANOK]
This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 693.

I’m Joe Sanok, your host, and welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast. If you are just joining us for the first time, welcome, really glad that you’re here. Glad you discovered us. You’ve got a couple episodes to listen to before this. We’re at 693, so plenty of things to cover. Also today’s episode is going to be awesome. If you are like me, grad school taught me Jack squat about money. I’m lucky that my parents gave me three jars when I was a kid to save, spend and give. I do that with my daughters. So money mindset was something that luckily my parents thought about. They gave me a few things there.

I remember my first skateboard that I bought, they said they’d pay half of, and I had to raise the other half as like a second grader and had no idea how to do that. Magically, the neighbors needed to have me fill their bird bath every day while they were on vacation. Then I earned 20 bucks for filling a bird bath, like who needs a bird bath filled every day, but little Joey Sanok walking next door, filling up the bird bath and learning responsibility. But most of us don’t get all those levels. Especially when we start getting into money, tax season, how much do we put away, how much do we pay ourselves?

We’ve had people like Mike Michalowicz who gave us the angle of profit first to talk about and today’s guest I’m really excited about to just have her own angle of how she thinks about money, what she thinks about. Danielle Hayden is on the show today. Danielle is a reformed corporate CFO who is on a mission to help rule breaking female entrepreneurs to understand their numbers so they can gain the confidence needed to create sustainable profits. She’s the author of the Profit Planner book series and when she’s not knee-deep in numbers, she’s hanging with her two kids and competing in the nearest Spartan race. Dang, welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast Danielle. So glad that you’re here today.
[DANIELLE HAYDEN]
Thanks Joe. I love your story that you told because not everybody gets that warm welcome into responsibility and that money mindset. You made me reflect on my own childhood for a moment there. My mom made me, I had to pay for half of my bike and she paid for half for my birthday and I had find money for the other. I was so mad, but I guess that came full circle and it worked out well.
[JOE]
Totally. Well even like, and you have kids also, like I’m raising my two daughters, so they get an allowance, but it’s not like it’s just given to them. So we have, what do you have to do to earn your allowance? They get anywhere from five to $10 a week, because I want them to have the money to buy things. It’s really interesting how there’ll be some app that’s really expensive, like 90 bucks a year and they’re like, we want it. I’m like, that sounds great. Let’s split it in thirds. You guys each pay 30 bucks for the year. Then they sit back and say, oh, maybe I don’t want that unicorn app as bad as I wanted because that’s three to four weeks of my income. So even at a young age, they’re starting to run those numbers. As a parent how do you think through money and numbers with your kids?
[DANIELLE]
I could probably have room for improvement. We did buy for my son Green Light. It’s an app with a debit card and I can assign him chores on there and a dollar value for each chore and then he has to complete those chores in order to get the money. Then he can spend that money at, I could even restrict where he goes with it, so that’s really helps with him.
[JOE]
How old is he just so I have a framework of —
[DANIELLE]
Yes, he’s 12.
[JOE]
Okay. Yes, mine are seven and 10.
[DANIELLE]
Okay, so getting close. The Green Light app really helped. My daughter’s 16. There wasn’t, if there was anything around like that, I didn’t know about it but I wasn’t necessarily giving an allowance and letting her carry around money. But I did encourage her to get a job really early on and I said, this isn’t about money. This was about learning responsibility and learning how to get paid and learning what it feels like when you spend all your money, you don’t have any leftover and now she’s a penny pincher. So that’s funny to watch, but I think that the biggest thing that raising kids has made me think about is the way just like sometimes I’m like, we can’t afford that. I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yes, we can hold on guys. It’s not that we can’t afford it. It’s that I choose not to spend my money there right now. Maybe we can decide if that’s a priority at another time, but you catch yourself, those like historical phrases that your parents use.
[JOE]
Well, and I think that even having those times where you say, this is why we save, so I can do this guilt free. So I actually just, yesterday flew back from Vegas. I was there for a TV show, interview thing for the book. I went with this friend of mine who wanted to go do these race cars and drive these fast cars. I’m so not a car guy and I’m like, but when else am I going to get this experience? It was like 500 bucks to do seven laps in this Audi. I got up to 184 miles an hour and it blew my mind. I’m really glad I did it. But to be able to do something like that, it’s, my cheap skate self would’ve said that’s 500 bucks you just blew versus okay, there’s experiences in life that I just want to have, whether it’s an awesome concert front row or something like that, that like, that’s why we’re smart with our money in other areas.
[DANIELLE]
I think traveling is my thing. You mentioned the Spartan races, that’s our thing. We’ll travel to a new city, do a Spartan race. It gets us out of our comfort zone and places that we’ve never would’ve seen otherwise but I think just having, like doing that, just actually being able to do that, gives our kids an example of saying, okay, hard work here, playing hard here, being able to do these types of things. So not everything is a money conversation. It’s also about living through our behaviors.
[JOE]
Well, I mean, money really just represents where we want to spend our time and energy in so many different ways. Now you really pivoted from CFO, that sort of stuff to helping primarily female entrepreneurs. Tell me about that pivot. I’m always interested in people that maybe take a more traditional route and say like, screw it, I’m going in a different direction. How’d that happen?
[DANIELLE]
It’s interesting. It almost wasn’t, it wasn’t planned honestly. I was working as a CFO and I was doing some volunteer work at a local entrepreneurship hub here in Cleveland, just to give back to the community. I was working with these entrepreneurs to put together budgets and over and over again, they would say, well, I don’t have any bookkeeping. I don’t understand what this means. What are these numbers? So at first I said, well, maybe I’ll become an outsource CFO so I can work for myself and still do that high level strategy work. Then the more I reflected on it, I said, wow, that’s not what the world needs. The world needs somebody to explain the numbers to entrepreneurs.

They don’t need another CFO. They need somebody who is going to welcome their questions in a nonjudgmental way and explain things in a way that’s not over their head and help them get the bookkeeping that they need so that they have the foundation because a lot of people would say, well, I’m trying to do this budget. I’m like, well, how can you do the budget if you don’t have any bookkeeping? They’re like, good question. I’m like, all right, let’s start with getting your books in order first and then we’ll plan for next year. Then slowly, the market told me what it needed. So I always tell my clients be receptive to what the world is telling you that they need.

Because it was a lot of women entrepreneurs who would say, gosh, I don’t want to go back to that tax accountant who made me feel less than, or I didn’t feel like my questions were heard or I felt too small. I don’t want to talk to my husband or my business partner about this or my mentor. They needed a safe space to be able to really come and say, “Hey guys, I’m lost. I’m confused. I don’t know what to do and help me.” Because it takes a level of bravery to say, I’m even the white flag. Somebody come help me please.
[JOE]
So just even thinking about my daughters and being a girl dad, and wanting to make sure that all those things in the world that they’re prepped for, whether it’s consent or like being able to stand up for themselves to just know that there’s people creating safe communities for women from our generation that maybe weren’t given those messages, that like they can do it and you can stand up. That’s so awesome. What are the like three to five numbers that, like startup, so people starting a counseling practice are getting it going. It’s their first, maybe three years. Here are the numbers that really from a dashboard perspective, you should know on a monthly basis, quarterly basis, what are those numbers that are really important in the startup phase?
[DANIELLE]
Oh, in the startup phase, this is a time that’s really all about cash. So unfortunately most businesses don’t make it past the first year. I can’t remember the percentage off the top of my head, but even less make it to the five year mark. I mean, if you made it to 10 years, you’re like the golden nugget because businesses are failing. Cash is an issue at every stage, but it is your number one issue when you were first starting out. If you have startup funds, so maybe you saved from your nine to five job or you’re taking out your 401k, which I do not advise but you maybe you’re cashing out your 401k and investing into your practice or whatever the startup funds are cash is king.

So we need to be monitoring our cash balance on a weekly basis. I really like the weekly dashboard. So this is what we do for a lot of our clients. We call it the weekly dashboard and it includes the cash, our credit cards, both what we owe and availability, the line of credit and our availability. So balance of availability. Who do I owe money to over the next 30 days? So I’m rebuilding my website, because startup phase, I’m doing a lot of website, legal fees, accounting fees, maybe mentor or coaching program. So you have a lot of that startup cost. Who are you going to pay over the next 30 days? What money do you have coming in the door over the next 30 days? What’s the net?

Because that’s what’s going to save you from making business decisions because you need to save that money. There’s an element of your comfort level in spending but what we see too often is that people really, they call it investment. So I’m investing in my business, however, we’re not investing smart. So if you can look at that weekly dashboard, it can really help you make business decisions.
[JOE]
Now, when you say saving cash, growing cash, right now at the time of this recording inflation in 2021 was higher than many previous years. Forecast for 2o22 is inflation’s going to continue to grow. There’s a lot of discussions about, well should I take really low debt of 1%, if I can then know that there’s going to be inflation? How do you think through cash just sitting in an account in the startup phase compared to the security it provides versus, I mean, I’m sure, we’ll get to the more advanced phases, but when you’re first starting up, is it, hey, it’s just a security blanket. Even if it’s not optimized, that’s okay. Like sure, you could get 8% to 10% in the market over 20 years, but right now we just don’t want you to sink if you can’t make rent. How do you think through cash and inflation in the startup phase?
[DANIELLE]
I just recently read the book, The Psychology of Money. It was a great read and he talks a lot about just the history of money, the stock market saving. He talks a lot about this so that’s why I bring it up. Everyone has their own risk profile. So it’s whatever’s going to make you be able to sleep at night. You need to put your head on the pillow every night. If it’s going to keep you up at night, that money is not making you money or that you don’t have that money invested right.

Then by all means invest that money in what you think is best. If you are not going to be able to sleep at night because you you’ve invested your money because some guru online told you to, and now you don’t have your cash sitting in your bank account for liquidity and you know that you’re going to have bills coming up over the next year. You don’t know how much revenue is going to be coming in. Is that going to make, is that going to keep you up at night? So I think it’s finding whatever your tolerance is. I know that’s not a very clear answer, but I want to encourage people to do a little self-reflection on, what’s going to be the best risk profile for me? I would prefer for startups to have access to that cash but if you’re going to blow through it just because you have access to it, then go park it someplace else and only give yourself an allowance.
[JOE]
Yes, no, that’s such a great point. I think knowing yourself of if you have three months of your businesses living expenses or whatever you recommend, yes, if you’re going to blow through that and be like, oh look, we can do all this marketing or whatever, go put it somewhere else.
[DANIELLE]
Yes.
[JOE]
Okay. So any other things in the startup phase that you really want people to make sure that they’re keeping an eye on?
[DANIELLE]
One last thing, shiny object syndrome. We see a lot of our clients. And I consider startup phase like that under a hundred K mark and a lot of, and I respect it and I respect where people are at with it, that they want to really learn and invest in their education and professional development. I want people to do that, but I want you to really reflect on, is this the right professional development for me. Is this what I need today? There comes a point where we need to stop learning and we need to start doing. We just need to put that into action.
[JOE]
I just want to pause you right there and verbally underline what you just said because so many people come from this fear mindset of, oh, all I have is a Ph.D. All I have is a double master’s degree. I need to also get certified here, certified here, certified. The average customer, just as happy to have a therapist that’s in their particular specialty, let alone you have Level 2 Gottman, level two, this and that. Those things are important but I just want to pause and underline that, that yes, the time for learning versus the time for action, usually people that are highly skilled in the educational side are putting too much into their education and not enough into that action. So just had to pause you there.
[DANIELLE]
Glad you did. Yes, no, I mean, I think period, that definitely, if that is you maybe stop and consider if it’s time to get to action.
[JOE]
Yes.
[JOE]
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[JOE SANOK]
All right. So after that, so imagine someone’s then starting to add clinicians, maybe 1099s, W2’s, they’re growing their practice. They’re past that hundred K. They’re headed towards 200, maybe adding a couple more people. They’ve joined our Group Practice Boss program, shameless plug. So then what should they be thinking about as they start to move away from being the primary income earner within their business? So they’ve got some extra clinicians that are doing that now, what do they look at with their numbers?
[DANIELLE]
The most important piece here is one looking at the numbers. So you would be surprised how many people at this stage are still not looking at the numbers and not reviewing that on a regular basis. At this stage, I want you reviewing your numbers at least monthly, but I would prefer for you to have that weekly dashboard that we talked at the beginning. Then once you’re getting familiar with your numbers and you start to know them, you need to start putting together a plan.
[JOE]
Let me pause you there. So sometimes I hear “know your numbers.” Like, and for people that are starting out, even if they have grown to this level, they’re like which numbers? I don’t know even what to look at. What are some of those numbers that they should know?
[DANIELLE]
Okay. So on a monthly basis, I want you to run three reports. I want you to have your profit and loss statement, your balance sheet and your cash flow statement. Preferably you’re not the one doing the bookkeeping and you’re not the one receiving these, or you’re not the one running these reports. It is okay as a business owner to not be the one doing everything because every job looks easy when you’re not the one doing it. So if you are the one doing, I don’t want you to be the one doing the bookkeeping because it is going to take you longer than having an expert doing it. So hopefully this is a report, a set of reports that are coming from your bookkeeper or your accountant.

Once you get those three reports, the balance sheet is more of a review of what are my assets. So my cash, who owes me money. Your liability, so who do I owe money to and verifying that those balances are right. Then how much owners draws have I taken for this this year? So just keeping an eye on those numbers. It’s just really knowing the numbers so that you can plan. So if you took out a lot of credit card debt, or maybe you took out a loan to buy the building, you need to remember, okay, those payments are coming due. We have more clients now with debt than ever before because of the pandemic. So we have people who took on SBA loans, lines of credit. That’s fine, but we can’t forget. They gave you a long time to pay that back. So we can’t forget when to start making the payments. So by reviewing that balance sheet, we remember what debt is out there, and it makes us be considerate with what we’re doing with that money. If we’re going to make interest on this money, what are we doing with it? So it’s really just creating intentionality around your spending.
[JOE]
When you say owners draw, is there a certain percentage you recommend that people are taking as an owner’s draw beyond like employee salary?
[DANIELLE]
It depends if you’re an S-Corp or not. I would recommend you talk to your tax accountant preferably quarterly, if not every, at least every six months. Talk to them, send them your profit and loss statement, show them what you’re spending and your salary and your owner’s draws. They’re going to be the, that’s really an individual circumstance. So you want to have your tax accountant on board and make sure that that number’s right for you.
[JOE]
Okay. Sweet. All right, what else kind of that growing business phase and knowing your numbers?
[DANIELLE]
A few other numbers. So on your profit and loss statement, we want to look at, everyone looks at revenue. I’m actually going to ask you to disregard your gross and revenue. So nobody cares that you made $500,000 in gross revenue if you’re not making a profit. So disregard that top line. I want you looking at your gross margin. So this is your sales minus, I’m going to call it your cost of labor, so this is anybody who you are paying to see patients directly, not necessarily like your admin staff or operations manager or front desk staff, but these are the people who are actually serving your clients. And you need to be profitable. I would say, oh, at least over a 30% margin at a minimum, preferably higher, but that is our minimum of a 30% profit. That is your most important number on your profit and loss statement. We can scan all the way to the bottom of the profit and loss statement and look at whether or not we’re taking home a profit or a loss after we pay all of our operating expenses because, again, if you’re bringing in $500,000, but you’re taking home a loss, we need to start drilling into where we’re spending money and why.
[JOE]
That’s a hobby, that point.
[DANIELLE]
That’s a hobby, an expensive hobby.
[JOE]
So take us into a group practice that has five, 10 plus employees, clinicians. What are things at that level that really the owner needs to be thinking through regarding their money?
[DANIELLE]
I want you to be planning and planning on a regular basis. So I want you to not only plan, but then plan for the plans not to go according to plan. In the corporate world, we call it a budget. So it is working again with your bookkeeper to look at where do I see myself going over the next 12 months, maybe even the next three years and planning out what are my revenue and then what are my expenses? This takes intentionality again. So the same way we did some self-reflection about what’s going to help us sleep at night why don’t you do that same self-reflection here?

So when we do a budget with our clients, the first step is, we ask them to do a 30-minute reflection. We give them a set of questions before they ever get onto the call with us, because you really need to know where do you see your business going before we can ever plan your expenses? Because we have to be able to have those measurables, but we need to have the intention before the measurables. Then I want you to plan for the plan not going according to plan. I know that sounds crazy, but you need to have a, we call it, again in corporate world, we call it a high and a low. So you have a, let’s say you exceed your budget or maybe you, I’m sorry, you can hear my dog barking.
[JOE]
It’s all good. That’s what I love about this show, is we rarely edit anything out. So we just know that we got dogs.
[DANIELLE]
I’ve got a golden retrieve out there. But we need to plan. We need to plan a high plan and we need to plan a low plan. So we had a client last year who we did this budget plan with them, and she was so funny because she emailed us in January and she goes, “I finally see why you are pushing me to have this high plan. I exceeded my budget for January. I definitely have to go with the high plan for the rest of the year because I’m already doing so, so well.” So sometimes as business owners, we don’t shoot for the moon. So we’re trying to be realistic. If that’s your personality, some people are always shooting for the moon and then that’s why you need a low budget, so I’m not saying this is everybody, but I’ve seen most of our clients low-ball that budget because they want to be able to come in over it. We want to achieve our goals. So they’re setting goals at really attainable levels. So we need to have a high and then, hey, look, we need to plan for the unplanned. So we have staff members leave, we have a pandemic, something that happens that’s unpredictable and so we have that low budget, but it prepares us as business owners to have that mindset.
[JOE]
So when you think about maybe anybody moving forward, what areas didn’t we cover that you think when it comes to money, whether they’re mindsets or ways they approach it, even how you said a lot of people don’t shoot for the moon, what are things that people need to keep pushing into that maybe doesn’t always come naturally to us?
[DANIELLE]
I think it’s evaluating money to begin with. It’s a tough topic and depending on how old you are it might not have been a topic that was really discussed in your household. I truly believe that we are carrying money mindset from young ages that are formed by parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles, maybe your teachers your neighbors, your friends’ parents. So all of these experiences of the people around you have shaped your money mindset. It can cause us just to bury our head in the sand, say, “Yes, I’m just really not a numbers person.” I’m always here to say the hard truth, I don’t care if you’re a numbers person or not. You have a responsibility as a business owner to look at your numbers on a regular basis so that you can be sure that you have enough cash to be able to continue to serve your clients, to be able to provide for your contractors, provide for your employees, your vendors.

So it becomes less of a, oh, I’m not a numbers person. I don’t have to do this. I just want to see patients too. Wait a minute, the minute I formed this LLC, I agreed to take on the responsibility to look at these numbers because I owe it to all these people that I’m doing business with. It shifts that mindset. So just know that money mindset that everybody has it. So you need to evaluate what yours is and then continue to do things to work on it, things like listening to this podcast, watching who you’re spending your time with, what help you have in your quarter, so that you’re always strengthening that.
[JOE]
As you listed all the people that may have influenced our money mindset, I was thinking about what if I applied that to other areas and say the way I viewed socioeconomic status was only based on my parents, my teachers, my friends’ parents. Or say the way I viewed race or the way that I viewed religion or like any other important domain in my life. It was only limited to like my parents, my grandparents, a couple friends’ parents, teachers. That would be really limiting in regards to how expansive I would view any of those other topics. So that just came together when you were saying that, and I’d never thought of money in that same way.
[DANIELLE]
That’s interesting that you brought that up because all of those other topics that you just mentioned are topics that are talked about on the news outlets on social media. We have more access to those topics. A lot of people aren’t going out there and looking for that. They’re not talking a lot about how do we budget our business financials? How do we make sure we have enough cash? They’re not talking about that on the news. They’re not talking about that, I mean, I guess some people are talking about it on social media, but unless you’re trying to find it’s not coming up in your algorithm.

So we almost have to seek out opportunities to learn more about our money mindset, or you will only ever have your parents and depending on your family, that might not be a topic that was ever discussed. You might not have any experience with money because if your parents didn’t talk about it and then it’s not something that you’ve been interested in, it’s not showing up in your world today.
[JOE]
In so many of those other topics, we’re encouraged to deconstruct how we were raised, educate ourselves, reconstruct things, and then keep evaluating those different topics to progress, whereas money, I don’t really see a societal narrative around deconstructing how we were raised around money. So thanks so much today for helping us deconstruct that. The last question I always ask is if every private practitioner in the world were listening today, what would you want them to know?
[DANIELLE]
That, we talked about this money mindset being difficult, just start today. So wherever you’re at in your journey take one action step. It’s like running a marathon. You don’t go say, I’m going to run a marathon next weekend. You get off the couch today and go for a walk. So it’s the same thing. If the topics that we talked about today, you’re like I don’t even have an accounting system, no less a balance sheet, that’s okay. Today we get the accounting system and we start to make steps to be able to run the balance sheet or yes, maybe you’re like, okay, I have an accounting system, but I haven’t done my bookkeeping in a long time. Just take action to start to get yourself there because this doesn’t have to be something so hard. You don’t need to conquer your entire money mindset today. You just need to take one action step towards it.
[JOE]
So good. And Danielle, if people want to work with you, if they want to listen to your podcast, learn more about what you’re teaching, where should they go?
[DANIELLE]
Entrepreneur Money Stories is our podcast. You can come and tune in. Actually, money story and we have entrepreneurs on all the time hearing their money mindset. Then if some of this resonated with you and you need help with your bookkeeping and understanding your numbers, we would love for you to come and schedule a strategy session with the kickstart team. You can go to calendly.com/kickstartaccounting and schedule a call right there. Also check out the website. We’re actually just launching the website. So you can find that at kickstartaccountinginc.com and come check out all the cool new marketing features that our team is working so hard to put forward.
[JOE]
Oh, well, thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice podcast.
[DANIELLE]
Thank you.
[JOE]
So go take action. We say that almost every show to not just consume, but to go take action. Just like how, if we consume a lot of food, even if it’s relatively healthy, but we just sit around, probably not going to get the health outcomes you want. Same with your finances. Take that big project of getting your finances in order or knowing your numbers, break it down into what can I do today, can I do this week? What are some small steps I can take in the right direction to just get that snowball moving a little bit more? It’s amazing how, when you just start to know a few of your numbers. It’s addictive. You’re like this is working, this isn’t working. I feel like a business professional, whereas before maybe my head was in the sand.

I was there my first two years of private practice. My accounting was using my business credit card and putting the receipt in a drawer and then at the end of the year, taking thousands of receipts and itemizing them and then writing those numbers down in word. It was terribly inefficient. It was ridiculous. Then when I found QuickBooks for nine bucks a month, I was like, what the heck have I been doing here? It was just not knowing how to do it. Like I was there. I had receipts in a drawer for years. So if I can do it, you can as well.

Thank you so much for hanging out with us today. I just jumbled up that sentence. Thank you so much for being with us today. Just got to slow down a little bit. We couldn’t do this without Brighter Vision. Brighter Vision is such an amazing website platform specifically for therapists. They also have their Social Genie platform, which helps you be able to do more social media posts and for only $49 a month when it’s on sale or $59, normally they do some amazing work. You get all of that IT support all of that background, all that building just for 59 bucks a month. It’s pretty amazing. So head it over to brightervision.com/joe. You can get some free months for free over there.

Thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon.

Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. We really like it. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.