Smarter Business Finances

Speaker 1: [Music] showing up for your team and creating an environment of effective feedback is huge because at the root of everything we do is communication whether that's internal to our team to our clients to our prospects the way we communicate about our products being able to give the praise to your team and also have the hard conversations is the most effective way to have a team that knows that you care about them hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the she builted experience with Melanie join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it the career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in welcome back to the sheilon podcast thank you for joining us Lauren you are the CEO of Coulson strategies how are you helping your clients better their businesses their strategies and themselves thanks for having me we are helping with finances and this could mean anything from cleaning up what they have already making sure they're getting timely and accurate financials teaching how to read their financials being proactive in communication pointing out Trends things that should be on there radar helping them understand their cash flow and financial projections creating a road map that they can use as they grow their business we cover a broad range of financial strategies and services to help business owners feel in control of their finances what is one question that your clients ask you the most and how do you help your clients work through that we get asked a lot what is the difference between cash and a cruel accounting to help them work through it we first explain what it is and so Cash basis accounting is recording all your revenue and expenses when the cash comes in or out of your bank account AC cruel accounting is matching the revenue and expense with the period in which it incurred so to give an example if you sign on a client in January for 120,000 and you're GNA serve them for the whole entire year if you are on cash basis accounting you record all $12,000 of that Revenue in January when you get the money because they're paying you up front which is great to get the cash up front but then makes you look like you had a really great January even though that's for the full year and and so on a cruel base accounting we say okay we're going to serve them evenly over each month of the year so we're going to record $10,000 of Revenue January through December and that way we can see that's actually the work that we provided that's going to be the cost of our time paying our people to serve them is going to be aligned and it allows you to see the true profit margin and True Performance of a period of Time Versus how having lumpy financials which is what you may have with cash a lot of our clients don't know the difference a lot of our clients start out on cash and then when they see the value of being able to have and understand a cruel basis financials it's usually a switch that we make and I'm sure it's so helpful to clients because they want to be out doing what it is they love to do and are good at doing and have someone help walk them through and hold their hand through the financial planning and the fincial part of the business exactly we're not all masters of every part of business and whatever we're Masters in mind's accounting I have to get help from others on the marketing and the sales and all of that I'm always so inspired by every woman that comes on the podcast that has taken a look at themselves and said okay this is what I'm good at this is what I'm doing but where else can I hire or delegate out to the things that I'm not necessarily good at or the things I don't want to do or don't love to do exactly because it can be draining which can have a intangible impact on your business so true what do you think are the most important leadership qualities when scaling a business showing up for your team and creating an environment of effective feedback is huge because at the root of everything we do is communication whether that's internal to our team to our clients to our prospects the way we communicate about our products and so as a leader within an organization being able to give the praise to your team and also have the hard conversations is the most effective way to have a team that one knows that you care about them by giving them that hard feedback you're showing I care about you I want you to be able to grow I want you to be able to do this better next time even though it feels awkward for me or you right now it's because I care having those conversations creates those deep relationships within a team and that builds sustainable company cultures and it actually shows that you want your team to do better and to continue to grow exactly because if I didn't care then I wouldn't correct it because it doesn't matter but I want you to learn it I want you to feel confident about it and I want to further develop our relationship and when you celebrate those wins it only makes the team and the company want to do more exactly that's a a an easy part that we sometimes forget to do because we're all moving fast and you're like oh they know they're doing a good job well a lot of us still like to hear it I know I always say we work so hard to make something happen and then it we'll make it happen and then sometimes we just move on and we don't take that time to even say okay I'm gonna go get myself a coffee and I'm G to celebrate that win exactly we started in our weekly team meetings we're going around what does everyone have on their plate what our roadblocks we've started incorporating what are wins because let's look at we're talking a lot about almost the negative oh this is a struggle I need help with this let's take a moment to celebrate the wins and we've implemented that the past couple weeks it's been game-changing for people's just confidence because they're like I didn't think of this as a win but now I'm thoughtfully thinking about it and this was really great and just for themselves alone they're like I didn't think about that but actually this really wonderful thing happened it makes it more fun too yeah what is the best piece of advice you would give a client who is scaling a business to utilize your financial data business owners that make datadriven decisions are set up the best for Success making sure that you have timely and accurate financials and you're looking at them on a monthly Cadence is super important if you are only looking at your financials once every three months you're losing the ability to make changes in your business and I'll give an example if you're saying oh I didn't realize we were still paying for that bill every month and we should have cancelled it three months ago because we don't need a gardening service anymore well now you've just wasted three months worth of cash because you didn't know you were paying for it because you weren't looking on the flip side looking at what's working really well if you have different service or product lines and being able to make go forward decisions such as let's spend more marketing spend to really push this product or service because it's performing really well if you're not understanding what has happened you can't use that to your benefit to help you going forward in your business so it's critical that you get timely and accurate financials you know what's going into your numbers and then you're actually using them to make decisions that's so true and I love Business Development not everyone does I know and not everyone loves numbers so sometimes looking at numbers can be scary or facing certain realities of where parts of the business need to improve can be scary but you're right it's so important that's a great point because we hear that a lot and people are like I don't even look at them I know we had a bad month and it's listen we all have bad days bad months bad quarters bad years but we need to hold oursel accountable to look at why did we have a bad month what is it and let's take that to make decisions to have better months like without knowing what's causing that just H I had a bad month okay how are you g to turn that around so true and looking at that allows you to turn it around right when you're not looking at it it doesn't set in as much sometimes you need the hard reality of wow we had a really big loss last month okay I better work on my sales I better improve this you need to hold yourself accountable to that not just saying ah I'm not going to look so it didn't happen that's so true and even if you have a big win like you gain a big client it's like how are we going to sustain this to gain other large clients and to that point too you have a big win we had a really great month I don't need to look no what made it a really great month how can we replicate that what do we need do we need more staff or team member software to keep having those great months what does that mean yeah and to keep the momentum going exactly the path through on R preneurship and running a business is not always linear how do you work with clients through these changes and growth we're in a unique position and that as Financial Partners we're seeing under the hood of the business we're seeing how it's performing and I always say everything that happens in your business comes back to the financials whether it's through a direct relationship of we purchase that and here's our expense or the way that teams are spending their time inefficient teams inefficient workflows and structures can reduce profitability and so being able to see what's going on we act as business coaches and as an outsourc firm like mine where we're not employees of the business it allows us to have more candid safe conversations with business owners because we're not relying on your business for our whole livelihood we feel a little bit more protected to say something of maybe we need to cut staff have those really hard conversations and Coach through here's some things that we really need to be keeping an eye on or here's some things to consider there's a lot of overlap in what we do that covers operationally within the business being able to have those conversations and communicate and be proactive is something that we really work with on our clients what are the qualities that you look for speaking of teams when hiring a new team member someone that leads with our value vales which are Excellence growth integrity and energy but another big piece of that and we talked about that earlier is communication we call ourselves number Geeks with people skills because you can be the smartest person in the world but if you can't effectively communicate with others then you're really not providing the value of your work and so people that are able to take accounting jargon and speak to our clients in a way that helps them understand as a CEO and gives them a fresh perspective of we're not even talking accounting here is a really important quality that we need on our team and then on the communication piece as well those that are willing to stretch themselves in terms of conversation and have those hard conversations within we do a lot of collaboration on our team we have a lot of different personalities so it's not always the easiest but those that are saying I got a tweak things I know that I can't talk to so and so like this I need to use a different tone or I need to rephrase things differently is really important and it's so interesting that you bring up energy you're the second business owner I've spoken with in the last couple months on the podcast that has brought up energy and it's so important because when your team works well together and the energy flows it just makes it that much more enjoyable yes exactly how is working with Coulson strategies different from working with firms similar to yours we care a lot when you work with us you're not just getting a financial partner you're getting a cheerleader a supporter someone that truly cares about you and your business that sets us apart from other firms we are growing slower so that we can make sure that we can serve our clients to the best of our abilities so that our team is not overworked that they show up excited and ready to serve and they have that same passion of serving businesses we love bragging about our clients and sharing about them on social media and introducing them to other business owners because we believe in a true partnership we want all of our clients to succeed and if there's anything we can do outside of the financial accounting realm we'll help them in that way as well magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one way that you make sure to and live your joy each day and it doesn't necessarily have to be through business first my team really lights me up having a team full of different personalities and perspectives brings me so much joy the jokes and the banter we're doing a counting which isn't always the most exciting thing in the world but being able to have each other to lean on problem solve joke with is really what makes it worth it and also my kids I have two small kids and they remind me not to take things too seriously in life which is always a very good reminder resets me mentally thank you for joining us Lauren and telling us about Coulson strategies please share with us how and where we can find you absolutely thanks for having me you can go to our website Coulson strategies.com that's CS o n or you can DM me on LinkedIn Lauren Coulson or you can reach reach out to us at info@ cson strategies.com thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheil it website or at Sheed on social thank you to my editor Rich trino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave [Music]