July 14, 2025 • 47 mins
In this episode of the "Money & You" podcast, guest Jayson Mamaclay of Norman Professional Services and Michelle Perkins discussed the critical distinctions between various financial roles within a business, including accountants, bookkeepers, and CFOs. They emphasized the importance of understanding these roles to enhance financial literacy among entrepreneurs, particularly in managing and growing their businesses. The conversation highlighted how many entrepreneurs mistakenly conflate these roles, leading to potential mismanagement of financial tasks.
The discussion underscored the necessity for business owners to seek expert help, such as hiring a CPA or a fractional CFO, especially as their companies grow. Jayson introduced the "add a zero rule" to guide when to engage these professionals based on revenue levels. They also touched on the importance of building cash reserves and strategic financial planning to support business growth and stability.
This episode is significant as it provides entrepreneurs with essential insights into financial management, helping them make informed decisions that can lead to sustainable business success.
00:03 - Understanding financial roles
15:06 - Strategic cash management insights
21:19 - Building cash reserves wisely
30:46 - Envisioning your business future
40:58 - Navigating debt for growth
The conversation highlights that an accountant typically focuses on tax strategy and financial oversight, while a bookkeeper manages day-to-day financial transactions. The CFO, on the other hand, plays a strategic role in guiding the business's financial direction and investment decisions.
The podcast helped entrepreneurs understand how to approach hiring financial professionals.
The podcast suggests using the 'add a zero rule' for hiring financial professionals, andwhat is meant by 'cash runway' in the context of business financial planning. The podcast emphasizes the importance of having a cash reserve to support the business during downturns, and why it is important for entrepreneurs to have a clear vision for their business's future.
The podcast stresses that having a clear vision helps entrepreneurs identify the financial levers they need to pull to achieve their goals. It encourages them to think about pricing, target markets, team size, and necessary resources to build the business they envision.
The podcast acknowledges that financial discussions can often feel intimidating or jargony. It emphasizes the importance of friendly and empathetic communication to make financial concepts more accessible and less scary for entrepreneurs.
Key Takeaways:
Apple Podcasts
Please rate and review & share the podcast with your friends and family members who want to better understand money, and feel more confident and in control of their financial lives. It's sooo important to us!!
Join the Limit Free Life Community Blog: https://limitfreelife.com/newsletter
Learn more about Michelle Perkins: https://limitfreelife.com
LinkedIn: Michelle on LinkedIn
Instagram: @livealimitfreelife
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@michelleperkins-limitfreel2446
The discussion underscored the necessity for business owners to seek expert help, such as hiring a CPA or a fractional CFO, especially as their companies grow. Jayson introduced the "add a zero rule" to guide when to engage these professionals based on revenue levels. They also touched on the importance of building cash reserves and strategic financial planning to support business growth and stability.
This episode is significant as it provides entrepreneurs with essential insights into financial management, helping them make informed decisions that can lead to sustainable business success.
00:03 - Understanding financial roles
15:06 - Strategic cash management insights
21:19 - Building cash reserves wisely
30:46 - Envisioning your business future
40:58 - Navigating debt for growth
The conversation highlights that an accountant typically focuses on tax strategy and financial oversight, while a bookkeeper manages day-to-day financial transactions. The CFO, on the other hand, plays a strategic role in guiding the business's financial direction and investment decisions.
The podcast helped entrepreneurs understand how to approach hiring financial professionals.
The podcast suggests using the 'add a zero rule' for hiring financial professionals, andwhat is meant by 'cash runway' in the context of business financial planning. The podcast emphasizes the importance of having a cash reserve to support the business during downturns, and why it is important for entrepreneurs to have a clear vision for their business's future.
The podcast stresses that having a clear vision helps entrepreneurs identify the financial levers they need to pull to achieve their goals. It encourages them to think about pricing, target markets, team size, and necessary resources to build the business they envision.
The podcast acknowledges that financial discussions can often feel intimidating or jargony. It emphasizes the importance of friendly and empathetic communication to make financial concepts more accessible and less scary for entrepreneurs.
Key Takeaways:
- Role Clarity: Entrepreneurs should clearly understand the distinctions between financial roles to optimize their business operations.
- - Strategic Financial Management: Engaging with financial experts can provide valuable insights and help businesses navigate growth challenges.
- - Cash Management: Building a cash reserve is essential for long-term sustainability and investment opportunities.
- - Future Planning: Taking the time to envision the future of the business can lead to more informed financial decisions and strategies.
- - Debt Awareness: Understanding the role of debt in business can help entrepreneurs make better financial choices.
Apple Podcasts
Please rate and review & share the podcast with your friends and family members who want to better understand money, and feel more confident and in control of their financial lives. It's sooo important to us!!
Join the Limit Free Life Community Blog: https://limitfreelife.com/newsletter
Learn more about Michelle Perkins: https://limitfreelife.com
LinkedIn: Michelle on LinkedIn
Instagram: @livealimitfreelife
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@michelleperkins-limitfreel2446
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
There can be some confusion around well, what do people
mean by the word accountants?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Right?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Some people may think, oh, they just do taxes, Oh
they're being counters. Oh they helped create the budgets. Well, like,
the answer is yes in a lot of variety of ways.
But what exactly are those roles for a small business owner?
And is there a potential that you might be asking
(00:32):
someone to operate outside their lane.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Hey there, and welcome to Money and You. I'm Michelle Perkins,
your host. My search for more fulfilling work led me
to career in business coaching, where I stumbled upon a
game changing discovery. Money issues often start with our mindset
and habits. You see, our relationship with money is the
key to overcoming those frustrating financial obstacles. As an entrepreneur, coach,
(00:58):
and problem solver, I'm passionate about helping you create a
great relationship with money, because turns out that's the foundation
for a limit free life. Each week on Money in You,
I speak with amazing guests about all things money, mindset,
practical tips, and everything in between. We're here to give
you new insights, education and empowerment, so money can be
(01:19):
one of your favorite relationships so join us for some
lively conversations and let's transform your financial life together. Hello, Hello,
and welcome to another exciting episode of the Money in
You Podcast. I'm Michelle Perkins, your host, and very excited
about today's guest. Today's guest is going to cover a
(01:40):
lot of money topics, some we've never covered, and just
give a great overview in many areas. If you're a
business owner or if you're just a person handling your finances,
this is going to be a great show for you. So,
without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and introduce
(02:00):
you to Jason Mama Clay. Name like glasses for this.
Let's see Jason Mamma Clay. He him is a vice
president at Norman Professional Services, which provides fractional CFO and
outsourced accounting services that elevate the financial literacy and strengthen
the financial backbone of small businesses across the United States.
(02:23):
For lots of entrepreneurs, business success and growth comes from
doing good work and loving what you do. But chances
are numbers aren't likely your strong suit. Eventually, a company
needs more intentional attention to financials in order to sustainably grow,
and there may be some fear guilt or shame held
(02:44):
by some business leaders for being quote found out that
they don't really understand their numbers like they feel like
they should. For those entrepreneurs, the team at NPS prides
itself and being trusted advisors that can gently provide the
financial literacy and entrepreneur needs to truly manage and grow
their business. Jason, thank you so much for being here.
(03:05):
I so appreciate your time.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Michelle, It's an absolute pleasure being here, and thank you
so much for having me on the show.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yeah, it's going to be great. So I know when
we talked to you had so many great ideas for
topics and we talked about a variety of things. But
I want to start because I love what your bio
says about entrepreneurs, you know, sort of trying to almost
pretend that they know their numbers better than they do,
or that they understand you know, they understand We know
(03:35):
that they understand their business, they understand their purpose, they
understand their products and services, they understand their clients, but
you know, they need to know understand their numbers. And
so what have you seen out there about you know,
how they interact with their because so much of the
show is about your relationship with money. How are entrepreneurs
interacting with their money and having that relationship.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, well, if you think about it, and if you
find yourself in this particular position as I talk about
it inside my bio.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
You're definitely not alone.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Like first, there are going to be lots of people who,
just as you've mentioned, Michelle, like really try to put
up a puff chest or a lot of confidence about
how it is that their business is doing. I mean,
who here has gone to networking events and ultimately all
the conversations.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Are like, oh, how's business.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Ah, yeah, business is great, and in behind that visage
we might be trembling in our boots to be like, well,
I don't know about this or I'm worried about that.
And that's just a very real and relatable experience as
an entrepreneur. And what's important to be able to do
is to have a trusted circle that you can speak with,
whether it be advisors that you have, coaches that you
(04:49):
may be able to see, people that you can trust
either inside or outside your organization to really dive into
what's actually going on within the business. And part of
that formula is really taking an important and hard look
at the financials so that you not only know what's
been going on, but what also could be going on
(05:10):
in the future and how to be able to plan
for it. Like most money situations, a lot of people
may feel like, well, if I don't pay attention to it,
everything's going to turn out okay, when in fact, that's
probably one of the few dimensions where if you actually
don't pay attention to it, things actually could end up
for the worse, and it'll be really important for you
(05:30):
to be sharing conversations about it, to be exploring it,
and to be getting a support team behind you to
help explain what's going on and figure out the right
path forward.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, thank you. You know, that avoidance, whether you're an
entrepreneur or you know you're just dealing with your own
personal finance, that is one of the red flags in
my opinion, you know, sort of signaling that your relationship
with money is it needs some improvement. I mean, as
with any relationship, we can't avoid getting to understand it
(06:04):
and deal with the realities of it. So yeah, that's
that's great. And you know, you talk about having the
support team, and I think a lot of times people
they're uncomfortable with that too. They don't want you know,
people there, even they're financial people who are there to
help them, They kind of want to get things in
order before they get that person involved. I guess because
(06:27):
it's you know, either they feel some shame around it
or whatever. And I'd love to hear your take on
when is the right time to get people on board.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, that's that's absolutely for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I could understand how there can be some of that fear,
some of that shame, some of that like being afraid
of judgment from a professional whose job it is is
to help get things in order and help improve situations.
Let's just be clear, people in these type of roles
(07:01):
see everything, and they've they've seen everything too, and their
their job and their opportunity is to help and to
help in a non judgmental way. So I do just
want to address that that it's definitely a very natural
and vulnerable feeling to say, I don't know if I'm
ready to have somebody come in and take a look
(07:22):
at things when those might be the very times when
you need and can best benefit from some potential outside
expert help. So I'd love to kind of tee up
the conversation Michelle. Just given that kind of the background
that we both had, there can be some confusion around, well,
(07:42):
what do people mean by the word accountants? Right, some
people may think, oh, they just do taxes. Oh they're
being counters, Oh they help create the budgets. Well, like,
the answer is yes in a lot of variety of ways.
But what exactly are those roles for a small business owner?
(08:06):
And is there a potential that you might be asking
someone to operate outside their lane.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So I actually have.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
A perspective that there are four different definitions of accountants
that may pop in people's minds when they say the
word accountant. So first, there's the CPA. They're the people
who you likely go to to take care of your taxes,
whether it's for the business or for yourself personally. Their
job is to go in and help make sure that
(08:36):
they stay up to date with all the different tax regulations,
both federally and locally within your state, so that you
could mitigate your tax exposure. And a lot of their
attention and strategies will center around that, and that is
a very common consideration of who is an accountant. But
then somebody else might say, oh, my accountant does my.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Quick books, does my collections.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
My accountant does some of the back office transactional level data,
and I assert that that role is more formally known
as the bookkeeper role within an organization. Their responsibility is
data entry. They take all the different things that are
happening with the business, whether it's you spent money on
(09:26):
office supplies, or collected money from a customer on an
overdue invoice.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Or you paid taxes.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
They're the ones that are responsible for putting all the
different transactions into their appropriate bucket. Now it is possible
that your CPA is doing that too, or maybe a
member of your CPA's team is doing that, but realistically
those are two different roles. Ones a research focused role
and another is an attention to detail and data entry
focused role. And immediately right away we go, oh, that
(09:56):
might explain why there might be a disconnect where I
thought my accountant was doing my books, but I only
talk with them once a year instead of getting progress
of how things go along the way before I hop
into the other two roles that I see. Michelle, have
you seen that come across in your experience as an
(10:17):
accountant or in some of the folks that you've coached.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Yes, And what I feel like has worked best for me,
and you know, some family business that we have as well,
has been to have we have a separate bookkeeper. I mean,
I have a wonderful tax accountant. He's the truly strategist,
but I have a separate person who puts the data
(10:42):
together and like you said, my bookkeeping service. But they
work together, which I think I don't think everybody necessarily
has that, but one referred the other, and so it's
a very kind of it's a really good relationship because
but there's that objective data entry. They think a little differently,
(11:02):
you know. So I think it's really important that the
bookkeeper be the bookkeeper, and he's super smart in that area,
but he also keeps things in a way where then
the information goes to my tax accountant and he puts
a strategic hat on and starts playing with those numbers.
And I feel like there's benefit in having the separation there.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Personally, Yeah, I completely agree.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
For some it works for it all to be in
a single house or a single organization. For others, it's
perfectly fine to be able to have it separate. I'm
actually of the opinion that it actually strengthens your organization
to have the power of two independent authorities being able
to really chime in on the health of how things
are going from a financial perspective, and really pokes a
(11:50):
little bit at my history as a CPA who was
an auditor in what we call the segregation of duties
control by not having all of your eggs in one
singular basket, which could lead you to some potentially risky exposures.
It's not that they would happen, but it is a
(12:10):
risk exposure that you're able to see, Michelle. That actually
leads really really well into the next role that I
was going to explain, if I may go into it.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah, please, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
So another role that often gets overlooked when it comes
to the word accountant is the controller, and its specific
role is in the name I know that they say
in school, don't define a word based on the word
that it is. But really the controller is responsible for
(12:40):
the system of internal controls within an organization. They're responsible
for the overarching reporting that happens within the org, and
they're responsible also for keeping track for anything unusual that
may be popping up, whether they be individual events, maybe
some wild transaction that came up or trends. We're seeing
(13:00):
that expenses in this particular bucket are creeping up and
up and up, and we might not have things in
place to kind of check those expenses.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
We might need to look into it.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
A controller is responsible for keeping track of how this
data is being assembled, is it being assembled correctly. Oftentimes
they're the people that are double checking the work of
the bookkeeper, and they present the summary of reports out
to the business owner and they will raise their hand
and say, here are a couple of the areas that
I think we need to go ahead and peek into
(13:33):
a little bit more deeply, or lift on the hood
and look underneath the cover, or just kind of strategize
what are we going to do if the cost of
xyz things continue to increase? Right, So, the controller really
kind of provides a level of investigation and clarity on
(13:56):
financial data by summarizing the most important things into the reports. Now, again,
maybe the bookkeeper can put together the reports, or maybe
your CPA is also providing that kind of service. But realistically,
if you have somebody who's dedicated for catching things before
it gets too late, that could be a really important
role within an organization. It's not one that typically gets
(14:20):
hired for In the smallest of businesses, usually the business
owner may still be the one wearing that hat to
look out for anything that looks unusual. But if you
don't already have a keen eye for catching what those
kinds of things are, and let's also face it, you're
probably busy doing a lot of other things. Some things
can potentially just get missed and may become a bigger
(14:41):
thing when you do need to address them at the
end of the day.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah, I love that. I love that you brought that up,
because when you and I talked before, I think we
both agree. I don't know that you know, generally entrepreneurs
know the distinctions between these different roles, and I think
it is really important to understand them. And then there's
the CFO, which is another.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I've got a phrase I like thinking B for bookkeeping
and B for backwards facing. A bookkeeper's job is to
get history rights. But if you were to ask a
bookkeeper to prepare a forecast for next year, they might
be looking like a deer in the headlights, or ask, well,
what exactly am I supposed to do?
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Well, if you think about it.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
You're asking for a history and accuracy focused mindset to
try to scope out what if scenarios for the future,
which may or may not actually pan out. They're based
off of assumptions, it's based off of projections, and for
a person that their livelihood, their career is around getting
(15:50):
information rights, that might stress out a bookkeeper quite a bit.
So what ends up happening in lots of organizations, All
that a budget forecast becomes is last year's actuals plus
maybe five percent for inflation. And that's the safest approach
that one could take to say, hey, I've got the
data that backs us up and we're just going to
go with the most conservative approach. But that might not
(16:13):
be what a business owner needs in order to really
extrapolate out what's the possibility, what's the opportunity for the business?
So I said B for bookkeeping, B for backwards. Well,
a CFO stands for chief financial officer, but I also
say F for finance, F for future. The cfo's role
sits next to the CEO. You woantn't call it a
(16:35):
chief something officer if it wasn't an executive level role,
and they're the voice of money for the chief executive
officer to think strategically, as a leader of the organization,
where should the business be going, specifically in terms of
where should it invest cash and how are we measuring
that return on investment to make sure that it is
(16:59):
panning out to be what it is that we wanted
it to be.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Yeah, I love that, you know, it's so funny. I
have not done like continuing education in accounting for years
and years, But this past weekend I went with a
friend who's a CFO, he's been a close friend forever
to a CFO conference that he was going to, and
I didn't go to much of the conference, but I
heard a lot and I was mingling with a lot
of CFOs and you know, their role is super important.
(17:27):
And I feel like it's interesting when you look at
entrepreneurs and or anybody really who you know, in a
sort of a quest to save money, a lot of
times they want maybe their bookkeeper or their controller to
do things that are out of you know, really kind
of out of their scope, and a lot of times
(17:47):
they'll say yes to it. You know, you were just
talking about asking your bookkeeper to do a forecast, Well,
chances are you know the bookkeeper is going to want
to say yes to that and give it a shot.
But I think what you're what you're bringing up is
so important because these are skill sets that are different
and it's really important too. And you know, you and
(18:08):
I are in a business group where we're talking about
growth and scaling a lot, and it's hard to scale
if you're just looking at historical data like you were saying,
and just you know, not thinking bigger with the possibility
that some of it maybe a CFO might think about things.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah, definitely, definitely. And another thing that I want to
highlight is that's the this is the order of the
advisors that I would recommend a business owner considering getting
that financial support structure. Realistically, it's about when am I
taking off all the different hats that I'm wearing For
some businesses that are just starting out, some business owners
(18:48):
might be super confident enough to be able to take
care of their own taxes, but because of the compliance
related components to it and the potential penalties that come
without without doing it directly, getting a CPA is one
of the the very first things that you need to
do as a business owner if you don't.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Do it already right away.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
As a business owner to make sure that your taxes
are represented correctly to the state and to the irs.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Would hate for.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Anyone to undergo unnecessary penalties just because they wanted to
save a penny by doing it themselves. There is a
lot of really great technology out there that helps empower
and enable individuals to take care of stuff on their own.
But if you really want to take advantage of what
potential opportunities there may be for mitigating taxes, getting expert
(19:37):
help through a CPA, I think is definitely one of
the first things that a business owner should contemplate doing.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Yes, and I've said this before on their show, but
I love meeting with my account because I learned so much.
I mean, if I did it myself, which I used
to do, but then, just like you're saying, keeping up
with the changes and the laws, that's just not something
I was wanting to or good do. But it's the
conversations we have too. So while you know you're after
(20:07):
a deliverable like a tax return or whatever, there's so
much to be gained from really diving into these conversations.
So just because the tax accountant can put together your
tax return doesn't mean that you don't want to have
conversations about what's going on in that return. So you
know that's where you can really learn a lot.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I think, yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
The rule of thumb that I have for these types
of roles is I call it the ad A zero rule.
So here I've got a version of a presentation where
I give where I'm like, if you're if your company
is making two thousand dollars or three thousand dollars, right,
go ahead and grab a CPA. When should you grab
a bookkeeper? Well, ad A zero. If your company is
making five figures, it's probably worth your time to finally
(20:56):
offload the hours that you'd be spending trying to keep
up with your quick books or whatever your accounting system is,
to keep up with your invoicing and calling customers, to
follow up on payments, to keep up with if you
have payroll, like actually entering in the information for your employees,
or paying off vendors or contractors that are supporting you.
(21:18):
From a Dan Martel buy back your time perspective, the
opportunity is there to delegate that to somebody to take
care of that for you and for you just simply
to oversee the overall process and make sure that that's
happening smoothly on an ongoing basis. So at a zero,
if your company's making five figures, probably should be considering
(21:39):
getting a book keeper. The next step controller, well, add
another zero. If your company is making six figures, say
in the quarter million space or higher, consider getting somebody,
maybe not a full time internal person, but consider getting
someone who sits in the controller role, because, let's face it,
when you're dealing with one hundred thousand dollars, two hundred
(22:00):
thousand dollars and so on, that's a lot of money
and you kind of really should have a good grasp
on making sure that money's not leaking out of the organization,
either intentionally or non intentionally.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
And it's a good way to get yet.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Another perspective to be monitoring that so that you're not
kind of fussing over all the different ways to keep
track of the trends or individual transactions, and somebody's out
there looking out for you for it and double checking
the work of the ongoing bookkeeper. And then of course
for the last role with CFO, let's add another zero.
(22:36):
When you're in the seven figure range making one million,
two million, and up. You really want to get that
expert level support because you're at that stage of business
growth that you want to make sure that you're making
key strategic investments to be able to take yourself to
the next step of scaling, and that role needs an.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Executive level voice.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
It's kind of like, would you ask the receptionist at
the front desk of a doctor's office to be the
one to pull blood and tell you information about your
blood work.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Probably not.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
And so while there's tons of respect for those support
team members that are responsible for data entry bookkeeping, they
might not be the best role to be able to
help you with executive strategy and growth planning. And again
I'm not saying go out and hire a six figure
CFO full time within your organization, there are fractional opportunities
to be able to go and engage with knowledgeable experts
(23:34):
to be able to help take things to the next level.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Yeah, and you know, I don't know when that started,
the fractional you know kind of CFO organizations, but it's
really a fantastic opportunity for entrepreneurs to get the help
they need without hiring, you know, very expensive people to
be on their staff. So, yeah, I'd love to, you know,
(23:58):
and as I just love everything you're saying. But there's
this sort of chicken and egg thing where people like
to think, well, when I get to this point, when
I'm making this much, then I'll hire. And it really,
in my opinion, as much as you can. It's a
higher forward kind of situation. But what's your take on that?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah, definitely, so you don't want to get ahead of
yourself in terms of well, what is it can you afford?
And that's why I kind of use the ad a
zero rule, Like, if you're just starting out and you're
making fifty sixty thousand dollars in effectively, what is a
side hustle?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Right in terms of top line revenue.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
It probably isn't the smartest idea to go out and
try to find a fractional CFO to go and help
you out. The reality of small business is I encourage
business owners to build a viable product, market fit business
that generates cash on its own, and as your business
grow and grows in complexity, either because of the number
(25:04):
of people that are part of the organization or the
number of service offerings that the business offers to its
variety of clients, or the number of clients that a
person needs to cover, which usually dictates the number of
people and service offerings that are there. As complexity grows,
getting additional support to be able to handle and make
sense out of all of that complexity is where things
(25:25):
come into play. So for a lot of businesses they
use revenue as a proxy of that. But I would
say the most important thing for a business owner when
thinking about, hey, when is it right to be able
to bring on advisors? I use that at a zero
rule for the four different echelons, and if you're below
those certain thresholds, really focus in on what is it
(25:49):
that I'm selling? How am I capturing the value of
what it is that I'm selling, and how am I
making sure that it's done in a way that generates
me profit, that generates me positive cash flow so that
I can continue to be growing and investing in the
business the shell. Something related to that that I think
applies not just to businesses but to individuals as well,
(26:12):
is the importance of building up a cash reserve for
key investments that you want to go and make. So
maybe it may be hey, if I'm able to go
ahead and reach however, many thousands of dollars inside my
hire a CFO fund, Right, then that is a really
(26:34):
good thing to go about doing. But you want to
also make sure do I have enough money to be
able to support the business if revenue were to shrink
or turn to zero for a given period of time.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
I call that the cash runway.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
A lot of people call it the rainy day fund,
but some way of being able to build up cash
reserves that served towards a specific purpose. On the individual front,
it could be yeah, the rainy day fund to be
able to keep the lights on at home and pay
for groceries utilities and such a separate fund could be
(27:09):
a save for vacation fund.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
So it's like, what's the next step to be able
to do something different or separate that elevates or celebrates
life in a different way in a meaningful way. For some,
it's let me save up to prepare for buying a home,
which whether you are buying your first home or buying
your next home and upgrading, it introduces a new complexity
(27:35):
in your life and so as a result, you need
to like have a dedicated attention to it.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
As a result, yeah, yeah, thank you, And all of
that is building your relationship with money and when you're
paying attention to these things. I love all of that,
and I think especially for entrepreneurs, it's challenging to get
that reserve. I mean, that is something that I see
(28:00):
as a big goal that people feel very you know,
stuck around because you know, when you have a business,
you can always keep investing in that business, and yeah,
and you know you could be in a situation where
the revenue fluctuates. I mean, there's a lot of things.
So while everybody probably would agree that that's a great idea,
(28:22):
they'll the practicalities of making that happen. And that's where
I also think bringing in experts like yourself that's really necessary.
I think an objective outside I on the numbers will
help reveal the way to do that. But I think
you know, in your own way of being, in your
own habits around your business, it's pretty tough to see
(28:45):
the way forward with that.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So yeah, it's definitely very natural to kind of like
cycle through the same thought pattern, cycle through the same spiral,
and find yourself in exactly the same place you were
last year, because the only voice to be able to
bounce things off of are your own As the leader
of the organization. So I absolutely can resonate with that.
And in those cases, rather than say bringing on an
(29:08):
expert for an extended basis extended duration, maybe just solictening
the help of an expert, of a CFO or of
a controller for a quick maybe one quarter project to
go ahead and really deep dive without the financial weight
of an extended relationship can be a really great way
(29:29):
to Like great example, if you've hit a plateau and
you're like, I just need to shake things up a
little bit, and maybe I just need that outside voice.
That can be a place where you engage someone for
just a short term project that can have a much
lower financial much lower financial expectation and requirement longer term.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Well, that's really interesting. I actually didn't know that that
would be easy to do. So I'm assuming that you
guys do that at your firm since you brought it up.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
So a couple of the ways that a firm like
NPS can come into play. We actually have a few
signature processes, a few signature programs that center around something
like this. One thing could be I just don't know
whether or not QuickBooks is working properly, and we have
(30:20):
a program called Financial Fitness, where based on our experience
in working with small businesses and in servicing them on
longer terms, is just understanding, well, what works for small
business within QuickBooks, what are best practices.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
That are there?
Speaker 1 (30:36):
And we do have a relatively short quick diagnostic to
go in and see where are you using quick Books
in ways that support you and where are there configurations
that maybe might.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Just as be as easy as the flick of.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
A button to turn on certain features that could be
a world of difference for you in how it is
that you are managing and reporting on your financial information.
So there's that opportunity, say from that's kind of like
a controller, right, They're responsible for the system of internal controls,
(31:10):
and that role is also responsible for how reporting is
configured and financial accounting systems like QuickBooks. That's the entire
purpose that technology acts as a tool to be able
to get you reports of financial information that you need.
Another area that we've supported, we have a signature program
called the Growth Architect where we sit with a business
(31:33):
owner and say, let's step back and perform a visualization
exercise and Michelle, I feel like you and I have
done these visualization exercises both in the group that we're
both in and elsewhere as well, but really sitting back
and thinking, let's shake free from the ball and shackles
(31:54):
that can be experienced in knowing where today's business is,
and let's envision the business of our dreams in three
to five years. What do we want that vision to be?
How much money is it making, how many clients does
it serve, what kinds of clients does it serve, What
are the projects or service offerings that it's delivering. How
(32:15):
much is it charging for that kind of stuff that
really embraces it's worth. What's the size of the team
that's necessary to really have a team managed company that
performs all that, Or maybe you are still very much
at the helm and the steering wheel actually like going
in and charging into your client's environments. What does that
(32:36):
business look like? What do you want it to look like?
And with that vision in the future, we would actually
take steps back and say, what are the levers that
we need to pull from a financial perspective in order
to be able to build up to that business. And
we're not looking for figuring out the how right away,
but we want to craft what does this picture look
(32:58):
like and how do We almost kind of like how
a painter may sketch out what they want the painting
to look like, and then we apply the base layer
of the background and then work on some of the
foreground elements and then put the shading and highlights afterwards.
After that's all said and done, it's a process to
(33:18):
be able to build up that and whether we're looking
at how much you're charging, who you're serving, what they're
willing to pay, how big of a team that you require,
and how much you're paying that team, and what else
is needed to be able to support the business in
order for it to run at those sizes. We would
work on creating miniature snapshots along the way to be
(33:41):
able to build up to the business of your dreams.
Quite literally a growth architect where we're building out those blueprints.
That's really more like the CFO role where we sit
back and perform that visualization exercise. And then a third
that I want to offer up is sometimes people just
really need help identifying what's the most profitable component of
(34:03):
their business, because there definitely is a phrase of growing broke,
where if you grow a business too fast or in
the wrong ways, although your revenue might be ticking up.
Your profit may profit line may be running flat or
potentially decreasing, and you might not know or understand why.
(34:23):
Because not all growth is good. Growth needs to be profitable,
and you need to do it in a way that
is priced appropriately, not just so that the market purchases,
but also that you make a profit and invest in
the grow of your company. Right, and so, we as
fractional CFOs can go in and analyze historical cost and
(34:48):
payroll information against the revenues that you make for particular
product or service offering and identify which ones have what's
called the gross margin that is the highest. And if
there is an opportunity to grow higher gross margin offerings,
then you're potentially growing the profit faster compared to if
(35:11):
you were to choose to invest in growing lower margin opportunities.
It would be a lot of effort for a lot
less opportunity. It would be squeezing really really hard for
not as much juice.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Oh, I love everything you said. I want to go
back to I mean, that's brilliant. And you know what
people don't realize is it is possible to lose money
with every sale. You know, It's not something that you
may even be you're excited about your sales, and until
you you know, work with someone like yourself again to understand,
you know, what areas are profitable, you might just be
(35:48):
digging a bigger hole every time you make a sale.
So it's really important. And also I want to go
back to the visualization comment, because while people might hear
that and think, well, you know, so I can dream,
big deal, like everybody can dream visualizing your future, there's
(36:08):
a there's a way to do that that you know,
really allows that to be realized. And so it is
a serious thing. Like sometimes I talk about it a lot,
and sometimes I feel like people think, well, a, I
don't need anybody to help you with that. I can
just go sit somewhere and create a dream. But and
other people get very stuck and and really I've been
(36:31):
there myself where it's like I just don't feel like
I have a vision and I don't feel like you know,
I mean, I can stab in the dark at things
I might want, but it's not like a cohesive overall
vision that is really meaningful to me. And sometimes it well,
I think most of the time it takes some coaching
and some great questions and some direction to actually build
(36:56):
that that vision. So it's not a it's not a
silly thing. It's actually a very challenging thing to do
and people, I think the more seriously you take it,
the better off you and your business will be. So
I just I really am excited that you brought that up.
And all of these things are so important. So anyway,
(37:16):
I would imagine if some light bulbs are going off
or business owners out there about what they might need.
And unfortunately our time is flying by.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
But I really I was just looking at the clock.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
I know's that it happens every time. But I would
love to have just a little bit of a discussion
around debt because that that can be something that's a problem,
but it can also be a nice little safety net
and some help. So what do you what do you
tell clients about debt?
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Sure, and I mean I completely agree this could be
a whole conversation in and of itself. But let's let's
define debt. Debt is geting someone else's capital, someone else's
cash to be able to take care of something that
you need, and you're promising to pay it back and
probably with interest. That's why they ended up learning you
(38:11):
money in.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
The first place.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
So when it comes to the relationship with debts, some
people are like, I'm never requiring any debt at all. Well,
that means that all of the money that your business
will ever need needs to be generated from yourself as
a business owner and you paying money in as seed
capital to get things started, or it needs to come
from your business's operations, meaning it needs to have positive
(38:34):
cash flow to be able to invest. But for others
you and for those that are scared of debt but
are curious, how can I consider debt as either as
a business owner as an individual. Debt comes at a cost,
and that cost is called interest, And the higher that
interest rate is, the more expensive that.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Debt is going to be.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Think of it like you're purchasing money, and if it
has a higher interest rate, that money is more expensive.
And the only reason you'd purchase money is because you
could make more money. So here's here's an example. If
you take on debt and you find you bring on
(39:19):
debt at five percent interest rate or let's go ten
percent interest rate, right, if you aren't able to get
that money back at a rate of higher than to
Like if you got one hundred dollars, if you can't
get one hundred and ten dollars back, then that cost
of that money is too much. But if you could
(39:41):
turn that one hundred dollars into two hundred dollars, then
guess what you pay out that ten dollars and that ninety.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Dollars is left for you to keep.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
So if that money is able to is able to
propel you to make more money because of key investments
within your business, then then it's a positive thing for
the business. Said in accounting terms, there's a cost of capital,
and you want a return of investment that's higher than
(40:13):
your cost of capital. So if you're able to make
twenty percent profit against capital that cost you ten percent interest,
which was the example that I just gave, or not
to one hundred percent profit on the ten percent ten
percent cost of capital, then you've got you've got a
(40:35):
winning deal essentially. Now things get really complex though, if
you're taking on debt of higher and higher interest rates,
because the threshold of recouping your money becomes a lot
more challenging.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
You need to make that much more money.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
So if you have a mix of debt, say that
you've already found yourself in a debt situation and you've
let I'll do a both a business owner example and
a personal example. In a business owner, maybe you have
business credit cards that might be somewhere between fifty to
twenty percent.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
You've got a line of credit.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
That's a variable rate that might be somewhere between seven
and ten percent. Right now, you have maybe you took
out an idle loan during the pandemic, which has I
think it was a three and a quarter percent or so.
It's more important to pay off the debt that has
the higher percentage interest rates because in terms of an
(41:34):
order of operations like always give the minimum payment so
that you are able to preserve your credit worthiness. But
if you have excess capital and want to pay off debt,
pay off the higher interest rate items first. Pulling it
to a personal example, you've got your credit cards that
are probably somewhere between fifteen to twenty percent. You've got
maybe a student loan that you had taken out that
(41:57):
maybe sitting at five percent, and then you had refinanced
your mortgage in the middle of the pandemic and was
able to get it down to three and a half
percent or something like that. Or maybe say you have
a mortgage now sitting at eight percent and a student
loan at five. Well, again, you want to pay off
the credit cards first because the interests that'll build and
(42:20):
roll up with that will continue to grow at that
higher interest rate. So it's important to whittle down the
debt that's of the higher interest rate first because its
cost is the highest and you don't want to keep
incurring the high cost stuff early. I know that there
are a lot of financial tips out there that may
(42:41):
say whittle down everything at the same rate, or they
may say whittle down the thing that has the lowest
balance first just to get it out of the picture,
And there definitely are senses for each of those.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
But if you want to be.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
The most cost advantageous, you want to pay attention to
the thing that has the highest interest rate first and
work on using any minimum pay everything and use the
use the access to pay off those highest interest rates first.
Whether you're a business or a person.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
That's great. Thank you, Jason, Yeah, I think you know.
And debt is a real interesting one because people do
carry a lot of beliefs around debt and it can
it can be, you know, a way to help you
grow for sure, whether you take it on for your
own education or for your business or whatever. So you
have to really check in, I think, and be aware
(43:32):
of your early belief systems around debt to adjust what
needs to be adjusted to take advantage of that you're
talking about.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Its exactly a deep one for people, a very deep one.
Like I said, we could spend a whole podcast just
talking about just that. So maybe an idea for a
future one.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
I love that. I have a module of some trainings
in my Money Day program too that talk about that.
And just if you you know, you can visualize two
different people or two different businesses. One apt refuses to
use any debt and the other is pretty like cool
with it, and the way they're projectory will go is
pretty different. So anyway, I love that, So thank you.
(44:12):
You are a wealth of financial wisdom, and I know
your company offers so many ways to engage with the
variety of accounting folks that we discussed, and you guys
work all over the country, correct.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
That's right?
Speaker 3 (44:29):
Yes, yeah, why don't you tell us how we can
contact you? And you know, if people just want to
have a conversation, can they do that to just you know,
find out.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
More absolutely so, if you're curious about staying tuned with
what Norman Professional Services does. You could find us on
LinkedIn and on YouTube where both myself and our founder
Walter Miller will just be sharing some quick tips and
tricks about entrepreneurship, financial literacy and if you want to
be in contact with either myself or a founder correctly,
(45:00):
we do have a contact us page on our website
where you could reach out and we could get a
calendar meeting scheduled to be able to share a one
on one conversation so you able to learn more about
what it is that you are going through as a
business owner.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Yeah, thank you. I hope people will do that because
I really do think you offer a great service and
it's not industry industry specific in any way. I mean,
I think you are involved in a lot of different
industries and yeah, so okay, well, Jason, thank you so
much for your time. And I love the clarity with
(45:35):
which you speak about all of this. I think that's
the other thing that scares people is talking to financial
people sometimes can feel a little jargony, and you know,
sometimes you walk out of the room thing, I don't
really know what you just said. So you are not
that person, and I think that's a huge So I
think an accounting firm that can communicate well with their
(45:57):
clients is that's a huge, huge bonus.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Thank you so much for that, Michelle. I mean, friendly,
empathetic communication is important. It's one of our core values.
And like it says above me, we help numbers not
be so scary. They don't have to be so scary
for folks. So, Michelle, it was an absolute pleasure of
being a guest on Money in You and I really
appreciate you sharing the invitation with me.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
Thank you so much. I think people got a lot
out of this, and audience, please tune into Jason Mamaclay's YouTube,
the Normal Professional Services YouTube channel. Sounds like there's a
lot of great info there. I'll be tuning in as
well and reach out. You heard it. There's a lot
that can help you as either an individual or a
(46:42):
business owner. And so yes, and thank you so much
for listening to the Money and You show. We so
appreciate it. And if you would like to leave a
rating or a review, we would really appreciate that. Share
it with your friends who might need to hear some
of the information in this episode, And thanks so much.
We'll see you next week. Cospective book acted, spected, booted,
(47:06):
book tectipot SPO
There can be some confusion around well, what do people
mean by the word accountants?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Right?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Some people may think, oh, they just do taxes, Oh
they're being counters. Oh they helped create the budgets. Well, like,
the answer is yes in a lot of variety of ways.
But what exactly are those roles for a small business owner?
And is there a potential that you might be asking
(00:32):
someone to operate outside their lane.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Hey there, and welcome to Money and You. I'm Michelle Perkins,
your host. My search for more fulfilling work led me
to career in business coaching, where I stumbled upon a
game changing discovery. Money issues often start with our mindset
and habits. You see, our relationship with money is the
key to overcoming those frustrating financial obstacles. As an entrepreneur, coach,
(00:58):
and problem solver, I'm passionate about helping you create a
great relationship with money, because turns out that's the foundation
for a limit free life. Each week on Money in You,
I speak with amazing guests about all things money, mindset,
practical tips, and everything in between. We're here to give
you new insights, education and empowerment, so money can be
(01:19):
one of your favorite relationships so join us for some
lively conversations and let's transform your financial life together. Hello, Hello,
and welcome to another exciting episode of the Money in
You Podcast. I'm Michelle Perkins, your host, and very excited
about today's guest. Today's guest is going to cover a
(01:40):
lot of money topics, some we've never covered, and just
give a great overview in many areas. If you're a
business owner or if you're just a person handling your finances,
this is going to be a great show for you. So,
without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and introduce
(02:00):
you to Jason Mama Clay. Name like glasses for this.
Let's see Jason Mamma Clay. He him is a vice
president at Norman Professional Services, which provides fractional CFO and
outsourced accounting services that elevate the financial literacy and strengthen
the financial backbone of small businesses across the United States.
(02:23):
For lots of entrepreneurs, business success and growth comes from
doing good work and loving what you do. But chances
are numbers aren't likely your strong suit. Eventually, a company
needs more intentional attention to financials in order to sustainably grow,
and there may be some fear guilt or shame held
(02:44):
by some business leaders for being quote found out that
they don't really understand their numbers like they feel like
they should. For those entrepreneurs, the team at NPS prides
itself and being trusted advisors that can gently provide the
financial literacy and entrepreneur needs to truly manage and grow
their business. Jason, thank you so much for being here.
(03:05):
I so appreciate your time.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Michelle, It's an absolute pleasure being here, and thank you
so much for having me on the show.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yeah, it's going to be great. So I know when
we talked to you had so many great ideas for
topics and we talked about a variety of things. But
I want to start because I love what your bio
says about entrepreneurs, you know, sort of trying to almost
pretend that they know their numbers better than they do,
or that they understand you know, they understand We know
(03:35):
that they understand their business, they understand their purpose, they
understand their products and services, they understand their clients, but
you know, they need to know understand their numbers. And
so what have you seen out there about you know,
how they interact with their because so much of the
show is about your relationship with money. How are entrepreneurs
interacting with their money and having that relationship.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, well, if you think about it, and if you
find yourself in this particular position as I talk about
it inside my bio.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
You're definitely not alone.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Like first, there are going to be lots of people who,
just as you've mentioned, Michelle, like really try to put
up a puff chest or a lot of confidence about
how it is that their business is doing. I mean,
who here has gone to networking events and ultimately all
the conversations.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Are like, oh, how's business.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Ah, yeah, business is great, and in behind that visage
we might be trembling in our boots to be like, well,
I don't know about this or I'm worried about that.
And that's just a very real and relatable experience as
an entrepreneur. And what's important to be able to do
is to have a trusted circle that you can speak with,
whether it be advisors that you have, coaches that you
(04:49):
may be able to see, people that you can trust
either inside or outside your organization to really dive into
what's actually going on within the business. And part of
that formula is really taking an important and hard look
at the financials so that you not only know what's
been going on, but what also could be going on
(05:10):
in the future and how to be able to plan
for it. Like most money situations, a lot of people
may feel like, well, if I don't pay attention to it,
everything's going to turn out okay, when in fact, that's
probably one of the few dimensions where if you actually
don't pay attention to it, things actually could end up
for the worse, and it'll be really important for you
(05:30):
to be sharing conversations about it, to be exploring it,
and to be getting a support team behind you to
help explain what's going on and figure out the right
path forward.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, thank you. You know, that avoidance, whether you're an
entrepreneur or you know you're just dealing with your own
personal finance, that is one of the red flags in
my opinion, you know, sort of signaling that your relationship
with money is it needs some improvement. I mean, as
with any relationship, we can't avoid getting to understand it
(06:04):
and deal with the realities of it. So yeah, that's
that's great. And you know, you talk about having the
support team, and I think a lot of times people
they're uncomfortable with that too. They don't want you know,
people there, even they're financial people who are there to
help them, They kind of want to get things in
order before they get that person involved. I guess because
(06:27):
it's you know, either they feel some shame around it
or whatever. And I'd love to hear your take on
when is the right time to get people on board.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, that's that's absolutely for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I could understand how there can be some of that fear,
some of that shame, some of that like being afraid
of judgment from a professional whose job it is is
to help get things in order and help improve situations.
Let's just be clear, people in these type of roles
(07:01):
see everything, and they've they've seen everything too, and their
their job and their opportunity is to help and to
help in a non judgmental way. So I do just
want to address that that it's definitely a very natural
and vulnerable feeling to say, I don't know if I'm
ready to have somebody come in and take a look
(07:22):
at things when those might be the very times when
you need and can best benefit from some potential outside
expert help. So I'd love to kind of tee up
the conversation Michelle. Just given that kind of the background
that we both had, there can be some confusion around, well,
(07:42):
what do people mean by the word accountants? Right, some
people may think, oh, they just do taxes. Oh they're
being counters, Oh they help create the budgets. Well, like,
the answer is yes in a lot of variety of ways.
But what exactly are those roles for a small business owner?
(08:06):
And is there a potential that you might be asking
someone to operate outside their lane.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So I actually have.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
A perspective that there are four different definitions of accountants
that may pop in people's minds when they say the
word accountant. So first, there's the CPA. They're the people
who you likely go to to take care of your taxes,
whether it's for the business or for yourself personally. Their
job is to go in and help make sure that
(08:36):
they stay up to date with all the different tax regulations,
both federally and locally within your state, so that you
could mitigate your tax exposure. And a lot of their
attention and strategies will center around that, and that is
a very common consideration of who is an accountant. But
then somebody else might say, oh, my accountant does my.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Quick books, does my collections.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
My accountant does some of the back office transactional level data,
and I assert that that role is more formally known
as the bookkeeper role within an organization. Their responsibility is
data entry. They take all the different things that are
happening with the business, whether it's you spent money on
(09:26):
office supplies, or collected money from a customer on an
overdue invoice.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Or you paid taxes.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
They're the ones that are responsible for putting all the
different transactions into their appropriate bucket. Now it is possible
that your CPA is doing that too, or maybe a
member of your CPA's team is doing that, but realistically
those are two different roles. Ones a research focused role
and another is an attention to detail and data entry
focused role. And immediately right away we go, oh, that
(09:56):
might explain why there might be a disconnect where I
thought my accountant was doing my books, but I only
talk with them once a year instead of getting progress
of how things go along the way before I hop
into the other two roles that I see. Michelle, have
you seen that come across in your experience as an
(10:17):
accountant or in some of the folks that you've coached.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Yes, And what I feel like has worked best for me,
and you know, some family business that we have as well,
has been to have we have a separate bookkeeper. I mean,
I have a wonderful tax accountant. He's the truly strategist,
but I have a separate person who puts the data
(10:42):
together and like you said, my bookkeeping service. But they
work together, which I think I don't think everybody necessarily
has that, but one referred the other, and so it's
a very kind of it's a really good relationship because
but there's that objective data entry. They think a little differently,
(11:02):
you know. So I think it's really important that the
bookkeeper be the bookkeeper, and he's super smart in that area,
but he also keeps things in a way where then
the information goes to my tax accountant and he puts
a strategic hat on and starts playing with those numbers.
And I feel like there's benefit in having the separation there.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Personally, Yeah, I completely agree.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
For some it works for it all to be in
a single house or a single organization. For others, it's
perfectly fine to be able to have it separate. I'm
actually of the opinion that it actually strengthens your organization
to have the power of two independent authorities being able
to really chime in on the health of how things
are going from a financial perspective, and really pokes a
(11:50):
little bit at my history as a CPA who was
an auditor in what we call the segregation of duties
control by not having all of your eggs in one
singular basket, which could lead you to some potentially risky exposures.
It's not that they would happen, but it is a
(12:10):
risk exposure that you're able to see, Michelle. That actually
leads really really well into the next role that I
was going to explain, if I may go into it.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah, please, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
So another role that often gets overlooked when it comes
to the word accountant is the controller, and its specific
role is in the name I know that they say
in school, don't define a word based on the word
that it is. But really the controller is responsible for
(12:40):
the system of internal controls within an organization. They're responsible
for the overarching reporting that happens within the org, and
they're responsible also for keeping track for anything unusual that
may be popping up, whether they be individual events, maybe
some wild transaction that came up or trends. We're seeing
(13:00):
that expenses in this particular bucket are creeping up and
up and up, and we might not have things in
place to kind of check those expenses.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
We might need to look into it.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
A controller is responsible for keeping track of how this
data is being assembled, is it being assembled correctly. Oftentimes
they're the people that are double checking the work of
the bookkeeper, and they present the summary of reports out
to the business owner and they will raise their hand
and say, here are a couple of the areas that
I think we need to go ahead and peek into
(13:33):
a little bit more deeply, or lift on the hood
and look underneath the cover, or just kind of strategize
what are we going to do if the cost of
xyz things continue to increase? Right, So, the controller really
kind of provides a level of investigation and clarity on
(13:56):
financial data by summarizing the most important things into the reports. Now, again,
maybe the bookkeeper can put together the reports, or maybe
your CPA is also providing that kind of service. But realistically,
if you have somebody who's dedicated for catching things before
it gets too late, that could be a really important
role within an organization. It's not one that typically gets
(14:20):
hired for In the smallest of businesses, usually the business
owner may still be the one wearing that hat to
look out for anything that looks unusual. But if you
don't already have a keen eye for catching what those
kinds of things are, and let's also face it, you're
probably busy doing a lot of other things. Some things
can potentially just get missed and may become a bigger
(14:41):
thing when you do need to address them at the
end of the day.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah, I love that. I love that you brought that up,
because when you and I talked before, I think we
both agree. I don't know that you know, generally entrepreneurs
know the distinctions between these different roles, and I think
it is really important to understand them. And then there's
the CFO, which is another.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I've got a phrase I like thinking B for bookkeeping
and B for backwards facing. A bookkeeper's job is to
get history rights. But if you were to ask a
bookkeeper to prepare a forecast for next year, they might
be looking like a deer in the headlights, or ask, well,
what exactly am I supposed to do?
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Well, if you think about it.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
You're asking for a history and accuracy focused mindset to
try to scope out what if scenarios for the future,
which may or may not actually pan out. They're based
off of assumptions, it's based off of projections, and for
a person that their livelihood, their career is around getting
(15:50):
information rights, that might stress out a bookkeeper quite a bit.
So what ends up happening in lots of organizations, All
that a budget forecast becomes is last year's actuals plus
maybe five percent for inflation. And that's the safest approach
that one could take to say, hey, I've got the
data that backs us up and we're just going to
go with the most conservative approach. But that might not
(16:13):
be what a business owner needs in order to really
extrapolate out what's the possibility, what's the opportunity for the business?
So I said B for bookkeeping, B for backwards. Well,
a CFO stands for chief financial officer, but I also
say F for finance, F for future. The cfo's role
sits next to the CEO. You woantn't call it a
(16:35):
chief something officer if it wasn't an executive level role,
and they're the voice of money for the chief executive
officer to think strategically, as a leader of the organization,
where should the business be going, specifically in terms of
where should it invest cash and how are we measuring
that return on investment to make sure that it is
(16:59):
panning out to be what it is that we wanted
it to be.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Yeah, I love that, you know, it's so funny. I
have not done like continuing education in accounting for years
and years, But this past weekend I went with a
friend who's a CFO, he's been a close friend forever
to a CFO conference that he was going to, and
I didn't go to much of the conference, but I
heard a lot and I was mingling with a lot
of CFOs and you know, their role is super important.
(17:27):
And I feel like it's interesting when you look at
entrepreneurs and or anybody really who you know, in a
sort of a quest to save money, a lot of
times they want maybe their bookkeeper or their controller to
do things that are out of you know, really kind
of out of their scope, and a lot of times
(17:47):
they'll say yes to it. You know, you were just
talking about asking your bookkeeper to do a forecast, Well,
chances are you know the bookkeeper is going to want
to say yes to that and give it a shot.
But I think what you're what you're bringing up is
so important because these are skill sets that are different
and it's really important too. And you know, you and
(18:08):
I are in a business group where we're talking about
growth and scaling a lot, and it's hard to scale
if you're just looking at historical data like you were saying,
and just you know, not thinking bigger with the possibility
that some of it maybe a CFO might think about things.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah, definitely, definitely. And another thing that I want to
highlight is that's the this is the order of the
advisors that I would recommend a business owner considering getting
that financial support structure. Realistically, it's about when am I
taking off all the different hats that I'm wearing For
some businesses that are just starting out, some business owners
(18:48):
might be super confident enough to be able to take
care of their own taxes, but because of the compliance
related components to it and the potential penalties that come
without without doing it directly, getting a CPA is one
of the the very first things that you need to
do as a business owner if you don't.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Do it already right away.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
As a business owner to make sure that your taxes
are represented correctly to the state and to the irs.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Would hate for.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Anyone to undergo unnecessary penalties just because they wanted to
save a penny by doing it themselves. There is a
lot of really great technology out there that helps empower
and enable individuals to take care of stuff on their own.
But if you really want to take advantage of what
potential opportunities there may be for mitigating taxes, getting expert
(19:37):
help through a CPA, I think is definitely one of
the first things that a business owner should contemplate doing.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Yes, and I've said this before on their show, but
I love meeting with my account because I learned so much.
I mean, if I did it myself, which I used
to do, but then, just like you're saying, keeping up
with the changes and the laws, that's just not something
I was wanting to or good do. But it's the
conversations we have too. So while you know you're after
(20:07):
a deliverable like a tax return or whatever, there's so
much to be gained from really diving into these conversations.
So just because the tax accountant can put together your
tax return doesn't mean that you don't want to have
conversations about what's going on in that return. So you
know that's where you can really learn a lot.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I think, yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
The rule of thumb that I have for these types
of roles is I call it the ad A zero rule.
So here I've got a version of a presentation where
I give where I'm like, if you're if your company
is making two thousand dollars or three thousand dollars, right,
go ahead and grab a CPA. When should you grab
a bookkeeper? Well, ad A zero. If your company is
making five figures, it's probably worth your time to finally
(20:56):
offload the hours that you'd be spending trying to keep
up with your quick books or whatever your accounting system is,
to keep up with your invoicing and calling customers, to
follow up on payments, to keep up with if you
have payroll, like actually entering in the information for your employees,
or paying off vendors or contractors that are supporting you.
(21:18):
From a Dan Martel buy back your time perspective, the
opportunity is there to delegate that to somebody to take
care of that for you and for you just simply
to oversee the overall process and make sure that that's
happening smoothly on an ongoing basis. So at a zero,
if your company's making five figures, probably should be considering
(21:39):
getting a book keeper. The next step controller, well, add
another zero. If your company is making six figures, say
in the quarter million space or higher, consider getting somebody,
maybe not a full time internal person, but consider getting
someone who sits in the controller role, because, let's face it,
when you're dealing with one hundred thousand dollars, two hundred
(22:00):
thousand dollars and so on, that's a lot of money
and you kind of really should have a good grasp
on making sure that money's not leaking out of the organization,
either intentionally or non intentionally.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
And it's a good way to get yet.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Another perspective to be monitoring that so that you're not
kind of fussing over all the different ways to keep
track of the trends or individual transactions, and somebody's out
there looking out for you for it and double checking
the work of the ongoing bookkeeper. And then of course
for the last role with CFO, let's add another zero.
(22:36):
When you're in the seven figure range making one million,
two million, and up. You really want to get that
expert level support because you're at that stage of business
growth that you want to make sure that you're making
key strategic investments to be able to take yourself to
the next step of scaling, and that role needs an.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Executive level voice.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
It's kind of like, would you ask the receptionist at
the front desk of a doctor's office to be the
one to pull blood and tell you information about your
blood work.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Probably not.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
And so while there's tons of respect for those support
team members that are responsible for data entry bookkeeping, they
might not be the best role to be able to
help you with executive strategy and growth planning. And again
I'm not saying go out and hire a six figure
CFO full time within your organization, there are fractional opportunities
to be able to go and engage with knowledgeable experts
(23:34):
to be able to help take things to the next level.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Yeah, and you know, I don't know when that started,
the fractional you know kind of CFO organizations, but it's
really a fantastic opportunity for entrepreneurs to get the help
they need without hiring, you know, very expensive people to
be on their staff. So, yeah, I'd love to, you know,
(23:58):
and as I just love everything you're saying. But there's
this sort of chicken and egg thing where people like
to think, well, when I get to this point, when
I'm making this much, then I'll hire. And it really,
in my opinion, as much as you can. It's a
higher forward kind of situation. But what's your take on that?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah, definitely, so you don't want to get ahead of
yourself in terms of well, what is it can you afford?
And that's why I kind of use the ad a
zero rule, Like, if you're just starting out and you're
making fifty sixty thousand dollars in effectively, what is a
side hustle?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Right in terms of top line revenue.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
It probably isn't the smartest idea to go out and
try to find a fractional CFO to go and help
you out. The reality of small business is I encourage
business owners to build a viable product, market fit business
that generates cash on its own, and as your business
grow and grows in complexity, either because of the number
(25:04):
of people that are part of the organization or the
number of service offerings that the business offers to its
variety of clients, or the number of clients that a
person needs to cover, which usually dictates the number of
people and service offerings that are there. As complexity grows,
getting additional support to be able to handle and make
sense out of all of that complexity is where things
(25:25):
come into play. So for a lot of businesses they
use revenue as a proxy of that. But I would
say the most important thing for a business owner when
thinking about, hey, when is it right to be able
to bring on advisors? I use that at a zero
rule for the four different echelons, and if you're below
those certain thresholds, really focus in on what is it
(25:49):
that I'm selling? How am I capturing the value of
what it is that I'm selling, and how am I
making sure that it's done in a way that generates
me profit, that generates me positive cash flow so that
I can continue to be growing and investing in the
business the shell. Something related to that that I think
applies not just to businesses but to individuals as well,
(26:12):
is the importance of building up a cash reserve for
key investments that you want to go and make. So
maybe it may be hey, if I'm able to go
ahead and reach however, many thousands of dollars inside my
hire a CFO fund, Right, then that is a really
(26:34):
good thing to go about doing. But you want to
also make sure do I have enough money to be
able to support the business if revenue were to shrink
or turn to zero for a given period of time.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
I call that the cash runway.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
A lot of people call it the rainy day fund,
but some way of being able to build up cash
reserves that served towards a specific purpose. On the individual front,
it could be yeah, the rainy day fund to be
able to keep the lights on at home and pay
for groceries utilities and such a separate fund could be
(27:09):
a save for vacation fund.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
So it's like, what's the next step to be able
to do something different or separate that elevates or celebrates
life in a different way in a meaningful way. For some,
it's let me save up to prepare for buying a home,
which whether you are buying your first home or buying
your next home and upgrading, it introduces a new complexity
(27:35):
in your life and so as a result, you need
to like have a dedicated attention to it.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
As a result, yeah, yeah, thank you, And all of
that is building your relationship with money and when you're
paying attention to these things. I love all of that,
and I think especially for entrepreneurs, it's challenging to get
that reserve. I mean, that is something that I see
(28:00):
as a big goal that people feel very you know,
stuck around because you know, when you have a business,
you can always keep investing in that business, and yeah,
and you know you could be in a situation where
the revenue fluctuates. I mean, there's a lot of things.
So while everybody probably would agree that that's a great idea,
(28:22):
they'll the practicalities of making that happen. And that's where
I also think bringing in experts like yourself that's really necessary.
I think an objective outside I on the numbers will
help reveal the way to do that. But I think
you know, in your own way of being, in your
own habits around your business, it's pretty tough to see
(28:45):
the way forward with that.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So yeah, it's definitely very natural to kind of like
cycle through the same thought pattern, cycle through the same spiral,
and find yourself in exactly the same place you were
last year, because the only voice to be able to
bounce things off of are your own As the leader
of the organization. So I absolutely can resonate with that.
And in those cases, rather than say bringing on an
(29:08):
expert for an extended basis extended duration, maybe just solictening
the help of an expert, of a CFO or of
a controller for a quick maybe one quarter project to
go ahead and really deep dive without the financial weight
of an extended relationship can be a really great way
(29:29):
to Like great example, if you've hit a plateau and
you're like, I just need to shake things up a
little bit, and maybe I just need that outside voice.
That can be a place where you engage someone for
just a short term project that can have a much
lower financial much lower financial expectation and requirement longer term.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Well, that's really interesting. I actually didn't know that that
would be easy to do. So I'm assuming that you
guys do that at your firm since you brought it up.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
So a couple of the ways that a firm like
NPS can come into play. We actually have a few
signature processes, a few signature programs that center around something
like this. One thing could be I just don't know
whether or not QuickBooks is working properly, and we have
(30:20):
a program called Financial Fitness, where based on our experience
in working with small businesses and in servicing them on
longer terms, is just understanding, well, what works for small
business within QuickBooks, what are best practices.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
That are there?
Speaker 1 (30:36):
And we do have a relatively short quick diagnostic to
go in and see where are you using quick Books
in ways that support you and where are there configurations
that maybe might.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Just as be as easy as the flick of.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
A button to turn on certain features that could be
a world of difference for you in how it is
that you are managing and reporting on your financial information.
So there's that opportunity, say from that's kind of like
a controller, right, They're responsible for the system of internal controls,
(31:10):
and that role is also responsible for how reporting is
configured and financial accounting systems like QuickBooks. That's the entire
purpose that technology acts as a tool to be able
to get you reports of financial information that you need.
Another area that we've supported, we have a signature program
called the Growth Architect where we sit with a business
(31:33):
owner and say, let's step back and perform a visualization
exercise and Michelle, I feel like you and I have
done these visualization exercises both in the group that we're
both in and elsewhere as well, but really sitting back
and thinking, let's shake free from the ball and shackles
(31:54):
that can be experienced in knowing where today's business is,
and let's envision the business of our dreams in three
to five years. What do we want that vision to be?
How much money is it making, how many clients does
it serve, what kinds of clients does it serve, What
are the projects or service offerings that it's delivering. How
(32:15):
much is it charging for that kind of stuff that
really embraces it's worth. What's the size of the team
that's necessary to really have a team managed company that
performs all that, Or maybe you are still very much
at the helm and the steering wheel actually like going
in and charging into your client's environments. What does that
(32:36):
business look like? What do you want it to look like?
And with that vision in the future, we would actually
take steps back and say, what are the levers that
we need to pull from a financial perspective in order
to be able to build up to that business. And
we're not looking for figuring out the how right away,
but we want to craft what does this picture look
(32:58):
like and how do We almost kind of like how
a painter may sketch out what they want the painting
to look like, and then we apply the base layer
of the background and then work on some of the
foreground elements and then put the shading and highlights afterwards.
After that's all said and done, it's a process to
(33:18):
be able to build up that and whether we're looking
at how much you're charging, who you're serving, what they're
willing to pay, how big of a team that you require,
and how much you're paying that team, and what else
is needed to be able to support the business in
order for it to run at those sizes. We would
work on creating miniature snapshots along the way to be
(33:41):
able to build up to the business of your dreams.
Quite literally a growth architect where we're building out those blueprints.
That's really more like the CFO role where we sit
back and perform that visualization exercise. And then a third
that I want to offer up is sometimes people just
really need help identifying what's the most profitable component of
(34:03):
their business, because there definitely is a phrase of growing broke,
where if you grow a business too fast or in
the wrong ways, although your revenue might be ticking up.
Your profit may profit line may be running flat or
potentially decreasing, and you might not know or understand why.
(34:23):
Because not all growth is good. Growth needs to be profitable,
and you need to do it in a way that
is priced appropriately, not just so that the market purchases,
but also that you make a profit and invest in
the grow of your company. Right, and so, we as
fractional CFOs can go in and analyze historical cost and
(34:48):
payroll information against the revenues that you make for particular
product or service offering and identify which ones have what's
called the gross margin that is the highest. And if
there is an opportunity to grow higher gross margin offerings,
then you're potentially growing the profit faster compared to if
(35:11):
you were to choose to invest in growing lower margin opportunities.
It would be a lot of effort for a lot
less opportunity. It would be squeezing really really hard for
not as much juice.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Oh, I love everything you said. I want to go
back to I mean, that's brilliant. And you know what
people don't realize is it is possible to lose money
with every sale. You know, It's not something that you
may even be you're excited about your sales, and until
you you know, work with someone like yourself again to understand,
you know, what areas are profitable, you might just be
(35:48):
digging a bigger hole every time you make a sale.
So it's really important. And also I want to go
back to the visualization comment, because while people might hear
that and think, well, you know, so I can dream,
big deal, like everybody can dream visualizing your future, there's
(36:08):
a there's a way to do that that you know,
really allows that to be realized. And so it is
a serious thing. Like sometimes I talk about it a lot,
and sometimes I feel like people think, well, a, I
don't need anybody to help you with that. I can
just go sit somewhere and create a dream. But and
other people get very stuck and and really I've been
(36:31):
there myself where it's like I just don't feel like
I have a vision and I don't feel like you know,
I mean, I can stab in the dark at things
I might want, but it's not like a cohesive overall
vision that is really meaningful to me. And sometimes it well,
I think most of the time it takes some coaching
and some great questions and some direction to actually build
(36:56):
that that vision. So it's not a it's not a
silly thing. It's actually a very challenging thing to do
and people, I think the more seriously you take it,
the better off you and your business will be. So
I just I really am excited that you brought that up.
And all of these things are so important. So anyway,
(37:16):
I would imagine if some light bulbs are going off
or business owners out there about what they might need.
And unfortunately our time is flying by.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
But I really I was just looking at the clock.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
I know's that it happens every time. But I would
love to have just a little bit of a discussion
around debt because that that can be something that's a problem,
but it can also be a nice little safety net
and some help. So what do you what do you
tell clients about debt?
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Sure, and I mean I completely agree this could be
a whole conversation in and of itself. But let's let's
define debt. Debt is geting someone else's capital, someone else's
cash to be able to take care of something that
you need, and you're promising to pay it back and
probably with interest. That's why they ended up learning you
(38:11):
money in.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
The first place.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
So when it comes to the relationship with debts, some
people are like, I'm never requiring any debt at all. Well,
that means that all of the money that your business
will ever need needs to be generated from yourself as
a business owner and you paying money in as seed
capital to get things started, or it needs to come
from your business's operations, meaning it needs to have positive
(38:34):
cash flow to be able to invest. But for others
you and for those that are scared of debt but
are curious, how can I consider debt as either as
a business owner as an individual. Debt comes at a cost,
and that cost is called interest, And the higher that
interest rate is, the more expensive that.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Debt is going to be.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Think of it like you're purchasing money, and if it
has a higher interest rate, that money is more expensive.
And the only reason you'd purchase money is because you
could make more money. So here's here's an example. If
you take on debt and you find you bring on
(39:19):
debt at five percent interest rate or let's go ten
percent interest rate, right, if you aren't able to get
that money back at a rate of higher than to
Like if you got one hundred dollars, if you can't
get one hundred and ten dollars back, then that cost
of that money is too much. But if you could
(39:41):
turn that one hundred dollars into two hundred dollars, then
guess what you pay out that ten dollars and that ninety.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Dollars is left for you to keep.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
So if that money is able to is able to
propel you to make more money because of key investments
within your business, then then it's a positive thing for
the business. Said in accounting terms, there's a cost of capital,
and you want a return of investment that's higher than
(40:13):
your cost of capital. So if you're able to make
twenty percent profit against capital that cost you ten percent interest,
which was the example that I just gave, or not
to one hundred percent profit on the ten percent ten
percent cost of capital, then you've got you've got a
(40:35):
winning deal essentially. Now things get really complex though, if
you're taking on debt of higher and higher interest rates,
because the threshold of recouping your money becomes a lot
more challenging.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
You need to make that much more money.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
So if you have a mix of debt, say that
you've already found yourself in a debt situation and you've
let I'll do a both a business owner example and
a personal example. In a business owner, maybe you have
business credit cards that might be somewhere between fifty to
twenty percent.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
You've got a line of credit.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
That's a variable rate that might be somewhere between seven
and ten percent. Right now, you have maybe you took
out an idle loan during the pandemic, which has I
think it was a three and a quarter percent or so.
It's more important to pay off the debt that has
the higher percentage interest rates because in terms of an
(41:34):
order of operations like always give the minimum payment so
that you are able to preserve your credit worthiness. But
if you have excess capital and want to pay off debt,
pay off the higher interest rate items first. Pulling it
to a personal example, you've got your credit cards that
are probably somewhere between fifteen to twenty percent. You've got
maybe a student loan that you had taken out that
(41:57):
maybe sitting at five percent, and then you had refinanced
your mortgage in the middle of the pandemic and was
able to get it down to three and a half
percent or something like that. Or maybe say you have
a mortgage now sitting at eight percent and a student
loan at five. Well, again, you want to pay off
the credit cards first because the interests that'll build and
(42:20):
roll up with that will continue to grow at that
higher interest rate. So it's important to whittle down the
debt that's of the higher interest rate first because its
cost is the highest and you don't want to keep
incurring the high cost stuff early. I know that there
are a lot of financial tips out there that may
(42:41):
say whittle down everything at the same rate, or they
may say whittle down the thing that has the lowest
balance first just to get it out of the picture,
And there definitely are senses for each of those.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
But if you want to be.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
The most cost advantageous, you want to pay attention to
the thing that has the highest interest rate first and
work on using any minimum pay everything and use the
use the access to pay off those highest interest rates first.
Whether you're a business or a person.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
That's great. Thank you, Jason, Yeah, I think you know.
And debt is a real interesting one because people do
carry a lot of beliefs around debt and it can
it can be, you know, a way to help you
grow for sure, whether you take it on for your
own education or for your business or whatever. So you
have to really check in, I think, and be aware
(43:32):
of your early belief systems around debt to adjust what
needs to be adjusted to take advantage of that you're
talking about.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Its exactly a deep one for people, a very deep one.
Like I said, we could spend a whole podcast just
talking about just that. So maybe an idea for a
future one.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
I love that. I have a module of some trainings
in my Money Day program too that talk about that.
And just if you you know, you can visualize two
different people or two different businesses. One apt refuses to
use any debt and the other is pretty like cool
with it, and the way they're projectory will go is
pretty different. So anyway, I love that, So thank you.
(44:12):
You are a wealth of financial wisdom, and I know
your company offers so many ways to engage with the
variety of accounting folks that we discussed, and you guys
work all over the country, correct.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
That's right?
Speaker 3 (44:29):
Yes, yeah, why don't you tell us how we can
contact you? And you know, if people just want to
have a conversation, can they do that to just you know,
find out.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
More absolutely so, if you're curious about staying tuned with
what Norman Professional Services does. You could find us on
LinkedIn and on YouTube where both myself and our founder
Walter Miller will just be sharing some quick tips and
tricks about entrepreneurship, financial literacy and if you want to
be in contact with either myself or a founder correctly,
(45:00):
we do have a contact us page on our website
where you could reach out and we could get a
calendar meeting scheduled to be able to share a one
on one conversation so you able to learn more about
what it is that you are going through as a
business owner.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Yeah, thank you. I hope people will do that because
I really do think you offer a great service and
it's not industry industry specific in any way. I mean,
I think you are involved in a lot of different
industries and yeah, so okay, well, Jason, thank you so
much for your time. And I love the clarity with
(45:35):
which you speak about all of this. I think that's
the other thing that scares people is talking to financial
people sometimes can feel a little jargony, and you know,
sometimes you walk out of the room thing, I don't
really know what you just said. So you are not
that person, and I think that's a huge So I
think an accounting firm that can communicate well with their
(45:57):
clients is that's a huge, huge bonus.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Thank you so much for that, Michelle. I mean, friendly,
empathetic communication is important. It's one of our core values.
And like it says above me, we help numbers not
be so scary. They don't have to be so scary
for folks. So, Michelle, it was an absolute pleasure of
being a guest on Money in You and I really
appreciate you sharing the invitation with me.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
Thank you so much. I think people got a lot
out of this, and audience, please tune into Jason Mamaclay's YouTube,
the Normal Professional Services YouTube channel. Sounds like there's a
lot of great info there. I'll be tuning in as
well and reach out. You heard it. There's a lot
that can help you as either an individual or a
(46:42):
business owner. And so yes, and thank you so much
for listening to the Money and You show. We so
appreciate it. And if you would like to leave a
rating or a review, we would really appreciate that. Share
it with your friends who might need to hear some
of the information in this episode, And thanks so much.
We'll see you next week. Cospective book acted, spected, booted,
(47:06):
book tectipot SPO
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!