July 21, 2025 • 38 mins
This episode delves into the critical, and often overlooked, significance of understanding and managing one's finances as a business owner. We explore fears surrounding money, particularly among female entrepreneurs, and emphasize the necessity of breaking the taboos associated with financial literacy.
Throughout our discussion, we highlight the importance of actively engaging with financial statements and maintaining clear oversight of one’s books, as these practices are essential for sustainable business operations and informed decision-making.
Moreover, we address the importance of understanding the distinction between revenue and profit, as well as the returns on investments made-- including your time and energy--to ensure that business owners can navigate their financial landscapes with confidence. As we navigate the complexities of finance in the entrepreneurial realm, we encourage our listeners to embrace their roles as informed leaders and take charge of their financial narratives.
Takeaways:
- Understanding one's financial statements is crucial for effective business management and decision-making.
- Women business owners often face significant challenges in securing funding compared to their male counterparts.
- Regularly reviewing accounting reports can help identify discrepancies and optimize financial performance.
- Business owners should actively engage with their financial data to ensure they are aware of their monetary situation.
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Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(01:11):
Foreign.
Hello, and welcome back toanother episode of Getting Real with
Bossy, the podcast that talksabout what it's really like to be
a business owner with Kelly.
Bush and Kelly Metris.
(01:32):
And today we are talking aboutour favorite subject.
Money.
Money, money, money, money.
Notice how I didn't say what Iusually say when I say money, because
I am trying to reframe how Italk about money, because it is.
It is just I need to.
(01:52):
I need to stop being terrifiedof money.
I think, you know, we.
There's so many songs.
We wanted to start this withmusic, but we don't own rights to
any music.
But I go back to.
There are so many differentmoney songs, and I just want to.
I want to reference one of myfavorite money songs by my.
(02:13):
One of my favorite bands, abba.
I work all night I work allday to pay the bills I have to pay
Ain't it sad?
And still there never seems tobe a single penny left for me that's
too bad.
And that is how so many of us feel.
Not just women, businessowners, but when we go over some
(02:33):
statistics later today, youwill see that it seems like that,
but it is.
It is very sad.
And money just, money justgoes so quickly and if we're not
on top.
Of.
Can be really dangerous.
And that's what we're going totalk about today, how some steps
that we can do and things thatare really important in small business
(02:55):
world to look at and make sureyou have a good handle on, because
money is a huge part ofbusiness, whether you like it or
not.
And as we've talked about inthe last couple episodes, and Kelly
and I talk about it a lot,generationally, certainly we have
not been brought upnecessarily to understand money as
(03:15):
much as perhaps our brothers have.
And we're trying to break that.
We're trying to change that.
Right.
And I think it's normalizedfor our generation anyways to be
okay with it being in someone else's.
Like, they.
Right.
They take care of it.
Like, you know, even I don'twant to mention names of big businesses,
(03:40):
but the big businesses that weuse, you got to check and make sure
they're charging you right.
Because they could easily becharging you wrong.
And you're missing out on thatmoney because you're just putting
blind trust because you thinkother people know what they're doing.
Well, guess what?
The other people are not special.
Right?
Right.
And I'm so surprised.
And I think this will bring usto our first point.
How many people put that trustin professionals to do handle their
(04:04):
books.
And yes, you definitely needaccountants and bookkeepers.
They're incredibly important.
I have them.
I can't do the work that myaccountant does.
But you need to understandyour books.
And I am so surprised by theamount of small, micro small, even
mid sized business owners thatdo not understand their books.
(04:25):
They put everything in theiraccountant's hands and they go about
doing their business.
And it may be seemingly asuccessfully ran business, but if
you don't know your books andyou don't know where your money is
going, it's bananas to me assomebody who does the all of their
own inputting and I know thatthat's not, that's my own personal
choice.
(04:46):
But you need to know whereyour money is, you need to know what
your books look like and it isa okay to have a bookkeeper doing
that work for you.
But you need to be asking foryour reports.
P&LS minimum once a month.
We recommend at least once aweek because Kelly and I look at
(05:08):
our stuff all the time andwe're always going through our percentages.
Do they make sense and is itthe right season?
What's going on?
Because it's so important andthere's so many things that can be
changed.
I had a subscription that Iwas paying for several months and
it went up and I didn't noticeit for a couple months because it
(05:30):
just didn't register.
It wasn't a lot of money butit went up.
I reached out.
The reason that it went upmade a lot of sense.
But because I do really goodbusiness with them and I help them
out with another arrangement,they were like, oh gosh, I had to
go up because now we have totake taxes for that.
But because of the thingsyou've done for us, let me see if
I can get you some discounts.
(05:51):
And I was able to get the samerate that I had before.
My, my accountant wouldn'tknow that and they would just think
that's a reasonable, areasonable thing to go up.
After a year of using this,things go up and they would not know
to look at that.
And I'm sure a lot of thesethings are happening and that and
those little things happen.
If you can save 30, 50, $60 amonth on six or seven different things,
(06:15):
that's a lot of money.
And if you're getting the dealof a lifetime, read the fine print.
Are they allowed to increaseyour prices without notice?
Right.
So when you fight back, is itin the fine print?
And I'm going to throw alittle chatgpt.
Because you could take thatfine print and dump it into whatever
(06:35):
AI program that you prefer,even though I'm not a huge proponent
of AI.
And it will tell you what youneed to, to keep your eye on.
It'll give you the bulletpoints, give you the overview and
kind of just help youunderstand it.
And you can ask specificquestions like, does it say this
in the fine print?
And it'll actually look at itfor you.
Because none of us actuallywant to sit and read it.
Right.
But you need to know what thefine print says.
(06:58):
Right.
And that's a huge.
I mean, you cannot like AI andthere are plenty of people out there
that don't, but there are somethings that it is really good for.
And you and I have talkedabout that.
I put the results of an MRIinto, into ge and I, yes, Google,
you can sponsor our podcast.
And it's.
It spilled it out for me.
I wanted to understand it more.
It was just for my ankle.
(07:18):
It wasn't anything serious,but I wanted a little bit more information
before I went in and met witha new surgeon.
And there are things that youcan use it for.
Something like you just said,is the perfect thing to use it for.
Yeah.
So know and, and get it inwriting, right?
Anything you're working onwith another person, another company,
whatever it is, get it inwriting and ask all the questions.
(07:40):
I am a huge fan.
Asking questions in email sothat they're answered in email and
it's from like the company email.
And then you just put it in alittle folder in your email account.
And if questions come up, youcan be like, no, no, no, no.
This is what you said.
You have to hold, hold to that price.
You know, we're all raisingour prices as we need to.
And I don't want to like, pushon other companies having to raise
(08:03):
their prices.
But it's the, the not telling you.
It's the sneaky.
The sneakies.
We get a lot of those.
I just had my, my menusoftware almost double in price with.
After three years of being thesame price, no word.
And I was like.
I saw it hit my credit cardand I was like, what the hell is
(08:25):
that?
No, it's just my software renewal.
So just keeping up on who'sgetting away with what.
You know, there's going to bethings that you're like, yeah, that
makes sense.
Yeah, my costs of foodsometimes go up, but there's other
times that it is a mistake bythe person who's putting it in the
computer and they're chargingme too much.
Right.
Which is different than thecost of, you know, it cost them more
(08:45):
to get the steak.
It's going to cost me more toget the steak.
But if someone's putting it inthe computer wrong, I need to be
able to catch that.
So I'm not paying for it.
Absolutely.
And I think another thing wetalk about a lot in Bossy.
When you start your business,you're doing that thing that you're
really passionate about, andit's probably not reading financial
statements.
(09:06):
So let's.
Let's break it.
We talk about breaking taboos.
We've talked about this, andthat's something we're going to talk
about today.
So let's break that taboo thatyou have as a business owner, as
you start out, or even 16years in, as I am this year, that
you need to understandeverything about reading financial
statements.
And you know what?
Throw your financial statementinto ChatGPT.
(09:28):
I haven't done that yet.
Or Gemini and maybe.
And ask it to explain it to you.
They're.
They are tricky, right?
I mean, for a while.
I mean, I remember our firstyear, I'm like, what a balance sheet?
And P and L. Like, why do Ineed two different things?
Like, aren't they essentiallytelling me the same thing?
It took me a while to kind ofreally figure out what, like, what
I needed for different things.
(09:48):
And they're incredibly important.
And it is a.
Okay if you don't know whatthe hell they mean or everything
about them.
There are a lot of differentreports that you can run, and they're
all important for different reasons.
And it's fine if you don'tunderstand all of them.
Ask for help.
Reach out to Kelly and I.
We will help you read through them.
We will help you understand them.
(10:09):
We've had other business owners.
We just sat down the other dayand helped a woman go through P and
L. We're totally fine to do that.
We don't care.
We'll show you ours first.
If there's any.
If you're, like, shamefulabout your numbers, I'll show you
mine.
You can see mine.
I'll show you anymore, actually.
But, like, ask for help withthese things.
Because if the reason you'renot going through your panels is
(10:29):
and your balance sheet andyour financial reports and statements
is because you just don'treally understand them.
That is.
That's just silliness.
Let's get over that and reachout and ask for help.
Because according to score in2019, I hope this has changed a little
bit.
Since the pandemic, and we allhad to do a lot more reports, only
12% of women, women businessowners felt very confident in their
(10:50):
ability to read financial statements.
And that is not okay.
Not okay.
So we need to make that, weneed to make that better.
So we're going to talk aboutsome tips at the end, but reading
those.
Pull a P and L as often as you can.
Pull a balance sheet as oftenyou can.
Bare minimum, once a month.
(11:10):
And we will, we will happilybe your accountability partners.
We can just set up remindersfor you.
Right.
We'll just, we'll call you,send you some DMs.
Absolutely.
So, yeah, I'll get off mysoapbox about that.
Gotta know your numbers, and,and it's important to know your trends,
(11:30):
your seasons, when things aregonna go up and down.
I always, I look at my numbersmonthly because the way things come
in and out of the businessfluctuates so much depending on the
day that I pay certain things.
But then also because of thatfluctuation, my monthlies might fluctuate
month to month.
So I, I really like looking atthe quarterly, and I compare to the
(11:53):
years past, you know, the sixmonths a year past, you know, two
years past, and see where I amcomparatively to other times I've
done business to see those.
If those seasons are changingand those fluctuations are changing.
But more specifically, lookingat your percentage, like whatever
your percentage is, and it'snot the same for anybody.
Everybody knowing what youwant your percentage to be and watching
(12:16):
those numbers, because if theydo spike, it's something you need
to catch early on and figureout why.
I mean, you may have anemployee, you may have an employee
stealing time.
Why is this person, you know,why is my payroll up?
And then you actually deepdive and find that someone's working
10 hours more than you havethem scheduled.
That's theft, right?
(12:37):
Yes.
So I want to pay my employeeswell, but I still have to hit a budget,
right?
Exactly.
Absolutely.
Anything else we need to hiton that before we move on.
Know your percentages, checkyour numbers.
Have your hands in the book somehow.
Absolutely.
You can't have your hands inall the time and you have someone
(12:59):
else doing it.
Your hands need to be in it atleast once a month, minimum.
Yep.
And it's okay to have acocktail when you drink.
When you drink, when you drinkabout money.
It's okay to have a cocktailwhen you talk about money.
It's been a long day.
It is encouraged.
I hope my ice.
I hope my ice doesn't Distractpeople from.
From listening to thisimportant topic.
But it was easy.
(13:20):
I think it's helpful, actually.
I do think it's helpful.
I like the clinking of the ice.
Okay, let's talk about roi.
Return on investment.
Is time and yours, your timeand money paying off.
It is so important.
We don't have a of eitherthese days, time or money, so we
need to start making sure thatit is paying off.
(13:42):
We put so much money into things.
I mean, we could talk aboutthis with home and business, really,
but we're going to stick with business.
Today.
We put a lot of money into alot of things, into subscriptions,
into memberships.
Is that actually paying off?
You need to take a look atthese things.
I know so many people whobelong to different groups or chambers
(14:03):
or things just because, oh,they're just such good people.
I love what they do.
That's great.
Then that is called charityand that falls into a different.
That's in a different line item.
If you want to do charity,that's wonderful.
Memberships are things thatshould be getting return on and you
have to find a way to be ableto track that.
(14:24):
And if you're not doing that,then that's not a really good use
of your time.
And I think return is aspecific thing.
Right.
So like when I join a newgroup, I have an outcome I want upon
joining.
Right.
So bossy.
Yeah.
You're going to, you're goingto see people utilizing your services
just because we have amazingwomen doing amazing things and it's
just like organically networking.
(14:45):
That's not the point of bossy.
The point is of bossy is usingthe support services.
Right.
So that's going to look verydifferent than if I join a group
specifically to try to improvemy catering.
So if I'm trying to get morecatering contracts, then that group,
I need to look and be like,okay, how many catering contracts
at the end of the year did Iget from this group?
Do I want to renew my subscription?
(15:07):
And did I actually put in thetime and energy?
Is it my fault?
Right.
Because there have been years,especially during the pandemic, where
certain things fell to theside because we didn't have the time
and energy to do it.
And I did stay on knowing thatI was going to put forth the effort
that this year, but making itan effort and, you know, a specific
goal to make sure I'm hittingthese targets.
(15:29):
So if you're spending themoney, you have to put the energy
forward, right?
Yeah.
There's a, there's a businesslisting that we were a part of at
one point, and it was like$200 a month.
I only did it for like six months.
I didn't get anything out of it.
Luckily I canceled.
But there's a lot of thing.
People that'll do that.
So it's $200 a month.
@ the end of the day, if you're.
(15:50):
If you're doing a decentamount of revenue.
$200, that's $2,400 a year.
It's a lot of money.
When you sit and think ofthat, that you could do a lot with
that money that could besomewhere else.
It could go into yourbusiness, but you could also be going
on vacation.
(16:11):
Exactly.
And if it's not doing you anygood, then what's.
What is the point?
And knowing where.
Where to spend your time?
I mean, people tell us all thetime, oh, why are you not on TikTok?
I'm like, do I need to be on TikTok?
I don't think TikTok isbringing me restaurant customers.
There is.
I gosh, I mean, you were notat the Rise Awards this year, but
(16:33):
Rise Awards, it's recognized.
It's a group.
It's.
It's an industry awardceremony for restaurant industry.
And Golden Corral, I think, in Brooklyn.
1.
Because of their social media accounts.
It's.
It's Golden Corral.
They are.
(16:54):
They're huge and they'rehysterical, and they have built up
these.
I'll send them to you.
I'll say, I'll post a link.
When we.
When we share this.
When we share this podcast,they're hysterical and.
And they are definitelygetting more customers because of
their TikTok and their socialmedia, but they work hard.
(17:16):
They work hard for.
It exists in a lot ofdifferent cities.
You know, if you have a.
Something you're selling inone location, and if you're not selling
it online and being able toreach people everywhere, having a
social media that the point isto reach people everywhere doesn't
make as much sense.
Is it like Wendy's?
Cause, like, I don't have aTwitter for the restaurant, but Wendy's
(17:38):
does a great job on theirTwitter, right?
So TikTok.
TikTok is not going to get memore customers in Little Old Sea
Rays.
So if I'm spending.
So it's not necessarily mytime, but if I'm spending 10 hours
a week trying to do work onTikTok, that's not use of my.
That's not good use of my time.
I'm not going to get a Returnon that investment.
And my time is an investment.
(18:00):
I don't have a lot of that togive either.
So you have to.
Don't always think of returnon investment as a financial thing.
You need to think about that as.
As your time as well.
Or if that's a difficultconcept for you, put money on your
time.
What are you worth?
I'm worth a hundred dollars an hour.
I'm sorry.
I have way too much in this brain.
(18:23):
I know way too much about waytoo many things and effective ways
to do different things.
To waste my time exactly.
On something ineffective.
So put a number on it.
Even if you say, okay, I'mworth 30 bucks an hour, think of
that as 30 bucks you're takingout of your business every hour to
do this.
Would you pay somebody to do that?
No.
Then you shouldn't be doing it.
(18:45):
Yep.
And there are just so manysimple ways to track things.
A simple spreadsheet, going toevents, make up a simple business
card.
You don't need fancy things tobe able to make connections and know
what's coming back to you.
You don't need to create aseparate email for each event or
each membership that youbelong to.
Very simple ways to track.
Ask if you have employees thatare answering your phone.
(19:06):
How did you hear about this?
Just simple questions.
Knowing where.
Knowing how people are hearingabout you.
Ask the questions, know if it works.
If it doesn't, let it go.
Yes.
Same thing with advertising, right?
Like, I put so much money lastyear into Google Ads.
Oh, God, Google Ads.
Google Ads.
Hey, Google, you shouldsponsor us.
(19:27):
And I finally was like, thisdoesn't make any.
I'm not getting any hits on this.
And a lot of it was, I wasspecifically targeting.
Targeting our allergen menusand catering.
So those were two things thatI could see if more people had ordered
those things, you know, so itwas a very easy overall thing to
track.
And finally I was like, yeah,this is not making any sense.
(19:47):
I need to pull all of this money.
Right.
And put it somewhere else.
I've spent money on marketingin 16 years, on so many different
things.
And it wasn't until we starteddoing radio, which I never, ever
would have thought, and itjust happened to be because a good
friend of mine when we boughtthe Union in Irondequoit that does
(20:10):
radio, and he's from IranicWay, and he's like, Mr. Iranic White.
I was like, well, at leastthis will get our word out there.
I'll try it for a little while.
And I've never had Suchfeedback from marketing, ever.
So I'm like, I guess radio isour thing now.
Never would have thought that.
Who the sister?
Just because I don't listen to radio.
But there I've never.
(20:31):
I hear so much.
Oh, heard your ad.
I heard your ad on the radio.
I'm like, you did?
That's great.
That's awesome.
But every time I just happento turn on the radio, I hear it too.
So I don't know, I guess it works.
Yeah, that's awesome.
But, yeah, you got to findyour thing, whatever your thing is.
All right, let's talk aboutrevenue versus profit.
(20:53):
And how can that be fooled bybig numbers?
Because those two things arevery different.
I love people.
It's simple concept.
Yeah.
You can have six, seven figurerevenue and spend double that.
Profit and revenue are very,very different.
And I was.
When I was looking up somestatistics and notes on this, I found
(21:16):
this quote that says, revenueis vanity, profit is sanity.
Oh, I love that.
So that might be our shirt forthis episode.
Yes, that is the shirt forthis episode.
Oh, my God.
I mean, because honestly, itdoesn't matter what your revenues
are.
Your revenues could be ahundred thousand dollars if you're
making $30,000.
(21:37):
If your revenue is 2 millionand you're making $25,000, guess
what?
It sounds like you just did awhole lot more work for less profit.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And this is.
I think everything that we'vetalked about so far goes into that
is how you know, everythinggoes into your profit.
(21:58):
And you cannot understand yourprofit if you are not understanding
your ROI and knowing your numbers.
Because I think people just,dude, how much of money I made this
year?
I'm like, I don't care.
How much did you, like, whatwas the end number matter?
I'm like, well.
Well, I mean, kinda.
I mean, I know none of us wantto show that we made a lot of money
(22:20):
at the end of the year becausewe don't want to pay a ton of taxes.
But like.
Right.
And are you paying yourself?
Right, so good point.
Profits are lower, but you'repaying yourself a hefty livable wage,
then fine.
Right.
But if you're not payingyourself, I think that's where it
(22:41):
gets tricky is where if you'reable to pay yourself a percentage
of your revenue, then, yeah,higher revenues are great.
But if you're not, that'swhere it gets.
That's where I think wherepeople have a difficult time navigating
that line.
Right.
And I think you have tounderstand that too.
And the kind of what we'regoing to go into talking about next
(23:02):
too, because banks and fundingpeople want to see big numbers.
And I think we feel like weneed to achieve these great big numbers.
But when you understand whatprofit actually is, that, and sometimes
we have to go in and explain that.
I've had to go in and ask for money.
Or when we go in looking for amortgage for a big, for a building,
(23:24):
they're like, well, you know,you only made this much.
I'm like, right, but look at,but look at what we made.
Like, but here's ourpercentage profit.
Like that's, that's a reallygood number.
Like in restaurant world,that's like, we've done well just
because our numbers aren't inthe seven, you know, whatever, seven
digits.
But.
Understanding that isincredibly important.
(23:47):
If you're just going for thehighest number in revenue, you're,
you're kind of doing this wrong.
And there's a happy medium, right?
We all want a high number inrevenue and a high number in profit,
right?
Because in theory, the higherthe revenue, the higher the profit.
If you're paying attention toyour numbers, it is very easy to
lose your profit margin whenyou're not paying attention.
(24:09):
And that profit margin is notonly fixing things that get broken,
it's not only paying yourself,paying your mortgage on your home,
buying your kids food, right?
Whatever that is that you'respending your money on.
Because let's be honest here,small business owners, it's all interconnected.
Our home lines, our businesslives, our money at both.
If I don't have any money atthe end of the year, that means I
(24:31):
didn't make any money.
And at the end of the year yougotta pay taxes.
If you don't have money in thebank, how are you gonna pay your
taxes, right?
So it's all a very fine.
And that's why accountants andCPAs are very important.
But you have to know whatthey're talking about so that you
can be working on itthroughout the year and you aren't
surprised at the end of the year.
Yeah.
And you need to have those midyear check ins, or at least maybe
(24:54):
even quarterly for some people.
You need to understand, hey,this is where I'm at.
Because that can change.
You can have a really great season.
If all of a sudden your summeris a banger, you need to be checking
in with your accountantbecause you may want to be setting
some of that money asidebecause your fall may suck and your
wager may be worse.
And then all of the sudden allof that money that you made is gone.
(25:16):
And then you still have to paya ton of taxes.
And you can prepay a lot ofthese things, too.
And your accountant can getyou set up with some of that stuff.
And there's ways that you canhold back.
If you are making money at theend of the year, depending on how
you're incorporated, you don'thave to take everything.
You can hold things back andyou can set things aside.
And that's where accountantsare really, really important.
And again, we never saidthey're not.
(25:38):
We just.
You just need to have a reallygood relationship with them, and
you need.
To understand what they'redoing and why.
Right.
Because you're the one.
You're the one with your handson the money every day, not them.
Right.
And a lot of people do it soblind that it's scary.
Mm.
So know your books.
Know your books and know yourbooks and make sure they're clean.
(26:02):
Just because your accountantis doing that, you're probably still
keeping some type of ledger orQuickBooks or something.
Make sure those things are clean.
Because at the end of the day,if you're audited, your accountant
is going to be probably doingmost of that work in dealing with
the government.
But it's your business.
(26:22):
They're not going to be payingyour fines, and they're not going
to be potentially going out of business.
They're not going to be in trouble.
You are.
You need to see your books,because clean books are your responsibility.
Clean books also get youloans, get you grants, get your investors,
(26:43):
and also help you potentiallysell someday.
Strategies.
Need to have an exit strategy,and you cannot have one without clean
books.
You can't fake.
Well, I'm sure people do.
You should not be faking yourbooks for an exit strategy.
And you need to have.
(27:03):
You need to be able to.
When you're going intosituations where you need funding
or, like I said, looking foran investor, you have to have clean
books.
And I think that's a lesson alot of us learned during the pandemic.
There was one loan or onegrant that went out for the restaurants,
and I know another one wentout for entertainment and theater
(27:26):
and arts, and it was very quick.
You had to have be able toturn your information in quickly.
And, like, I don't know if Ithink restaurants.
It was like 45 minutes and allthat money was gone.
If you didn't have clean booksand we didn't know, we had an idea
about what the applicationwould look like, but we didn't know
(27:46):
exactly.
And if you didn't have all ofthat stuff ready to go, you did not
get that money.
And it was a sizable amount ofmoney for a lot of us.
So we learned.
A lot of people learned areally hard lesson during the pandemic
by not having very cleanbooks, not understanding their financial
statements, and having a lotof their.
(28:08):
A lot of the resources intheir accountants hands.
There's a lot of having towait on your accountant to turn around
things when you need them.
That.
Right.
Which will hopefully neverhappen again.
But never say never.
Right?
Absolutely.
But there's a lot of littlegrants that pop up on my.
(28:29):
Through my emails every oncein a while that I'll.
I'll put out for.
Yeah.
I don't think.
I don't know if they're everreal or not, but I'm like, I might
as well try.
And I've gotten some of therethat could.
That doordash grant that onetime, it was like a $5,000 grant.
And I have no idea.
I'm like, I'll just, I'll giveit a try.
But if I had to get that stufffrom my accountant, I never would
have gotten it in time.
Yeah, I had to be quick on it.
(28:51):
So.
Well.
And I think something alongthese lines that follows with knowing
your books is emergency planning.
If you know where you are inthe year and something big happens,
you know all of your inventorycan get destroyed.
And that doesn't matter whatbusiness you're in, as long as you're
selling a profit.
Right.
Or a product.
(29:12):
Wow.
Maybe I should hold off on the cocktail.
But you need to be able tomake solid decisions at a moment's
notice and not reactive.
So in those situations, youmay take on excessive debt or not
understand your cash flow.
So you take on a high interestloan when you could have done it
(29:34):
differently or rolledsomething over or borrowed from somebody
out and just knowing all ofyour options and how that looks in
your business and in your books.
So when these things happen,you can react in a calm manner and
be prepared.
Yeah.
Because there is time to spendcash if you have it.
(29:54):
There's also time to save andhold on to cash and utilize a line
of credit.
And those things are important.
And that is your accountant's job.
I think that's one of thethings we'll send you to after this
too.
Like if your books are messy,ask your accountant to clean it up.
It is literally their job.
If you want your reports, ask them.
(30:15):
It is their job.
If you have a question on Ineed to, you know, Replace my roof
as I do right now.
I may have the money to do it,but should I get this line of credit,
what is the right decision?
And the answer is hold ontoyour cash.
Because right now is a trickytime in the economy and the government.
Hold onto your cash and get aline of credit that makes more sense
(30:36):
financially for us right now.
Right.
Where 10 years ago I wouldhave been like, I will not take on
any credit because we did nothave any debt.
But right now, debt issomething that is.
It is for us okay to haveright now.
Yeah.
And being okay with that andnot being scared of it.
Right.
And honestly, debt allows you,if you know your books and you know
(30:59):
your.
Your business, and by knowingyour business means knowing your
money, you can actuallystrategically plan growth.
Right.
And that involves debt a lotof the time.
Yeah.
Don't be scared.
Rational choices.
Mm.
But as far as funding goes,here's a little stat from you, for
(31:22):
you, for from bids to credit.
Women are approved forbusiness loans at a 33% lower rate
than men.
But we also ask for less moneythan men.
Absolutely.
Because where is the other stat?
Women entrepreneurs are 63%more likely than men to bootstrap
their business.
(31:42):
So we are often just selffunding our businesses and just mostly
because we just assume we'renot going to get the funding.
Because funders suck andthey're sexist.
Yep.
And I've got.
I've got a bunch of stats thatI think I want to go over.
(32:02):
Well, not a bunch, becausesome of them are just sad and depressing.
Well, I mean, throw it outthere because sometimes we need to
be slapped in the face.
Kelly.
All right, let's see.
All right, so yes.
About Disney.
Yep.
Women and business owners, 33%small business owners getting loans
(32:24):
even though we are owning.
I'll see if this one's alittle bit old.
42% of US businesses, evenwhen approved, women receive smaller
loans on average 56,000, wheremen are getting 94,000.
That's just in that one ratio.
There's.
(32:45):
See?
But it's important to alsoask, right?
Ask for lower interest rates,ask for a higher loan amount.
Always ask for more first.
I learned with our not forprofit, I could not get $50,000,
but was told if I would justask for a million, I could have it.
(33:07):
Right.
And I was like, that doesn'tmake sense.
And I can't do that.
I don't need them.
And, you know, maybe if Icould go back, I would do it over
again, you know, and it wouldhave made A bigger difference.
But I thought that was crazyand I, I understand it on a certain
aspect, but as a businessowner, like, that's just a ridiculous
(33:28):
feeling.
Especially for women and smallbusinesses to be like, oh, I'll take
on a bigger amount of debt.
Well, sometimes it's easier toget a larger loan and negotiate.
Mm.
When women do get funding,they outperform Women led startups
deliver $0.78 revenue perdollar invested compared to $0.31
(33:53):
for men.
Because we're amazing.
Let's just talk about howamazing we are.
Women should take over the world.
Yeah.
It matters.
Investors who fund women get abetter ROI.
They need.
Listen to this episode.
In 2024, 49% of new USstartups were funded founded by women,
(34:18):
up from 29% in 2019.
It matters.
You know what matters?
Women are successful.
We are powerful, we aredecision makers.
And yet we are still scared totalk about money.
And you don't have.
Right.
Because you don't have to be afinancial expert.
(34:40):
You just have to be the boss.
And the boss means knowingwhat's going on with your money.
Yep.
And don't be afraid to ask questions.
Please ask us.
We'll help you.
And you can always search iton the Internet.
Mm.
There's no reason with thetechnology we have in our pocket
everywhere we go that we can'thave the knowledge to allow ourselves
(35:06):
to feel confident enough towalk into a room and talk about our
numbers.
Right.
And it doesn't always feelgood because we're not used to doing
it.
And this is a vague statement.
This is not.
This is for anybody that's notused to talking about money.
And this could go for men too.
And there's probably women outthere that are like, no, I have no
(35:27):
problem.
And that's great.
But for those of us thatstruggle, you need to know your numbers.
You need to know what thewords mean.
And if they're words you don'tknow, you need to search them up.
Yep.
And talk about it to yourselfif you need to, before you walk into
the room.
Just so you're confidentsaying those words and knowing what
(35:48):
the answer is.
Because you do.
You.
You have all of theinformation at your fingertips.
You have the ability to knowall of the things.
There is nothing that makesyou less important or special than
the person who owns the multitrillion dollar delivery service
that's probably driving pastmy house right now.
Right.
(36:08):
Other than he has multitrillion dollars.
Exactly.
That is the only difference.
Mm.
Right.
If you don't understand yourmoney, what you earn, how you spend
it.
What you're spending it on.
How to borrow, how to invest.
You're leaving money on the table.
(36:28):
When women do access capital,they outperform.
So let's close the gap.
Let's break the taboos.
Let's make sure you're the onewho's in control of the narrative
and the numbers.
Hell, yeah.
Be brave, be bold.
Be the boss.
Follow us at Bossyroc.
(36:51):
Email us bossyroc gmail.com.
tag us.
Ask us questions.
Come on the show.
It's important.
Let's keep talking and sendthis episode to someone you know
that needs it.
Yes, we'll see you soon.
Foreign.
Hello, and welcome back toanother episode of Getting Real with
Bossy, the podcast that talksabout what it's really like to be
a business owner with Kelly.
Bush and Kelly Metris.
(01:32):
And today we are talking aboutour favorite subject.
Money.
Money, money, money, money.
Notice how I didn't say what Iusually say when I say money, because
I am trying to reframe how Italk about money, because it is.
It is just I need to.
(01:52):
I need to stop being terrifiedof money.
I think, you know, we.
There's so many songs.
We wanted to start this withmusic, but we don't own rights to
any music.
But I go back to.
There are so many differentmoney songs, and I just want to.
I want to reference one of myfavorite money songs by my.
(02:13):
One of my favorite bands, abba.
I work all night I work allday to pay the bills I have to pay
Ain't it sad?
And still there never seems tobe a single penny left for me that's
too bad.
And that is how so many of us feel.
Not just women, businessowners, but when we go over some
(02:33):
statistics later today, youwill see that it seems like that,
but it is.
It is very sad.
And money just, money justgoes so quickly and if we're not
on top.
Of.
Can be really dangerous.
And that's what we're going totalk about today, how some steps
that we can do and things thatare really important in small business
(02:55):
world to look at and make sureyou have a good handle on, because
money is a huge part ofbusiness, whether you like it or
not.
And as we've talked about inthe last couple episodes, and Kelly
and I talk about it a lot,generationally, certainly we have
not been brought upnecessarily to understand money as
(03:15):
much as perhaps our brothers have.
And we're trying to break that.
We're trying to change that.
Right.
And I think it's normalizedfor our generation anyways to be
okay with it being in someone else's.
Like, they.
Right.
They take care of it.
Like, you know, even I don'twant to mention names of big businesses,
(03:40):
but the big businesses that weuse, you got to check and make sure
they're charging you right.
Because they could easily becharging you wrong.
And you're missing out on thatmoney because you're just putting
blind trust because you thinkother people know what they're doing.
Well, guess what?
The other people are not special.
Right?
Right.
And I'm so surprised.
And I think this will bring usto our first point.
How many people put that trustin professionals to do handle their
(04:04):
books.
And yes, you definitely needaccountants and bookkeepers.
They're incredibly important.
I have them.
I can't do the work that myaccountant does.
But you need to understandyour books.
And I am so surprised by theamount of small, micro small, even
mid sized business owners thatdo not understand their books.
(04:25):
They put everything in theiraccountant's hands and they go about
doing their business.
And it may be seemingly asuccessfully ran business, but if
you don't know your books andyou don't know where your money is
going, it's bananas to me assomebody who does the all of their
own inputting and I know thatthat's not, that's my own personal
choice.
(04:46):
But you need to know whereyour money is, you need to know what
your books look like and it isa okay to have a bookkeeper doing
that work for you.
But you need to be asking foryour reports.
P&LS minimum once a month.
We recommend at least once aweek because Kelly and I look at
(05:08):
our stuff all the time andwe're always going through our percentages.
Do they make sense and is itthe right season?
What's going on?
Because it's so important andthere's so many things that can be
changed.
I had a subscription that Iwas paying for several months and
it went up and I didn't noticeit for a couple months because it
(05:30):
just didn't register.
It wasn't a lot of money butit went up.
I reached out.
The reason that it went upmade a lot of sense.
But because I do really goodbusiness with them and I help them
out with another arrangement,they were like, oh gosh, I had to
go up because now we have totake taxes for that.
But because of the thingsyou've done for us, let me see if
I can get you some discounts.
(05:51):
And I was able to get the samerate that I had before.
My, my accountant wouldn'tknow that and they would just think
that's a reasonable, areasonable thing to go up.
After a year of using this,things go up and they would not know
to look at that.
And I'm sure a lot of thesethings are happening and that and
those little things happen.
If you can save 30, 50, $60 amonth on six or seven different things,
(06:15):
that's a lot of money.
And if you're getting the dealof a lifetime, read the fine print.
Are they allowed to increaseyour prices without notice?
Right.
So when you fight back, is itin the fine print?
And I'm going to throw alittle chatgpt.
Because you could take thatfine print and dump it into whatever
(06:35):
AI program that you prefer,even though I'm not a huge proponent
of AI.
And it will tell you what youneed to, to keep your eye on.
It'll give you the bulletpoints, give you the overview and
kind of just help youunderstand it.
And you can ask specificquestions like, does it say this
in the fine print?
And it'll actually look at itfor you.
Because none of us actuallywant to sit and read it.
Right.
But you need to know what thefine print says.
(06:58):
Right.
And that's a huge.
I mean, you cannot like AI andthere are plenty of people out there
that don't, but there are somethings that it is really good for.
And you and I have talkedabout that.
I put the results of an MRIinto, into ge and I, yes, Google,
you can sponsor our podcast.
And it's.
It spilled it out for me.
I wanted to understand it more.
It was just for my ankle.
(07:18):
It wasn't anything serious,but I wanted a little bit more information
before I went in and met witha new surgeon.
And there are things that youcan use it for.
Something like you just said,is the perfect thing to use it for.
Yeah.
So know and, and get it inwriting, right?
Anything you're working onwith another person, another company,
whatever it is, get it inwriting and ask all the questions.
(07:40):
I am a huge fan.
Asking questions in email sothat they're answered in email and
it's from like the company email.
And then you just put it in alittle folder in your email account.
And if questions come up, youcan be like, no, no, no, no.
This is what you said.
You have to hold, hold to that price.
You know, we're all raisingour prices as we need to.
And I don't want to like, pushon other companies having to raise
(08:03):
their prices.
But it's the, the not telling you.
It's the sneaky.
The sneakies.
We get a lot of those.
I just had my, my menusoftware almost double in price with.
After three years of being thesame price, no word.
And I was like.
I saw it hit my credit cardand I was like, what the hell is
(08:25):
that?
No, it's just my software renewal.
So just keeping up on who'sgetting away with what.
You know, there's going to bethings that you're like, yeah, that
makes sense.
Yeah, my costs of foodsometimes go up, but there's other
times that it is a mistake bythe person who's putting it in the
computer and they're chargingme too much.
Right.
Which is different than thecost of, you know, it cost them more
(08:45):
to get the steak.
It's going to cost me more toget the steak.
But if someone's putting it inthe computer wrong, I need to be
able to catch that.
So I'm not paying for it.
Absolutely.
And I think another thing wetalk about a lot in Bossy.
When you start your business,you're doing that thing that you're
really passionate about, andit's probably not reading financial
statements.
(09:06):
So let's.
Let's break it.
We talk about breaking taboos.
We've talked about this, andthat's something we're going to talk
about today.
So let's break that taboo thatyou have as a business owner, as
you start out, or even 16years in, as I am this year, that
you need to understandeverything about reading financial
statements.
And you know what?
Throw your financial statementinto ChatGPT.
(09:28):
I haven't done that yet.
Or Gemini and maybe.
And ask it to explain it to you.
They're.
They are tricky, right?
I mean, for a while.
I mean, I remember our firstyear, I'm like, what a balance sheet?
And P and L. Like, why do Ineed two different things?
Like, aren't they essentiallytelling me the same thing?
It took me a while to kind ofreally figure out what, like, what
I needed for different things.
(09:48):
And they're incredibly important.
And it is a.
Okay if you don't know whatthe hell they mean or everything
about them.
There are a lot of differentreports that you can run, and they're
all important for different reasons.
And it's fine if you don'tunderstand all of them.
Ask for help.
Reach out to Kelly and I.
We will help you read through them.
We will help you understand them.
(10:09):
We've had other business owners.
We just sat down the other dayand helped a woman go through P and
L. We're totally fine to do that.
We don't care.
We'll show you ours first.
If there's any.
If you're, like, shamefulabout your numbers, I'll show you
mine.
You can see mine.
I'll show you anymore, actually.
But, like, ask for help withthese things.
Because if the reason you'renot going through your panels is
(10:29):
and your balance sheet andyour financial reports and statements
is because you just don'treally understand them.
That is.
That's just silliness.
Let's get over that and reachout and ask for help.
Because according to score in2019, I hope this has changed a little
bit.
Since the pandemic, and we allhad to do a lot more reports, only
12% of women, women businessowners felt very confident in their
(10:50):
ability to read financial statements.
And that is not okay.
Not okay.
So we need to make that, weneed to make that better.
So we're going to talk aboutsome tips at the end, but reading
those.
Pull a P and L as often as you can.
Pull a balance sheet as oftenyou can.
Bare minimum, once a month.
(11:10):
And we will, we will happilybe your accountability partners.
We can just set up remindersfor you.
Right.
We'll just, we'll call you,send you some DMs.
Absolutely.
So, yeah, I'll get off mysoapbox about that.
Gotta know your numbers, and,and it's important to know your trends,
(11:30):
your seasons, when things aregonna go up and down.
I always, I look at my numbersmonthly because the way things come
in and out of the businessfluctuates so much depending on the
day that I pay certain things.
But then also because of thatfluctuation, my monthlies might fluctuate
month to month.
So I, I really like looking atthe quarterly, and I compare to the
(11:53):
years past, you know, the sixmonths a year past, you know, two
years past, and see where I amcomparatively to other times I've
done business to see those.
If those seasons are changingand those fluctuations are changing.
But more specifically, lookingat your percentage, like whatever
your percentage is, and it'snot the same for anybody.
Everybody knowing what youwant your percentage to be and watching
(12:16):
those numbers, because if theydo spike, it's something you need
to catch early on and figureout why.
I mean, you may have anemployee, you may have an employee
stealing time.
Why is this person, you know,why is my payroll up?
And then you actually deepdive and find that someone's working
10 hours more than you havethem scheduled.
That's theft, right?
(12:37):
Yes.
So I want to pay my employeeswell, but I still have to hit a budget,
right?
Exactly.
Absolutely.
Anything else we need to hiton that before we move on.
Know your percentages, checkyour numbers.
Have your hands in the book somehow.
Absolutely.
You can't have your hands inall the time and you have someone
(12:59):
else doing it.
Your hands need to be in it atleast once a month, minimum.
Yep.
And it's okay to have acocktail when you drink.
When you drink, when you drinkabout money.
It's okay to have a cocktailwhen you talk about money.
It's been a long day.
It is encouraged.
I hope my ice.
I hope my ice doesn't Distractpeople from.
From listening to thisimportant topic.
But it was easy.
(13:20):
I think it's helpful, actually.
I do think it's helpful.
I like the clinking of the ice.
Okay, let's talk about roi.
Return on investment.
Is time and yours, your timeand money paying off.
It is so important.
We don't have a of eitherthese days, time or money, so we
need to start making sure thatit is paying off.
(13:42):
We put so much money into things.
I mean, we could talk aboutthis with home and business, really,
but we're going to stick with business.
Today.
We put a lot of money into alot of things, into subscriptions,
into memberships.
Is that actually paying off?
You need to take a look atthese things.
I know so many people whobelong to different groups or chambers
(14:03):
or things just because, oh,they're just such good people.
I love what they do.
That's great.
Then that is called charityand that falls into a different.
That's in a different line item.
If you want to do charity,that's wonderful.
Memberships are things thatshould be getting return on and you
have to find a way to be ableto track that.
(14:24):
And if you're not doing that,then that's not a really good use
of your time.
And I think return is aspecific thing.
Right.
So like when I join a newgroup, I have an outcome I want upon
joining.
Right.
So bossy.
Yeah.
You're going to, you're goingto see people utilizing your services
just because we have amazingwomen doing amazing things and it's
just like organically networking.
(14:45):
That's not the point of bossy.
The point is of bossy is usingthe support services.
Right.
So that's going to look verydifferent than if I join a group
specifically to try to improvemy catering.
So if I'm trying to get morecatering contracts, then that group,
I need to look and be like,okay, how many catering contracts
at the end of the year did Iget from this group?
Do I want to renew my subscription?
(15:07):
And did I actually put in thetime and energy?
Is it my fault?
Right.
Because there have been years,especially during the pandemic, where
certain things fell to theside because we didn't have the time
and energy to do it.
And I did stay on knowing thatI was going to put forth the effort
that this year, but making itan effort and, you know, a specific
goal to make sure I'm hittingthese targets.
(15:29):
So if you're spending themoney, you have to put the energy
forward, right?
Yeah.
There's a, there's a businesslisting that we were a part of at
one point, and it was like$200 a month.
I only did it for like six months.
I didn't get anything out of it.
Luckily I canceled.
But there's a lot of thing.
People that'll do that.
So it's $200 a month.
@ the end of the day, if you're.
(15:50):
If you're doing a decentamount of revenue.
$200, that's $2,400 a year.
It's a lot of money.
When you sit and think ofthat, that you could do a lot with
that money that could besomewhere else.
It could go into yourbusiness, but you could also be going
on vacation.
(16:11):
Exactly.
And if it's not doing you anygood, then what's.
What is the point?
And knowing where.
Where to spend your time?
I mean, people tell us all thetime, oh, why are you not on TikTok?
I'm like, do I need to be on TikTok?
I don't think TikTok isbringing me restaurant customers.
There is.
I gosh, I mean, you were notat the Rise Awards this year, but
(16:33):
Rise Awards, it's recognized.
It's a group.
It's.
It's an industry awardceremony for restaurant industry.
And Golden Corral, I think, in Brooklyn.
1.
Because of their social media accounts.
It's.
It's Golden Corral.
They are.
(16:54):
They're huge and they'rehysterical, and they have built up
these.
I'll send them to you.
I'll say, I'll post a link.
When we.
When we share this.
When we share this podcast,they're hysterical and.
And they are definitelygetting more customers because of
their TikTok and their socialmedia, but they work hard.
(17:16):
They work hard for.
It exists in a lot ofdifferent cities.
You know, if you have a.
Something you're selling inone location, and if you're not selling
it online and being able toreach people everywhere, having a
social media that the point isto reach people everywhere doesn't
make as much sense.
Is it like Wendy's?
Cause, like, I don't have aTwitter for the restaurant, but Wendy's
(17:38):
does a great job on theirTwitter, right?
So TikTok.
TikTok is not going to get memore customers in Little Old Sea
Rays.
So if I'm spending.
So it's not necessarily mytime, but if I'm spending 10 hours
a week trying to do work onTikTok, that's not use of my.
That's not good use of my time.
I'm not going to get a Returnon that investment.
And my time is an investment.
(18:00):
I don't have a lot of that togive either.
So you have to.
Don't always think of returnon investment as a financial thing.
You need to think about that as.
As your time as well.
Or if that's a difficultconcept for you, put money on your
time.
What are you worth?
I'm worth a hundred dollars an hour.
I'm sorry.
I have way too much in this brain.
(18:23):
I know way too much about waytoo many things and effective ways
to do different things.
To waste my time exactly.
On something ineffective.
So put a number on it.
Even if you say, okay, I'mworth 30 bucks an hour, think of
that as 30 bucks you're takingout of your business every hour to
do this.
Would you pay somebody to do that?
No.
Then you shouldn't be doing it.
(18:45):
Yep.
And there are just so manysimple ways to track things.
A simple spreadsheet, going toevents, make up a simple business
card.
You don't need fancy things tobe able to make connections and know
what's coming back to you.
You don't need to create aseparate email for each event or
each membership that youbelong to.
Very simple ways to track.
Ask if you have employees thatare answering your phone.
(19:06):
How did you hear about this?
Just simple questions.
Knowing where.
Knowing how people are hearingabout you.
Ask the questions, know if it works.
If it doesn't, let it go.
Yes.
Same thing with advertising, right?
Like, I put so much money lastyear into Google Ads.
Oh, God, Google Ads.
Google Ads.
Hey, Google, you shouldsponsor us.
(19:27):
And I finally was like, thisdoesn't make any.
I'm not getting any hits on this.
And a lot of it was, I wasspecifically targeting.
Targeting our allergen menusand catering.
So those were two things thatI could see if more people had ordered
those things, you know, so itwas a very easy overall thing to
track.
And finally I was like, yeah,this is not making any sense.
(19:47):
I need to pull all of this money.
Right.
And put it somewhere else.
I've spent money on marketingin 16 years, on so many different
things.
And it wasn't until we starteddoing radio, which I never, ever
would have thought, and itjust happened to be because a good
friend of mine when we boughtthe Union in Irondequoit that does
(20:10):
radio, and he's from IranicWay, and he's like, Mr. Iranic White.
I was like, well, at leastthis will get our word out there.
I'll try it for a little while.
And I've never had Suchfeedback from marketing, ever.
So I'm like, I guess radio isour thing now.
Never would have thought that.
Who the sister?
Just because I don't listen to radio.
But there I've never.
(20:31):
I hear so much.
Oh, heard your ad.
I heard your ad on the radio.
I'm like, you did?
That's great.
That's awesome.
But every time I just happento turn on the radio, I hear it too.
So I don't know, I guess it works.
Yeah, that's awesome.
But, yeah, you got to findyour thing, whatever your thing is.
All right, let's talk aboutrevenue versus profit.
(20:53):
And how can that be fooled bybig numbers?
Because those two things arevery different.
I love people.
It's simple concept.
Yeah.
You can have six, seven figurerevenue and spend double that.
Profit and revenue are very,very different.
And I was.
When I was looking up somestatistics and notes on this, I found
(21:16):
this quote that says, revenueis vanity, profit is sanity.
Oh, I love that.
So that might be our shirt forthis episode.
Yes, that is the shirt forthis episode.
Oh, my God.
I mean, because honestly, itdoesn't matter what your revenues
are.
Your revenues could be ahundred thousand dollars if you're
making $30,000.
(21:37):
If your revenue is 2 millionand you're making $25,000, guess
what?
It sounds like you just did awhole lot more work for less profit.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And this is.
I think everything that we'vetalked about so far goes into that
is how you know, everythinggoes into your profit.
(21:58):
And you cannot understand yourprofit if you are not understanding
your ROI and knowing your numbers.
Because I think people just,dude, how much of money I made this
year?
I'm like, I don't care.
How much did you, like, whatwas the end number matter?
I'm like, well.
Well, I mean, kinda.
I mean, I know none of us wantto show that we made a lot of money
(22:20):
at the end of the year becausewe don't want to pay a ton of taxes.
But like.
Right.
And are you paying yourself?
Right, so good point.
Profits are lower, but you'repaying yourself a hefty livable wage,
then fine.
Right.
But if you're not payingyourself, I think that's where it
(22:41):
gets tricky is where if you'reable to pay yourself a percentage
of your revenue, then, yeah,higher revenues are great.
But if you're not, that'swhere it gets.
That's where I think wherepeople have a difficult time navigating
that line.
Right.
And I think you have tounderstand that too.
And the kind of what we'regoing to go into talking about next
(23:02):
too, because banks and fundingpeople want to see big numbers.
And I think we feel like weneed to achieve these great big numbers.
But when you understand whatprofit actually is, that, and sometimes
we have to go in and explain that.
I've had to go in and ask for money.
Or when we go in looking for amortgage for a big, for a building,
(23:24):
they're like, well, you know,you only made this much.
I'm like, right, but look at,but look at what we made.
Like, but here's ourpercentage profit.
Like that's, that's a reallygood number.
Like in restaurant world,that's like, we've done well just
because our numbers aren't inthe seven, you know, whatever, seven
digits.
But.
Understanding that isincredibly important.
(23:47):
If you're just going for thehighest number in revenue, you're,
you're kind of doing this wrong.
And there's a happy medium, right?
We all want a high number inrevenue and a high number in profit,
right?
Because in theory, the higherthe revenue, the higher the profit.
If you're paying attention toyour numbers, it is very easy to
lose your profit margin whenyou're not paying attention.
(24:09):
And that profit margin is notonly fixing things that get broken,
it's not only paying yourself,paying your mortgage on your home,
buying your kids food, right?
Whatever that is that you'respending your money on.
Because let's be honest here,small business owners, it's all interconnected.
Our home lines, our businesslives, our money at both.
If I don't have any money atthe end of the year, that means I
(24:31):
didn't make any money.
And at the end of the year yougotta pay taxes.
If you don't have money in thebank, how are you gonna pay your
taxes, right?
So it's all a very fine.
And that's why accountants andCPAs are very important.
But you have to know whatthey're talking about so that you
can be working on itthroughout the year and you aren't
surprised at the end of the year.
Yeah.
And you need to have those midyear check ins, or at least maybe
(24:54):
even quarterly for some people.
You need to understand, hey,this is where I'm at.
Because that can change.
You can have a really great season.
If all of a sudden your summeris a banger, you need to be checking
in with your accountantbecause you may want to be setting
some of that money asidebecause your fall may suck and your
wager may be worse.
And then all of the sudden allof that money that you made is gone.
(25:16):
And then you still have to paya ton of taxes.
And you can prepay a lot ofthese things, too.
And your accountant can getyou set up with some of that stuff.
And there's ways that you canhold back.
If you are making money at theend of the year, depending on how
you're incorporated, you don'thave to take everything.
You can hold things back andyou can set things aside.
And that's where accountantsare really, really important.
And again, we never saidthey're not.
(25:38):
We just.
You just need to have a reallygood relationship with them, and
you need.
To understand what they'redoing and why.
Right.
Because you're the one.
You're the one with your handson the money every day, not them.
Right.
And a lot of people do it soblind that it's scary.
Mm.
So know your books.
Know your books and know yourbooks and make sure they're clean.
(26:02):
Just because your accountantis doing that, you're probably still
keeping some type of ledger orQuickBooks or something.
Make sure those things are clean.
Because at the end of the day,if you're audited, your accountant
is going to be probably doingmost of that work in dealing with
the government.
But it's your business.
(26:22):
They're not going to be payingyour fines, and they're not going
to be potentially going out of business.
They're not going to be in trouble.
You are.
You need to see your books,because clean books are your responsibility.
Clean books also get youloans, get you grants, get your investors,
(26:43):
and also help you potentiallysell someday.
Strategies.
Need to have an exit strategy,and you cannot have one without clean
books.
You can't fake.
Well, I'm sure people do.
You should not be faking yourbooks for an exit strategy.
And you need to have.
(27:03):
You need to be able to.
When you're going intosituations where you need funding
or, like I said, looking foran investor, you have to have clean
books.
And I think that's a lesson alot of us learned during the pandemic.
There was one loan or onegrant that went out for the restaurants,
and I know another one wentout for entertainment and theater
(27:26):
and arts, and it was very quick.
You had to have be able toturn your information in quickly.
And, like, I don't know if Ithink restaurants.
It was like 45 minutes and allthat money was gone.
If you didn't have clean booksand we didn't know, we had an idea
about what the applicationwould look like, but we didn't know
(27:46):
exactly.
And if you didn't have all ofthat stuff ready to go, you did not
get that money.
And it was a sizable amount ofmoney for a lot of us.
So we learned.
A lot of people learned areally hard lesson during the pandemic
by not having very cleanbooks, not understanding their financial
statements, and having a lotof their.
(28:08):
A lot of the resources intheir accountants hands.
There's a lot of having towait on your accountant to turn around
things when you need them.
That.
Right.
Which will hopefully neverhappen again.
But never say never.
Right?
Absolutely.
But there's a lot of littlegrants that pop up on my.
(28:29):
Through my emails every oncein a while that I'll.
I'll put out for.
Yeah.
I don't think.
I don't know if they're everreal or not, but I'm like, I might
as well try.
And I've gotten some of therethat could.
That doordash grant that onetime, it was like a $5,000 grant.
And I have no idea.
I'm like, I'll just, I'll giveit a try.
But if I had to get that stufffrom my accountant, I never would
have gotten it in time.
Yeah, I had to be quick on it.
(28:51):
So.
Well.
And I think something alongthese lines that follows with knowing
your books is emergency planning.
If you know where you are inthe year and something big happens,
you know all of your inventorycan get destroyed.
And that doesn't matter whatbusiness you're in, as long as you're
selling a profit.
Right.
Or a product.
(29:12):
Wow.
Maybe I should hold off on the cocktail.
But you need to be able tomake solid decisions at a moment's
notice and not reactive.
So in those situations, youmay take on excessive debt or not
understand your cash flow.
So you take on a high interestloan when you could have done it
(29:34):
differently or rolledsomething over or borrowed from somebody
out and just knowing all ofyour options and how that looks in
your business and in your books.
So when these things happen,you can react in a calm manner and
be prepared.
Yeah.
Because there is time to spendcash if you have it.
(29:54):
There's also time to save andhold on to cash and utilize a line
of credit.
And those things are important.
And that is your accountant's job.
I think that's one of thethings we'll send you to after this
too.
Like if your books are messy,ask your accountant to clean it up.
It is literally their job.
If you want your reports, ask them.
(30:15):
It is their job.
If you have a question on Ineed to, you know, Replace my roof
as I do right now.
I may have the money to do it,but should I get this line of credit,
what is the right decision?
And the answer is hold ontoyour cash.
Because right now is a trickytime in the economy and the government.
Hold onto your cash and get aline of credit that makes more sense
(30:36):
financially for us right now.
Right.
Where 10 years ago I wouldhave been like, I will not take on
any credit because we did nothave any debt.
But right now, debt issomething that is.
It is for us okay to haveright now.
Yeah.
And being okay with that andnot being scared of it.
Right.
And honestly, debt allows you,if you know your books and you know
(30:59):
your.
Your business, and by knowingyour business means knowing your
money, you can actuallystrategically plan growth.
Right.
And that involves debt a lotof the time.
Yeah.
Don't be scared.
Rational choices.
Mm.
But as far as funding goes,here's a little stat from you, for
(31:22):
you, for from bids to credit.
Women are approved forbusiness loans at a 33% lower rate
than men.
But we also ask for less moneythan men.
Absolutely.
Because where is the other stat?
Women entrepreneurs are 63%more likely than men to bootstrap
their business.
(31:42):
So we are often just selffunding our businesses and just mostly
because we just assume we'renot going to get the funding.
Because funders suck andthey're sexist.
Yep.
And I've got.
I've got a bunch of stats thatI think I want to go over.
(32:02):
Well, not a bunch, becausesome of them are just sad and depressing.
Well, I mean, throw it outthere because sometimes we need to
be slapped in the face.
Kelly.
All right, let's see.
All right, so yes.
About Disney.
Yep.
Women and business owners, 33%small business owners getting loans
(32:24):
even though we are owning.
I'll see if this one's alittle bit old.
42% of US businesses, evenwhen approved, women receive smaller
loans on average 56,000, wheremen are getting 94,000.
That's just in that one ratio.
There's.
(32:45):
See?
But it's important to alsoask, right?
Ask for lower interest rates,ask for a higher loan amount.
Always ask for more first.
I learned with our not forprofit, I could not get $50,000,
but was told if I would justask for a million, I could have it.
(33:07):
Right.
And I was like, that doesn'tmake sense.
And I can't do that.
I don't need them.
And, you know, maybe if Icould go back, I would do it over
again, you know, and it wouldhave made A bigger difference.
But I thought that was crazyand I, I understand it on a certain
aspect, but as a businessowner, like, that's just a ridiculous
(33:28):
feeling.
Especially for women and smallbusinesses to be like, oh, I'll take
on a bigger amount of debt.
Well, sometimes it's easier toget a larger loan and negotiate.
Mm.
When women do get funding,they outperform Women led startups
deliver $0.78 revenue perdollar invested compared to $0.31
(33:53):
for men.
Because we're amazing.
Let's just talk about howamazing we are.
Women should take over the world.
Yeah.
It matters.
Investors who fund women get abetter ROI.
They need.
Listen to this episode.
In 2024, 49% of new USstartups were funded founded by women,
(34:18):
up from 29% in 2019.
It matters.
You know what matters?
Women are successful.
We are powerful, we aredecision makers.
And yet we are still scared totalk about money.
And you don't have.
Right.
Because you don't have to be afinancial expert.
(34:40):
You just have to be the boss.
And the boss means knowingwhat's going on with your money.
Yep.
And don't be afraid to ask questions.
Please ask us.
We'll help you.
And you can always search iton the Internet.
Mm.
There's no reason with thetechnology we have in our pocket
everywhere we go that we can'thave the knowledge to allow ourselves
(35:06):
to feel confident enough towalk into a room and talk about our
numbers.
Right.
And it doesn't always feelgood because we're not used to doing
it.
And this is a vague statement.
This is not.
This is for anybody that's notused to talking about money.
And this could go for men too.
And there's probably women outthere that are like, no, I have no
(35:27):
problem.
And that's great.
But for those of us thatstruggle, you need to know your numbers.
You need to know what thewords mean.
And if they're words you don'tknow, you need to search them up.
Yep.
And talk about it to yourselfif you need to, before you walk into
the room.
Just so you're confidentsaying those words and knowing what
(35:48):
the answer is.
Because you do.
You.
You have all of theinformation at your fingertips.
You have the ability to knowall of the things.
There is nothing that makesyou less important or special than
the person who owns the multitrillion dollar delivery service
that's probably driving pastmy house right now.
Right.
(36:08):
Other than he has multitrillion dollars.
Exactly.
That is the only difference.
Mm.
Right.
If you don't understand yourmoney, what you earn, how you spend
it.
What you're spending it on.
How to borrow, how to invest.
You're leaving money on the table.
(36:28):
When women do access capital,they outperform.
So let's close the gap.
Let's break the taboos.
Let's make sure you're the onewho's in control of the narrative
and the numbers.
Hell, yeah.
Be brave, be bold.
Be the boss.
Follow us at Bossyroc.
(36:51):
Email us bossyroc gmail.com.
tag us.
Ask us questions.
Come on the show.
It's important.
Let's keep talking and sendthis episode to someone you know
that needs it.
Yes, we'll see you soon.
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