Lauren Rilling is a visionary financial coach and educator dedicated to helping individuals and families manage their resources with wisdom, purpose, and faith. Through Savvy Stewardship, she empowers people to build financial confidence, align money decisions with their values, and live generously. Lauren’s mission is simple yet powerful — to turn everyday choices into lasting impact through innovative, spirit-led stewardship.
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome to the Fortified Life Podcast, where we learn how
to develop a dependency on Jesus in the marketplace. From
the boardroom to the bathroom. God is with you. Here's
our host, author, speaker, teaker, encourager, here a true coach,
and my husband. It's the man they call mister forty five,
Jason Davis.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode
of the Fortified Life podcast where we are passionate about
developing a dependency on Jesus in the marketplace. I'm your host,
Jason Davis aka mister Fortifi. Every week we have the
opportunity to bring on coaches, speakers, authors, business owners, leaders
(01:00):
of nonprofits who are also passionate about putting God back
in business. It's no different this week. Ladies and gentlemen,
there are guests. I love all of my guests. There's
just certain people that when you meet them, it's like
you've just known them for a while. And you've heard
me say that listeners a few times, but I'm telling
(01:22):
you you just there's some people you just have really
cool conversations with. And our guest today is one of
those people. In quotes, she is certainly my sister in Christ.
But ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the Fortified Life Podcast. Lauren. Really,
she's been helping businesses and individuals simplify their finances for
(01:45):
the past decade. Lauren, Welcome to the Fortified Life Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Oh thank you, Jason. It's such an honor to be here,
and I'm so glad we get to catch up a
little bit earlier. And yeah, just so happy to join
you for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
You know, Lauren, I'm I'm often intrigued because people here
phrasing like helping businesses and individuals simplify their finances, and
depending on where you're at with your money on personal
or business, they go, I don't know if I would
describe my finances as simple. So that being said, I
(02:20):
know you just didn't wake up in twenty twenty five
just attacking all things money. So kind of take us
through the professional journey of how you got into what
you're doing today.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Oh, that's a good question because my academic background is
not in finance. It's actually in political science, but it
does connect. So after college, I wanted to get a
master's degree, and I had just a little bit of
college debt, just enough that I knew I didn't want
(02:53):
to go into ten times as much debt for a
master's degree, and so I told my husband at the time,
I really want to cash flow this. But that was
a little crazy because he was also in grad school
and we were living off of my teacher salary. So
how are we going to pay for an entire degree
when we're living off of a teacher's salary. But we
(03:15):
were really determined to do it, and so we learned
how to set goals, we learned how to budget, we
learned how to cash flow navigate different fluctuations and income
and life circumstances. And two and a half years later,
I graduated with a master's degree debt free. And that's
also the same month that our twins were born, and
so it was a really crazy month. I don't even
(03:35):
know how I finished that last paper. I think, I
don't know how I had that energy a decade ago.
But what it sparked in me was this appreciation for
what financial freedom really meant, and that was just the
ability to do whatever was going to be best for
our family, whatever God was calling us to do, without
having to worry about how we were going to afford it.
(03:55):
And I found so much peace in knowing that I
was wasn't going to have to go out and find
a job just to figure out, you know, how to
pay back to student loans. And I had newborn twins
at home, so that was what financial freedom was for
us at the time. And from there, I had friends
and family just asking me, you know, can you help
me with my budget? I want to go to school
(04:17):
or I'm trying to pay off debt. How did you
guys do this? And from there I got to go
do training at Ramsey Solutions on financial coaching, and I
just thought, you know, this will be like a great
little side thing while my twins are little, and you know,
it kind of gives me a bit of an outlet,
a professional and creative outlet. But then it grew, It
just grew, and I found so much joy in helping
(04:40):
people with their finances and seeing the results that they
were getting with paying off debt and saving for things
and learning how to get on the same page in
their marriage with their communication around money. And at the
same time, a lot of my clients were business owners
of small companies, and I was looking at their revenue
and going, Okay, you've got plenty in revenue, so like,
(05:01):
what's going on on the personal side of things, and
they're like, well, I don't know how I'm going to
pay myself this month. I'm like, why you make it
seems like you're making plenty of money. And I realized
there was a really big disconnect with a lot of
small business owners, and this was just very common with
not really knowing how to manage their cash flow and
also with not knowing how to set and achieve healthy
(05:24):
profit targets in their business. And I knew if I
could help people solve those two problems, then as business owners,
I could really help them thrive in their personal lives
as well. And so I sort of shifted into helping
business owners and started working with small companies and then
a little bit bigger and bigger, until I reached the
point where I was able to offer fractional CFO services
(05:46):
for small companies in the under ten million range in revenue,
and so that, along with business finance coaching and personal
finance coaching, is what I've been doing now for the
last several years.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Very cool, Lauren, There there are so many things that
came to mind there. I'm often so intrigued. Lauren that
a lot of times personal transformation is the breeding ground
for transformation and others. And so what was really cool
was to hear like what you did in your own
(06:23):
family people taking notice and being like, oh wait a minute, hey,
I need some help with my budget, so just talk
about I think sometimes when we're not careful, we miss
things like that. It's all it's just a thing that
I did, and people are like, no, that's a big deal.
So how important is it for us to maybe take
(06:45):
a step back and recognize that when you've experienced some
sort of breakthrough and other people's see it, that they
want you to come alongside them and partner on their journey.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And I don't.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Just sometimes with this life is so fast moving and
fast paced, we don't pause. So for you, what was
that like, the aha moments you started to have when
you're like, well, sure, this is just what I was
doing and now you're helping other people, Like, what was
that like for you?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Hm, that's a good question. I'm not sure if there
was one. I'm not sure there was one single Aha moment,
but I would say there were a series of moments
that I can kind of remember. So I remember when
it was all over when grad school was done and
the twins were born. I mean, obviously we didn't exactly
(07:38):
plan for twins, and we didn't know when we started
that journey what our circumstances would be, but you know,
God knew, and he equipped us and enabled us to
be able to successfully complete that journey of finishing grad
school without debt. And then I think, you know, just
hearing from people their arts and their and their goals
(08:01):
and their desires and their dreams and their struggles, and
being able to inject some hope in that situation saying
I see how I see the path forward for you,
like you can do this, like I really believe in you,
and meaning that wholeheartedly. There is so much joy in
that and excitement in that. And then getting just to
(08:22):
walk alongside people in that journey with something I really loved.
Funny enough, I didn't know that people did that for
a living. I was just doing this for fun. And
at the same time, I was praying about possibly getting
back into the workforce, and I just felt the Lord
being like, I have something for you. Just hang on,
just just wait. Don't go out looking for jobs right now,
(08:45):
just wait, just give it a little time. I've got
something for you. And then about and I've had total
peace about it because I was feeling so restless and
you know, and the Lord just gives you a word.
It's like, okay, I have peace, now I can trust it,
and Okay, I'm just gonna go with that. And I
had so much peace from that point on. About six
months later, maybe five months later, I saw this Facebook
(09:10):
ad and it was for coach training at Ramsey Solutions,
and I had facilitated one of their Financial Peace University
classes and just had so much fun with it. And
I didn't have any idea that they even offered coach
training or that coaching was a thing. I think coaching
is so popular now that it's like everyone has a
coach or is a coach or doing But in twenty
(09:32):
fifteen this was coaching was not as popular. I think
coaching even had sort of a almost remedial connotation, like, oh,
you need a coach because you're doing a bad job,
and you need a coach to like help you become average,
whereas now we look at coaching as like kind of elite,
like if you want to be the best, you can
hire a coach. And so I saw that opportunity and
(09:56):
it was like, that's it, that's the thing, and so
I got to go to Ramsey Solutions, did the coach training,
totally fell in love with it, and was able to
you know, start an actual business because of that training
and also from the experience that I had, and I think,
you know, the Lord is just so good in giving
(10:18):
us the information that we need just one step at
a time, and so it wasn't necessarily one Aha moment,
but it was a series of moments that where I
see the Lord's hand and how he led me into
what I'm doing now.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I love it, Lauren. I had a very strong inclination.
It was a series I just wanted. I didn't want
our listeners to miss it because you know, when you
look at social media and all these things, we think
everything happens in a vacuum where there was this one
big event that blows up a concept or and idea.
(10:53):
So I love how you talked about like, no, it
was step by step. It was a series of things
that led to where you are today. So thank you
for taking us on the journey. Now, speaking of journey, Lauren,
it is really cool. I love the name of your business,
Savvy stewardship, and I told you offline, you just can't
(11:16):
look at that name and oh yeah, moving on, let
me just book a session, like no, I know there's
a story there. How did you go about naming like
you know, especially in the church world, we've heard the
as I like to say, it's a nice ten dollars
twenty dollars word stewardship, and it has a lot of
different connotations in people's brain. But to parrot what savvy
(11:40):
that's really cool.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Thanks. Yeah, it's funny that you say that, because I
only named it that this last year. It wasn't it
wasn't savvy stewardship. I think it was just like Lauren
really coaching or whatever it was. But when I first
started the business, I really loved the concept of stewardship
(12:04):
and I really wanted to use that word in my
business name. And I can't tell you the number of
people who told me not to do it, because stewardship
has a negative connotation for so many people, and it's limiting,
like not everyone knows what that means, or if you
have clients who are not Christians, that's not going to
resonate with them, or people want to be wealthy. They
(12:25):
don't want to just be stewards, and so you need
to be a little more flashy and be more wealth oriented.
And sadly, at the time, I took their advice and
so I didn't use the word stewardship, and even though
that was really my heart and what I felt the
Lord had put on my heart to pursue is like
the mission, And this is the whole point of it,
(12:46):
is that every bit of money and all of our resources,
all of our time, talent and treasure belonged to the Lord.
It's all his. We are stewards, like that's the reality
of it. And it's such a privilege to get to
be stewards of God's resources and what He's entrusted to us.
And when we look at ourselves as stewarts, there's so
(13:09):
much more joy and freedom in managing our finances and
making decisions than there is when it's like all on us,
when it's like mine and I have to own this
and I have to control this, and that's just like
stress and pressure, and that's unfrankly, like no fun at
all in my opinion. So I think it's much more
fun to say, God, you know you're in charge and
(13:30):
how how what's going to bring you honor? And what
do you want me to do with this? And how
can I be part of your plan? I think that's
way more fun. So stewardship to me is like the
coolest thing ever. And I finally got to a point
last year in my business. I really did sort of
a relaunch after going through some life stuff and it
was like, all right, Lord, if we're gonna do this
(13:50):
like it's yours, You're in charge, and just really felt
like the word stewardship was this is what it's about.
So that's what we're gonna call it. And people who
aren't excited about it, that's totally fine. But people who
are excited, if that resonates, if the word stewardship resonates,
then then it's going to really resonate. And so I
was so I was so happy when you when you
(14:12):
mentioned that you noticed the name, and yeah, savvy because
we want to we want to be smart and we
want to be wise and we want to make good decisions.
And you know the alliteration, you know that was that
was part of it as well. So there you have
savvy stewardship.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I love it. Powerful, powerful, branding indeed, and and folks,
just a reminder too, like sometimes good earthly ideas are
not God ideas. So if the Lauren felt led to
name or business one way, even though the feedback, you
don't need to do that. But you know, are we
(14:48):
here to serve God or to serve man? That's something
that we're always navigating in our faith journey and business
and finance. So thank you for telling that story about
the name of the business of the business, Lauren. Now, Lauren,
let's get into how you care for your customers and clients.
(15:09):
So you talked a little bit earlier about you know,
being a fractional CFO. Then we've got business finances and
personal finances, so kind of walk us through those three
offerings and and and what what is it like to
be a day in the life of a customer and
be served by savvy stewardship knowing kind of those three domains.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
M Yeah, So on the personal finance side of coaching,
I'm still happy to work with clients who who need
help with their personal finances. Uh, it's I don't do
that as much anymore, just because most of my inquiries
are from business owners. But I just love helping people.
So if there's someone I can help with their personal finances,
whether you know you've got a big goal to get
(15:53):
out of debt, or you're just feeling overwhelmed and you
need help getting you know, good systems in place to
make a personal budget, or maybe you have a big
goal in front of you, like you want to go
to grad school debt free, or start really investing for retirement,
or there's lots of things you want to do, or
you had an income change and you're like, I just
don't know how to navigate this, and I want to
(16:13):
do a good job. I can help you with all
of those things. Like those things are exciting, and I
really believe in people's ability to learn. Like I'm not
a spreadsheet math person. Actually I'm it's not it, I'm
really not, Like the Lord really showed me, Like, look, Lauren,
I'm not. This isn't in your natural skill set. But
I'm going to give you the experience because I've called
(16:35):
you to this, right and I've called everyone to steward
what they have, And so I really believe that that
being a great steward of your financial resources is within
anyone's ability. You don't have to be great at math.
You don't have to love spreadsheets. You don't have to
be an engineer, like we don't have to you know,
(16:55):
make every we don't have. We can round the nearest
dollar like it's fine, but you can do a good
job making decisions about your money. And then on the
business finance and CFO side of things, so fractional CFO
that's for companies that really do need, you know, a
monthly financial analysis and they need the reports, and they need,
you know, a bit more involvement in their in their
(17:19):
business finances. And then I really also love to offer
business finance coaching, so it's business coaching with an emphasis
on business finance because we need to have good we
need to have a good understanding of our numbers. And
I just find that that's a big gap for many
and with good reason, because you're probably amazing at what
(17:41):
you do, and then when you look at your profit
loss statement and your balance sheet, it's like, well, what
do these numbers mean? Like my bookkeeper gives these to
me every month, But how do I actually turn this
into insight that allows me to take action that allows
me to develop a strategy to grow And how do
I make decisions for my business that are not just
(18:03):
based on how much money I have in the bank
account right now, but are actually based on some information
that I have that I can actually use in and
use to make wiser, better decisions. And so we want
to look at, you know, what are your personal goals,
what about your personal income, what are what's going on
in your family? What are your needs? What what's God
(18:25):
put on your heart, you know, in terms of giving
and saving, and what about you know, your family and
what's going to be best for your family. How is
the business really working for you or not working for you?
That we might want to look at. And then on
the you know, business side of things, finances usually correlate
to something operational. So let's say that your gross profit
(18:49):
margin is really like way below industry average, Well, let's
figure out why and from an operational standpoint, what can
you do to change that and what's going to make
that profit increased? Because what we find a lot is
that company owners focus so much on growing their revenue
that they don't realize they're putting all that money. It's
like pouring water into a calendar, where you might have
(19:12):
more water going into the calendar, but it's also draining out,
and so we want to make sure that that's not
draining out. We want to we want to optimize your profit.
We want to make sure that your profit margins are healthy,
that you have the right business systems in place before
you go spend a lot of money and time and
effort into building growing your revenue, because then you're doing
(19:34):
so much more work, but you're not necessarily keeping more
money doing it. So we want to make sure we're
doing the right things in the right order. And the
way we get that clarity is by looking at your
business through that financial lens. So whether you need business
finance coaching or fractional CFO work, that's really where I
specialize in helping see.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Folks, not just stewardship savvy. Yeah, yeah, Born, What would
you say in twenty twenty five, we have a new administration,
there's tariffs, there's inflation. What's maybe the top one or
two things you're hearing from business owners like I just
(20:15):
don't even know where to begin, or I'm struggling here.
What are you seeing out there in the market in
twenty twenty five?
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Yeah, I would say right now, sales. Sales is the
biggest challenge. Right now, we've seen in a lot of
in a lot of sectors, a growth slow down, economics slowdown,
fewer contracts, fewer customers, especially in B to B businesses,
(20:44):
people being a lot more careful about where they're spending
their money, wanting to make cuts, and that is that's
affecting small businesses. A few years ago, when we had
quantitative easing and we had just all this cash being injected,
it was really cheap to borrow money, and companies weren't
(21:04):
as concerned with and I'm not saying like you should
or shouldn't borrow money, that's a totally different conversation, but
just that affected buyer's mindsets. Like buyers were willing to
spend money to pay more, we weren't being as cautious.
Now that's not the case, and so business owners are
finding that they have to put a lot more effort
(21:25):
into their sales and into their marketing, and not just
spending more money, but being really strategic, really hustling, working
harder for those sales if they're not as easy, and
so paying attention to those and making sure that your
budget is really optimized to get the best ROI possible,
and that your focus as a business owner is where
(21:48):
it needs to be, and that your time is being
spent on the highest, you know, the most impactful activities.
Those are really the keys to being successful right now. Yeah,
I would say it's sales is like the most challenging
thing in our current economic conditions.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Folks, I told you is she a coach? Or is
she a coach? You just get given all these nuggets
of wisdom right here on the show, Lauren, now, just
because it's the hot thing, and if you're not, if
you're still navigating the space, no harm, no foul. Has
the AI come up with clients a lot of times
(22:33):
on the tech side or maybe like marketing, you hear
that come up? But has have you been asked that
question even from a financial piece of the puzzle, like
how might AI play a factor? Is that something that's
come up or have you thought about that with any
of your clients?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
You know it hasn't come up a ton. I certainly
I encourage the use of AI as a tool. I
don't think AI is ever going to replace humans, but
I do think it's important to know what's coming up.
I was actually having this conversation today with a business
colleague about how can we leverage AI and to make
(23:15):
it an effective tool, like even in what we do
as coaches and as financial experts, because like, the value
that we bring is not in the spreadsheets that we
can produce, like AI can do that for you. That's
just that's information, that's knowledge, that's very transactional. I love
to help people with that. I love to teach them
(23:35):
how to get those insights from their data. But the
value that we bring as coaches is in that personal relationship,
because you're never going to replace that with AI. Like
Scripture says that the fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom. AI is never going to be able
to give you wisdom. AI can help with strategy, it
(23:57):
can be a tool, it can be an a it
can augment what you're doing, it can help you be
more efficient, but it's never going to replace the human
heart right, and so I would say, you know, yeah,
use AI as a tool. I'm actually reading a book
(24:18):
right now called The AI Driven Leader. It's good, I
just started it, but I definitely recommend the book already
because I think it's very insightful and just to know
what's going on. I think we shouldn't turn a blind
eye to it. We shouldn't be overly excited about it
or overly afraid of it. We should just be knowledgeable
(24:41):
and ask the Lord to give us wisdom in how
we can incorporate AI in our companies. But it's going
to look different for everyone because there's so many different
ways to use it. It's such a big conversation. But yeah,
AI is definitely. I don't think we can just ignore
it like we have. We need to be knowledgeable it
so that we know how to use it in a
(25:03):
smart way.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Makes sense. So, Lauren, you're saying to be a steward
what you're saying, folks, I just had to throw that in.
There is even stewardship when it comes to exploring AI
for sure, Lauren. As we get ready to close, you know,
we're kind of in the second half of twenty twenty five.
(25:27):
Any exciting things coming up in the fourth quarter or
even any if you're looking that far ahead twenty twenty six,
What are you excited about before the end of the
year or possibly going into next year.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Oh, that's a good question. You know. Something that the
Lord has been teaching me in the last two years
has been to focus on the day by day and
to ask for daily bread and to knock you too
ahead of myself. And so as counterintuitive as it is,
(26:04):
because I know that as business owners, you know there's
value in strategic planning and looking at next quarter and
next year. And I have not been in that season.
If I'm just totally transparent, I have been much more
day by day and just in a season of seeking
the Lord and saying, all right, Lord, I need you
to give me some fresh vision here. Not not because
(26:26):
there's any discontent in what I'm doing, but I'm good
doing what I'm doing, you know, for the foreseeable future.
But I don't have anything that's necessarily new or like, Okay,
this is what I'm doing next quarter that's different, or
this is how I'm gonna build things, you know, for
twenty twenty six. And so I was I was saying, Lord,
(26:47):
you know, I feel like you've put this on my
heart to pray for some fresh vision. I don't know
what that's going to look like. And then I was
reading Isaiah forty and forty one this morning, and he
just reminded me, like those who wait on the Lord,
we reknew their strength, like you're just waiting on me.
I got you. So I wish there's part of me
that I wish I could say, yes, this is what
(27:08):
I have planned for Q four and then this is
what I have planned for twenty twenty six, and I
just don't have that yet. So but I'm okay with that,
and I think it's fine.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Absolutely, as my cousin would say, and I'm okay with that.
I love it.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
But I do plan to keep doing what I'm doing
for right now, so so nothing wrong with that either.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Absolutely, Lauren. You have given a listen fractional CFO cash flow,
you know the different financial statements. I mean, you have
given us some good gems. You've talked about trends in
twenty twenty five. Before we go, Lauren, where can people
learn more about you? How can they connect with you
(27:52):
so that they could keep up with what you're doing
or even become a client?
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Absolutely? Yeah. So my website is Savvy Stewardship dot com.
You can email me at Lauren at savvystewardship dot com
and you can also find me on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Folks, you heard it directly from the Savvy one. Savvy
Stewardship Lauren reilling. Lauren, this has been an awesome conversation.
I've had a ton of fun. We had a fun
conversation even offline. Folks, I'm telling you make sure that
you connect with Lauren. Just like with our personal finances,
(28:31):
we got to steward our business finances as well. Stewardship
transcends all areas, So if you need that sort of guidance,
Lauren is definitely someone that you want to reach out to. Lauren,
I can't thank you enough for hanging out with us
here on the forty five Life. We will definitely have
(28:52):
to do this again when you when you have other
things going on and it's like, oh, Jason, we've got
some new stuff coming. Know that I've already predecided that
you'll be back.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Oh, thank you so much, Jason. Yeah, this is fun.
And yeah, once once I figure out, hey, this is
kind of what's next, you'll be the first to know.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Awesome, awesome, Lauren, thanks so much for hanging out with
us here on the show. Kind of like Marvel does
with the Avengers. Lauren really will return to the Fortified
Life podcast. I assure you so work out a date.
But if you see her pop up again, know that
we've already said she'll be back.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Folks.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
We'll have all of Lauren's contact information in the show
notes Fortified lifepodcast dot com, jercoforce dot com, slash podcast.
So don't you worry. You will have your opportunity to
be a savvy steward. Yes you will, folks. That's all
we have time for here on this show. You know
(29:53):
how we leave things. Don't compartmentalize your faith in the
marketplace and from the board row to the bathroom, God
is with you. We'll see you next time on the
Fortified Life Podcast.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Thank you for listening to the Fortified Life Podcast. You
can catch us live on Wednesdays at eight thirty pm
Eastern Time and on demand. Check out fortifiedlifepodcast dot com
for more details. So learn how to live out your
faith in the marketplace. Grab a copy of Jason Davis's
book Fortify Being Rooted in God's Plan for Work in Business,
(30:30):
Available on Amazon
Welcome to the Fortified Life Podcast, where we learn how
to develop a dependency on Jesus in the marketplace. From
the boardroom to the bathroom. God is with you. Here's
our host, author, speaker, teaker, encourager, here a true coach,
and my husband. It's the man they call mister forty five,
Jason Davis.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode
of the Fortified Life podcast where we are passionate about
developing a dependency on Jesus in the marketplace. I'm your host,
Jason Davis aka mister Fortifi. Every week we have the
opportunity to bring on coaches, speakers, authors, business owners, leaders
(01:00):
of nonprofits who are also passionate about putting God back
in business. It's no different this week. Ladies and gentlemen,
there are guests. I love all of my guests. There's
just certain people that when you meet them, it's like
you've just known them for a while. And you've heard
me say that listeners a few times, but I'm telling
(01:22):
you you just there's some people you just have really
cool conversations with. And our guest today is one of
those people. In quotes, she is certainly my sister in Christ.
But ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the Fortified Life Podcast. Lauren. Really,
she's been helping businesses and individuals simplify their finances for
(01:45):
the past decade. Lauren, Welcome to the Fortified Life Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Oh thank you, Jason. It's such an honor to be here,
and I'm so glad we get to catch up a
little bit earlier. And yeah, just so happy to join
you for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
You know, Lauren, I'm I'm often intrigued because people here
phrasing like helping businesses and individuals simplify their finances, and
depending on where you're at with your money on personal
or business, they go, I don't know if I would
describe my finances as simple. So that being said, I
(02:20):
know you just didn't wake up in twenty twenty five
just attacking all things money. So kind of take us
through the professional journey of how you got into what
you're doing today.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Oh, that's a good question because my academic background is
not in finance. It's actually in political science, but it
does connect. So after college, I wanted to get a
master's degree, and I had just a little bit of
college debt, just enough that I knew I didn't want
(02:53):
to go into ten times as much debt for a
master's degree, and so I told my husband at the time,
I really want to cash flow this. But that was
a little crazy because he was also in grad school
and we were living off of my teacher salary. So
how are we going to pay for an entire degree
when we're living off of a teacher's salary. But we
(03:15):
were really determined to do it, and so we learned
how to set goals, we learned how to budget, we
learned how to cash flow navigate different fluctuations and income
and life circumstances. And two and a half years later,
I graduated with a master's degree debt free. And that's
also the same month that our twins were born, and
so it was a really crazy month. I don't even
(03:35):
know how I finished that last paper. I think, I
don't know how I had that energy a decade ago.
But what it sparked in me was this appreciation for
what financial freedom really meant, and that was just the
ability to do whatever was going to be best for
our family, whatever God was calling us to do, without
having to worry about how we were going to afford it.
(03:55):
And I found so much peace in knowing that I
was wasn't going to have to go out and find
a job just to figure out, you know, how to
pay back to student loans. And I had newborn twins
at home, so that was what financial freedom was for
us at the time. And from there, I had friends
and family just asking me, you know, can you help
me with my budget? I want to go to school
(04:17):
or I'm trying to pay off debt. How did you
guys do this? And from there I got to go
do training at Ramsey Solutions on financial coaching, and I
just thought, you know, this will be like a great
little side thing while my twins are little, and you know,
it kind of gives me a bit of an outlet,
a professional and creative outlet. But then it grew, It
just grew, and I found so much joy in helping
(04:40):
people with their finances and seeing the results that they
were getting with paying off debt and saving for things
and learning how to get on the same page in
their marriage with their communication around money. And at the
same time, a lot of my clients were business owners
of small companies, and I was looking at their revenue
and going, Okay, you've got plenty in revenue, so like,
(05:01):
what's going on on the personal side of things, and
they're like, well, I don't know how I'm going to
pay myself this month. I'm like, why you make it
seems like you're making plenty of money. And I realized
there was a really big disconnect with a lot of
small business owners, and this was just very common with
not really knowing how to manage their cash flow and
also with not knowing how to set and achieve healthy
(05:24):
profit targets in their business. And I knew if I
could help people solve those two problems, then as business owners,
I could really help them thrive in their personal lives
as well. And so I sort of shifted into helping
business owners and started working with small companies and then
a little bit bigger and bigger, until I reached the
point where I was able to offer fractional CFO services
(05:46):
for small companies in the under ten million range in revenue,
and so that, along with business finance coaching and personal
finance coaching, is what I've been doing now for the
last several years.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Very cool, Lauren, There there are so many things that
came to mind there. I'm often so intrigued. Lauren that
a lot of times personal transformation is the breeding ground
for transformation and others. And so what was really cool
was to hear like what you did in your own
(06:23):
family people taking notice and being like, oh wait a minute, hey,
I need some help with my budget, so just talk
about I think sometimes when we're not careful, we miss
things like that. It's all it's just a thing that
I did, and people are like, no, that's a big deal.
So how important is it for us to maybe take
(06:45):
a step back and recognize that when you've experienced some
sort of breakthrough and other people's see it, that they
want you to come alongside them and partner on their journey.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And I don't.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Just sometimes with this life is so fast moving and
fast paced, we don't pause. So for you, what was
that like, the aha moments you started to have when
you're like, well, sure, this is just what I was
doing and now you're helping other people, Like, what was
that like for you?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Hm, that's a good question. I'm not sure if there
was one. I'm not sure there was one single Aha moment,
but I would say there were a series of moments
that I can kind of remember. So I remember when
it was all over when grad school was done and
the twins were born. I mean, obviously we didn't exactly
(07:38):
plan for twins, and we didn't know when we started
that journey what our circumstances would be, but you know,
God knew, and he equipped us and enabled us to
be able to successfully complete that journey of finishing grad
school without debt. And then I think, you know, just
hearing from people their arts and their and their goals
(08:01):
and their desires and their dreams and their struggles, and
being able to inject some hope in that situation saying
I see how I see the path forward for you,
like you can do this, like I really believe in you,
and meaning that wholeheartedly. There is so much joy in
that and excitement in that. And then getting just to
(08:22):
walk alongside people in that journey with something I really loved.
Funny enough, I didn't know that people did that for
a living. I was just doing this for fun. And
at the same time, I was praying about possibly getting
back into the workforce, and I just felt the Lord
being like, I have something for you. Just hang on,
just just wait. Don't go out looking for jobs right now,
(08:45):
just wait, just give it a little time. I've got
something for you. And then about and I've had total
peace about it because I was feeling so restless and
you know, and the Lord just gives you a word.
It's like, okay, I have peace, now I can trust it,
and Okay, I'm just gonna go with that. And I
had so much peace from that point on. About six
months later, maybe five months later, I saw this Facebook
(09:10):
ad and it was for coach training at Ramsey Solutions,
and I had facilitated one of their Financial Peace University
classes and just had so much fun with it. And
I didn't have any idea that they even offered coach
training or that coaching was a thing. I think coaching
is so popular now that it's like everyone has a
coach or is a coach or doing But in twenty
(09:32):
fifteen this was coaching was not as popular. I think
coaching even had sort of a almost remedial connotation, like, oh,
you need a coach because you're doing a bad job,
and you need a coach to like help you become average,
whereas now we look at coaching as like kind of elite,
like if you want to be the best, you can
hire a coach. And so I saw that opportunity and
(09:56):
it was like, that's it, that's the thing, and so
I got to go to Ramsey Solutions, did the coach training,
totally fell in love with it, and was able to
you know, start an actual business because of that training
and also from the experience that I had, and I think,
you know, the Lord is just so good in giving
(10:18):
us the information that we need just one step at
a time, and so it wasn't necessarily one Aha moment,
but it was a series of moments that where I
see the Lord's hand and how he led me into
what I'm doing now.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I love it, Lauren. I had a very strong inclination.
It was a series I just wanted. I didn't want
our listeners to miss it because you know, when you
look at social media and all these things, we think
everything happens in a vacuum where there was this one
big event that blows up a concept or and idea.
(10:53):
So I love how you talked about like, no, it
was step by step. It was a series of things
that led to where you are today. So thank you
for taking us on the journey. Now, speaking of journey, Lauren,
it is really cool. I love the name of your business,
Savvy stewardship, and I told you offline, you just can't
(11:16):
look at that name and oh yeah, moving on, let
me just book a session, like no, I know there's
a story there. How did you go about naming like
you know, especially in the church world, we've heard the
as I like to say, it's a nice ten dollars
twenty dollars word stewardship, and it has a lot of
different connotations in people's brain. But to parrot what savvy
(11:40):
that's really cool.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Thanks. Yeah, it's funny that you say that, because I
only named it that this last year. It wasn't it
wasn't savvy stewardship. I think it was just like Lauren
really coaching or whatever it was. But when I first
started the business, I really loved the concept of stewardship
(12:04):
and I really wanted to use that word in my
business name. And I can't tell you the number of
people who told me not to do it, because stewardship
has a negative connotation for so many people, and it's limiting,
like not everyone knows what that means, or if you
have clients who are not Christians, that's not going to
resonate with them, or people want to be wealthy. They
(12:25):
don't want to just be stewards, and so you need
to be a little more flashy and be more wealth oriented.
And sadly, at the time, I took their advice and
so I didn't use the word stewardship, and even though
that was really my heart and what I felt the
Lord had put on my heart to pursue is like
the mission, And this is the whole point of it,
(12:46):
is that every bit of money and all of our resources,
all of our time, talent and treasure belonged to the Lord.
It's all his. We are stewards, like that's the reality
of it. And it's such a privilege to get to
be stewards of God's resources and what He's entrusted to us.
And when we look at ourselves as stewarts, there's so
(13:09):
much more joy and freedom in managing our finances and
making decisions than there is when it's like all on us,
when it's like mine and I have to own this
and I have to control this, and that's just like
stress and pressure, and that's unfrankly, like no fun at
all in my opinion. So I think it's much more
fun to say, God, you know you're in charge and
(13:30):
how how what's going to bring you honor? And what
do you want me to do with this? And how
can I be part of your plan? I think that's
way more fun. So stewardship to me is like the
coolest thing ever. And I finally got to a point
last year in my business. I really did sort of
a relaunch after going through some life stuff and it
was like, all right, Lord, if we're gonna do this
(13:50):
like it's yours, You're in charge, and just really felt
like the word stewardship was this is what it's about.
So that's what we're gonna call it. And people who
aren't excited about it, that's totally fine. But people who
are excited, if that resonates, if the word stewardship resonates,
then then it's going to really resonate. And so I
was so I was so happy when you when you
(14:12):
mentioned that you noticed the name, and yeah, savvy because
we want to we want to be smart and we
want to be wise and we want to make good decisions.
And you know the alliteration, you know that was that
was part of it as well. So there you have
savvy stewardship.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I love it. Powerful, powerful, branding indeed, and and folks,
just a reminder too, like sometimes good earthly ideas are
not God ideas. So if the Lauren felt led to
name or business one way, even though the feedback, you
don't need to do that. But you know, are we
(14:48):
here to serve God or to serve man? That's something
that we're always navigating in our faith journey and business
and finance. So thank you for telling that story about
the name of the business of the business, Lauren. Now, Lauren,
let's get into how you care for your customers and clients.
(15:09):
So you talked a little bit earlier about you know,
being a fractional CFO. Then we've got business finances and
personal finances, so kind of walk us through those three
offerings and and and what what is it like to
be a day in the life of a customer and
be served by savvy stewardship knowing kind of those three domains.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
M Yeah, So on the personal finance side of coaching,
I'm still happy to work with clients who who need
help with their personal finances. Uh, it's I don't do
that as much anymore, just because most of my inquiries
are from business owners. But I just love helping people.
So if there's someone I can help with their personal finances,
whether you know you've got a big goal to get
(15:53):
out of debt, or you're just feeling overwhelmed and you
need help getting you know, good systems in place to
make a personal budget, or maybe you have a big
goal in front of you, like you want to go
to grad school debt free, or start really investing for retirement,
or there's lots of things you want to do, or
you had an income change and you're like, I just
don't know how to navigate this, and I want to
(16:13):
do a good job. I can help you with all
of those things. Like those things are exciting, and I
really believe in people's ability to learn. Like I'm not
a spreadsheet math person. Actually I'm it's not it, I'm
really not, Like the Lord really showed me, Like, look, Lauren,
I'm not. This isn't in your natural skill set. But
I'm going to give you the experience because I've called
(16:35):
you to this, right and I've called everyone to steward
what they have, And so I really believe that that
being a great steward of your financial resources is within
anyone's ability. You don't have to be great at math.
You don't have to love spreadsheets. You don't have to
be an engineer, like we don't have to you know,
(16:55):
make every we don't have. We can round the nearest
dollar like it's fine, but you can do a good
job making decisions about your money. And then on the
business finance and CFO side of things, so fractional CFO
that's for companies that really do need, you know, a
monthly financial analysis and they need the reports, and they need,
you know, a bit more involvement in their in their
(17:19):
business finances. And then I really also love to offer
business finance coaching, so it's business coaching with an emphasis
on business finance because we need to have good we
need to have a good understanding of our numbers. And
I just find that that's a big gap for many
and with good reason, because you're probably amazing at what
(17:41):
you do, and then when you look at your profit
loss statement and your balance sheet, it's like, well, what
do these numbers mean? Like my bookkeeper gives these to
me every month, But how do I actually turn this
into insight that allows me to take action that allows
me to develop a strategy to grow And how do
I make decisions for my business that are not just
(18:03):
based on how much money I have in the bank
account right now, but are actually based on some information
that I have that I can actually use in and
use to make wiser, better decisions. And so we want
to look at, you know, what are your personal goals,
what about your personal income, what are what's going on
in your family? What are your needs? What what's God
(18:25):
put on your heart, you know, in terms of giving
and saving, and what about you know, your family and
what's going to be best for your family. How is
the business really working for you or not working for you?
That we might want to look at. And then on
the you know, business side of things, finances usually correlate
to something operational. So let's say that your gross profit
(18:49):
margin is really like way below industry average, Well, let's
figure out why and from an operational standpoint, what can
you do to change that and what's going to make
that profit increased? Because what we find a lot is
that company owners focus so much on growing their revenue
that they don't realize they're putting all that money. It's
like pouring water into a calendar, where you might have
(19:12):
more water going into the calendar, but it's also draining out,
and so we want to make sure that that's not
draining out. We want to we want to optimize your profit.
We want to make sure that your profit margins are healthy,
that you have the right business systems in place before
you go spend a lot of money and time and
effort into building growing your revenue, because then you're doing
(19:34):
so much more work, but you're not necessarily keeping more
money doing it. So we want to make sure we're
doing the right things in the right order. And the
way we get that clarity is by looking at your
business through that financial lens. So whether you need business
finance coaching or fractional CFO work, that's really where I
specialize in helping see.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Folks, not just stewardship savvy. Yeah, yeah, Born, What would
you say in twenty twenty five, we have a new administration,
there's tariffs, there's inflation. What's maybe the top one or
two things you're hearing from business owners like I just
(20:15):
don't even know where to begin, or I'm struggling here.
What are you seeing out there in the market in
twenty twenty five?
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Yeah, I would say right now, sales. Sales is the
biggest challenge. Right now, we've seen in a lot of
in a lot of sectors, a growth slow down, economics slowdown,
fewer contracts, fewer customers, especially in B to B businesses,
(20:44):
people being a lot more careful about where they're spending
their money, wanting to make cuts, and that is that's
affecting small businesses. A few years ago, when we had
quantitative easing and we had just all this cash being injected,
it was really cheap to borrow money, and companies weren't
(21:04):
as concerned with and I'm not saying like you should
or shouldn't borrow money, that's a totally different conversation, but
just that affected buyer's mindsets. Like buyers were willing to
spend money to pay more, we weren't being as cautious.
Now that's not the case, and so business owners are
finding that they have to put a lot more effort
(21:25):
into their sales and into their marketing, and not just
spending more money, but being really strategic, really hustling, working
harder for those sales if they're not as easy, and
so paying attention to those and making sure that your
budget is really optimized to get the best ROI possible,
and that your focus as a business owner is where
(21:48):
it needs to be, and that your time is being
spent on the highest, you know, the most impactful activities.
Those are really the keys to being successful right now. Yeah,
I would say it's sales is like the most challenging
thing in our current economic conditions.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Folks, I told you is she a coach? Or is
she a coach? You just get given all these nuggets
of wisdom right here on the show, Lauren, now, just
because it's the hot thing, and if you're not, if
you're still navigating the space, no harm, no foul. Has
the AI come up with clients a lot of times
(22:33):
on the tech side or maybe like marketing, you hear
that come up? But has have you been asked that
question even from a financial piece of the puzzle, like
how might AI play a factor? Is that something that's
come up or have you thought about that with any
of your clients?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
You know it hasn't come up a ton. I certainly
I encourage the use of AI as a tool. I
don't think AI is ever going to replace humans, but
I do think it's important to know what's coming up.
I was actually having this conversation today with a business
colleague about how can we leverage AI and to make
(23:15):
it an effective tool, like even in what we do
as coaches and as financial experts, because like, the value
that we bring is not in the spreadsheets that we
can produce, like AI can do that for you. That's
just that's information, that's knowledge, that's very transactional. I love
to help people with that. I love to teach them
(23:35):
how to get those insights from their data. But the
value that we bring as coaches is in that personal relationship,
because you're never going to replace that with AI. Like
Scripture says that the fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom. AI is never going to be able
to give you wisdom. AI can help with strategy, it
(23:57):
can be a tool, it can be an a it
can augment what you're doing, it can help you be
more efficient, but it's never going to replace the human
heart right, and so I would say, you know, yeah,
use AI as a tool. I'm actually reading a book
(24:18):
right now called The AI Driven Leader. It's good, I
just started it, but I definitely recommend the book already
because I think it's very insightful and just to know
what's going on. I think we shouldn't turn a blind
eye to it. We shouldn't be overly excited about it
or overly afraid of it. We should just be knowledgeable
(24:41):
and ask the Lord to give us wisdom in how
we can incorporate AI in our companies. But it's going
to look different for everyone because there's so many different
ways to use it. It's such a big conversation. But yeah,
AI is definitely. I don't think we can just ignore
it like we have. We need to be knowledgeable it
so that we know how to use it in a
(25:03):
smart way.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Makes sense. So, Lauren, you're saying to be a steward
what you're saying, folks, I just had to throw that in.
There is even stewardship when it comes to exploring AI
for sure, Lauren. As we get ready to close, you know,
we're kind of in the second half of twenty twenty five.
(25:27):
Any exciting things coming up in the fourth quarter or
even any if you're looking that far ahead twenty twenty six,
What are you excited about before the end of the
year or possibly going into next year.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Oh, that's a good question. You know. Something that the
Lord has been teaching me in the last two years
has been to focus on the day by day and
to ask for daily bread and to knock you too
ahead of myself. And so as counterintuitive as it is,
(26:04):
because I know that as business owners, you know there's
value in strategic planning and looking at next quarter and
next year. And I have not been in that season.
If I'm just totally transparent, I have been much more
day by day and just in a season of seeking
the Lord and saying, all right, Lord, I need you
to give me some fresh vision here. Not not because
(26:26):
there's any discontent in what I'm doing, but I'm good
doing what I'm doing, you know, for the foreseeable future.
But I don't have anything that's necessarily new or like, Okay,
this is what I'm doing next quarter that's different, or
this is how I'm gonna build things, you know, for
twenty twenty six. And so I was I was saying, Lord,
(26:47):
you know, I feel like you've put this on my
heart to pray for some fresh vision. I don't know
what that's going to look like. And then I was
reading Isaiah forty and forty one this morning, and he
just reminded me, like those who wait on the Lord,
we reknew their strength, like you're just waiting on me.
I got you. So I wish there's part of me
that I wish I could say, yes, this is what
(27:08):
I have planned for Q four and then this is
what I have planned for twenty twenty six, and I
just don't have that yet. So but I'm okay with that,
and I think it's fine.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Absolutely, as my cousin would say, and I'm okay with that.
I love it.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
But I do plan to keep doing what I'm doing
for right now, so so nothing wrong with that either.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Absolutely, Lauren. You have given a listen fractional CFO cash flow,
you know the different financial statements. I mean, you have
given us some good gems. You've talked about trends in
twenty twenty five. Before we go, Lauren, where can people
learn more about you? How can they connect with you
(27:52):
so that they could keep up with what you're doing
or even become a client?
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Absolutely? Yeah. So my website is Savvy Stewardship dot com.
You can email me at Lauren at savvystewardship dot com
and you can also find me on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Folks, you heard it directly from the Savvy one. Savvy
Stewardship Lauren reilling. Lauren, this has been an awesome conversation.
I've had a ton of fun. We had a fun
conversation even offline. Folks, I'm telling you make sure that
you connect with Lauren. Just like with our personal finances,
(28:31):
we got to steward our business finances as well. Stewardship
transcends all areas, So if you need that sort of guidance,
Lauren is definitely someone that you want to reach out to. Lauren,
I can't thank you enough for hanging out with us
here on the forty five Life. We will definitely have
(28:52):
to do this again when you when you have other
things going on and it's like, oh, Jason, we've got
some new stuff coming. Know that I've already predecided that
you'll be back.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Oh, thank you so much, Jason. Yeah, this is fun.
And yeah, once once I figure out, hey, this is
kind of what's next, you'll be the first to know.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Awesome, awesome, Lauren, thanks so much for hanging out with
us here on the show. Kind of like Marvel does
with the Avengers. Lauren really will return to the Fortified
Life podcast. I assure you so work out a date.
But if you see her pop up again, know that
we've already said she'll be back.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Folks.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
We'll have all of Lauren's contact information in the show
notes Fortified lifepodcast dot com, jercoforce dot com, slash podcast.
So don't you worry. You will have your opportunity to
be a savvy steward. Yes you will, folks. That's all
we have time for here on this show. You know
(29:53):
how we leave things. Don't compartmentalize your faith in the
marketplace and from the board row to the bathroom, God
is with you. We'll see you next time on the
Fortified Life Podcast.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Thank you for listening to the Fortified Life Podcast. You
can catch us live on Wednesdays at eight thirty pm
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