SNM010: Controlling Financial Mistakes

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controlling financial mistakes to ensure that your small business does not fail. Today's episode is brought to you by fresh Books, the accounting software built for small businesses. When you're starting a small business, tracking your money is the most important step. Fresh books is there to help you from day one so that your business never falters. To find out how fresh books can help your business grow, go to serve. No master dot com Backslash Fresh books Now Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, choir your boss and start living your retirement dreams now then you've come to the right place. Welcome to serve no master podcast where you learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. Presented live from a tropical island in the South Pacific by best selling author Jonathan Green. Now here's your host. Poor financial management during the infancy of your business can eventually destroy you. It's very important to be fiscally strict, fiscally responsible, fiscally disciplined at the start of your business during this phase. Right now, if you've read my books from the master of the rents in my block who listen to some of the other podcasts. You know that I'm a believer of spending out of the profits. I'm not a big believer of investing huge amounts of money at the beginning of a business. I like to develop a proven business model, and once it's working, then I'll invest more money in it. This is me being fiscally disciplined right now. When you're the early phases, trying to learn howto build your first business, learning how to develop secondary and tertiary revenue streams. One of the things that you'll do is run into courses. Now I saw courses on my website. That's true. What I don't want you to do is go and buy all my courses. Okay? I teach different methods for making money line different skill sets. One of my courses is about how to become a nonfiction writer. I teach my research method my methodology might structuring and also how I find clients and how high price out different projects and howto work your way up from ah, bottom price rider up to a top price writer. That's one methodology that I teach and that way you can follow that path and then get writing gigs. You could follow that simple path and have other courses ago. In other directions of what happens is if you buy a bunch, of course, is whether it's a bunch of mine, a bunch of different people, whatever you end up spending a lot of money and you're not fiscally responsible as much as it's great for me. If you buy all my courses at once, please don't do it by one. Go through it, make your money back, and then once you've made profits from that first course, then invested in their course, that's the approach to business that will lead you to being successful in the long term. We have this instant gratification mindset in our culture. This is why everyone's in debt. This is why we spend money we don't have. And when you spend money, don't have you spend years paying off those credit cards. You buy a house you don't actually have the money for. It takes you 30 years to actually own it. I need my car, takes six years or longer. Some credit cards people end up taking 10 years to pay them off and student loans. There are people that path their student loans in their mid or late fifties. 30 years later, you're still paying off your college tuition. That's brutal, and that's because we have the instant gratification mindset. I want to enjoy it now and pay later. You need to disconnect that mindset from your business. If you bought my book on Amazon, I know the price has always fluctuated exams on price tests. If you spent, say, seven or $8 you need to write that down in a spreadsheet as a business expense and you say, Hey, I need to make that money back to justify that expense. Now in the book, I do share with you a couple of different ways to make $5 here in $5. They're very quickly with some programs that I use, but what you really need to think about is what is going out financially. Most people we get so caught up in excited, I think we buy courses. We buy too many courses than we buy a really expensive software top of the line tech, or we get the developers license of everything, and we end up spending money every month. We have $20 going here 20 years ago in their $50 going there. We don't track it sometimes someone by course for $1000. Then they'll make $200 like, Hey, I'm killing it and making money online, But you're still operating at $800 loss because you're not tracking your money, you need to track your ins and outs. Now I am not naturally good at accounting, naturally good tracking money in this way. I hate doing it. This is why I have a bookkeeper toe really help me with my numbers all the time. She's much more in tune with all these different little things. We talked every couple of days to make sure that I'm tracking what's going on and all those things. But when you spend money, that's money leaving the business. The mindset starts with. This is a business. If you think of making money, Linda's a hobby or you're listening to This podcast is entertainment. We spend money. Whatever entertainment budget, we never expect to make it back. We don't have the same philosophy. If you spend money from the business, you need to make the money back ins and outs, assets and negative assets, right? We think of money that way. But if it's a movie where you go to the movie, pay 7 $20. Whatever the current movie ticket prices, where you live, you don't expect to get the money back. So you think it was entertainment budget of the entertainment mindset. So you need to separate the entertainment mindset from what you're doing online. As long as you're trying to dabble. As long as you're having a bit of fun online, you'll never succeed because you won't be serious about it. And I have friends that have spent thousands and tens of thousands of dollars on software products training that they don't implement because for them it's fun. They're having a bit of fun, Kind of like gambling is the same friends. Actually, I have. This is my same friends that gamble too much. It's the same mindset where they don't take it seriously. So if you have the mindset, we're making my lands a gamble or to risk where it's a game, then you'll struggle. I want you to start off with the mindset of anything I spend. I need to make back. I need to track what I spend any to pay attention to. What's going out every month to make sure that what's coming in is more. If you spend a bunch of money, you spend 2000 and $5000 on something and you're making back $500 a month. We're not making any profit. For the 1st 10 months, you're still operating at a loss, and these numbers are very important when you want to exit your business or and sell it, or whether you're looking for investment. These are the numbers that everyone's looking at. Starting from the beginning, you want to take certain steps to show to yourself and alter your mindset So you act like this is a business you actually responsible. That means getting a business bank account. That means getting a business tax I D. Number. If you're in America, both of which are free, they don't cost anything to set these up. And that way, when you spend money and when you make money, you can see it because it's all in one account way. We all start off like, Hey, um, you know, I'm a solo entrepreneur, so I just was myself. Security number Thio, you know, make my business transactions the mingling. Not only does it affect your finances and you getting audited or cause problems if you get really successful, it also affects your mindset because your entertainment expense it comes out of the same account as your business expenses. So it's all mixed up. The sooner you can isolate the different funds, and you don't have to have a lot of money in the business account. Just put $100 in there. Don't have to spend it. You could just look at the account and see it going up or down and knowing this is profits and losses, the more you begin to develop this sense of financial responsibility, the more you'll act like a business owner. Business owners act differently than wanta preneurs. You know, people that wish they were entrepreneurs. I watch every TV show where people seek investment, their businesses. I watched all of my watch all the shows where people look for some rich persons under company coming to give them advice and help them grow their own business or inject cash or all of those things. I always watch how those businesses operate, and the businesses that take money seriously are always the ones that do the best. The business is with the messed up books, and the owner is kind of casual about money going in, and we're going out those of the businesses that strong of the most. I'm saying businesses where they're making $2 million in transactions and they're making like, $30,000 in profit. 97% of the money is disappearing and they don't know where it's going. That's what can happen. See, if you're not fiscal responsible small amounts, you'll really struggled big amounts. And this is something I experience. This is a lesson I learned the hard way. I'm not someone who started off doing to think these things right. When I finally did set up my own business bank account when I finally switched from An S Corp to a real business to proper loc and all those things and started really separating my business from my personal stuff, it was really a big struggle because I mangled stuff for two or three years for no reason. Just because I didn't really understand, I didn't really understand what I was doing. I was kind of intimidated, and I was just busy trying to make enough money for each month. When you start to create a business account, when you start to track expenses and ins and outs with the business mindset, you'll be much more serious. Will start to make more serious decisions, and the way you work will become more efficient. If you're just having a bit of fun and you're working on your block, you might spend five or six hours just messing around some little design elements because you're just having a bit of fun. You want to make it look nice because you're having fun. When it's a business, you're more thinking about. What can I do that would generate the most revenue? What would be the most efficient decision I can make today? If I'm in a rented block post, I want a block post that drives traffic, Or should I spend some time working on social media to generate more traffic? Or should I work on finding things to promote? Should I work on my mailing list? These other different elements become more important because they have a quicker return on investment. What you're building here is not a passion project. It's not something driven by emotion. It's not something for you to show your friends and be proud of. None of those things matter to me, none of those things or what I'm teaching you. The only purpose of a website is to make money. The only purpose of my website is to make money. Now. There are other things that happen if you visit my website. If you go to serve no master, you'll see tons of block, post and videos and tons of free information loads of information. But the purpose of all that information is to build fans to connect with people right information where they eventually want to go on and listen to my podcast or buy my book or even by one of my other courses. That's what a business is all about. If I didn't want to make any money, I wouldn't have any courses. My books would all be free, and I would be living in poverty with any business. I work with any structure I developed. The mindset is always about building something that could make money, and that's what I'm teaching you. I want to teach you something that makes more money. I want you to make more money, listeners podcast. Then you spend on anything you buy for me or anywhere else. I want you to be profitable because I want us to have a long term amazing relationship. That's the correct mindset for a successful business. That's my mindset. And that should be your minds up as you're spending time here as you're listening podcast. Deciding what you're gonna d'oh! I always think about every decision is a business expense. When I first started making money online, I remember it so vividly. I saw this amazing course came out and it had my attention. It was all about using videos for local marketing, so I would approach like a local car dealership. Say, Hey, let's make a bunch of commercials for you. Put him on the Internet will drive a bunch of traffic and you'll sell more cars. That was kind of the idea. Now the course was, I think, $3000. I don't have that kind of money. At $500 left on my credit card. I was really struggling and I said, Hey, I can spend this $500. But I have to make $500 in profit from this course every month for the next six months to make the six payments, and that's exactly what I did. It was a business expense. I worked really hard to make sure that every month I could pay off $500 before that next payment came through. Before that next tap on my credit card, I had that business mindset and I was forced there because I was young and had maxed out credit cards, which is the worst place you ever want to be. But I went through all of that, so I know what that struggles like. And the way I succeeded the way I built the business was, Hey, I've spent money. I have to make it back. I don't have a choice. That mindset will help you when you're sitting down and going. Should I watch TV for an hour? Should work on my block for an hour. Shouldn't records of YouTube videos or should I go to the movies when we're making decisions when it's entertain myself or work the business minds that the desire to make money will change everything because now, instead of choosing between different to different types of fun, are two different kinds of entertainment you're choosing from something that can give you a future can give you amazing freedom and a little bit of fun. I love having fun. I love movies. I love going the eye, Max. I love all sorts of fun stuff. I love doing all of those things, but I want so much from my life. And I want the same thing for your life, creating the correct mindset, unlocking that I'm at work right now. When you have that mindset, when you have that approach, a lot of these things will become much easier will be much easier to dialling your timeto achieve focus to be efficient with what you're working on to push yourself to his excellence possible. I really see everything I do as part of a business, and I do things that sacrifice in order to build that business. If this podcast was fun, it would be totally different. Right now, I have everything unplugged. All the fans were turned off. The air conditioning is unplugged, even unplugged the water machine I unplugged. The television cause was humming everything has turned off. All have turned on is the little recorded that this microphone is connected to. I'm not recording to the computer because I want the sound to be perfect. I'm determined to create the best audio I possibly can. And so I've done everything I can. I'm sitting here sweating and I'm very physically uncomfortable. And I wouldn't do that if this was just fun. If I was just doing a fun podcast, I'm doing that because this is something I'm serious about because it's my business. As much as this was fun, as much as I actually really do love doing these things, I enjoy my work. This is me enjoying my work, rather, me being at fun. If you look at podcast, you look at people's online endeavors. Most people quit most podcasts. They record 50 episodes, 30 episodes of hundreds. They always quit in two or three years. Very few people podcast for seven or 10 years. They just keep going forever. Never. Eventually, people get tired of doing or they run out of ideas or they can't think of new topics. All these different things. They run into these walls and they just quit, and a lot of that is because they were just having fun. It was a hobby. But when it's your business, when you see the people who've been consistent, put an episode every day or once a week to week for the last 10 15 years ago, Okay, these were people. It's their business. It's their income. There's certain people that are very well known for their podcast that had 11 million listeners, 20 minute listeners, five million listeners. And they do an episode, you know, five days a week, Monday through Friday, just like if they had a regular traditional radio show. They have the mindset of it's their job. They don't think of a podcast is a hobby as their job. This is my job. I'm a work right now, and I want you to released that mindset. Look back. You've probably spent money on stuff online without thinking about it, and he never took it seriously because you're like, I'll try it out. If it works. Great. If it doesn't great, that kind of half in half out lukewarm mindset is the reason you're still kind of struggling. What you need to do is say any money I spend, I have to make back before I spend money again. That's the reason that I start off with very low price courses and work wept and more expensive courses. I expect someone to work their way up. Expect someone to go through my nonfiction writing course, make back their investment by writing a few projects by taking 10 article writing jobs. Make back their investment, then make a profit by doing it over and over again. Go okay. I'm feeling good about writing. I want to get to the next level and reinvest for my profits because that's how I built my business as how I invest money. Fiscal conservatism. Fiscal responsibility will keep you from failing. The reason people are very wealthy is often as much controlling their spending as it is controlling their income. Every dollar that you spend less this month is exactly the same as a dollar that you made from extra work. So the more you control your outs the last time you actually have to spend working. Now, I know we've kind of been talked about a lot of heavy mindset stuff, and this and that, and I don't want you to think that you don't have to have fun anymore because I don't want this to stop being fun. I really enjoy what I'm doing. I love recordings, podcast episodes. I love working on my blogged. I blocked out, I think, 15 New Block post today, the rolling draft format. I came up with a new contest idea that I'm very excited about launching today, and I spent a lot of time blocking it out. In researching how other people run similar contest and similar challenges and do all of that stuff because I enjoy it, I could very much lock into less work. I could easily work less every day and stay exactly. I'm at in my current physical level and do find I could take care of my family, pay all my bills. Everything will be fine if I just work one or two hours a day. That's really all I need to work to maintain my lifestyle, but it's because I desire to grow and kind of have these amazing ideas in front of me. The book, for example, I just launched know Serve a Master, The book. That's the first time I've launched a book with my own name fully by myself. Normally, I have a book with a co author. I work with a publisher or it's under a pen name. This is the first time it's all means all Amazon. It's totally solo, so I'm really excited to do something new. So a lot of it is about passion, so money is a part of it, in part of it's a business, but it's also doing things that get me excited and kind of conquering that next mountain. There is a lot of joy in the journey, and there's gonna be a lot of joy in front of it. There's gonna be a lot of happiness in front of. You don't have to leave those things behind. But you do have to be serious about money because this is a business. I really want you to achieve financed success. I want youto pay off your debt. I want you to. I have total financial freedom. I wanted a position where you can quit your job. I want to be a position where if you want, you can travel the world. You could spend more time with your kids, more time with your parents, help take care of people when they're sick. In your family, those are the opportunities that come when you're a strong financial position. And part of that is having fiscal responsibility being business minded. Now, if you make those decisions now, then those other things will come for you. I don't really have a short term little goals for you, Michael. If you're long term, I goes for you to achieve those big freedoms. Those big, amazing things, those big life changing moments and that comes from making the right decisions. Now I see a lot of people spend huge amounts of money on a lot of different courses. A lot of different ideas. They get shiny object syndrome. They get excited about all these different types of ideas. I have friends who every month they come at me with a new business idea that I hate. This month I'm doing this cool thing on Facebook, and the next month is like, Oh, I'm gonna set up 20 different blog's through holding together that are doing this thing, or I'm in doing this night and every month I have a new idea and the idea is never make money because it takes time. Not every business is gonna make a $1,000,000 the first month. Wealth is a process, and it's a journey, and we're on that journey together. I'm here with you to communicate with you, to guide. You help you get to the top of the mountain. But it is a journey doesn't happen in a moment. I want you to be someone who doesn't get caught up buying all these different things and not completing them. If you just learn one thing today, make it a rule that when you buy a course, when you buy a piece of software when you invest in something, you won't invest in another thing until you make the money back from that purchase. If you buy one of my courses, don't do anything else until you go through the course of Make back your money. That's how you know you're making the right decisions, and that's how you'll be very physical responsible. A simple rule. Don't spend more money until you make back the last investment. If you have that simple rule, that simple approach to money you'll be very successful. You'll unlock mountains of wealth and huge amounts of freedom that mindset will help you every time you're sitting there going. Oh, I don't really need this, but it seems really cool. I can tell you right now that when I thought about buying the podcasting course, I bought a course, actually about several to teach me every little thing about podcasting. Everything from formatting too. Interest outgrows to the type of music to the type of calls to action. All these different, the little pieces, all the different ways of driving traffic and connecting everything. I waited a really long time, though, until just a few weeks ago. When I go, Okay, now I've got time to really focus on this. As much as I knew, I was gonna watch a podcast, no matter what. I waited until right before I was gonna go live before I invested in this training. And there's a couple pieces of software that half of my website that help me publish the podcast as well. All those different little pieces that you need to upload a podcast and haven't hosted all those pieces. I waited as long as possible. Do is the last minute because I go. I only want to buy these things that I'm actually gonna implement, and I need to make the money back. That's my mind. This will help you when you're tempted to buy a course that you probably won't use for six months or a year. The thing you'll notice is that you get really excited when you see a sales video, where commercial or something that tells us the greatest product ever. But then, if you wait a month, you suddenly don't miss it at all. You were just caught up in the emotion of the sales process was what great copywriters do That's OK, that's their job to make. You wanna buy things. I want to teach you as much as, Yeah, it's great for me if you decide to buy tons of affiliate products off my sight and by click every link to every product ever mentioned. Sure, that'll be wonderful for me in the short term, but then your business would fail and we wouldn't have a long term relationship. I'd much rather help you build a business that succeeds and us have a relationship for the next 50 years. Rather than try and make a few quick sales over the next few weeks. That's not what I want because I have the long term mindset that's to your benefit. I'm invested in your success because the longer we work together, the longer you succeed while following my path, the more it's gonna help both of us grow. Please be fiscally responsible. Please start tracking the ins and outs of your business. Please be business. Mind said it. Please stop thinking of this as a hobby. And please, if you buy a course for me or from anywhere else, don't buy another course until you complete the first course. Implement the first course and at least make back the investment you put in the first course. You've just listened to another amazing episode of the serve. No master podcast. Make sure to subscribe, and we back tomorrow with another amazing episode. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Serve No Master. Make sure you subscribe, so you never miss another episode. We'll be back tomorrow with more tips and tactics on how to escape that rat race Hit over to serve no master dot com forward slash podcasts. Now for your chance to win a free copy of Jonathan's best seller, serve No, master. All you have to do is leave a five star review of this podcast. See you tomorrow.