2-The Financial Work That Can’t Be Ignored in 2026

Hair stylist, when does it end? When will you actually start to put yourself first so you can make more money, keep more money, and do it without feeling guilty? I'll tell you when. Right mother, F and now. Welcome to the Make That Money Podcast with Nina Tullio, where we talk all things pricing, all things profit, and how to build your business with confidence. Hey, hey my friends, welcome back to the Make That Money Podcast. I'm Nina Tullio and I am your host and it's been a minute. Let me tell you, it is, the time is flying by. I feel like I cannot dig my feet in far enough and I haven't been sharing as many podcast episodes as I would like because you know I have this podcast and then I have the no-styles left behind podcast, but I am here now and I am here at a really important time because we are going to talk about financial prep for 2026. This is actually going to be a checklist for you and I have eight things that I'm going to dive into. So I'm not even going to waste any time because I know that your time is precious and I want you to make sure that you take a deep breath as we're moving into 2026 and really kind of maybe you pick four, I know there's eight, but maybe you pick four that really need your time and attention off of this checklist. The last thing I want to do is overwhelm you, but finances are incredibly important and they have been overlooked and avoided way too long in our industry. So let's get to it. Number one, I want you to master your cash flow. And cash flow is king, right? We talk about profit. I talk a lot about net profit and net profit is very important. Don't get me wrong, but cash flow is understanding how much money is coming in your business and how much money is going out of your business and when cash flow, not revenue determines survival in this business. Sales are important. Revenue is important. Yes, profit is important. But the managing of your cash flow and really making sure that it aligns, let me break this down for you. So when we look at a profit and loss statement and we see net profit, let's just say net profit for the years, $50,000, right? I'm just making this number up. Now when you look at your bank account, does your bank account match what your net profit is saying is your, if you're making 50,000 K net for the year, is your bank account growing? And if it's not, there's a leak somewhere. There's money going out and a lot of times it has to do with credit card payments or it has to do with personal spend that credit card payments typically don't end up on a P and L. They're on a balance sheet. Any loans or anything that you have, those typically end up on a balance sheet, not on a profit and loss sheet. So we end up spending a lot of extra money and we don't know where it's going. So we could show 50 K net for the year, but our bank account doesn't reflect that. So number one, manage your cash flow. Number two, build a real financial plan. We have to set revenue goals. We have to set profit targets. We have to set monthly benchmarks. So you just don't want to guess your way through the year. And as you know, I've been, I have been coaching and sharing this information about pricing and profit, price per minute, price per hour with my three parts signature, budget and account, budget and profit calculator. It's been years, okay? It takes out all of the guesswork. It allows you to see because listen, I do not price services without understanding your budget first and you shouldn't either. It's not just like, okay, I want to make X Y Z for the year. So this is what I'm going to price my services at. Now that's one component, but it's not the whole method of creating pricing. And so when we have a financial plan and we understand what our goals are for revenue and sales, what our target profit is, by the way, target profit for commission salon owners is 20%. It will be less if you're on your payroll and target profit for independent artists is at least 50%. It will also be less if you are on your own payroll. So we can't just think that, okay, this is what I want to make and this sounds great. Well, where are the goals coming from? Where are your benchmarks? Where are you taking a good hard look at the facts and data from within your business? Historically, have you grown 5% year over year? Have you gone backwards in your growth? Are you growing 10% year over year? This way you can look at this historically and see what kind of budget, I'm sorry, what kind of goals I need to set in place. So I have an actionable real financial plan and that starts with sales. It starts with managing cash flow. It starts with understanding your net profit. But then what are you doing with that money when you have the net profit? Where is it going? Are you reinvesting it back into the business? Are you putting it into an IRA? Are you putting money in your savings? So there's so much that goes into this, but number two is so incredibly important to build wealth in your business and just wealth for yourself. Number three, update your budget. Create a realistic 12 month budget. I like to break things down in bits so we break it down per quarter and we have to make sure that we're aligning it to the current climate and economy with rising costs because a budget maybe that we would have set two, three years ago is going to be different. Now fortunately for my students and my coaching clients, you have access to my budgeting calculator would breaks down every single category payroll, back bar rent, insurance. There's many categories and we can look at that and say, okay, this is what I'm allocated every single month. This is what I want to make every single year and this should be my net profit. If I pay my cards right and if I stick to the plan, see, I think what happens is and I used to do this too is that when we start making a little bit of money, we start spending that money. And when things shift in the economy, like a lot of you have been experiencing a shift in your revenue, meaning it's decreasing, some people are still spending like they were when they were making a lot more money. So we have to shift and pivot. When things take a hit, we have to make sure that we're adjusting our budget and we're playing our cards right and we're looking at this overall and we're saying, okay, I'm not making as much money as I used to, which means I can't spend as much money as I used to. So we have to make sure that we're aligning our budget to represent the current economy with rising costs and make sure that we stay on top of it. And it's looking at the facts and data within your business, not on social media. Number four, increase your revenue intentionally. So I touched on this a little bit in number two, but how are you going to increase revenue? A, we have the goal, right? We have the goal that's part of number two, but adding express services, guys, I'm telling you right now, head spa services, 10 minute color services, pop in services. These services are what clients are craving. It's what they're looking for. It's what they see value in. So I have been over the last, I'd say six to eight months. I have been helping my clients create express menus so it is front facing on their website to the client. A couple of other things that you can do, you can repackage high value services, reassess, of course, your prices and increase with intention to help improve and wait and improve retention. So let me say that again, reassess prices and increase with intention and also pay attention to client retention. This is how we increase revenue. Listen, I've said this a million times before, there are only three ways to grow a business. Increase average ticket, increase volume, increase frequency of visit. If we keep things very simple, we don't get, it's not so complicated. Okay, so that's number four, number five, optimize your tax strategy. Number one, plan ahead. Look at your deductions, look at your quarterly payments, lean into your CPA, your accountant, your financial advisor and start to say, okay, this is how much money I'm making in net profit. What can I do to offset my tax payments, my tax bill, right? It could be investing like what percentage are you reinvesting back in the business? What percentage of your business are you putting in some sort of long term wealth management? Maybe it's an IRA, you have to talk to your financial advisor to see what is going to be best for you. These are things that are so incredibly important because when you start making more net profit, you pay more tax. So we have to do things legally, of course, to offset that tax bill and a lot of it has to do with your deductions, right? Making sure that you're covering the stuff with your CPA or your accountant and what your investments look like for the business, but also for your financial future. Number six, strengthen your cash cushion. Talk a lot about cash cushion. You should have at least two to three months of business expenses in the bank account for a rainy day. This was a really tough one for me because I felt like I was always playing catch up. I was in debt with the IRS. I was $90,000 in debt personally. I had no cash flow. This is my story. You know this. If you listened where I almost closed my business twice, I had $800 left in my bank account year one. And thankfully, thankfully, I was able to turn my business around and guess how I did that it was focusing on number four, increasing revenue intentionally. And number one, managing my cash flow. So I really had to pay attention to all of these things that are so incredibly important. And I had to mitigate my spend, you know, because I was just spending all of this money and it wasn't bringing a return on my investment. Now, it took me a good, I'd say two years to get out of this mess that I created in terms of me seeing a return, you know, in increasing revenue, increasing profit, I went from zero profit to 17 to 23% profit. And it took me five years to get out of the freaking mess that I created in terms of debt with the IRS. My debt that I had that $90,000, which for me, I went into a debt consolidation program. I don't necessarily recommend that for everybody. That's just what worked for me. But it took me five, maybe even a little longer than five years to get out of it. So running lean, like running with nothing in your bank account. And I work on this a lot with my coaching clients, helping them build their cash cushion because nothing is worse than your bank account going down to $1,000, $2,000 after your payroll hits. And that is your cash cushion, right? I want to help you create a strategy so we get that $1,000 up to $5,000. And then hopefully, and this takes a long time, could take a year to get us from $5,000 to $10,000, right? But it's the behaviors and the consistency and the way that we're managing our money that is going to help you do this. So you don't have to work from fear. Like when I was broke, I lived in the space of fear. It was the absolute worst. I was sick to my stomach all the time. Anytime anything hit my bank account, I was so nervous. Am I going to bounce a check? What's going to happen? Am I going to go on to overdraft? And it's just no way to live. So we want to make sure that we're strengthening your cash cushion. Number seven, review and reduce costs. Go through that P and L and audit every single expense line by line and eliminate the waste. Eliminate the waste and the spend that has a low return on investment. So low ROI. You know, we have a lot of, I don't know about you guys, but I just went through my subscriptions and my phone. I'm like, what the F? Why do I have four subscriptions that I'm not even using that equal like 50 to $75 a month? You can be doing this in your business. So making sure that you're auditing your expenses, you're looking at where you're overspending. Now, if you've access to my calculators every single month, it's going to show you where you're overspending and where you're doing great. But there are ways to cut and there are ways to run a little bit lean on your expenses. So you have more profit, which then means you have more to invest in your financial future or invest back into the business. Last but not least, number eight is invest in marketing that converts. Okay. We have to think about how do we allocate a budget towards strategies that actually drive revenue? We can no longer say, okay, this is how I want to market my business. Okay, well, this looks fun. I'll do that magazine or this looks good. I'll run this ad on social media or this looks fun. I'll run a Google ad without understanding the depths of what it takes to really make this a marketing piece that converts and you end up spending so much money without getting a return on that investment. So when we're thinking about marketing strategies that work and I'm thinking like low cost referrals hands down low cost, very cost effective retention, like keeping clients longer. So you don't have to always go out and acquire new clients. And another one cost effective Google reviews guys, people, there's a study out there. And I think it's more than half of the people who are looking for a hair salon. They are only booking with salons that have over a 4.6 star rating. So get in and get these Google reviews on point by asking your current clients to write a review for you, right? Another thing cost effective community events put yourself insert yourself in your community. Of course, we're spending time on social media. If you're running ads, that's going to be something that's going to cost a little bit more and make sure that your website is run on keywords and it's SEO based. So having those keywords in your website is going to drive traffic to your business and hopefully that traffic converts to real clients. We can't just start spending marketing dollars and creating, you know, 20% off, 30% off for all of these things that are not bringing you either a your ideal client or they're not bringing zero clients and keep in mind. And I, I've been talking about this for years, only 97, excuse me, 97% of people are booking based on a discount, which means the other 3% are not. So why are we catering to the 3% when the other 97% want availability? They want value. They want a great reputation. They want someone who's going to be able to care for them and spend time with them and pay attention to them, right? You know, it is really all about that value ad. So dial back a little bit and take a look at your business and see what are the marketing areas that are what are the areas of marketing that I'm doing? What's working and what's not scratch what's not and lean in 1000% to the areas that are working and it doesn't necessarily that you always have to spend mean that you always have to spend money. It just means that you just have to be super aggressive. Like if I had my current salon, I would be going hard on Google reviews. I mean like hardcore. I would be completely obsessed with getting reviews because it is so incredibly important and it's cheap, right? And just like you, when you're going to book a hotel or a restaurant, you're going to go look at that hotel or restaurant and see what the reviews are. And typically you're going to go to the negative reviews if you're like me. And you know, it's hard to get a 5 star review. There's always going to be one person that's going to leave that negative review, right? But if your business is up there and you have a couple, you know, 50, 100, 200, 300 reviews, they're most likely going to choose you. So this is my 2026 financial prep checklist. Pick a few of these that you want to leave and lean in heavily to. I don't want you to get overwhelmed. But listen, if you're like so gung ho and you're like, let me dive into all eight, have at it. Okay. If you have any questions, please feel free to slide into my DMs at Nina Tullio. You can find me on, I live there on Instagram. Check out my website. Of course I have synergy, my synergy course and my make that money course for independence. Synergy is for my commission salon owners and you're getting access to all of these calculators that are going to absolutely change your life. End of story period. So I am sending you all of the good vibes as we move into 2026 and I will see you in the near. Thanks. Bye. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]