S14 E5: You're Making Six Figures on Paper. So Why Is Your Bank Account Empty? with Emily Bowie

Hey guys, I'm Jen, owner of Hela June Creative, a boutique brand and web design studio. Welcome to Better The Brand Designer Podcast. I'm here to help you learn, up level and find community in your design business journey. Just remember, the only designer you need to be better than is the one you were yesterday. Hey everyone, welcome back to Better The Brand Designer Podcast. I had the best conversation with Emily Bowie today all about how to make sure that you actually have the cash that you think you're making on paper. Emily is the CFO at Thorne Advisors, which is a modern accounting and advisory firm for high-earning women who want to feel confident about their money and not confused by it. Emily is a cash flow strategist with 15+ years of experience, including her time as an audit manager in big four accounting. She's known for bringing calm, clarity and structure to financial conversations that often feel stressful or avoided. Outside of Thorne Advisors, Emily leads her church's financial ministry is a mom to three young kids and enjoys a good DIY project almost as much as a well-organized set of financials. This conversation was so enlightening and I feel like I could talk finances for days. I hope that it helps shed some light on some topics around cash flow and profitability that I feel like are not talked about a lot on social media and that you guys walk away with some really good tips and insight into how to make sure that your business is financially healthy. Emily, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here. Hey, thank you for having me. Of course, I was just telling Emily before you hopped on the recording that the financial conversations on this podcast have been some of the most popular and I'm honestly not surprised because they're what I'm most interested in. I mean, at the end of the day, we are running businesses not charities and in order to have the freedom and the flexibility and the lifestyle that we're all kind of after as independent studios or freely answers or people that work part-time, a corporate part-time in their studio, whatever it is, it's the profitability and the cash really has to be there to support the time freedom and it has to go in that order. So I'm super, super excited to have Emily here to kind of talk to us around this big problem that I've seen, I've felt my students have seen and felt of the difference between what your books say and what your cash says in your being account. So in order to get started, I would love for you to share like it's little, you know, quick speed dial kind of encapsulation of your career up and so at this point, I know that you were an audit manager in big four accounting. What made you leave that world to build what you're currently building and is there anything else that you want to share about the twists and turns that led you to this point in your career? For sure, I never thought I would be here owning a advisory firm, right? At the end of the day, I had come out of public accounting and I thought that was like my path and being an audit sometimes is not the most fulfilling because even though I feel like it stretched me, it taught me how to learn things very quickly, it taught me how to identify operational efficiency and how numbers tell the story and all of that. Most people don't actually want you there because you are shedding light on something that they may or may not know is a problem. And so it was just becoming not very fulfilling, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do. So when I got into the online space, I jumped into health and fitness stuff. It was the first time I had this idea you could build something online. And though that was prosperous, helped us pay off debt was great. I knew I had this skill set where I could help people understand their numbers and get out of debt and do different things. I was like, I really need to do something here. I just don't know what it is. And at first, I jumped in and I was like, okay, I'm going to help people get out of debt because we did. And that then became, I was working with entrepreneurs who had businesses and I was teaching them how to keep more money in their business. I was teaching them different ways they could bring cash into their business. And I was like, okay, well, maybe I'll do this business strategy thing. I partnered with a creative director and I was doing all the strategy piece for her clients so that when they built a website, they actually stayed in business because a lot of what we were seeing in creative design was that they would get the brand and it was beautiful. And the website was amazing and super functional, but the person behind it didn't really know what they wanted to do. And so I would come in, help them figure that out, help them build offer structures. And so that allowed them to actually stay in business because her biggest pain point was that she would do all this great work. But then her portfolio was empty because most people were no longer in business. And then from there, it evolved. I realized I was teaching people how to read their numbers and then build strategies based on that. And then I partnered with my business partner, Andrea. And here is where we sit now. We're working mainly with creative designers and agencies teaching them how to keep cash in their business and then leveraging tax strategies. Wow, amazing. So you are the perfect person to be talking to all of this today. I love that your firm was born out of this. I mean, it's honestly a dire need of our clients. And one of the biggest things that I love talking about is, oh, on a discovery call for example, oh, well, this client invested, I don't know, 15, 20 K with us on an e-commerce website. They were able to make that back again with the launch that they did or the sale that they ran or this offer that they promoted in tandem with the website launch because it's just such a great opportunity to get eyeballs on your offers and your product and all of that. It's like the clients that have that financial savvy knowledge are few and far between. And so then that means that sometimes we'll launch sites, you know, for I'm talking like independent interior designers, people are not necessarily in e-commerce that finance and business is not their strong suit and they are creatives at heart or fine artists that they want to paint full time and they don't know how to go about doing collection drops and doing a marketing campaign and doing story telling with leading up to that to really drum up interest. It's kind of like this great ecosystem of people design, they launch the website and then the person has the offer structure in place to be profitable. Yeah. And they attribute that to both people. I end up slipping and a lot of designers end up slipping into this kind of coaching middle ground that we may or may not feel comfortable or I don't know, not accredited is the wrong word. But, you know, I've had a lot of students be like, I have clients asking me about offer suite development and it's I know how to develop an offer suite for brand designer, right? But like for someone else, it's in a different industry. I always have to caveat and be like, okay, I'm not a interior designer business coach. This is what I've seen done. This is what you try. But I just don't think it's at the same level as the type of service that you would offer. So I think that that's genius and I've never heard of that before. Well, I think the interesting thing is really being able to see where there's gaps in the system and how you can collaborate with other professionals to be able to fulfill that need. I think what I saw at that time was I was helping this creative director, but there was still this gap in the process where these people would have to go pay a whole another business coach or a CFO or somebody in that realm. And we were like, well, maybe if we just offer it together, it would work. And it did. It worked really well for a long time. And then we started kind of transitioning and going in different directions. And I think to your point, it can be really difficult as a designer creative director where you're like, you really don't have your vision together yet. I can actually help you do the next step because you don't have the bones. You don't have that piece. And so I think it's beautiful. Just that recognition piece of saying, hey, this is beyond my territory, but I have no problem being able to say, hey, let's brainstorm this real quick. And then often it would be nice to have somebody you can be like, hey, can you help them here? Yeah, yeah. I feel as I've matured in my career, like recognizing where my skill set ends and where it makes sense to like kind of pass the baton off to someone that's a professional within that particular area. I think it's just a better overall client experience versus me being like, okay, well, they asked me this question, so I should know the answer. It's like, I'm so much more comfortable being like, you know what, I'm not the right person for that question, but my friend Emily, you know, like that, you know, that was a great segue to build connections and to refer to ball and all of that. So let's get into the topic of today's episode and start with the headline, which I feel like just really caught my eye when your team submitted it to me where it says, so you're making six figures on paper. I'm like, okay, that is, I feel like not personally talked about it. But I have been there where I have had high revenue years and cash has just been in the toilet. And that has been due to a lot of different factors mainly not knowing my profit margins, not knowing how much I can afford to pay team members, like not having the right type of support. Or the other side of the pendulum of, I'm never going to spend cash ever. I need to retain all of my revenue. Like, I don't want to spend spend spend, I can't afford, I can't afford. It's like, there's these two extremes that I feel like a lot of designers will fall into where they're like spending spending spending or they're like holding revenue so tight. And like, I think both of those are negative in order to experience growth. So what's actually happening in a business that is reporting like high revenue, but cash flow is stagnant or as soon as a dollar hits the big account, it's going brings back out again. Yeah, for sure. So I think there's several cash leaks to identify. I think the most common when we're talking about designers and whether it be a brand designer or an agency or anything like that, they're usually custom projects and so pricing. And so this is like literally everyone's least favorite topic because most people would do what they do for free. And so often they rationalize throwing on a discount or bundling things together or doing stuff like that, or they're just pricing based on the market and they have no idea actually what it costs them to fulfill on that because often we are told pricing should be based on what directly goes in, but if you are a business owner, it's what directly goes into creating that dollar, but also all the indirect costs to generate that dollar. And so often what I see is one, if you don't have books done consistently by the end of the month or wrong, by the 10th of the month of the following, or your books are done, but you don't really know what they mean. A lot of people will find themselves where they're pricing is a little bit skewed because they don't actually know what all has gone out in order to determine what should be in the bank account. And so that's why there's a lot of this disparity. So if we're talking about like your profit and loss statement, revenue is that top line number. The next number that goes out is your cost of goods sold or cost of services. And that is going to be any direct labor. So if you contracted a piece of it out, if you had to buy a specific software in order to do the work, if you paid somebody or let's say you bought fonts, say that font specifically, that would be your cost of goods sold. That next line is your gross margin. And that's usually where most people stop to say that they're profitable is because they're like, "Well, this is all it costs me to get it out." But below that is all your expenses. That is turning the lights on figuratively and sometimes literally speaking. And that below the line number becomes a percentage if you take it and divide it by total revenue. That percentage is going to be the insight that you need to why you probably don't have a lot of cash left over when you finish a project. And so often what I sit down with business owners and do is I say, "Okay, we know how much the client paid for the project." Then we know how much it directly cost you to do it. Now let's look at that overhead percentage and then see where you're at after you take out that number for overhead because that then will be like, "Oh, that's why." Because also laying in there is scope creep. It could be all these costs say you used debt to get started. Some of that is not pictured within that expense category. There are so many layers to it. But the one thing I will say is most people don't even know to look there. And I would not expect somebody to know that coming into this world specifically without that business background. Yes, that is so good because I feel like the discrepancy between a subcontractor cost to the top line revenue of a project versus I bought a new laptop this year. And it was $5,000. And it's like, "Okay, well, what percentage of that laptop is great to be able to do this project?" It's like, "Well, I need to have the laptop and already do it." Just, I mean, the software costs too. I mean, it's just, it's a lot. And I feel like sometimes I've had advice from financial experts, which is good advice is like, "Okay, print out your books and do color coded highlighters and like highlight like all of the things that are like, "Okay, this is necessary." And then take a red highlighter and highlight all the things, you're like, "Oh, I could put it out." And I feel like I look at all these things and I'm like, "Well, I need that." Well, I need that too. And it's like, "Okay, well, I need my social meeting manager in software." I can't just get rid of that subscription. And so I like that you're kind of approaching it from a perspective of let's look at all of the expenses as this holistic thing and then take that percentage of total revenue because even with my bookkeeper, we thought about doing project tracking, right? Like, where it's like, "Okay, this font was related to this project. This subcontractor was related to this project." And just the mental energy that would require in order for me to go through and determine every single digital asset purchase and assign that to a specific project because we work with so many clients at a time. It's like, "I don't think would be a good use of my time." And there's no way she would know either. And so we do take kind of a holistic approach to our bookkeeping. And it has been an amazing investment. Guys, if you want to invest one thing, you don't have a key. Yeah, get a bookkeeper and pay $400 a month for a bookkeeping. It's just so worth it. Shout out to Liz from Balanced Roots Bookkeeping. She's great. But my question for you is with all of the expenses, right? Do I total up? Like, they think about one month, for example, for sure. Should I total up all of my expenses for the month and then see what percentage of my, it's like after cost of goods sold? Yeah. So I'll walk you through it again. Yeah. Give me the math. So like, for example, when you're talking about fonts, that, to me, would be a cost of goods sold expense because even though you're not like, it's for Project A, B or C, it's for projects that would be that top line. Got it. Okay. Cost of goods sold, right? And then when we're talking about overhead, that's everything under directly related expenses that generate revenue. So to simplify, it would be that cost of text, it could be software say, like you have PDF, viewer, or acrobat to edit or whatever it is, those all would be directly to generate revenue. Now below that line, it would be like paying for your laptop or your internet or your paychecks if you're an S corp. If, you know, those types of things that are going to happen, regardless of you generate revenue, those expenses we're talking about. And then you would take that total line from marketing or advertising all the way down to total expenses and then take that total number, divide it by the revenue you generated. Now, I like to do it over the average of the year. And so I would do January one to August 30th since September is not closed out yet. And I would say, okay, your overhead percentage is 35%. So that means every time you generate $1, 35% of it goes to pay for those expenses. So for $1, 35 cents goes to overhead expenses. And so that 35 doesn't change, regardless of what your cost of goods sold is. So what will happen sometimes is you only have 50 cents left less that 35 cents that it cost you to generate that. And so then at the end of the day, when you thought you had 50 cents, you actually only had 15. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense because I'm not separating out cost of goods sold. I mean, sometimes I do. But like, if it's a font, it goes in office supplies and software, I guess it's the category and expenses. And this is like a really good, I think, fire under me to really start being specific and even communicate that to my bookkeeping team around. Hey, we're going to really start dividing out cost of goods sold versus expenses because I think it's so important. Like, I love working in percentages. I always advise like my students to, you know, with the subcontractor should be, you know, this percentage of your total revenue or whatever. What's a healthy operating expenses percentage for someone? And then maybe let's say like I'm a micro agency at maybe work with 28 clients at a time and I've got a team of subcontractors is one full time employee plus my yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say anything below 30% is ideal. Most people are not there. I will just tell you off the bat. Most people are 35 plus percent, especially if they look at their business as kind of a hobby or something extra where they're just, you know, everything they probably wouldn't invest in with their regular money, they invest in with their business money, you know what I mean? And so, and especially when you're starting out, right? He kind of just reinvest in the business a ton. And so ideally it'd be 30% and below. And then to your point, I love a bookkeeper. If again, I'm going to echo this. If you can outsource one thing, that's what you should outsource because you can make so many strategic money making decisions if you have good books. If you do not have books, you have no idea where you're at. And that is why anything. No. And that's why you're so stressed out. That's why you don't know where it's going, you know. So outsourcing books, but also doing that breakup between cost of goods sold and then expenses gives you such a bigger picture into maybe where you're not pricing very well. And to your point, that percentage should be around 30%. Ideally, you can make that predictable. So what you could do is in your proposal process, when you start working it and you figure out your gross margin on all your projects is 50% and you're like, I really want to have X number in that income. Then you could add a 5% overhead on top of what you were going to price it at. You could do 15. And then you can make that a predictable margin that you're going to make on that project. It's specially if you know you and you have scope creep. If you know you and you will just say, yes, this is a great way to mitigate some of the impact it has on you. Because when we price too low, we reduce our And so we can't say yes to the next thing if we're saying yes to something that's losing us money or keeping us Trying to deliver on something because we can't say no to the thing that we didn't agree to in the first place 100% I think the scope creep conversation is really really important piece here. I know myself I know that I would lay down and die in the street for my client experience and that does bite me in the butt sometimes I think that there is a balance between happy clients that refer you and have a great experience Versus we're running a business on a charity. I'm trying not to just give away things for free And then the free thing you give the client and they ask for 10 refinements on and then you're super in the whole Or you have to have a difficult conversation with your team member You have to pay them more but eat the cost stuff. I feel like that's something that I've been kind of facing a little bit as I am transitioning more into like I've been creative directing the studio for a couple years now with you know Mainly all the design and dev and everything handled by team members I can't just afford to go around handing out freebies anymore because I would never ask my team member Hey, can you just do this in for free? I would never ask on that But I asked that of myself and so I think a little bit different So how would you advise someone who is afraid of maybe like rocking the bow or like feeling nickel and dimey with a client Every single suggestion or whatever is there a happy medium like how do you manage this with team? I would love to know what your advice would be there So a couple things clarity is kindness if you can sit down and really sketch out the things that you know Come up every single time and put parameters from the jump on it such as the number of revisions like this usually keeps people that Are picky choosy into a you know really nice contained bubble that otherwise they might just run loose and I know that can be a scope creep issue for sure for people So I would really outline what you are providing make sure it's in your contract make sure it's clear You have a timeline you do the legwork piece and you standardize it So I know everything is unique and every project is different and everybody's needs are different But if you start with the same bones that does help you stay within parameters that you set up And then going back to clarity is kindness you set the expectation and then they will know from the jump Hey, if we get to this point then I might have to come back to you and say this is outside of what we contracted to do So I just want to let you know before I do it before we hit that point I will come back to you and have a conversation with you about it And that usually diffuses any kind of situation that can come because you're setting that expectation up front The other piece is I cannot emphasize this enough You lose the right people without putting the zero on the end then taking it off And so it is so important to know who you want to work with how you want to work with them And pricing accordingly because there is always perceived value in prices We often will look at prices and you know what I mean you'll look at it and be like could it really be this cheap and good And I think we kind of get in our own heads or we might just let other things deter us from charging what we're worth But you have to remember you have years of experience going into this years of education And number of clients you've worked with coming in to be able to create this thing for somebody And that's worth something and you should charge accordingly So good I mean really it all comes down to pricing and you said oh this is everyone's least favorite topic I mean everyone wants to know what do I charge what do I charge It's kind of an impossible question to answer but I think your perspective and method of reverse engineering From okay like what do you need to take home and like what do you want to be making? Okay, there's going to be this discrepancy between okay Well, I want to make $10,000 a month for example and then it's okay Well, are you pricing properly for that and then that begs the next question of But if I raise my prices Then I'm going to get rejected which we know the answer to that I know the answer to that but I want to hear if I was a listener thinking okay But if I raise my prices I'm already getting pushed back at $1,500 for a brand How in the world am I going to raise my prices and still see conversion I think the biggest thing is when you are clear on who you serve and how you serve them The price point doesn't really matter because you have identified Who they are and how they are and how they spend anyway So I think that's the encouragement I want to share with you at that point Is if you take on a project for less than it actually cost you to do it or you know even worse than that You are severely limiting your capacity to be able to say yes to the right thing So sometimes you have to say no or somebody needs to say no to you So that next right client comes in and I think it's this abundance mentality Like not to get into too many like catch phrases of the world But trust that the right people are ready and willing to work with you are you available for them And sometimes we hinder ourselves from being available to them by Pricing or underpricing ourselves and keeping ourselves too busy for them Amazing. Yeah, I mean I think about it. I mean I've been married for 10 years So I have no business using this metaphor But if you're dating a toxic boyfriend and he's sucking up all of your time and energy When Mr. Wright comes along, you're not going to notice him You know he's going to see you and think oh well she's tied up Maybe I need to go out of the direction it's be ready for the love of your life I feel like that's probably a good metaphor for the situation For sure. I want to shift yours really quick and talk about tax Because I feel like this is again another thing that can have impact on you Know your cash and we can look one way and then tax season comes and it's a big surprise I will go ahead and out myself here Okay guys don't judge me my tax account and told me to pay my estimated taxes I have not paid as few taxes yet this year I know that's bad do not do as I do do as Emily says I am also taking some significant cash distributions this year Because we have a big goal of paying off our mortgage before December 31 And I think it's probably going to happen this or next month We are very very close and this has been a big dream and goal bars I'm terrified for tax season because and I am making sure that I'm balancing my distributions with my salary and they're around the same amount I might need to month my salary up in order to make sure that I don't get my S-quirt status Reboat because that would be really horrible But what does it mean for you to build a tax plan around your actual goals If you want to give me advice on okay you have these goals You want to take significant cash distributions this year You have your cell phone salary what should I be preparing for and I recognize that you're probably going to tax account I mean so you probably be like talk to your tax account first No, it's about the effect So my business partner is the tax expert for sure But I talk about this all the time because I'm very passionate about people building their businesses for the lives They want not just to have a great thriving business And so starting with goals is usually one of those things Most CPAs do not do they don't really get into the personal piece But you need to know this because if you don't they can make you look broke on paper So you pay less taxes but you need to get a new mortgage or you want a line of credit in your business It's actually very important to have somebody ask you what your goal is first Second is you're talking in S-core plan In some of these designers are still living in sole prop they're just putting it at schedule scene So I just want to make that distinction so that the listeners hold on Wait I should be like paying myself a salary What do I know no no no no yeah don't worry guys I was a sole proprietor for the first I would say four years if my business and now that I pay myself a full time That's where I'm getting you know I'm a W2 employee of my own business basically So and I love that right though no yes and I think that's perfect The biggest thing in our firm is that we do not recommend making that transition For that S-core collection until your net income is at a minimum of 80 to 100K So that means revenue less all your expenses you're still netting 80 to 100K And the reason being is that there are so many more requirements such as putting yourself on a W2 All of that that can hinder your cash flow and then potentially hinder your growth So if you're not there yet totally okay stay as a sole prop There are other you know things you can do from a tax standpoint It's not as many levers you can pull as when you become an S-corp So if we're talking S-corp one thing I want to make clear is S-corp is a tax election Not necessarily an entity type and it basically just gives you availability to be tax less on what remains in your business and also the distributions from your business So that is why when you brought up talking about your distributions Maybe be in a little too high versus your W2 That matters to the IRS because they want to get as many taxes from you as possible Right exactly we want to make sure we don't piss off the tax Yeah, for sure. but one of the biggest cash leaks I see in businesses tends to be reactive tax decisions. So if you can get in with a tax strategist as early as possible in your business, the better. So once you become an S-Corp, you get all these levers you can pull. And so some of which are an accountable plan, do you have one of those? I don't even know what that is. (laughing) And I think that's normal, right? Because most CPAs or most people who do your taxes are not necessarily tax strategists. So they don't necessarily specialize in all the ways you can save within the tax code. But that's where we're a little bit different and we spend a lot of time there. But an accountable plan is a way that your business can reimburse you some personal expenses that are attributed to the business. And that's another way for cash to come out of your business into your household. In a tax advantageous way, versus increasing your W-2 and paying yourself more or getting in that trap of trying to even out your distributions with it. The other thing is an Augusta rule which basically you can rent your home back to your business for 14 days a year. It's another way for tax advantageous money to come into the home that doesn't have to be in that limbo between W-2 in distributions from the business. And so the money's still coming in. It's just coming in in a different vehicle. So this is why it's so important to do it earlier in the year as possible. It doesn't mean you can't do it at the end of the year. But I know I'm a little behind. Well, but I say that because that's how most people start. They get to October and they're like, holy crap. I have all this money I'm gonna pay taxes on or hey, I have a goal of paying off the mortgage and I want more cash to come in. How do I make this happen? That's when you want a tax strategist to be like, hey, if you do it this way, you're gonna not only pay less taxes, but you have the cash so you can go do the goal that you have in mind, you know? I love it. I need a tax strategist in my life. I didn't even know. I need someone to do my taxes and also be my strategist. Yes. So I might be sending you guys an email. But this is great because I think it's just this big cloudy, scary thing. And I'm sure you've seen this with a lot of your clients where it's like, they probably come to you with their books and I came to my bookie where my book's in a mess. I never reconciled anything. But being in the dark, you are costing yourself money by not facing those things and making those, you know, important decisions. And I'll be the first to say, I have priced based off of vibes for a long time. And it's not necessarily something I would recommend. I feel better doing now at this stage of my career because I have a really good handle on what percentage I feel comfortable paying out to team members. And I feel like that's kind of in my mind with using cost of goods sold. I think about that with subcontractors 'cause for sure. 90% of the subcontractor fees are cost of goods sold. What percentage would you recommend someone who is so low with no subcontractors with no other full-time employees? What should they be taking home? Should they profit first as you should take home? At least 50% of like all your project revenue should go to owner's compensation. What do you recommend for someone that's new and so low? How they're starting out? - I think what I would recommend is kind of breaking up your money until three buckets. And so 25% reinvested in the business, 25% aside for taxes depending on, that's just your safe number, right? And whatever you don't use, guess what? You can pay yourself more. And then the rest can be what you pay yourself as a business owner for sole prop. It gets a little bit more dicey when we're starting to talk percentages when you become an escort. Because when that escort comes through, there's so many other factors you have to consider. But I think that would be a good rule of thumb. I do love profit first because I think it forces the business owner to actually pay themselves. And that's usually the first person to go. They will not pay themselves. But it also is a good way of looking at like how much you should be paying your subcontractors to because another common cash league compensation for yourself and for anybody else and really trying to put parameters on that early on is super helpful too. Yeah, I think, I mean, this is a whole other conversation we could have a whole podcast about. But like one thing I see a lot with my students in my kind of like higher tier educational, like mentorship, I call it scale of confidence. It's like just the next level for people who are like getting into like the micro agency model versus being, you know, solo for a while is like a lot of mindset around, well, I feel bad paying someone less than I'm getting paid. What would you say to someone that's kind of bringing some of that like guilt and like change around like what the actual structure of every agency in the world is? But how do you like mitigate those feelings when that's like new to you? And I think this is a very common feeling, right? Like money is emotional. As much as people say it's not, it is. And so I just want to kind of preface that. But like the other piece of it is if you don't have enough money to keep the lights on, you can't bring them work. You're providing them work if you can actually pay to get the work. So you have to pay them employees that are doing the marketing. So whether it's outsourcing to somebody else or yourself, if you need to pay to play, say you have ads, say you have other ways, like we have a PR agency that has us getting on podcasts, like you have to be able to pay that in order to pay that, you have to pay the contractor less than yourself. But reminding you that the whole thing is you've provided them work. That was their marketing is done on your behalf and you need to be paid and compensated for that so that you can keep offering them work as well. - Yeah, that shift from, okay, I feel bad about paying them less to like look at this opportunity I gave someone. I feel like that's a good mental shift. So I want to hear a little bit more about the five cash leaks and five mistax deductions, freebie that you have for us as well as just how someone can work with the agency at every level. And I know you guys just started a podcast. - So if you guys want more Emily, then you can listen to her podcast. So give us all of the things. - Sure, sure. So we figured that we would create something that any business owner would need. So that's why we came up with the five cash leaks and the five most mistax deductions because that's usually our most common question is what can I write off? Where is my money going? And so we created that freebie and we talk about pricing, compensation, doing regular expense audits. I know you mentioned that before. Not mixing business and personal money, talking about different tax decisions being made earlier in the year versus later. We're talking about home office expenses, retirement contributions, health insurance, depreciation on an vehicle or an asset, which is kind of a low hanging tax strategy a lot of people offer but might not make sense for you. So we touch all of that in that freebie. As far as a great way to work with us is getting on a call with us. And so I still do our sales calls because I'm so passionate about helping people see there's a way forward. So if you want to work with us, finding us on Instagram or at thornadvisors.com, Thorn with an E at the end, that always trips people up. But the next thing is if you're not ready yet, you feel like you're not making enough but you still have questions. Our podcast, Prosper and Get Paid, it really dives into the most common questions people have and when it comes to financial analysis, building a business, tax deductions, whatever. And we do them in like bite size episodes so you can take them and take action on it right away. And so we decided that that would help us connect with that person that might not be ready yet but still needs a resource too. - Amazing, well all those links are gonna be in the episode description for you guys. To close us out, I would love to hear about just kind of a belief around money that you had to help a client unlearn before they were able to make progress with their finances and their business. - I think the biggest belief that I work on with business owners and even just that everyday person is that there is more than enough. And I think sometimes we can get stuck in this scarcity cycle that feels like oh, I just need to grapple and hold and strain on the money I have. So we're not investing but we're asking people to invest or we run into this where we're so willy nilly with our money that nothing really means anything. And so I think both can be really hard and straddle you with this I'm trying to grow but I'm stuck at the same time. So what I like to work with business owners on is trusting and looking to see that money is not only everywhere but it's also very available to you and having kind of those eyes to see especially as somebody who is impact driven you need the money in your pocket because you're gonna go use that money to make a difference. And so sometimes we can think that we should do charity in order to be mission driven or impact oriented but really the people that do well with little do well with a lot. And so you deserve to be in the seat you're in helping the people you're helping because at the end of the day, there has been a call on you and you need to step into that and the only way to do that is with money often. So it's a necessary thing to pay attention to. And so at the end of the day, if you want to have more abundance, you just need to have more awareness around your money. And so making a money date with yourself on Mondays is the best, most practical way to start really, truly bringing abundance back into your practice in general with life. But then also that awareness piece makes all the difference and how you're spending how much money's coming in and if you're gonna hit those goals or not. - Amazing. I love that you said money is emotional. This is something that I don't know. My old school tax accountant is just not having these conversations, right? He still does everything on paper and live in a small town. I pay with a check at the little window. I feel like what you guys are doing at Thorn is the next generation of what I wish I had had. When I was starting out and when I didn't know the difference between a S-Corp and a sole proprietorship and I mean, I'm even answering questions from students where I'm like, okay, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but this is how I've done it. - Right, right. - You know, it's so good to be able to be like, okay, go listen to Emily's podcast, go take a look at what Thorn's doing, go look at their socials and really just have you guys as the tax and bookkeeping and financial voice for independent creative digital business owners because our businesses are just so different than the farming businesses that are out here. - For sure. - Small South Georgia town where they're like writing off their tractor equipment and stuff, right? It's almost impossible for me to even sit down and explain what I do to people that are more old school that are from a different generation. And so there is so much value in what you guys are doing. I'm full of questions, my listeners are full of questions, so we'll definitely have to have you guys back on and there's a bajillion other things that I feel like we could get into, but I just want to say thank you so much for doing what you're doing and for gracing us with your presence, coming on the podcast and I hope more people get to connect with you. - Beautiful, thank you so much for having me. I think it's just one of those impact-driven type of things because you're so right. There is a time and space for it and it's now, you know? - Yes, 100%. All right, well I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I'll be back next week with a brand new one. Thank you, Emily, and I will see everybody next week. Bye, guys. - Bye. - Thanks for listening. Hit subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Leave a review, join our free Facebook community and share the pod with your designer friends so they can join the fun. Give me a shout out on Instagram @betterpodcast if you want to submit an inbox question and visit the pod at betterbranddesigner.com to learn more and snag this account on my favorite resources. See you next week.