Business Strategy for CPA's

Today’s guest is Jodi Flynn of Women Taking the Lead podcast. We talk about about all things not good enough, which a lot of women are struggling with. “I’m not a good enough mom/wife/business owner.” “I’m not smart enough.” Overcoming "Not Good Enough" How do you overcome “I’m not good enough?”  You just have to be aware of it, see it for what it is. It’s your Inner Critic telling you you’re not good enough to do this or have this. You don’t need others’ permission to move forward. The only person you need permission from is yourself. You have to give yourself permission to just be good enough. Think of all the behaviors you display or the lack of actions you take because you don’t feel good enough to take them. What is this costing you in your life? What are all the things you’ve done or not done as a result of not feeling good enough? Call to Action and Main Takeaways Here’s our call to action for our listeners: Will you give yourself permission to believe that you are just good enough exactly as you are? One of my main takeaways was to continue to be a keen observer of all the different slippery and clever ways that believing not enough plays out in my clients' lives and businesses. Questions to Ask Yourself Here are questions to help yourself when you’re caught in the line of I’m not good enough thinking: What do I need to believe instead? Or what do I want to believe instead? What if I believe the opposite of what I’m currently believing? What would happen right now if I changed this line of thinking? If I fully 100% believed in myself what would be different? When you envision the person you want to be, the person that you’re becoming, imagine yourself getting really angered on who that person is, and ask her what does she believe about herself. If you’re really stuck doubting yourself: List out 10 ways that you are exactly enough. What in this moment will I choose to believe? I’m curious to know what your main takeaways were and what you got out of this episode. I hope you’ll share on the She Thinks Big Facebook group page.   Reminder: Lightning Strategy Sessions go up in price on May 1st. Lightning Strategy Sessions are great for solving 1 to 2 big problems that are in your way in your business. You can also clarify your priorities and create a plan that works for you. To know more, click on Strategy Session under the Work with Me tab on this website.   Connect With Jodi: Email: jodi@womentakingthelead.com  Website: Women Taking the Lead    Work with Geraldine: Strategy Session 1:1 Coaching VIP Day

I have four clients who have similar businesses. Very similar women from the same town. Yet they’re in different places in their business. Why? Because of the thoughts, beliefs, perspectives and filters that they have. This is the power of the mind to shape what you create. In this episode I want to dive into how your thoughts create your life. Unintentional Thoughts, Feelings and Emotions Back in Episode 022, I talked about unintentional thoughts which inform unintentional feelings and emotions, out of which you make choices, which lead to your actions, which yield your results. And you compile your results over time and that’s how you create your life.    Change Your Thinking If you want to change your life and grow your business, you need to change your thoughts. If want to get to the next level, you’ve got to develop a new series of thoughts, a new perspective, and have new filters so that you can create the next level of what you want in your life. You have to change your thinking. Think Intentional Thoughts You have to examine your unintentional thoughts so that you don’t live your life by default. What I want for you is to be thinking intentional thoughts. You need to be thinking intentional thoughts to generate the feelings that you want to feel, to make the choices you want to make that are going to lead to the actions and results that you want to get. And if you’re not getting what you expect to get, then you go and create it for yourself. This is one of the things that I do with my clients. To help them imagine the business that they want to have, the life that they want to have. Head on over to my website if you’re ready to get the clarity that you’re looking for. What was your takeaway from this episode? Come share in the She Thinks Big private Facebook Group. It’s free, and it’s the best place to be if your big ideas need airtime and support to grow. Watch: Awareness Test Work with Geraldine Carter: Strategy Session 1:1 Coaching VIP Day

It’s the end of the quarter, and I want to know if you’re on track and if you met your Q1 goals. And today I today I want to talk to you more broadly about setting goals. Many of you set goals, many of you don’t. So I want to share with you How you benefit from having clear goals What topics or KPI’s you might set goals around Setting ranges What’s great about quarterly goals Address the emotional aspect around goal setting, because many of you get tripped up here in a few key ways #1 Mistake I see my own clients make when setting goals - so I will share that at the end. Goals in your business are like the rudder is in a sailboat. It helps you track a course. It helped you go in the direction you want. You catch/harness the energy of the universe in your sails, and your goals point you toward where you want to get.  If your boat doesn’t have a rudder, it just gets blown in the direction of the wind. If your business doesn’t have goals, it’s going to float along with the whim of the month. Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland, If you don’t know "If you don't know where you're going, any road'll take you there". Yogi Berra said, You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.  Goals help to design where you want to go. It’s in the process of setting goals that you gain clarity of what you need to do to achieve your goals, and it / they also help you determine your priorities moving forward. Clear goals also show you where you need to focus your time, and where you need to focus your mind. It’s with your mind that you create your business and your life, so reigning in your thoughts and pointing them all in the same direction will enable you to achieve your goals more quickly. Setting goals helps you identify what is working in your business, and what is not.

Do you have trouble making decisions quickly and with clarity? Do you get stuck spinning, thinking the same thoughts again and again with no new insights? Do grapple, overthink, and wonder if you're missing something? In today's episode, I offer up a simple and easy-to-use tool for making better decisions faster and with increased clarity.  I use the analogy of Mendel (did you know he was a monk?) and his pea plants, to help illustrate how your thinking can be spread out to better see information that is hiding right in front of you.  The challenge is that, in making a decision, people tend to focus on the "fear" box of the matrix, and then fixate on it, as if that particular outcome is a highly likely occurrence - which, usually it is not. Or at least, it's effects can be mitigated with appropriate forethought.  What they miss seeing, because they are fixated on the "fear" box, is a more legitimate concern, hiding in plain sight in another part of the quadrant, that is a much more likely scenario, and, a worse outcome.  I walk through 6 examples to illustrate how this plays out, and provide you with a blank template tool that you can easily use when faced with a decision that has you stuck.  You can download it here.  ***NEWS FLASH***  If you are looking for clarity around one or two key topics in your business, consider a Lightning Strategy Session. In 45 minutes, we can help you find the clarity you need and deserve to run your business better. The price goes up to $497 on May 1st, but you can book one now for $297. Know that I would love to help you grow your business.  What was your takeaway from this episode? Come share in the She Thinks Big private Facebook Group.  It’s free, and it’s the best place to be if your big ideas need airtime and support to grow.

Do you have your sights set on a conference or event that you want to speak at? How can you increase your chances of being chosen? Today I talk with Julie Fry, the owner of Business Among Moms, and the Business Among Moms Success Summit. Julie tells us her best Do’s and Don’ts around the process of applying to speak. We also talk about how to get the most out of attending a conference, what to think about in advance, and who you might want to speak with.  

Your questions around financials and KPIs in your business get answered in this conversation with Hannah Smolinkski, of BrightenUp Financial.  As a Virtual CFO, Hannah is a strategic partner in the financial side of owners' businesses.  We talk about the importance of tracking Key Performance Indicators, which ones to track, and what each one can reveal. A favorite is Net Cash: a measure of your overall debt. It's not on your Balance Sheet: you need to calculate it by hand.  We talk about how women differ from men in running their businesses, and that it is borne out in the numbers.  We also include a number of links to resources you might find helpful in managing the numbers in your business. 

In Part 2 of this series, we find the rest of the $50K hiding in plain sight in your business. Common places include: -Opportunities flying past you unseen -Losing money to bad hires and subcontractors -Clients who are lovely people but who are energy drags as clients -Underestimating RFPs -Bonus for those who bill insurance: not staying up-to-date on billing schedules. 

I list out 10 places I look in my clients’ Profit and Losses, while I cross-reference their calendar, to find more than $200,000. Of course, most people are not leaving money on the table in all ten of these places. But it’s not uncommon for me to have clients who are leaving $75,000 on the table, every year.  Easy targets are areas around unclear or weak boundaries: friends-and-family discounts, last-minute cancellations, and scope creep.  Another place to look is pricing: many of my clients have not increased their rates in years – not just to cover inflation and cost of living increase, but to reflect their increase in value as their skills grow. Women also tend to undervalue their services by 28% compared to men who do the same work, according to a recent study by Freshbooks.  In a recent article, Natalie Eckdahl, host of the Biz Chix podcast, discussed how women entrepreneurs are creating their own glass ceiling when it comes to rates – that women themselves set.  Raising your rates to reflect the value you offer, either in services or in RFPs, is the single biggest lever for finding $50K hiding in plain sight in your business. 

If you struggle with email, if your gmail inbox is a source of distraction, stress, and overwhelm, and if you tend to your email in an order that is not based on importance or priority, then this episode will be a huge help. Inside an hour you can set up a simple system of labels that will help you right away. You will get that time back in no time. Use categories of labels: one by priority, and another by topic.  See the screen shots of my own label system and grab the PDF download of the steps - both available in the shownotes. 

Our unintentional thoughts inform our unwanted feelings.  Many of us erroneously believe our feelings and emotions are caused and attributable to outside forces and factors, like the weather, website crashes, bad drivers, and things people say.    But it is our thoughts about these things that lead to our emotions and feelings.    In this episode I want through 9 examples of phrases overheard in conversation, that I then update to reflect how this process actually works.    The benefit of updating your own scripts is that you become 100% free from being at the effect of outside forces. The bummer - and the joy! - is that you become 100% responsible for your thoughts, and your feelings.