Consulting Archives - Page 2 of 4

Managing Your Money

June 24, 2021March 20, 2020 by Michelle Mitchell

So you have taken the brave step and started your own business. Congratulations on making the decision! Now it’s a few months (or maybe a year) in, and you’re thinking, “Holy crap, now what?!”

You put your heart and soul into the process, you’ve got an awesome product or service that you want to share with the world. Maybe you’ve never started a business before or you don’t even know anyone who has started a business before.

Most new entrepreneurs start by bootstrapping their startup. Take it from someone who started with $0 dollars in the bank! All I had was some knowledge, my education and a little experience when I started my business. Having a service-based business, bootstrapping it wasn’t bad in the early years. I was very conservative with my spending so I could build the business without harming my family financially.

You may have a different kind of business and bootstrapping it won’t work. If that is the case for you, you have to consider all business and personal matters now that you’ve launched. Let me ask this question: Are your personal finances in order? Are you running your personal finances like a business? If you managed your money like you would a business, what would your finances look like? So how do you get your personal finances in order?

Let’s take a look at how to manage your money like a business.

How much income do you have right now?
What are your living expenses? Get detailed and really look at everything. For example
- Rent/Mortgage Utilities
- Property Taxes Car Loans
- Car Insurance Life Insurance
- Student Loans Credit Cards
- Gas/Oil Car Maintenance
- Telephone/Cell Internet / Cable
- Savings/emergency fund Retirement
- Groceries Child care
- Vacations Clothing
- Entertainment Out of pocket medical

Now determine how much debt outside of your mortgage. If you are in debt, you need to eliminate it as soon as possible. Do you have an emergency fund? If not, determine how much you need and how you will start funding it.

Another way to manage your money like a business is with streamlined systems. Profitable businesses optimize their systems regularly. For your personal finances, this could mean automating your savings or investments, staying on top of your budget with apps and notifications, staying focused on income generating activities in your business.

We can help! Sometimes having an outside view can help you get clarity, focus on what’s needed, and give you the direction and motivation you need to make your goals a reality. And we’d love to be your cheerleader on this journey!

Your Money Story

June 24, 2021February 25, 2020 by Michelle Mitchell

What is your money story? In simple terms, it means how do you relate to money?

Your money story tells a lot about your current financial relationship with money. You are either in one of two categories. You either have a scarcity or abundance mindset.

You either follow your childhood exposure in how you relate to money or you have done or are doing the complete opposite.

To help you recognize your money story, ask yourself these questions:

- - What is your earliest childhood memory about money?
  - How has that affected your family?
  - How do you relate to money in your relationships?
  - What type of mindset do you have: abundance or scarcity?

A scarcity mindset believes there is never enough. You might believe you cannot change your current money situation. It is completely out of your control and it will always be this way.

On the other hand, an abundance mindset believes I know that my current situation is only temporary because I believe that I can change my current money situation. I will do something to move me closer to abundance.

The only way you can go from scarcity to abundance is to have a shift in your mindset. You have to believe that there is more for you.

No matter what your surroundings are saying now, you must begin to change your thought process. You need to start reading books about abundance, educating yourself on personal finance, find an accountability partner or coach to help you make these changes. You need to start speaking abundance over your life and finances.

Your motivating factor has to be so large that you have no other choice, but to change and trust God for the transformation. Sometimes your motivating factor is termed you “Why”. Think about what is really motivating you, and keep digging deeper.

For example, let’s say your motivation is for more free time. Great! But let’s go deeper. What does free time look like to you? What are you doing with that free time? Are you spending that quality time with your family and friends? Or does that free time allow you the flexibility to be able to volunteer for something at your kids school? Does that free time allow you to travel more often? Keeping asking until that BIG WHY comes!

Once you know your WHY and what motivates you to change, now decide what you want. Develop a clear goal for yourself financially – make is specific with numbers and dates.

You have to be clear on what you want so that you know where you are going before you start. If we continue to be lazy and complacent and let life’s situations toss us to and fro, we really won’t accomplish anything. If your goal is vague, you don’t have a clear target to work towards.

Take a moment now to determine your goal.

Where do you want your finances to be in 6 months?
One year? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years?

Once you have a target, you can begin to develop the execution plan.

What’s your money story? And what do you need to do to change it to the money story you want?

What do you need to make your vision a reality?

June 24, 2021January 27, 2020 by Michelle Mitchell

This month we’ve been talking about vision and where you see yourself and your business in the future. We talked about creating your ideal day. What it looks like, what it feels like. Now we need to take the vision and start developing the action steps needed to make it a reality.

Too often, business owners or entrepreneurs skip over this step. They focus on the pricing strategy or how to get more sales. But if you don’t have an action plan of what your future looks like and the steps needed to get there, you will end up aiming in the wrong direction. Or if you do aim in the right direction, you might miss your target.

The first step in your action plan should be determining who you need to be in your business. What do you need to be doing today, right now, to become the person you need to be in the future? You need to be willing to step outside your comfort zone. You need to be willing to seek the advice of others to gain the resources you need.

Let’s face it; you don’t know everything you need to know to run a business – a profitable business. Seeking out the expertise of those who have been where you are and have become experts is important. You may be very good at what you do, at what service you provide, but no one has trained and prepared you for being a business owner. And not just a business owner, but the CEO of your business.

So think about what resources you need. Do you need help with marketing and strategy? Do you need assistance with the administrative side of your business? Maybe you need help in getting better at sales. There are a lot of soft skills business owners need to develop in order to produce the extraordinary result you desire. There are resources available to help you develop and strengthen those skills.

Ask yourself this: In order to get the extraordinary results I want in my business, what do I need? What actionable steps can I take, what resources can I tap into? Write down your plan and start taking action!

If you’d like help in coming up with your vision, drafting your 5-year vision, and developing the action steps needed to get there, let’s chat! I’d love to help you realize your vision and create extraordinary results!

Top 3 Steps for Extraordinary Results for 2020!

December 31, 2019 by Michelle Mitchell

Today I want to reflect a little on what I’ve been talking about for the last several months on my Facebook Live. If you didn’t catch them live, watch the replays here: https://www.facebook.com/MitchellConsulting/

Most entrepreneurs are seeking out strategies that will help build their business faster. And yes, having strategies in business does make an impact. But what brings extraordinary results are the soft skills you develop along the way. Once you dig in and figure these out, it’s a game-changer for your business. Below are a few of the soft skills that I have talked about recently.

I’ve talked a lot about creating extraordinary results and what it takes in order for you to get extraordinary results. Practical things you can do to grow your business.

The three top ways to get those extraordinary results:

Focus
Priorities
Streamline & Automate

FOCUS

“Extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus” — Gary W. Keller

So how does focus help you get extraordinary results? What should you be focusing on?

The first thing is you need to focus on is your WHY. Finding your WHY and your true passion for being in business is key to being in business, and key to being successful in business!

“He who has a why can endure any how.” — Frederick Nietzsche

There are a lot of reasons people start a business or become entrepreneurs. Creative independence, personal satisfaction, financial autonomy, the list can go on. What is it that drives you? If you’re not 100% committed to your vision or making it a reality, you won’t be passionate enough to stick with it in your business to weather the growing pains.

Being in business is hard. Let’s not sugar-coat it. Maybe you’re having a challenging week, or working with a difficult client or your revenue just isn’t where you need (or want!) it to be. And maybe some days you just don’t even feel like showing up in your business.

When those challenging, hard, ugly days pop up (and trust me, if they haven’t yet…they will at some point), knowing your WHY can really fuel you to get through those difficult times.

Do you know your WHY? Is it clear and strong? If not, take some time and really reflect on why you’re in business. Your WHY is your driving force and your main focus.

PRIORITIES

Once you have your WHY in focus, the next step is determining what’s the priority of your business.

Right off the bat, most people might say income. They would say their priority is income-driven. But let me ask you this: why are you income-driven? Why do you need that income? What purpose is that income going to fuel?

If you can’t answer those questions, your priority for being in business isn’t income-driven.

For other people, it’s about impact. You want to help people. With your service or your product or your coaching.

When you focus on others that’s where the magic is.

The simple truth is the more you help someone else, the more you help yourself.

For example, if I’m helping you grow your business — I’m automatically growing mine.
If I’m helping you develop a relationship with your family – you’re making your family stronger and the world a better place.
If I’m helping you with your accounting and teaching you how to manage money – then we have one more person that’s financially responsible in this world.

Determining and being clear on what your priority is for being in business will help you attract the right client, develop the right rate or packages, and provide the extraordinary service you want to provide.

STREAMLINE & AUTOMATE

Definition: Streamline – to improve the efficiency of a process, business or organization by simplifying or eliminating unnecessary steps, using modernizing techniques, or taking other approaches.

Once you’re clear on your WHY and your priority for your business, what steps are you taking to accomplish your WHY and fuel your priority?

Creating a streamlined simple approach to the daily activities in your business is something that most people don’t think about nor can they see. But, when you know what the end result should look like, you can reverse engineer the process.

The final step to producing extraordinary results is to streamline & automate the daily activities and things that are grounded on your WHY & priorities.

Streamlining and automating your business for cost efficiencies is necessary to growing and scaling your business. The more efficiencies you build your business, the less time it takes you or a team member to do something, creates profit. You create profit for your business while creating and delivering results for your client in a short period of time.

“Action expresses priorities” – Mahatma Gandhi

Streamline and automate your business and watch your profit margins go up!

What types of things should you be streamlining? Great question!

Here are a few suggestions:

Checking your email.
- Being in your email box all day is not going to help you build your business. unless you’re closing sales or engaging with potential clients. It’s just busywork.
- Set up dedicated time (maybe first thing in the morning and at the close of business) to check your email.
- Set up folders and labels to automate your inbox so you can focus on what’s most important first.
Client onboarding / invoicing
- Instead of manually sending an email with your contract, terms or invoices, use a platform or software (17Hats, Dubsado, etc.) for your client management system.

Start today to streamline and automate as many of the daily tasks you do in your business. The more you can streamline and automate, the more time you have for showing up IN your business. Your non-client time should be spent talking to people, creating relationships, engaging with your prospective clients or current clients.

So what is your Why? And why is it driving you?

What’s your business priority?

And what are you doing in your business daily that you are making a priority that could (no…SHOULD!) be streamlined or automated?

If you would like help finding your WHY, discovering your priority, or help to automate your business or if you’re ready to get EXTRAORDINARY results in your business, I’d love to chat with you. I’m passionate about helping female entrepreneurs turn their passions to profit.

Schedule a FREE consultation here!

P.S. Have you watched the FREE Five Lady Boss Moves webinar? Discover the Five Lady Boss Moves my clients are using to grow their business – to 4-5 figures consistently – without wasting time trying to figure it all out on their own! Click HERE to register! You won’t want to miss this!