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Developing Your CEO Mindset

What Your Money Story Means for Your Profits

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You might think you know your attitude towards money but is that attitude being reflected in your actions? When faced with growth opportunities for your business, the mindset that you developed as a kid is likely to kick in. Sometimes your reaction isn’t what you expect it to be.

I bring this up because getting to the bottom of what’s driving your behaviors that hinder business growth is the first step to developing a healthy mindset. Your current mindset, and those messages you absorbed from your family growing up, are called your money story. Once you make a mindset shift, you’ll be open and ready for business growth. (Find out how to go from mindset to money here).

It’s almost like therapy, the process for understanding the mindset that’s stunting your growth. You’ll need to dig deep, diving into all the details of your money story from your childhood onwards. That will take time so there’s no need to feel bad that you haven’t adopted a new mindset overnight.

First, I want you to think about the way you used to perceive money and your family’s relationship with it. 

Was money a source of tension in your family or did you not even have to think about it? Maybe you never even broached the subject. If you gathered that money was taboo as a kid, you probably shied away from learning more about it. That neglect can create an unhealthy relationship with your money and make it difficult for you to set up a solid financial foundation for your business.

After that, consider whether what you were taught developed into a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset. 

With a scarcity mindset, you’ll shy away from investing in your business because you aren’t confident you’ll see a return. You believe there’s a limited amount of money for everyone, usually making you overly cautious about spending money on your business or charging more. (Find out how to price for profit here.) If money was a source of tension in your family, you may have taken that tension with you into your business.

An abundance mindset is the opposite of a scarcity mindset. People with an abundance mindset believe that money is an unlimited resource and that if you make good investments, you’ll see even greater returns. This mindset gives you the boost of positivity and hope that’s essential to growing your business.

Once you’ve determined your mindset, think about how that mindset impacts you today.

Start paying attention to how you react to growth opportunities in your business. Do you turn down that opportunity because it requires you to put in skin in the game and it seems like a risky opportunity? Or do you jump on that opportunity because you see its value and have faith that you’ll reap the rewards and see growth in your business? 

Entrepreneurs who have that abundance mindset are open to possibilities, which means they’re open for growth! If you catch yourself saying yes to the first option, you’ll want to adjust your mindset. (Learn how to develop a growth mindset here).

Your money story carries you from childhood to young adulthood to business ownership, which is why it’s important to understand yours. This form of financial literacy will help you heal your relationship with money and allow your business to grow.

Want to dig deeper into your money story? Use my free resource, What’s Your Money Story? here.

Why Financial Literacy is Important for Small Business Owners

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Here’s an inconvenient truth: Your financial role models are probably still affecting how you handle your finances today. 

Maybe your parents weren’t responsible with their money and you learned your money habits from them. Maybe because they never talked about finances in school and all you were taught is that wanting more money is bad, you’ve learned to downplay its importance and ignore it. Now cash flow is at the center of your business’s survival and you’re finding out you can’t ignore it or bring any bad money habits into your business if you want to succeed.

With some dedication, you can gradually move past your conditioning. You can let go of those limiting beliefs that are keeping you from abundance. (Read more about limiting beliefs here).

The way forward is through financial literacy. Financially literate women business owners are a million times more confident and more prepared for whatever money situation that gets thrown their way in their business. 

Convinced you should grow your financial literacy? You’ll want to make it a habit to regularly seek out education, learn to see your money objectively, and get an accountability partner.

Seek out education.

There are so many resources out there. Unfortunately, you’ll probably only be able to touch the surface of all the available information but it’s worth asking and finding an answer to these two questions: What don’t I know? and Where can I learn what I don’t know?

You might prefer learning through a blog (Get more actionable advice and learn more about the basics, like small plates accounting, here), a book, by reaching out to another business owner, taking a course, or attending a webinar. Follow how you prefer to learn so that you’re engaged and absorb the information.

Get objective about your money.

We all tie emotions to our money. It’s a human reaction because your money affects your quality of life. It’s what gives you access to your vision and allows you to provide for your family. However, that makes decision-making in financial matters difficult. If you can manage to separate your feelings from your finances, you’ll be able to make responsible decisions based on the data. If not, you may need to outsource your financial matters. (Find out whether your business could benefit from a bookkeeper or an accountant here).

Find an accountability partner.

Getting familiar with your finances can be a scary prospect to face alone. The fear and uncertainty might convince you to continue to ignore your finances or that you’ll pay attention to them later. An accountability partner won’t let that happen. They’ll encourage you that you can get a handle on your finances and help remind you why you’re learning more about your finances in the first place. Working by yourself, you might let yourself slide and then be disappointed about not reaching your financial goals or improving your finances. With an accountability partner, you’ll be kept on track. Plus, you’ll have someone to celebrate with when you reach your goals!

Keep educating yourself, separating the emotions from the money, and checking in with your accountability partner and you’re bound to be in a better financial position in your business. Financial literacy is powerful because knowledge is powerful. (Read more about the power of applying that knowledge here).

No matter what you were made to believe about finances, you are more than capable of shedding your limits and creating abundance in your business. I can’t wait to see you succeed.

How to Price Your Services for Profit

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How did you come up with your current pricing strategy? Did you Google your competitors? Have you been charging the same as when you operated as a side hustle? Or have you gone with what your first client was willing to pay?

There are a lot of different ways to approach pricing services in your small business. Some methods work better than others and I’m going to show you which is which.

DON’T base your pricing on other businesses.

I understand why I see so many women price according to their competition. When you don’t know where to start, you start with Google. You also want to be competitive and charge a more appealing amount to your clients in comparison. The problem is your business is completely different than anyone else’s. Each of your levels of expertise and education, years of experience, proficiency in different life skills, and expenses can vary widely. Those factors are all essential to consider when pricing.

DO take into account your unique business and financial situation.

Let’s say you are a communications consultant for medical students who has been in practice for two and a half years, have a Masters in Health Administration and a PhD in Communications, employ an administrative assistant, and have debt to pay someone who loaned you start-up money. Now if you Google a similar business owner, they might have three years of experience, a Bachelors in Communications, work alone, and have few expenses. Your prices can’t be the same as you have such different factors to account for. 

DON’T base your pricing on your hourly rate working for someone else.

Now that you have more control over your income, you aren’t beholden to what you were making elsewhere. You also run your business differently than the company you worked for before.

DO increase your capacity for abundance.

You might be limiting your profits because you’re limiting your capacity. If you’re operating with a scarcity mindset, you believe that there’s only a limited amount of money to go around. When someone else is charging more, you have to charge less to make up for it. That won’t lead to as much profit as you could, and should, be making. With an abundance mindset, you know that there are enough resources for everyone to achieve what they want to achieve and earn what they want to earn. When you have this mindset as a CEO, you can confidently charge enough to bring home the amount of money you desire. You can also increase that amount comfortably, knowing that you have the capacity to earn an abundance of money. (Read more about your money mindset here.)

DON’T equate your worth to your pricing.

You can’t put a price tag on a person’s worth. Money is ultimately just a concept made up by people that only has value because we’ve assigned it value. You, on the other hand, are valuable no matter what. Trying to price your services according to your value is impossible because they can’t be measured on the same scale. If you did that, you’d be seriously underestimating your worth. (Learn about how your beliefs about yourself shape your business here).

DO recognize your personal worth.

No one can put a number on the unlimited gifts, happiness, wisdom, and love you provide. Once you recognize that, you can begin to lean into your vision. You are more than worthy of making your vision a reality, but it can only be achieved if you believe you deserve it. Not only are you endlessly valuable as a person, but you also bring your expertise, experience, passion, and knowledge to the table for every service you provide. When you demonstrate that in your delivery, those things are incredibly valuable to the client. (Crush your doubts by finding out how to combat imposter syndrome here).

DON’T keep your pricing the same.

As your circumstances change, so should your pricing. Your pricing shouldn’t be the same at an annual revenue of $50,000 as it is at $200,000. Once you hit that six-figure mark, you need to be charging more to make up for your more limited time and resources. Your expenses have probably increased quite a bit so that needs to be reflected in your pricing as well. (Here’s what else you should consider to hit your next financial goal).

DO update your pricing as you grow. 

I know that it can be scary to raise your prices, especially for long-time clients who are used to paying a certain rate and may not be expecting a change. Even though it might seem risky, your long-time clients should recognize the value of your services and be willing to pay more to stay on as a client. New clients won’t know about any other rate and will be happy to pay what you charge if they’ve been convinced that they can benefit from your services.

Bottom line is, you are worthy of creating and sustaining the business of your dreams and you are valuable no matter what. You need to price your services to reflect the realities of your business. Not someone else’s and not the cheapest offer on the market, your passion should bring you the maximum profit.

Tools for Creating a Growth Mindset

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In order to grow your business, you’ve got to cultivate a growth mindset. 

Building a growth mindset is basically a two step process:

  1. Connect everything you do to your why and your vision.
  2. Expand your capacity.

With the right tools, you can work your way towards a growth mindset that will do wonders for your business. The best part is, none of the tools I’m going to recommend are unattainable or difficult to use. They may stretch you on a personal or professional level but only so that you can expand your capacity for success.

You always want to start where your heart is. What made you want to start this business in the first place? Where do you want to see the business go in the future? Guide your business based on your answers to these questions and you’ll have a solid foundation.

Tools that help you connect to your why and vision (Get in touch with your why and vision here.): a planner, an online presence, and your network.

How: A planner gives you a designated place to connect everything you do and are going to do, whether big or small, to the reason why you’ve built and continue to build your business. You need an online presence on social media and/or a personal website to establish your personal brand and share your skills and knowledge to a greater community. Your network also creates a community, where you can support each other in times when you may have lost your way or are feeling like giving up.

Expanding your capacity means making room for abundance. You have to smash through your limiting beliefs (read about smashing your limiting beliefs here) and move forward with the assumption that your business will pick up speed and you’ll need to establish efficient practices for the long term.

Tools that help you expand your capacity: QuickBooks and a calendar

How: QuickBooks is great for small businesses that are in need of a financial management system that can grow with them and know what they’re numbers look like at all times. Combine QuickBooks with an accountant and watch your profit margins improve (find out the difference between an accountant and a bookkeeper here). A calendar is another tool for increasing your efficiency, especially if you use scheduling software. Keep a calendar and you won’t bog yourself down with a bunch of busy work and put more of your focus on the tasks that matter.

I love to see women becoming empowered CEOs that are confident in their businesses. I hope using those tools gives you that confident feeling. That’s my why for Mitchell Consulting Service. It’s because I’ve kept that purpose in mind all these years that my business has seen the longevity that it has. My why also has to do with my family. My family has always inspired me to expand my capacity for financial freedom and happiness. I’ve implemented systems, gained efficiency, and created boundaries (read about boundaries here) so that I could be there for my kids as they grew up. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

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