#90 Removing the Money Overwhelm, with Sarah Stow

Removing the Money Overwhelm, with Sarah Stow - Rise up in business podcast

I have a real treat for you today as I’m chatting with Sarah Stow, the founder of Business Brains and host of the Launch Your Biz Now podcast. We’re talking today about how to remove the money overwhelm and I know you’re going to gain so much value from Sarah’s practical tips and incredible depth of knowledge when it comes to business.

Like me, Sarah is passionate about helping business owners remove the overwhelm. Her mission is to get busy people into businesses faster, giving them more flexibility, profit, and the ability to live life on their terms. Sarah is a Fellow Chartered Financial Practitioner, an award-winning adviser and has been featured in many media outlets, sought out as being an expert in her field.

As business owners, we all know to look at our profit & loss statements, but do we know what we should be doing with the numbers? In this episode, Sarah shares some really practical ways to look at your P&L statement and the 4 figures you need to understand.

Sarah then shares tangible ways to use these figures to create more efficiency in your business, breaking them down into percentages and drilling down to detail to uncover areas in your business that could save you time and money.

We talk about the four systems in your business; product service delivery, onboarding & lead generation sales, marketing and backend systems, and how you can look at each area of your business to reduce costs and increase profit.

This is such a practical episode and it’s my hope that it leaves you feeling empowered with the understanding that you can be in control of your numbers and make your business work for you, not the other way around.

TOPICS DISCUSSED AND WHERE TO FIND THEM:

[1:00]: Tracey introduces Sarah and what she does to help remove overwhelm when it comes to money.

[2:00]: Once having kids, Sarah realised she didn't have the time she used to have to put into her business. She teaches her clients to come back to a clear purpose to focus on the core things.

[4:00]: Learning through failure is all part of success. Sarah takes a holistic approach to helping her clients from a business and financial perspective.

[5:45]: Business owners crave direction and extra support to know what amount of money to put into different areas such as marketing.

[7:15]: We all know that we need to look at our numbers but often people don’t know what they should be looking for. Sarah breaks down the 4 things you should know: Look at your turnover, profit, variable cost and fixed cost.

[8:50]: Turnover - how much money your business has brought in. It’s also referred to as revenue.

[9:20]: Fixed costs - the business expenses that you are paying no matter what

[9:54]: Variable costs - any cost that factors into you delivering your service. Sarah also includes marketing and advertising

[10:30]: Profit - your income and any money left over

[11:15]: Once you have these figures, you need to work out what percentage each is against your revenue. These figures are now your baseline and if you’ve been in business for a few years, you can work out the average.

[13:15]: You can then determine which figures you want to see increased or decreased. Map out the 4 systems of your business: product service delivery, onboarding & lead generation sales, marketing and backend and see where you can look for efficiencies.

[16:15]: Tracey uses Toggl, a time tracking system which helps her in her business. She went through records to determine how much time it took to onboard clients.

[17:50]: Sarah recommends time tracking to help create a procedure for delivering a product and calculating your hourly rate.

[20:00]: There are so many tasks that can be automated now, which helps to make systems more efficient in your business. Make a goal to focus on one thing per month.

[22:15]: Taking control of your numbers and knowing your percentages is empowering. Once you know your percentages, you can understand what is really working for you.

[25:15]: Where to find Sarah her courses

LINKS:

Connect with Sarah Stow: