65: How to Conduct an Effective “Money Date” for Your Business and Create a Monthly Financial Workflow featuring Shanna Skidmore

Are you ready to gain clarity and confidence in your business finances? Are you prepared to learn to Create a Monthly Financial Workflow? Maybe you peek at your numbers every couple of months, but let’s be honest, that just isn’t good for your business, and it is probably adding to the intimidation and overwhelm of the task. In this episode, Shanna Skidmore of Skidmore Consulting shares how she crafted her experience as a Fortune 100 Financial Advisor. She is helping entrepreneurs and her students build profitable businesses with which they are comfortable and aligned. If you are ready to set a “money date” to help manage money and be less stressed, this episode is for you!

The Systems and Workflow Magic Podcast is brought to you by Dolly DeLong Education. This podcast is for creative business owners who want to learn tangible steps to automate their business through workflows, systems, tools, and strategies to go from scattered to streamlined with purpose because even muggles can become automated wizards.

Meet Shanna Skidmore

Shanna Skidmore of Skidmore Consulting is a former Fortune 100 Financial Advisor turned business consultant. For the past 15 years, she has worked in finance, helping entrepreneurs worldwide make more money and manage it well. During that time, she unlocked the blueprint to building a profitable and sustainable business that aligns with the life you and her students want.

WANT A RESOURCE TO BEST STREAMLINE & AUTOMATE THE NUMBERS BEHIND YOUR BUSINESS?

I have created an easy-to-use template that will help you take control of your finances because you will have clarity and confidence in knowing where your money is going! Develop a system and workflow that works FOR your finances (and isn’t confusing)! Check out The Bookkeeping Template For Creatives 

Review the Show Notes

The sexy-not-so-sexy topic of financial systems

How Shanna Skidmore conducts an effective “money date” for her business

Shanna’s proven, practical system for building a profitable, sustainable business that works.

How can you tackle your bookkeeping in just one day a month?

LINKS MENTIONED

The Bookkeeping Template For Creatives and use code PODCAST for 20% off!

Profitability Playbook

Blueprint Model

CONNECT WITH SHANNA 

Website

Consider the Wildflowers Podcast

CONNECT WITH DOLLY 

instagram.com/dollydelongeducation

facebook.com/DollyDeLongEducation

pinterest.com/dollydelong

DID YOU LIKE THIS EPISODE? PLEASE SHARE IT ON PINTEREST!

Review the transcript

Dolly Delong
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the systems and workflow magic podcast. I am your Systems and Workflow BFF, Dolly DeLong, and I want to thank you again for choosing to tune in to another episode. It seriously means the world to me and you all. So when this episode airs, it should be around Valentine’s Day. So, in true mom fashion and cheesy mom jokes, I’m hoping you are having a sweet week, and to sweeten your week even more, let’s talk about systems and workflows. Specifically, let’s talk about the sexy/not-so-sexy topic of financial systems because that always seems to be a hushed topic, yet it is a hot topic. So, we are diving into that this week. And you all know how much I love encouraging you, the listener, to dig into the backend of your business’s numbers and data because I believe it directly correlates with your growth, and it does impact your bottom line. So in this episode 65 I wanted to bring an exceptional guest who I talked about constantly in previous episodes, I spoke about her on my blog posts, and I’ve talked about her on social media, so you all are in for a treat today. Before formally introducing her, I want to share how she’s helped me with my business. This guest helped change the trajectory of my business financially and helped me see the value of running my business in a lean and healthy fashion. She also helped me save up for VA, which has been invaluable to me through my maternity leave, and she also helped me see that I could take a whole month off and live in Montana without fear of not working or making money because I was prepped financially with her guidance. Finally, her podcast Consider the Wildflowers is always in the queue in my earbuds because I love learning from her and her guests so much about just the behind-the-scenes of business decisions and real-life conversations that a lot of people don’t talk about in business on the online space, so I’ve learned a lot from her. Okay, so let’s introduce her. Shanna Skidmore is here on the show. And before we dive into financial systems, Shanna, do you mind introducing yourself to the audience so they can get to know you better?

Shanna Skidmore
You are the sweetest; thanks for having me. I was tearing up over here just hearing everything that you have shared; thank you for that. Doing what I do daily is truly an honor and a privilege. We cannot start crying already. As a new mom, I know the value of spending time and having freedom and flexibility in your business to do the things you love or be with the people you love. So what I get to do is such a gift. So, hi, I’m Shanna Skidmore, a former Fortune 100 financial advisor who has worked in finance for over 15 years. I have degrees in money, business, and psychology, as well as an art degree, and I always joke that I feel like a misfit puzzle. I never knew how all those interests and passions fit together, so I worked in finance and personal finance for a long time, for about five years and right after college. That’s how I met my husband, Kyle, and then he wanted to go back to school, so we moved to Atlanta, Georgia, from Tennessee, where I was born and raised, and that’s actually where I got my introduction to corporate finance. An investment firm hired me, so I always think of Shark Tank but not Shark Tank. They were working with a startup fashion designer with whom I got to work. So I did all the operations and finance for her business for about 18 months, and that is when I saw all of the ways my brain works come together and that someone can be great at their craft, but the business side doesn’t always come naturally. Finance and Business aren’t taught in any education now. I started, you know, the “creative field,” which I think everyone’s creative. My husband’s an engineer and one of the most creative people I’ve ever met. So, now we work with real estate agents, and I just had a medical clinic reach out to me, I’ve worked with pharmacies, and I doctors, and anyone needs to know how to run a business. So I saw the business fundamentals, pricing profitability, and understanding how much you should spend on overhead versus the cost of goods versus what my profit should be. In business, there are a lot of pretty standardized numbers and formulas, so I was teaching this one-on-one, and I got to the point where I was charging 10s of 1000s of dollars to consult with businesses; it was worth it because I would see them turn around their profit for 5x 10x amount of 12 months, which is fantastic and so wonderful. But I thought I kept saying the same things repeatedly: what if I could create, almost like the business course that I wish art schools and pharmacy tools and anyone wanting to be an entrepreneur could take, and that’s in 2016? Why did I develop the blueprint model? That’s where I teach fundamental finance to business owners. So you can know how much money you should take from a business, or are you pricing for profit? What is the formula for that? I mean, it’s been super freeing. I’ve worked with 1000s of business owners now around the world, and to give these standardized numbers and formulas, where people can know with certainty, yes, I am pricing correctly, or you know what I did overspend last year because I wanted to take that class or go on that trip, or whatever it is. So, every day, I get to help more people work for themselves and get more freedom in their lives and flexibility in their schedules. Now, my husband and I work together, and we hope it’s a legacy we pass on to our daughter, Madeline, and to all the entrepreneurs we work with. So clearly, I love what I do. It’s truly a blessing, and Dolly, thank you for your testimonial; it lights me up and fuels me to keep doing our work.

Dolly Delong
Everything you said about me is accurate and not in my notes. For those who don’t know who can’t see, I’m an avid note-taker, and I have notes to stay on topic, but I’m going a little off-topic right now. Shanna, I want to share with you that you served as one of the catalysts to help me understand more about finances; even my husband has noticed that change in the past year, and he has expressed so much gratitude and appreciation. He is always like, wow, you’re finally paid yourself, doing this and taking time off. So he has noticed a difference, too, and I feel like I’m just now getting started. Knowing more about my money, where it’s going, and how to be lean with it has been a game-changer for me, and it continues to be a game-changer for me.

Shanna Skidmore
Dolly, you’re the best. I remember when you reached out and considered taking the blueprint model. And it’s an investment of money. It’s not inexpensive. It’s also a significant investment of time. I mean, you have to sit down, and you have to, like, with the work you do, create workflows and systems in finance and our business, and you wanted to make sure it was the suitable investment for you. I know that you are like, Can I do this? And I think so many people are either intimidated by money or don’t call themselves a number person; I want to empower each person to almost simplify numbers. So, fill in the few numbers I must know and the few numbers I need to look at. I think you would say that’s what you feel empowered. It’s not like you’re walking around like, Oh, I’m going to be a CFO now. You’re going to pay yourself, and you know how to take maternity leave. That’s the beauty of making the finance side work for you because it complements the business you want to create and is complemented by running your numbers the way you want, so I love hearing that.

Dolly Delong
Well, thank you. Thank you for that introduction. Again, I have to admit, I’m fangirling over here, of course. But I’m also thrilled that my audience finally meets you because, like I shared before, I talk about you constantly. I talk about money and setting up systems for your finances continually on this podcast and I know that anytime the topic of money comes up, I know that creatives either like shrink back or they want to learn more, they’re curious, but they don’t know where to begin. So,, Iam so excited about you sharing your systems with us and a sicreating mple system to get started with money. As you may or may not know about this podcast, I want to get down to the nitty-gritty and tell you immediately. I treat this like a masterclass episode because my wish and hope are for the creative business owners listening to this to take action right away. After listening to this episode, I hope they will have the immediate action steps to take and implement a financial workflow that makes sense for their unique business, is easy to understand, and is easy to apply. So, are you ready to dive in?

Shanna Skidmore
Let’s do it. My favorite thing, yes, let’s talk money.

Dolly Delong
So Shanna will share a system for you all today called How to conduct an effective money date for your business. Essentially, this is her money checklist, what you should be looking for numbers-wise every month, how to track your numbers, etc. So, Shanna, I will kick you off because I’m not a CFO, but I’d like to learn how to apply this to my business.

Shanna Skidmore
Let’s do it. So, as I mentioned before, my husband and I worked together in finance long before we got married and started our business, but we always were very competitive with each other. So we would get together on Friday mornings, grab breakfast, and go over our numbers for the week. When we worked as financial advisors, how many calls did you do? How many clients did you book? How many policies did you write? That kind of thing. We started to refer to this as our money date, so it stuck. When we got married, we would have money dates, as well, and we would sit down and talk about our personal finances and goals. Are we overspending in any areas? What are some debts we want to pay off? So we would have these monthly money dates.

When I started my business, I started working with business owners, I’m sure dollar that you’ve heard of like a “duty day” or something that’s a funny name, but where people work on the back end of their business. It is so true, we can get so busy just doing the day-to-day client work or, you know, whatever we’re doing, that the back end of our business just really gets neglected. I know this is you’re speaking your love language right now like love and on the back end of your business. So I wondered, what if we created a money workflow that all our students and clients could follow? So we just used our little loving term of money dates, and it stuck. I mean, we’ve done this for almost ten years, taught this to our students and clients, and we call it your monthly money date. So we do this once a month. Clients want to look at their finances more often, so they’ll do it weekly. I always tell people to find the consistency that works for them, but a minimum of once a month. Now, inside my membership and mastermind program, I lead students through this every month; we do it on the first Thursday of the month and have that silent co-working. It’s just for accountability, so you can find a group of entrepreneurs and do this, sit together, and go through this checklist. It would help if you about depended on how quickly you work and how thoroughly you want to look at everything. We do it together as a group for two hours. I don’t always get through everything, but I block off one day a month to work on the financial side of my business, you can combine this as well with that, “duty day”, there’s got to be a better word for that.

Dolly Delong
That sounds so funny to me.

Shanna Skidmore
So, work on your finances and the backend of your business if you can carve out one day a month to stay on top of it. I always tell people I’m a finance person. I love my bookkeeping and still do it in-house because I want to know all the tedious numbers. So I do all that myself, but working on my finances, doing all my bookkeeping, looking at the backend, and y business, truly takes one day out of the month. So stick to it like Christmas, even though I love doing my bookkeeping, I have been in situations when before scheduling this money date where I was getting three months behind on my bookkeeping, so I want always to tell people to give themselves grace, but it feels so good. This year, my books are ready for my CPA, I’m on top of it and that’s what doing this every month will do. So that’s the first thing: schedule a money date for your business, and I would love to walk through it, Dolly. Just what I did on that day was to let everybody make a checklist. The first thing I do is use our task management software. Dolly, I know you love Asana as well. Do you use Trello? Okay, Trello. So, Trello or Dubsado, or any task management software, I love Asana on my side, everybody. They are all very similar. Just find the one that works for your brain. I set up this workflow in Asana as a template, and I’m sure it’s the same as Trello. So, I think it was Albert Einstein who said never to memorize anything; you can look it up. So I’m like, once you create your money workflow, Dolly, I know you’re on board with this, create that workflow. Then for me, I can duplicate it every single month in Asana. So, I never have to remember all of these tasks because there are many, but I work through them that way. So, the first thing on my money day is to duplicate my tasks in Asana to have the template for the upcoming month. As mentioned, I also do all our bookkeeping in-house. So, if you have a bookkeeper, these first few steps will be done for you, which is great. But since I do my bookkeeping in-house, and anybody doing their keeping, whether they use bookkeeping software, we use QuickBooks Online, which I highly recommend. Many of my students use Wave, which has come with great reviews, or all my students in the blueprint model receive an Income and Expense Tracker in a Google Sheet. So you can also just manually do this, you want to go through and categorize all of your spendings. So, step number one after you duplicate the task in your template is to categorize your spending. That means pulling up your business bank account, going through your bookkeeping software, putting it into a spreadsheet, and inputting all those categories. So you want to say, okay, this expense was for meals, this expense was for labor, this expense was for a new education purchase, you want to tell whatever system your tracking system where your money went. ThaKnowingere all my money went this month. It is beneficial to always look at how much I spend. So that’s step number one,: wehave a business account, and t business credit card. So I do that for both, and then I want to input all, so step number two is to input all of your income. Again, if you have a bookkeeper, they’re doing this for you. We want to go through and categorize your income as well. One of the biggest things I see when working with clients is that I’ll receive a profit and loss statement and a bookkeeper, or they’ve done it themselves, or it just has sales. Everything goes into sales. And that’s a great place to start. It’s like great, well, now you know what your revenue is, if you live here in the United States, the IRS will be happy, they need to know how much your revenue is. So that’s step number one. But it tells you whether you can get to where you’re categorizing your income. So, as a CFO, I analyze the data, so like a CPA is filing it with the IRS, your bookkeeper wants to make sure it’s categorized and credited. The role of the CFO and what I teach my clients to do in the blueprint model, my kind of you want to be your own CFO, so how do you strategically analyze those numbers? So, if you can break your sales down by either your packages or, for me, have education products, I want to look at which ones bring in certain revenue. So we have ours broken down into several; I’m sure you’ve heard of income streams. So, breaking that down will give you additional information if you want to get a little more detailed. So our money comes in through Stripe or Paypal; however, you receive the income you want to go through, and that’s step number two. Okay, Dolly, feeling good?

Dolly Delong
So great. I’m writing this all out.

Shanna Skidmore
Okay. All right. So, to recap, have someplace where you keep this in a template where there’s a Trello Board or Asana that makes it simple to do your bookkeeping tasks. If you’re doing your bookkeeping, put your expenses first, then your income. In the accounting world, the third step is what we call reconciling your account. So, I always associate this with the good old days when we had checkbooks. Yeah, right?

Dolly Delong
I have a little ledger that I keep in my wallet for when I use my credit card, I just need to track it.

Shanna Skidmore
You’re so on top of things, ancient school.

Dolly Delong
I’m like an 85-year-old woman stuck in 2023.

Shanna Skidmore
Well, the good news is you get to balance your monthly checkbook in your business, where you pull up those bank statements, pull up these business accounts, and ensure it all matches. That is the goal of what’s called reconciling your accounts. If you have a bookkeeping software like QuickBooks or Wave that also does that, you can go through and check mark every entry so it matches. You go to reconcile the account, and it’ll walk you through it. Technically, for your books and bookkeeping records to be accepted, if you’re here in the States, by the IRS, they have to be reconciled,, and reconciling is your friend because that ensures that there are no double entries. I love to reconcile because it’s like, have you ever found you returned something, and then that return never processed? Or that’s what going through this every single month will find you so much money.

I did this once, and I’m embarrassed to admit that this is my first year in business. I had a client who asked me to change their payment plan. So I had a six-month schedule, and they wanted to break it up slightly more than that. So I said, okay, that’s great, but you know that if you break your workflow, we break the workflow. So yeah, you forget, somehow, six months later, or six months behind on my bookkeeping, this is why I keep a money date. I realized I never built her. I mean, six months after her project was complete, I realized I never built her for one of those additional payments, and that was 1000s of dollars out of my account because, at that point, I didn’t feel comfortable, my oh, actually, I didn’t charge you enough. So this, again, it’s tedious, but there’s so much money you will find or save or stay on track with. To reconcile those accounts, if you have a bookkeeper, they should do steps one, two, and three for you. So, at the end of each month, or whatever schedule you’re on with your bookkeeper, you would want them to send you the report that all of this is done. So you would like to see your profit and loss statement, which we’ll get to as another step in the process. But they will do these one, two, and three to enter expenses, enter income, and then reconcile your accounts.

Dolly Delong
Nice. Entrepreneurship is fun, at least I think so. However, most entrepreneurs struggle in one very important business area: finances. Did you know you can create systems around your money? Systems around your finances allow you to keep track of your finances, plan for tax season, monitor expenses, and prioritize your money so that you’re constantly turning a profit. It doesn’t have to be mind-numbing. As a creative business center, you need to understand the numbers behind your business, so let’s make that happen. For just $27, you can grab my bookkeeping template for creatives; this easy-to-use automated spreadsheet will help you track your expenses, guide you through the spreadsheet with video training, and dig into primary data that will influence the numbers of your business. So grab the bookkeeping template for creatives in the show notes of today’s episode, and use the code PODCAST all one word for 20% off.

Shanna Skidmore
Okay, let’s keep going. We’re feeling good. We’re good at the details, Dolly. Okay, so from there, we have a client tracking document in my business. It’s something I teach all of my students to do as well. It’s a way to book if you’re service-based inquiries versus booking, so that’s the next step in my process. Someone on my team fills this out now, but tracking your inquiries and how many people are booking is good. So you want to make sure that’s up to date and if there are any inquiries just sitting out there that haven’t gotten back to you to follow up with them. So, in step four, the process is called filling out our client tracking and updating that document. If you’re a service-based business, it’s a simple document we use in Google Sheets. If you are a student in the blueprint model, you get a copy of this spreadsheet, and it’ll just walk you through how to track your inquiries and bookings every month; even if you’re not in one of my programs, I highly recommend all service-based professionals have some document like this. So you can see if you’re booking well and where people are falling off. You can also see high and low seasons; we track inquiry months versus booking months, which has been helpful. People often ask me how you take a month-long sabbatical or if you can’t plan your maternity leave; it just falls when it falls, but I’ve had many people implement sabbaticals. Once they have this document. There’s like, I never booked anything in July or when we lived in Minnesota, there are no events in Minnesota in February, everybody’s inside. So, knowing that it’s like we’ll take them up off, why not? So that’s just a little client tracking documents from there. So from there, step number five, you want to pay any bills you have in your business. So, most of our bills are all set up to auto-pay. I highly recommend auto-paying as much as possible, but if you get bills from us,o we have a copywriter who does contract work for us. I have a virtual assistant who does contract work for us. Any bills that come in like that. We will schedule those to be paid. So we would spend our VA every Two weeks; sometimes, you have to do that more than once a month. But that’s helpful to ensure any outstanding bills are paid in your business. Okay, so what are we on? Number six? Yeah, there, we also want to send out any invoices or payment reminders. So people often ask me, like, how do you not look at your bank account or do this thing? I want you to have this system and everything taken care of, which is excellent. So when we onboard new clients, we let them know how we bill, and we say we’re going to bill you once a month, which works in our business for other people. If you stick with Dolly, she’ll teach you how to do it all in Dubsado, and so just making sure if there are any outstanding payments, at this point, we have a lot of student subscriptions, hundreds if not 1000s of payments every month, and so we don’t have a payment collection system. So this feels like the bill collector; it’s the worst. But it’s helpful to go in and say, hey, did your card expire? Let’s get this back to good standing. Sometimes, if we need to cancel them, we have procedures and workflows, and if they’re two months behind three months behind, we have been able to recoup, I cannot tell you how many people have just forgotten to update their cards, or didn’t realize they still owed you money. Having this in here once a month to ensure all your invoices are updated and sending reminders on payments, we don’t do it in a way like, hey, pay your bill like geez. It’s like, hey, did your card expire? And they’re like, why did I’m so sorry, and it’s helpful to send out those reminders. So that is step number si. Every month, we want to ensure we’re sending out invoices and payment reminders.

Dolly Delong
That’s good. Can I insert a personal opinion about that? I am a firm believer in money. It is so personal to everyone, and so step six, sending a reminder, even for me, I can feel icky because I’m like, oh, I don’t want to make somebody feel like they have to pay me even though they do need to pay me. I don’t want to cause any awkwardness between us. I’m so thankful for autopay. This is not a plug for Dubsad. Youu can also do this with your own CRM system. But I’m grateful for auto pay and thankful for those payment reminders that you can set up on the back end,d and you can even have,e like you said, a canned email that takes your emotion out of I; it’s, hey, just a reminder without getting personal about it or taking it personally or being offended or whatever. I’m so sensitive about that myself.

Shanna Skidmore
No, sending out it feels like you’re a bill collector, and it’s not very fun. You know how to automate things. You know me int.o I’m not tech savvy, but we worked through with clients, our one-on-one clients, and we don’t do much one-on-one work anymore. But all of our clients are set up on auto-pay through dubsado because it’s easier for the client,t and we did not want to have to remember to send out invoices. So we also set up that system and dubsado; it was so helpful. So I’m a big advocate. Anytime you can automate anything,g I know we’re speaking the same language. , Automated it, but we don’t have enough subscriptions to justify paying a service to collect payments. But there are a lot of services my peers use to collect payments on things like student subscriptions because churn rates can affect your bottom line if you’re having people drop off. S, I haven’t figured out a way to automate it. We have canned emails, but we still send them out, so maybe Dolly can teach me how to automate that.

Dolly Delong
Well, if there’s listening to this episode, and you want to create it, that is like a more affordable version.

Shanna Skidmore
Dolly is the workflow queen. We typically have very few, like five or fewer, a month. It just made sense for us to keep it in-house and send out the pre-written emails. Honestly, our community is just so wonderful. I think that’s all. How do you say he has to get this paid, and they take care of it? But if you have any product payment plan, I think just knowing and assuming there will be some that drop off.

Dolly Delong
Yes. That’s a good reminder to everyone.

Shanna Skidmore
We’re at seven? Fill out your Income and Expense Tracker. This is personal to the blueprint model, but we have this spreadsheet. It’s incredible. Every year, I teach my students and anybody who will listen to create a money plan for their business. S, this is just a significant forecast for your business. Okay, how much do I need to sell? How much do I have? As far as budgets? How much can I spend on travel this year? How much can I spend on education this year? This significant form will tell you how much I can pay myself. It’s this beautiful document called your money blueprint. So you can look at it every year and know my financial goals, and I noticed it had become a math problem. If I sell what I need to sell and don’t overspend, I will always be able to pay myself. That’s something I hear so much, Doll., You said that taking a paycheck from your business is pretty scary, especially when starting to take consistent pay because income will always fluctuate no matter what industry you’re in. So I can teach people how to, like, we’re going to reverse engineer those numbers. How much do you need to make? How much do you need to sell, knowing that money plan? So we create this big, beautiful money plan, but I always tell people, why don’t we make this money plan, stick it in a drawer, and then forget about it for the whole year? So I created the Income and Expense Tracke spreadsheet for my students in the blueprint modelr. This is the most excellent way to put money into our money plan. So we have our blueprint for the year and our goal, and then we want to put in what we’re spending. So that’s each month we go in and just put in what we sold and spent. It’s immaculate because it tells us if we’re tracking towards our goals, or it’s like, hey, alert, like you’ve spent a lot on education this year, or you’ve spent a lot on travel watch that doesn’t say that we see it in this spreadsheet, negative or it’s close, or I only have this much less. So it’s just a constructive way. You worked hard to create this forecast; this money plan is a blueprint for the year. Let’s stay on track with that every single month. So, I look at the Income and Expense Tracker and number seven pins to ensure I track my goals. And my overspending in any area is this fantastic way? Like, have you ever gotten to the end of the year? I know some listeners have said, know you’re not alone. I hear this from my clients all the time. You get to the end of the year, and you’re like I made how much money? What? That’s one response. The second response? Where did all that go? Where did all that money go? I didn’t even myself. Where did all that money go? And so having this beautiful plan, which again, we can do in one day, a month, I know exactly where my money went? And then I always follow up with the question, is that where you want it to go? We have the power to have a lot of control over how we spend our money and have less control over how much we can sell, but we forecast well and know how to set realistic but optimistic goals. That’s what I want to teach people how to do, but this plan ensures, okay, hey, you know what? I need to watch how much I’m eating out. I need to take fewer trips to the coffee shop. Darn it. Making those minor tweaks each month is much better than getting to the end of the year and realizing, wow, I couldn’t fund that vacation because I drink too much coffee. That’s a bummer, you know? So that’s what step seven is: look at the plan and track it. How are we doing towards our big year plan with that Income Expense Tracker?

Dolly Delong
Can I share one thing?

Shanna Skidmore
Like I’m talking so much.

Dolly Delong
Oh no. I love it. I’m learning so much alongside everyone. Like it’s a good reminder. I know a lot of creative business owners follow this podcast, especially many photographers, and I have a background in photography as well. After I went through BPM and followed this, I started tracking what I was spending during my busy season because my busy season for family photography is traditionally the end of August to the beginning of December. I’m constantly on the move, and every weekend is booked. But I was making so much money. Then, at the end of the year, Shanna, like what you said, where did all that money go? So, I finally started tracking it and will throw out a random number. Let’s say I’m trying not to be dramatic, like let’s say $400 one month, went to eating out between sessions, or I had a session in the morning, so I got lunch somewhere, and then I had a session that afternoon so I took myself out twice, but then I was doing that like ten times a month. I was like, wow, I could pack something for myself. I could do something to go. I don’t have to go to I don’t know Chicken Salad Chick every time. I don’t know. This is just an example, but it was eye-opening for me, and I could have been using that money to either put into savings for overhead, a computer, or something else.

Shanna Skidmore
So yeah, I mean, it’s the same experience, Dolly. I have done this myself; I always want people to know like, and when I worked in finance, and I think a lot of business quote unquote gurus or the old school business would say, like, you have the whole, you have to spend money to make money, or we were taught, if you take people to lunch, they’re more likely to buy from you. Then the whole idea of like, oh, it’s okay, it’s a business write-off. That gets people in so much trouble, and it’s not just business. It’s personal as well; we often sacrifice long-term goals for immediate convenience, and when you become more aware, and that’s the whole goal of the money date is to stay on top of your finances. So you’re more aware of where your money is going. So you can say, hey, you know what, I don’t want to spend $400 a month on Chicken Salad Chick, I’m going to pack my lunch, and I’m going to put that $400 towards saving for a computer, whatever. Like, how empowering is that? S, I have one story I want to tell if we’re okay with time. Okay, so it was a student of mine in the blueprint model, and she owned an event planning business. So, event planning, she took the program and had $30,000 in debt on a business credit card. She said in a chat that this is the last year, and if I don’t pay this off, I’m not sure my family will want me to keep going if it is a pretty dire situation for her. S,o $ 30,000 is spent on this business credit card. So she went through the blueprint model and the program I have everybody look at, okay, where’s your money going? Is that where you get to go? And she said I realized she was spending over $1,000 a month on Chipotle. She told me my business’s most extensive line item was my taco bowl consumption. She would have her whole team there because it was a very similar thing. They were working on these events and prepping, so she was always buying lunch for the entire team, and it wasn’t factored into her pricing.

S,o just coming out of her budge,is her profitability. So she made a simple tweak, k and within nine months, she could pay off that $30,000 credit card. Nine months. We call this her Chipotle moment, so we’re always like, what will your Chipotle moment be? What is that simple tweak of? We have so much more. Often, but not always. But usually, we have so much more money than we realize. Just go into simple conveniences because we’re busy, we’re tired. I don’t want to cook again, personally and in the business. As I always say, it’s as if we could make a simple tweak; awareness is the key to change.

Dolly Delong
Oh, Chipotle moment. I love it. My husband and I love Chipotle so much. We had it catered at our wedding, like the night before our wedding, and we catered it to all our guests, so Chipotle is definitely big in the DeLong household.

Shanna Skidmore
So, well, hey, you had your own Chipotle moment. With Chicken Salad Chick, it sounds like. Okay, I’m fine. All right, we have 10 Total steps and are about to hit step eight. So we’re almost there, guys. For everyone listening, we’re almost there. Number eight, this is one of my favorite steps. Many of the previous steps are about data entry, which is the duty of finance, like the half-to-dues. This is when we flip over to what my role is. When I teach all my students that their new role is as the CFO of their business, I get into the strategy side. So I love that little switch; number eight is to create and prep a cash flow plan for the upcoming month. I do this in my business and personally. A cash flow plan is a straightforward way to get a snapshot of your money and cash and if you can pay yourself in the upcoming month. So, as I mentioned, I have all my students create this big master plan for the year, your blueprint like what your goals are, what your budgets are, and all of that. But each month, cash flow fluctuates. As you said, Dolly, you might be in high season and low seasons, and what I often see in personal finances and business is that when you’re in your high season, you have so much money coming in. But what happens when your expenses ramp up? So when people get in low seasons or lean times and don’t have any cash reserves. Cash flow is a big part of our business, so a cash flow plan is a simple way to look at you and just input the starting balance in your bank account. What are all of the expenses I anticipate coming? So, if I have a credit card bill or need to pay my virtual assistant, you can track my overhead monthly. So we know, every month, what our overhead is and what I will pay myself? Or what do I hope to pay myself? All those are deductions. So, we start with our beginning balance and anticipated expenses. Do you have any money coming in? Do you have any final payments from clients if that’s how your contracts are set up? For me, we have a monthly subscription. So, we know how many people are on payment plans or monthly subscriptions. So we know and can anticipate how much income is coming in, and then you’re just a simple math problem. Addition and subtraction. How much money do we have left? And if it’s positive, really great. If it’s negative, you get into a situation where, okay, how many clients do I need to book this month? Can I run a sale? If I have a product shop, what must I do to ensure I’m cashflow positive every month? So it’s just a simple way for anybody who has struggled to pay themselves in the past or is afraid of taking that consistent paycheck; this cash flow plan gives a lot of security and comfort and knowing like, okay, I can pay my bills. I know what’s going on and what’s great is once you do this for a while, we know we need $15,000, or whatever the number is, in our bank account at the beginning of every single month to pay our bills and pay ourselves, we know “our number”. It gives much peace of mind; you would have three months of expenses in an ideal world. I mean, again, that’s an ideal world. In the real world, I want to make sure I can make it through the next month. We used to run our business when we launched the blueprint model back in 2016, it has been ever since the number one revenue stream in our business and we would run it once a year for a long time. So we knew that when we launched the Blueprint model, we had to live off that money in the business and personally for a year. So if you know your offers, they might not be structured where you’re receiving steady income every single month, I’m sure Dolly with photography, you have high seasons and low seasons. So when you can start seeing those patterns of, like, I’m about to get a bunch of cash, I need to save it for six months, it needs to last me for a year, however long, it’s just beneficial to plan out the cash flow. So that’s step number eight, planar cash flow for the month. I do this personally and for the business. Okay, just two more steps. All right, number nine, my favorite step is reviewing progress toward your goals. So, as I mentioned, we create this big money plan for the year that we call your blueprints, like a master plan for your money. But we have to track how we’re going towards that. So, how are you doing toward your goals? Do you want to book 20 clients for the year? How many do you have booked? Just sit down and look at how you’re doing. It’s the same with expenses; look at where your spending is going. Is there anything too high or too low? Hey, let’s take a trip. It’s just beneficial to check in every month about how you’re doing and not get to the end of the year and realize, wow, I made a lot, but I spent too much, or if I just pushed a little bit harder or ran a different cell or came up with mini sessions or something I could have hit my goal. So again, awareness is the key to change. Sit down every single month and review your progress towards your goal. Are you tracking toward the numbers you created at the beginning of the year when I created this money plan? And so I teach all my students, do I create it once for the year and I don’t change it? Will the year look exactly as planned? No, not. But it’s this cool picture. Okay, what did I want to achieve? And did that change throughout the year? Sometimes, I’ve set a lofty sales goal and was like, You know what? I have my daughter, and I want to take more time off, or you know, so I think success is often tied to revenue in business. How much did you make personally, orhow much did the business make this year? I sat down a week and thought, and I’ve said for years, that revenue should not be your determinant of success. If revenues go up yearly, it should not be your determinative success. Because sometimes, like you, Dolly, you take a significant time off, and maybe your revenue won’t go up this year. Maybe your revenue won’t go up this year. But how much you are making per hour is what I look at when I see how much they pay me. How many hours did I work? I’m working part-time right now, so if I’m making more per hour, I think that’s cool. I’m like, Wow, good job. You know, I worked half the time and made the same amount of money, and that’s a pretty success story. So that was just a side note for anybody who cares. Okay, so review your progress toward your goal. Step number 10, last but not least, is to scan files and shred any paperwork, just like money day over, pat yourself on the back. So, let’s clean it up and move on. So firs,t scan the file. Technically, with the IRS here in the United States, we need copies of receipts. So, many apps do this now, but if you have any physical receipts, you can scan them in aintoystem and keep them all in a folder on your hard drive. You can attach it to QuickBooks as a file; I don’t do that. It’s an extra step. I don’t always do that if I receive an invoice or a bill from somebody I usually do. But that’s an extra step you can take. I’m sure Wave does the same thing. But you can keep all this in a file. So if you scan them all at once, and I have a quick scanner I got off Amazon, it just scans them all. And then you file them, it’s beneficial, and then shred. So I know people are always scared to shred any financial documents or personal information; go ahead, file them, or shred them if you don’t need to keep them. So it just feels good to clean slate and start the next month, and those are my ten steps to complete and effective monthly money dates.

Dolly Delong
Wow. These are amazing. This was a masterclass. Seriously, thank you for pouring so much wisdom into this episode. I firmly believe these are highly actionable and doable for anyone listening, and I think I will make my money date plans for myself. I will be honest with everyone listening: I have gone a little behind on my finances, like the steps for myself just, with maternity leave. So, I am a few months behind. So, I need to restart it as soon as I regain my brain.

Shanna Skidmore
I’m sure so many people listening are listening. Hey, I’ve been there too. But it’s hard in December. What was that for in January? So, as soon as you’re able, and that’s why in our community, we do this monthly together because we need that accountability. So, find someone you can stay accountable to. Because inevitably, and I know Dolly, you know this with any systems or workflow, it’s easy to put off these somewhat tedious tasks.

Dolly Delong
Oh, I am going to let you do a little plug. Now that you have shared these ten steps with us, can you unashamedly do a big plug for the blueprint model? I want you to talk about it because it’s changed so many creative business owners’ lives, and I want people to be pointed in that direction. Do you mind talking a little bit about your online membership as well? That’s been very beneficial for me as well.

Shanna Skidmore
Okay, I’m excited. So, the blueprint model is my signature program. It is a business finance course for entrepreneurs. It is a foundational, essential program that teaches what I believe every business owner needs to know to understand the finances of their business. My goal isn’t to make anyone a CPA or a CFO; I aim to teach you what numbers to look at in your business so you can make strategic decisions moving forward. I don’t think there is any education that is solely back to the basics; there’s a ton of great content on scaling, no matter what business you have. That’s the biggest question I get. Well, this works from a business, no matter your business or where you live. You have to know how to price for profit as an entrepreneur, you’re not getting unless you bought a franchise, you’re not getting a set standard of here’s your offer. Here’s the price. So that’s what we do very early on, what are your offers? What is your price? And any business owner, we’ve had people 15 years in business go through this because of these foundational pieces. Often, you’re running, getting out there, throwing spaghetti on the wall, and doing everything. So, you have to go back to the basics and understand the fundamentals of your business. So, the blueprint model is a fully written program. It’s self-paced, you can do it in your own time, and understand the Business Essentials to grow a business not only for profit but aligns with your life value. A big part of the blueprint model is identifying what type of business you want. I always joke I can teach anybody to make a million dollars, and I truly believe that, but what is more important is that you’re happy when you get there. So we talk a lot about what sees and apply for you in what are your big goals financially, you might not want to have a six-figure, seven-figure, or eight-figure business, you get to decide your level of success. So, the blueprint model is like my business child. I love it. I’m so honored anytime someone joins the blueprint model because I want to empower every business owner to understand your business at a fundamental level. What’s great about that is then you know how to outsource, okay, I’m ready to outsource a bookkeeper, I’m ready to outsource these other things, I feel empowered to pay myself or to hire a team because you know your numbers, you know what numbers to look at what they mean, and if you’re profitable. So, that is the blueprint model. It is an amazing program. We have six core building blocks that all build upon each other. If you’re here in the South, you may think it’s like Dave Ramsey’s baby steps for personal finance. I’ve never done Dave Ramsey’s program, but most people are familiar with the 12 baby steps of personal finance. So for us, it’s the six building blocks of business, it’s the key pieces that every business needs to have to have a firm foundation. And so you’ll walk away with your one-year money plan, you’ll now have a pricing formula to understand if all of your offers are profitable. And I think Dolly, like you said, you’ll feel empowered to understand what you can and can’t do. Can I take a paycheck? Can I take maternity leave? I want to have a month-long trip to where it was, Montana. I want to take a month in my ten days. I remember when you emailed me about that. I was like, yes, it was so wonderful. How awesome that you got to do that and felt comfortable doing it. So everybody takes it. I believe in this program so much, and we want to get it into the hands of anybody who wants to start a business and has a business. Once you have these key fundamentals, you can start and run any business. That’s what I love. This isn’t a topical program. It’s not like how to have an online course, or how to be a photographer, all those are incredible programs. But what I’ve seen is most entrepreneurs have multiple types of businesses, even Dolly with you; you started with photography, now you’re doing systems education, and with dubsado, and all kinds of systems and workflows, education, like that’s most entrepreneurs, it’s not going to be one business forever. I want to teach you these skills you will use in any business. So with that, we’ve done that since 2016. I wanted to create a space for this amazing community of like-minded entrepreneurs because I think that’s the thing that’s special about the blueprint model. It’s not just how you can make more money and climb the ladder of success; it is how your business can align with the life you want. So we’ve created this community of very kindred spirits. I think it’s one of a kind of entrepreneurs seeking the same goal. So it’s like, how can we keep this together? Because money isn’t something you learn once, and you’re done. Yeah, it is the money date, you have to stay consistent with it, you’re looking at your numbers every single year, and you create a plan. So we’re beta testing right now this program called the money club and it’s been incredible, we launched it about eight months ago, and we’re still beta testing it with our students only. But it’s a community, really a mastermind designed to keep us on track number one with our money accountable. Number two is to stay on track with your money, have a financial advisor on call, and have this amazing group of entrepreneurs bounce feedback on because we now have hundreds of students. I don’t know everything; I know enough about many things to be dangerous. But there are other photographers in there. There are other digital entrepreneurs in there, so it’s just become this wonderful place where we can talk about money openly and freely, ask questions, and grow our businesses together. So that’s being beta-tested right now, but if you join the movement model, you get to be a part of the money club. Test it for a set time and see if you want to join it. So it’s kind of like a backdoor entrance into the money club. So, my goal truly is to help more people understand their money at a deep level. Whether personal finance or business finance, that truly gives our family so much freedom and knowing what we need to make, and it’s allowed us to take road trips or work part-time right now with my daughter. If I can help more people do that, that’s my goal.

Dolly Delong
Well, thank you so much, again, for sharing so much of your wisdom, like more about the money club and more about the blueprint model. For those who are listening, I want you all to know that I’ve inserted all of these links in the show notes, so if you’re going to get on the blueprint model waitlist, get on it because I know it’s opening up soon when this podcast episode releases, and check out Shanna’s website as well, then Shanna has a fantastic freebie. Do you want to talk about your profitability playbook with the audience?

Shanna Skidmore
Okay, yeah. Yeah. So it’s a 35-page ebook. I’ve been told that it’s better than a paid offer. So get it. It’s called the Profitability Playbook. It’s an elegant resource. I worked hard on it to help you identify where you are in your business and what your next steps should be. So, what kind of thing should I start with if you’re starting? Let’s license the business. Let’s get a business bank account in just ten simple steps. Even if you’re five years in business, it’s helpful to say, Oh, wait, I didn’t do those original steps. So, is this playbook that walks you through what you should do to set your business up for financial success at that fundamental level? It’s called the Profitability Playbook, and it’s 35 pages. It’s free, and I hope it’s beneficial.

Dolly Delong
Everyone knows this is in the show notes, so go check it out. And then finally, Shanna has a fantastic podcast called Consider the Wildflowers, so if you are, well, obviously, you’re listening to this podcast, so you are a podcast listener, I would say subscribe to that podcast as well and listen in on conversations that Shanna has with other very successful business owners who like are peeling back the curtain and showing you behind the scenes that nobody talks about in business. It’s pretty unique and eye-opening for me. Anyways, yeah, check out Consider the Wildflowers and subscribe to it. After this episode ends, please go and find it. And again, it’s show notes. We’ve hit the hour mark, and this has been a terrific masterclass. Again, I want to say thank you so much for coming on. I know you have a lot you’re working on this week. So thank you so much for coming.

Shanna Skidmore
I’ve loved spending time with you. This truly has brightened my day and has just been so good. I’m grateful for you and honored ticket to call your friend and a student. It is such a privilege to do what I do I get teary-eyed about it—just knowing with you and babies at home. That truly is why I do what I do. So thank you for asking me to come on. It’s been such an honor.