Money Mindset Manipulation

Normally, I would be using three M’s to talk about Money, Mindset and Marketing. But this time, I want to explain Money Mindset Manipulation.

Picture this:

To the outside world, she looked like she had it all together. She had a successful business, a nice car and home, employees and a well known reputable business.

Every morning she would get dressed and put on her game face but deep down inside, she was crumbling. Her bank account was in overdraft, she was behind on her rent, and her credit cards were maxed out.

There were days when she feared she would lose it all. Internally, she felt like a complete failure. How could she be running a business that did so well and yet be so far in debt that she could not see a way out?

How could she be a “Business Person” and have no clue as to what was going on with her business financially?

She didn’t know how to explain to her husband that it felt like her house of cards was about to come crashing down.

How could she tell her accountant that the numbers being presented to her on paper made no sense what so ever to her?

This is the story of many people who run businesses today. This is not the story of any one particular client, but it is the story that many have shared with me privately.

The deep dark shame they feel about not understanding the financial side of their business.

The punishment they inflict on themselves when they compare how others are doing.

The exhaustion they feel when working all the time (without pay) isn’t enough to change things.

Businesses don’t fail because people don’t work hard. They fail because we don’t understand the financial mechanics of how to run a business.

Today’s society is the most over worked, over medicated, distracted and in debt culture, we have ever seen.

When you are stressed, you work harder. When you have down time, you want to numb how you feel about your business. When you think about quitting and getting a job, you feel that dark cloak of shame starts to creep in and all you can think of is what will people think about your failure?

It’s an awful situation to be in.

When I first opened my store, I was always $30,000 into my credit line. I couldn’t understand how my sales could be so good and yet, I didn’t have enough money to get out of the hole let alone pay myself.

I remember the day I received an invoice for $100,000 in inventory. I didn’t have $100,000 nor did I have $100,000 in inventory.

Something had to change or I was going to lose it all. Lying in bed that night, trying to figure out how I was going to tell my husband changed me. I knew if my business’s financial health was going to change, I was going to have to do something different.

Here’s what I did:

1. I picked up the phone and negotiated a payment plan that could work for me, and I returned inventory that I didn’t need to help pay down my invoice.
2. I asked for help and learned everything I could about cash flow so that I could start to understand better the flow of money in my business.
3. I diligently tracked all the numbers in my business on a daily and weekly basis so I knew what was going on.
4. I created a budget for inventory spending, payroll, and other expenses and I stuck to it.
5. I stopped listening to people who were telling me I needed to spend money on useless ads and marketing that wasn’t working in my business.
6. I started tracking exactly what was helping me increase sales so I could do more of that.
7. I became obsessed with building wealth, instead of spending every penny in my bank account.

And things started to change. My curiosity around numbers and money allowed me to take a bad situation and turn it into something positive. It’s helped me help countless other business owners over the last decade.

You are not a bad person or a bad business operator. You don’t understand numbers and you’re probably holding on to some beliefs that you don’t get numbers and it’s “hard” to make money.

Isn’t it time to let go of that and take back control?

I may be great at marketing, but my PASSION is helping people create financially successful businesses they can be proud of.

3 things I want you to do right now:

1. Go on a two-week spending freeze. Don’t spend any money on any more stuff you don’t need in your business. Watch and see what happens.
2. Start tracking your sales every single day. Go back to January 1^st and pay attention to the trends in your business.
3. Figure out exactly how much it costs you to run your business each month. You need to know this in order to determine how much you need to sell to pay your bills and pay yourself.

I would like to know how numbers make you feel. Do you feel excited? Scared? Curious?  Leave a comment below and tell me about it.