Making Profits and Consistent Cash Flow

Ali Taylor 0:04
Hello, hello, welcome to another edition of Wednesday wisdom. My name is Ali J. Taylor, I am the CEO of wisdom and Wayfinder. Unless you have discovered the secret to ever lasting life, you do not have enough time to figure out everything there is about running, growing and scaling a business on your own. And so every week I invite an expert to share their wisdom on what it takes to do that, so that you can borrow from their knowledge their experience to supercharge your own, and today I have with me LeaAnn fuller. LeaAnn is a prominent figure known for her work as an award winning entrepreneur, vote virtual bookkeeper, profit strategist, women's empowerment coach, author and motivational speaker. She is the founder and CEO of Fuller, fuller life LLC, where she works with women in business, to help them understand their numbers and achieve success. She is dedicated to empowering women to reach their goals and actively build towards a successful future through her coaching and motivational speaking engagements. LeaAnn, thank you for being here today.

LeaAnn Fuller 1:09
Hi, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Ali Taylor 1:13
Yeah, great, great. It coincidentally it is women's history month, month. So it kind of just lined up that way that being that is a big target and focus for you that you are a guest here today. So I'm glad to be able to have those things kind of aligned that way. Yeah.

LeaAnn Fuller 1:28
Yeah, I'm excited. It's, it's always a big month. So it was a really cool month to see some of the cars a lot of times like the history of some of the stuff I was reading, I saw a post the other day of living life without some of the women's inventions. And when was the toilet paper holder? It was just hilarious to see some of this stuff. Yeah, I wouldn't want to live without it.

Ali Taylor 1:57
Yeah, definitely. Well, I mean, there's so I believe. Don't, don't beat me up in the comments if I get this wrong. But Hedy Lamarr that invented the technology for Wi Fi. So we will do this.

LeaAnn Fuller 2:13
Yes, yes. I think you're right. I can't remember the name. But that was on the list. First, but like I said, for some reason, the toilet paper holders.

Ali Taylor 2:26
Let's say that is that is incredibly important. I mean, that it like does it go over? Does it go under? Never society is like on the verge of a collapse. The first thing to look forward to is Is there enough toilet paper?

LeaAnn Fuller 2:42
Yeah, right. We're in the middle of pandemic and, you know, paper is the thing to worry

Ali Taylor 2:48
about. It truly is.

LeaAnn Fuller 2:50
It was it was so. But yeah, it's it's always really cool to see all this stuff come to light. And you know, it's it. Something to be proud of. Right.

Ali Taylor 3:00
Yeah, yeah. So tell me a little bit about your background, your history, like what got you into your work as a profit strategist and working with with businesses to help them do that, to be able to do that, you know, making profits and improving their cash flow. What inspired you to work on that?

LeaAnn Fuller 3:19
So my background is in accounting, I remember I was trying to keep a long story short, 16, and pregnant and high school. And I was going to school for cosmetology and I took an accounting class. And I'm like, and I loved it. Never. I'm not, I was never a huge math person. I was okay. But I just loved the accounting, right. And so my senior year, I it didn't fit in my schedule. So I did it independently, but it just stuck with me. I just loved the accounting. I love the numbers. So that's been my background went to school for it. And I've been doing it for not to hate to age myself, but going on 25 years. Oh, my God, more than 25. Um, I actually left my

Ali Taylor 4:10
you don't want to do

LeaAnn Fuller 4:12
don't pay attention to those numbers. We don't care about those numbers, right. So when I left my corporate job, I left I was a accounting office manager. And I left to do coaching and I always said, If I ever saw another person's numbers again, it would be too soon, right? I didn't want I was done burnout washed out, whatever you want to call it. I was done. So I left there. Went into coach I started working with women in their business, their lives, that kind of thing. But what I found out is nobody knew their numbers. Yeah, people that were in business, they're making some money, but they couldn't tell you how much money they're making. They couldn't tell you where the money was coming from where it was going. And it just clicked with me that that is such an important piece. People are missing. So I decided to kind of go back to my roots and get back into the numbers. You know, did a lot of a lot of soul searching in that timeframe, and just decided that there's such a need for that there's a gap because people, there's a lot of accidental successes out there. Yeah. You know, we don't go into business. Nobody goes into business because they like numbers. And I can honestly say that because I didn't go into business because I like numbers. And I love it. I love numbers. I love that part of it, right? Nobody else does. I did. And so you get into business, because you like what you do you love what you do, you're good at it, you have a passion, you can help people, right? But then you start growing your business and you don't think about things like taxes and expenses, and profits and losses and balance sheets and all that you don't think about that kind of stuff. So I noticed so many people were getting caught up there. They didn't know what was going on. They didn't know what they were doing. They didn't know what to do with the money when they got it. I taught so many people you make them. And honestly, the more money you make, sometimes the worse it is. I've seen a lot of people make a lot of money. But the more money you make, you know, think about it like, Oh, I'll do this. Here we go. I'll do this, you know? And then eventually it's like, Wait, where did all go?

Ali Taylor 6:36
Yeah, they're just focusing on on fill in a bucket that they don't even take the time to look and see if there are holes at the bottom. Yeah,

LeaAnn Fuller 6:43
yeah. And that's what I found. So now I'm actually in a really unique position that I have my coaching background along with the accounting background. So it really gives me a unique twist to help people in growing their business. So it's actually worked out really well. And here I am.

Ali Taylor 7:05
Yeah, well, well, I'm glad that you're here. And I'm glad that you know, you've been working with different businesses to help them get a sense of what their numbers are. Because, like what I do with with the clients that I work with, where we do a comprehensive business assessment to figure out like, where are you now? And then where are you trying to go? And what's the gap between, you know, that you need to get there? It's like, if you were to set out on a road trip, and you don't take the time to figure out well, how much gas do you need? How many miles are you gonna go? You know, where can you fill up? A lot of people are running your businesses the same way because they're not figuring out what to do with their money and how to plan for it. And that you said that dirty word taxes. I always when you were saying that I was thinking about that meme of the the kid who's like crying in a game of Monopoly. And he's actually just just just destroyed his soul. It's just gone. And he's just walking about the tax. And it's like, yeah, kid, that's the reality of life.

LeaAnn Fuller 8:09
What's that saying? The only two things you can count on are death and taxes. Yeah.

Ali Taylor 8:16
You know, you can count on them twice.

LeaAnn Fuller 8:21
But that's a thing, and nobody wants to pay taxes. And I get that nobody, you don't want to pay you want to pay as little taxes as possible. But here's the thing. Taxes, everything taxes are a bad thing. But if you're paying taxes, it means you're making money. If yes, it's inevitable. Unless you're making you're in that I don't know, millions and billions of dollars where you can work your way around and do all sorts of things to try not pay taxes. But it's almost like a health goal. It's almost checks the health of your business based on what you're paying in taxes, and I get it. Nobody wants to pay taxes. I think the struggle, it's not the pain of the taxes. That's the problem. It's the planning. Yeah. And being prepared to pay the taxes is the problem because let's face it, we're in business, really, to pay taxes, because you're making money, you're paying taxes. So it's it's not nobody likes to pay taxes. Nobody wants to pay taxes, it's a dirty word. You know, when you're in business, you just don't want to but I always It drives me crazy. Like I don't want to pay taxes. Well, unfortunately, you made money and you have to, if you want to make money you have to that's just part of life. It's just a matter of figuring out how to plan for it. And I really like how you're talking about going on that road trip. It's like you need to have that goal in sight. Number one, you're not going to go out on a blind road trips. I mean, you can, but it's going to see how far Yeah, yeah, you kind of want to know where you're going right? You don't want to start out on a road trip with no money in the bank and no idea where you're going I have thought about that, but I didn't do it because

Ali Taylor 10:03
is that

LeaAnn Fuller 10:09
but you got to have the, you got to have the end goal in mind, got to know where you're going and you got to work it backwards, you got to reverse engineer it so you can figure out, okay, plan out where you might want to stop for gas and how long it's going to take to get there. Because I don't know I've been in a situation before, and not a pleasant one where you're driving down the road in the middle of the night and your gas light comes on. It's like, Oh, crap, where's the next gas station? And you don't you? You need to plan for stuff. You need to be prepared? Yeah,

Ali Taylor 10:45
well, speaking of planning, I know a lot of people. There's the internal fear of just looking at the numbers. Right? So how does your coaching background play into getting people wanting to confront their fears of looking at the numbers, but then also just addressing sort of the mental emotional blocks that come with when you're making money and planning and what to do with it?

LeaAnn Fuller 11:08
I love that. So here's the thing, knowledge is power. So really, we need to wrap our minds around that. So mindset is a huge thing when it comes to being in business. Because not everybody's meant to be in business. But we need to figure out what I liked. One of the things I do like to talk about is why are you doing this? What is the purpose behind running your business? Because I can tell you, if you're in business, there is going to be a point where you're going to want to quit, there's going to be a time when you're gonna say what the hell am I doing this? You're not making any money? Maybe, you know, so why are you doing this? What is the real reason behind it. And that's a good place to start. Because on those days, when you're going to want to quit on those days, when you're not going to want to look at the numbers, you're not going to want to know where you stand. It's that why that's really going to push you to keep going. So there's that piece of it is understanding, why are you doing this? What is the real reason? Because obviously the first thing that comes? Well, I want to make money. Okay, why do you want to make money? What are you going to do with this money? So it's just, it's peeling back? The layers of the onion to figure that what is the true reason? Because if you just want to make money and go get a job and probably make it a whole lot easier.

Ali Taylor 12:30
Yeah. Well, I think it also says something about how much money do you want to make? Yeah, yeah. And that will tie into the why. Yeah, yeah.

LeaAnn Fuller 12:40
And then And then as far as I can't tell you I was running. One of the groups I had, she's like, I'm afraid to look, I don't want to know what my numbers are. Okay, and where are you in your business? Yeah, you're right. Knowledge is power, you cannot make informed decisions in your business without the data behind it. And you can't grow in your business. If you don't have the data. The numbers are just data, it's just another way to look at your business. We have to take the emotion out of it. Because so often we get caught up in that emotion, that fear. So we have to take it out and look at what is the solid data here? What can it tell us? And what can we do with it? So it's, it's sometimes it's a matter of just looking at it differently. And showing what can be done. When you know what the numbers are? It's kind of like working out, right? Yeah. Have you ever heard somebody say, Don't close your eyes and don't hold your breath when you're working out? Because they internalize that? It makes it more painful, right? If you don't work out, am I wrong? No, you're not wrong,

Ali Taylor 13:58
especially with what I'm doing planks. Yeah.

LeaAnn Fuller 14:03
Just internalizes the pain. Yes, the same thing when you close your eyes when you it's like you're running your business blind. And it's the same thing, you're internalizing the pain you're making more painful because you're not paying attention. So a lot of times, it's just re structuring the thought process, like let's look at this a little bit differently. And sometimes, you know, you have to, it's meeting people where they are because everybody's in a different place. So it doesn't always look the same for everybody. But those are a lot of the things that I see often. So that's typically what I try and it again, it's it's a process you have to peel back the layers, see what's really going on. Sometimes it's those things we were told when we were kids, who here has not heard money does not go on trees, definitely going up time. There's not a money tree out in the backyard, you know? So you have to sometimes identify what those blocks are like, what are the voices in your head telling you? Who are those voices in your head? And how can you reframe that? Like, how can you prove those thoughts wrong in your business? Yeah,

Ali Taylor 15:28
that's incredibly important. And it's interesting that that's become a bit of a theme. And a lot of the conversations that I've been having is a lot of those sort of learned thoughts and attitudes and mindsets that we've picked up as children are being carried into our businesses. Right. So we're starting with that, you know, whatever, whatever lessons we learned about money as a child, we're carrying that into our business and how we run that, the decisions that we make, and oftentimes, I think people are disconnected from the fact that that's actually running the show. And so they, you know, sometimes they're doing things because they're trying to prove whatever negative belief that they had, or they're trying to live up to some example or thing that was set for them as children, versus just making a decision that's based on what's best for the business and best for the clients that they're serving.

LeaAnn Fuller 16:29
Yeah. And that goes back to the emotions. You can't run a business on emotions. You just can't, it doesn't. It doesn't support you. And growing your business. I mean, you can, but it's not going to get you very far, it's not going to get you where you want to go. And the best way to get where you want to go is learning those hard numbers, learning the data, using the data, whether it's a profit and loss, whether it's looking at your marketing, whether it no matter what it is, it's want to look at that data, and use it and make informed decisions. And it's so often in our lives, it all goes back to how we were raised, it goes back to those, you know, take those voices in your head and make them love you instead that song there.

Ali Taylor 17:16
Oh, I've never heard that song. But I want to know,

LeaAnn Fuller 17:19
who is that song Who sings that? Um, I want to say it's either pink or Rihanna.

Ali Taylor 17:29
Well, if it's Rihanna, you know, she's got the whole pitch, but I have my money thing. So I think that's a fitting theme to absolutely, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, one of the other questions that I have was about how like self love plays into the act of, you know, achieving that success and, you know, incorporating that into the coaching that you do with your clients. Can you speak a little bit more about that?

LeaAnn Fuller 17:55
So, when I started in my, when I started out coaching, that was a huge thing for me, because I was a single mom of three girls broke is broken be there is no love anywhere, whatsoever. Nothing. And I realized that that was my problem is I did not have that self love. I was the type of person that it didn't matter if I didn't have my phone. I don't have my kids. It didn't matter what time of day it was, who was that? They called? Said, Hey, you want to go do something? Sure, because I was not comfortable in my own skin. I didn't like my own company. I didn't like who I was I none. Like I started coaching. When I said something to my nephew, little brat that he is my adult nephew. He's like, why would anybody hire you? And I'm like you little

Ali Taylor 19:00
Christmas like, okay,

LeaAnn Fuller 19:03
but it's because of who I was. And, but really those experiences is what has made me as good as I am is what has made me be able to help others because I've been there. I've lived through the crap. I've dug myself out of the hole. And but that's where it all begins is it's with finding that being comfortable in who you are. So you can have that confidence so that you can be confident enough to say, hey, I can do this. Yeah. Find that inner strength, that inner power in. It's not something that can happen overnight. It's something it takes work. It takes a lot of hard work to do that and it takes time. And I took that time I did that work and Because of that, it makes me better at being able to do this. You know, that was, I remember the day I used to have to check my bank account, every time I would go to the grocery store. I remember my mom tricking me. She would my mom was sick, she had cancer for many years. And she wanted me to take her shopping. I'm like, Really, you have two other daughters who live one lives with you one lives within a mile of you, and you need me to come over and take you shopping. I wasn't happy. But as it turns out, she took my youngest daughter around the grocery store to pick out food for my house, because my kids said there was no food in my house. Because really, there wasn't. Yeah, there was a lot of nights, I had no clue I was gonna feed my children for dinner.

Ali Taylor 20:48
Yeah. But

LeaAnn Fuller 20:50
because I've been there, I know what it's like, I've know the experience. And I know what's on the other side. And I know that oftentimes, it's I'll never forget this one experience I had with my boss, my boss, my mentor, I worked for him for many years. And I was late all the time. Again, raising my kids running hectically, working two jobs running a business of my own. late for work again, sitting at my desk, head down, bawling hysterically. Like I was done shot, Don, put me away. And he says to me, he's like, where do you see yourself in five years? I remember looking up at him and him being like, what is like, where do you see yourself in five years? I'm like, I don't even know what I'm gonna feed my children for dinner. Yeah. And you want me to think I don't have that luxury of looking at and seeing where I want to be in five years, I didn't have that luxury. But what he gave me and what he did for me was so powerful, because we get stuck in this ball of suffering. Yeah, whatever that looks like for us. It's different for everybody. But we get stuck there. And we don't look up. And what he did is he gave me permission to look up and see past the struggle past the suffering. What do I really want? What can I actually do? I'm gonna tell you that changed my life. That one conversation literally changed my life, because that's what he gave me permission to look up. And see if there was more to life than just that day in, day out, suffering crap where I was stuck. And that is what we need to do in our lives. We need to stop getting stuck. We have a choice. We're getting we're always getting thrown stuff at us. We're getting struggle, challenges, everything thrown at us, right. But it's our decision, whether we guess, Doc, or we use that as a stepping stone.

Ali Taylor 23:06
Yeah, that is so incredibly powerful. And I love that your boss was able to do that for you, your your mentor was able to do that for you. Because you're right, we do get stuck in survival mode. And there are so many businesses, small businesses, especially in small, you know, women owned businesses that are stuck in that survival mode. Yeah. And him giving you that permission to look beyond your current circumstances. Yeah, that is such a gift. And I think, you know, coming back to the self love aspect of that, that often gets twisted up inside of being a business owner or an entrepreneur is that, you know, we carry that deep shame of Well, I'm a business owner, I should know how to do all these things I should have figured out I should be able to figure this out and, you know, move ahead. And it's like, hey, what if you just love yourself enough to both? Get rid of the shame? Yeah, to develop a bigger why and see beyond that, but then also ask for help.

LeaAnn Fuller 24:10
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So a lot of people oftentimes when people come to me, the biggest thing I hear why people don't get help sooner is because they're embarrassed or ashamed. Again, like you said, I'm a business owner, I should know that I should be able to whatever those stories are that we're telling ourselves, we get stuck there. So we don't ask for help. And my daughter's car has she had a bunch of stuff going on with her car. You know, and I've been, I throw hints out to her. Maybe she'd get it looked at maybe she'd get it looked at while something happened last night. And it's like, how often do we just let this stuff compound in it just something small happens and you ignore it, hoping it's gonna go away? That's the problem. None of this stuff goes away. We have to reach out we have to get support. And again, that's one of the biggest things I get is I was embarrassed, still embarrassed. So it I like the fact that people are comfortable coming to me, like I'm walking through a grocery store and somebody randomly starts talking to me, my kids or my boyfriend's like Who's that? Like,

Ali Taylor 25:18
I don't know, their whole life story

LeaAnn Fuller 25:23
all the time. And he's like, I don't know. Yeah. It's it's just apparently, there's something I don't know, which is, it's a good thing. But it's, we all need that safe space. Yeah, I'll meet somebody who will support us. But we need to first be able to take that step and reach out. And I'm a firm believer, surrounding ourselves with people that are smarter than us. Yes. And use them, use their knowledge, borrow their knowledge, I think you talked about that, at some point earlier, is borrowing the knowledge of the people around us borrowing their confidence is futile, have the confidence yourself, borrow somebody else's for now. Let them help build you up. But surround yourself with people that are smarter than you that can do the stuff number one you don't know how to do you don't like to do or you just don't play want to do it. Have somebody else do it. So you can focus on what you want to do what's important to you, whether it's building your business, whether it's spending time with your family, instead of spending nights and weekends doing the grunt work, you know, where people surround yourself with people that can do the thing, those things, so you can do what you love? Yeah,

Ali Taylor 26:41
I mean, that's the that's the entire premise of why I started this livestream. The whole concept is that we do we borrow flow from the wisdom and experience with other people who've been there. And I've done that and you know, you are someone who has literally gone down into it's like that, um, Carl Jung could actually have it here. It says that a trees a tree's branches cannot reach heaven if its roots have not reached hell. Right. And so it's like, been there, that those depths and so, yeah, it when you're talking to someone who has been in those super similar circumstances, it normalizes the experience that you're going through, and it makes it easier for them to open up and share with you like what they're dealing with, but they're afraid to confront all the internal head trash that stops them from reaching out and asking for help. So that's truly, yeah, that's truly a remarkable gift that you're able to the clients that you work with.

LeaAnn Fuller 27:45
I try. We are all a work in progress.

Ali Taylor 27:52
Let's it just the fact that you're trying I mean, so many people, I think it's important to note that, definitely give yourself credit and give yourself flowers for that.

LeaAnn Fuller 28:01
Yeah, thank you, thank you. But you know, again, we're, we're all a work in progress, no matter where you are. You know, where do you see yourself? Like, what do you envision for your life? You know, if you're in that struggle, if you aren't sure? What's happening, how you're gonna get there. Figure out where you want to go. And here's, here's the thing that I people always get caught up is, how, how am I gonna get there? So they quit? Yeah, forget about that. How? Take a minute and think about where is it you want to be? What is your life look like? How does it feel? Who are you surrounding yourself? really paint the big picture? Don't worry about how the how comes?

Ali Taylor 28:49
The what? Yeah, figure out the what, and also figure out the who, like you want to be when you get there. It's a, it's a question of, who do I need to become to be the person right to have that lifestyle that I'm dreaming of? or business that I'm dreaming of?

LeaAnn Fuller 29:08
Exactly, exactly. And then when you get that picture, you can start working towards that you can it's small steps, you can't climb a mountain you look up it's like you look up at the mount and it's too big decline. So you say nevermind coordinate one step at a time, right?

Ali Taylor 29:26
Yeah. Or you're up there. You're you've been climbing a mountain you just kind of decided to on a whim like okay, I'm gonna go climb a mountain and now you're stuck. You're like, crap, how am I gonna get over to this other place? Or how am I getting to this next, you know, over this next ledge?

LeaAnn Fuller 29:42
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

Ali Taylor 29:45
So On another note, like, what do you believe? Or what's your opinion of the things that anybody who is someone I'm gonna attack it from two levels? Okay, anybody who's struggling right now in their business, when it comes to bringing in the revenue that they want in terms of growing, what's the immediate next step thing that they can do for themselves to break out of that struggling? level?

LeaAnn Fuller 30:12
So I think the big thing, I think the first thing, and here again, this is this is what we've been talking about is for starters, you have to look up. Yeah, you are stuck there, you are gonna stay stuck there, you're gonna be stuck there. Six months from now, a year from now, three years from now, if all you're doing is focusing, focusing on the small picture focusing on the where you put your focus is what you get, right? Yeah. The more you focus on it, the more it grows. So are you going to focus on that piece of struggle that you're stuck in? Are you going to focus on the big picture? So I think one of the key things is we have to see, figure out what does that really look like? What do we want? Who are we going to be? And that's what you start focusing on? And then you start taking those small steps. All it takes is one takes one step to get started. Yeah. And take it one step at a time, whatever that looks like for you set that goal. So you know, you have a big goal, right? You have that big vision, you're starting to see you're starting to picture it right. Okay. What is one thing you can do today? That one step you can do right now today to get to that level? is going to happen overnight? No, nothing happens overnight. Nobody is an overnight success.

Ali Taylor 31:37
Now, it takes 10 years to be an overnight success. Yeah.

LeaAnn Fuller 31:42
Yes, it does. So take it one step at a time. Climb the mountain one step at a time. And that's how you're going to get there. You're you no matter how much you try and cheat and take those leaps it? It's never it all starts with one step. Yeah. I don't care if it's picking up the phone and asking for help. I don't care if it is just making a decision. How many of us struggle with decisions? Sometimes that's all you need is to make a good solid decision is that this is what I'm going to do. Yeah, whatever that looks like, is take that first step. Yeah,

Ali Taylor 32:23
I think there's a point that every person needs to get to where they just decide that they don't want their current circumstances to be their future circumstances. Like, yes, I'm done with this. I'm done with how I feel in this moment. I'm done with these circumstances, the way things look, I'm going to do something different. Yeah.

LeaAnn Fuller 32:43
Yeah. That's it. Yeah, absolutely.

Ali Taylor 32:48
And then in terms of getting a clearer picture of their financial, like, what their financial world looks like, because they're going to come and work with you. Right, that's something that they're going to need to pull up or at least have access to correct? Yes,

LeaAnn Fuller 33:02
absolutely. So as far as like getting it all in one place, what are we like?

Ali Taylor 33:09
Yeah, like, what do you recommend? Like, are there different tools, software's worksheets? Like, what is it that somebody needs to do to be able to pull in all the pieces of their financial picture so that they can say, here's what I got? Yeah, yeah, that's where I want to go.

LeaAnn Fuller 33:26
Yeah, sometimes that's a struggle. But here's the key to that is having it all in one place, whether it's an Excel spreadsheet, whether it's a Google Doc, whether it's a platform like QuickBooks, you gotta have one place to have everything. Because most of us in business we have, we may have multiple streams of revenue we may have coming from different places, like, you get checks, you get paid through square, or stripe or Venmo. Right. So if you want to look something up, you have to look at all of these different places. So the first key is getting it all in one place. Whatever that looks like. So in then, I mean, that's the first step really is you got to have it all in one place. And then from there, you can start looking at the different streams of revenue, which ones are making you money, which ones are costing you money? Because who here knows what their costs are in their business? Who knows what their costs of our of their services? Yeah. So those are all things that you can start to work on. But first, you have to know where the beginning point is, you have to know where the money's coming from. You have to know where the money is going and the only way you're going to do that and do it easily. And have it readily available is have it in one place. So like I mean, I have a Google Doc that you can lay out all your income you lay out all your expenses you can pull them from your bank statement is typically the first place you gather all your bank statements, okay, you start laying it all out. That's the first place to start, no matter what that looks like, like because that could be Excel could

be Google that could be QuickBooks could be WAV, it could be. I mean, there's,

Ali Taylor 35:09
do you have a preference, like for the clients that you work with, you have a preference. So here's

LeaAnn Fuller 35:16
the thing, if you're just getting started. All right, you want to look at how much money you're making, right? Yeah, you don't want to spend money you don't have, yeah, if you're just getting started. And you're just working through getting things in line, trying to get an order, which is better to do in the beginning, to play catch up, because it never saves you money playing catch up, it only costs you more. So get started right in the beginning, right. So I highly recommend if you're just getting started, do something in Excel, it's free, or Google Docs, it's free. Now, when you start making some money, and you start getting somewhere, you have some capital, you have a profit, then invest in something like QuickBooks, I prefer QuickBooks because, you know, QuickBooks brings your bank accounts in and then you just have to match things up. And it's it's easy, it does a lot of the work for you, right? with Excel, Google, you have to enter the information. With QuickBooks, a lot of it's done for you. So you have to look at you have to want to be making money before you do that. But the other piece of this is you also want to look at your time because time is money. Yes. So if you're spending hours on doing your Excel spreadsheet, it may be time to invest in QuickBooks. Because time is money. If you're wasting time on that you're wasting money.

Ali Taylor 36:46
Yeah, it is definitely. Because I know I, well, I hated it a while back, when I was just more mainly focused on sort of the creative consulting services that I was doing at the time. Now that I've gotten over onto this business consulting side, I'm able to look at numbers a lot differently. In terms of, okay, this, these are the numbers, but there's a story that I can tell with these numbers. And it's an indication of where things are going and the progress that I'm making towards the goal and the picture that I have for myself. I think that's a, that's an important shift that people need to be able to make for themselves. But I love that you separated it out in terms of, hey, if you're not making a lot of money right now, focus on the free tools, don't get caught up in all the paid tools and apps and all those things that are available. Available. Like yes, they're great. Yes, sir. Fun. Point. But, again, taking the emotion out of it, taking all of that, what's the best decision for where you are right now?

LeaAnn Fuller 37:53
Exactly, exactly. Where are you in your business? Because we are all in different stages. So you don't want to spend the money for somebody who's making 50 to $100,000, or you want to spend the money for somebody who's just getting started? Yeah. And the more affordable something is, the easier you make it on yourself, the more likely it is that you're going to get started. Yeah, I highly recommend you start off right from the beginning. And I highly recommend you take time out of your week, take an hour a week, in for this very reason. Because that's where people really struggle, and that's where it becomes overwhelming. And that's where people say they don't like it is when they're overwhelmed, because they've let something build up just like car issues, you let it build up thinking it's gonna go away or fix itself, it's not going to. So you need to put in the work in the effort yourself. Or when you get making enough money, hire someone else to do it. Yeah.

Ali Taylor 38:58
Yeah. But you at least got to have that foundation. And and and I was just thinking about earlier, when you started to call you were talking about how you didn't like math in school. Right? And I'm just thinking about my nieces. Now. And just like a lot of the messages that women have gotten about math, like we've been taught that or, or that sort of idea that women aren't good at math, and they don't like math. And when really it's like, well, maybe you just had a shitty teacher. Or maybe it was just the wrong type of math. Maybe it was like the math that's being used just wasn't relevant, wasn't interesting, didn't allow you to tell a story that was relevant to where you wanted to go. And so I think that plays a big part into it as well. Just sort of those like messages that we just get growing up about, you know, right.

LeaAnn Fuller 39:50
Right, right. I'm not good at math. I can't do this. There's a difference. There's math, there's algebra, there's long division, that and then there's accounting. A lot of Getting a lot of it is done for you, you, you're not adding this stuff up, you're putting it in a spreadsheet and you're auto summing it, you know, you're not doing that yourself. Or you put it in QuickBooks, and it's all done for you. So I think it's yeah, it's those we make up the stories in our head that are not true. And we get stuck on those stories. So we do nothing. We get stuck on the house, so we don't do it at all. Yeah.

Ali Taylor 40:27
And then now, you know, 2030 years later, your business isn't where you want it to be because of a story that you made up or that you took on. From high school from grade school.

LeaAnn Fuller 40:40
Yep, yep. Yep. So we have to, we have to reframe those stories. Yeah. So that instead of working against us, they work for us. Yeah. Exactly.

Ali Taylor 40:52
Awesome. Well, so do you have any resources that you can share with? With the audience today? Anything? Um,

LeaAnn Fuller 41:04
I have tons of resources. Um, okay. So here's, here's where I'm gonna, here's what I'll give you guys. If I have, we are at overpass year end, but people are getting ready for their taxes, they may not know where to begin. So why don't I will it show up? If I put a link in our chat here, or

Ali Taylor 41:26
I think that'll come directly to me. But what I can do is I can take that link and share it in both the show notes and the comments. Once this goes.

LeaAnn Fuller 41:37
Yeah, let me put this bear with me one second here, I thought I had saved. Currently I did not. So and I think this is this is a good place to start. Because this is gonna tell you what you need to pull together for your taxes. But this is the stuff you're going to be looking at on a regular basis. This is what you should be looking at on a monthly basis. So that way, you don't get to the end of the year, have a box of receipts and hand it to your accountant say here you go. Yeah. And this is the perfect time of year to have this. Let's see. Okay, there's my year end checklist. Okay, awesome.

Ali Taylor 42:21
All right. So I will make sure that that gets blasted out to everyone, and everyone has access to it.

LeaAnn Fuller 42:30
And I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what I'll do is so the first five people that get the year end checklist. From your show, what I'll do is I will offer them free access to my small business vault, my small business successful. There is a Google Doc, that you can track your income, track your expenses, there is a spreadsheet for a balance sheet, there's spreadsheets for budgeting for cash flow, for 50 write offs, you can cat like, there's I'm gonna say there's about 20 to 25 resources in that successful. So the first five people from your show that go in and get the year end checklist, I will give them access to that successful.

Ali Taylor 43:19
Wow, that is incredibly generous. And anybody who's watching this you, especially the first five people, you have no, no excuse. No excuse, and you've been with us for the last you know, 45 minutes, you know that there's no shame there's no fear to be had in reaching out for help. And so, as we wrap up, LeaAnn, I just want to ask one last question, what is one piece of wisdom that you would like to share with anybody that's watching right now.

LeaAnn Fuller 43:51
So I think with everything we've talked about, my one piece of wisdom is to stop waiting, stop waiting to ask for help. Stop waiting to look at the bigger picture. Just get started. We all have to get started somewhere you got started in your business, um, for whatever reason, now make that decision, you made a decision to get started then make that decision to go to the next level, make that decision to do the things you have to do to grow your business, whatever that is for you, wherever you are right now. Just get started to work to that next step. Whatever that looks like for you. We all have to get started scores. So that is my last parting advice is just to get started. Just do it. Just do it. Just just start doing it. You know, isn't it Nike? Just

Ali Taylor 44:43
do it? Yeah, Nike.

LeaAnn Fuller 44:46
Just just start. We all have to get started. Yes. Yeah. So that's my parting wisdom. Awesome.

Ali Taylor 44:55
Well, thank you so much, LeaAnn, for being here today. Appreciate everything that you've done. shared about your experiences, the work that you're doing, how you help the clients that you work with and just giving us all permission to stop waiting to get started and to look up. And so I am looking forward to seeing everybody next week on the next edition of Wednesday, wisdom. Take care. Have fun. Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai