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So today I'm really excited because we're gonna talk about demystifying money.

'cause I know a lot of entrepreneurs out there have struggle, trouble,

or have struggles with, um, money.

And so we're gonna talk about that today.

Um, I'm excited to introduce our guest is Misty Lynch.

She's a CFP.

Her company is Soundview Financial Advisors.

So welcome Missy.

We're thrilled to have you on the podcast.

Well, thank you for inviting me on the show.

I'm looking forward to chatting with you.

Yeah, I don't miss, I'm not quite sure how you and I met, but I was actually

a guest on your podcast, and so I'm not really sure where we originally connected,

but I'm excited to have this conversation with you today because as a business coach

and a mortgage person who saw a lot of people's tax returns and knew a lot about

business finances, I think people, people are so afraid of their money, right?

They start a business and you know.

Figuring out what to charge people and setting their prices and all of

those things around money can be scary.

So I'm excited to just have some great conversation around money and some

tips that people can do to further their business and have more security

financially in their business.

Yeah, definitely.

I think a lot of us before we're entrepreneurs, we probably worked

somewhere where they tell us what they're, you're going to get paid and what the

job is, and so it's really clear what we need to do and what the deal is.

But then when you go to being an entrepreneur, you're in

charge of, like you said.

Pricing, cash flow taxes, all these other things that might not have been something

that you were introduced to before that.

So it can be a real, you know, trial by fire sometimes for new entrepreneurs

to figure out that end of it as well as the making money part, which is usually

what they go into business to do.

You know, what's the first thing you tell people about cash flow?

Cash flow is interesting 'cause I think a lot of times people kind of

think budgeting or anything like that is a kind of a, a, a trigger war.

And I, I think it's just important you have to monitor.

Your cash flow regularly in business, there's going to be money

coming in and money going out.

It costs money to run a business.

In most cases.

Even if you have low overhead and you're doing consulting calls on

a computer, there's always still things that you need to consider.

And so I think using, you know, there's lots of tools out there.

There's QuickBooks or Zero, there's things you could use to start to help

you keep track of the in and out.

And this is really important, especially, you know, a lot of times we like to

bury our head in the sand if we don't feel like we're where we should be, or

maybe we don't wanna see that, you know?

Yeah.

Oh, there was a lot of money going out at first.

As I got this business up and running when in fact that's actually pretty

normal, you might need lending some people, you know, there's, there's lots

of different ways to start a business and so I think just being aware of

where you want to get to is really gonna come down to being very aware of what.

You're spending what you need to bring on in order to be successful.

And then just having that clear picture so you can see if cash, like if the

business is an expensive hobby or if it's really a business where you're making

money and can start to pay yourself.

For sure.

And it's funny because I always think about accounting.

I. Is tracking what you've already done, right.

That money spent, you can't make any decisions.

But when you think about budgeting, and I, I do think people think it's a

dirty word, but planning for how you're gonna spend the money in the future.

Yeah.

Like are you gonna leave some money in the business account because you

want to buy a piece of equipment or maybe a vehicle that belongs to the

company or whatever it looks like.

Are you gonna leave money in the account for that for the future?

Or are you gonna take all the money as income?

And I don't think enough business owners really sit down and think about

how they want to spend their money.

And I feel like it's so powerful when you do.

But I think most people.

If they're lucky if they just get their bookkeeping done and forget

about like planning for the future.

So you actually talk to people a lot about that, don't you?

I do, and I think that having a cash reserve is really helpful.

You know, sometimes there's going to be slow periods in business, and I

think this is very, this is something I experienced when I was a child because

my father owned his own business, and we would have feast or famine.

Money would come in and we would be good.

And then we would go very long periods without him getting a job or getting paid.

And um, and he was a smart man.

He was talented.

It just was the, it was just the way business was.

It was very cyclical for him.

And so it was interesting because I always thought that way, that

like, I don't wanna live like this.

It's too stressful.

At first I thought I was just gonna get a normal job and never ever go

near the world of entrepreneurship.

And that changed.

But I do think that having that.

That budget where you maybe can know what it costs to, to run your

business on the leanest month.

And then if you make more than that, having some set aside

and reserves for those periods.

So it's not so painful.

It's not so scary because a lot of times people, a lot of businesses

fail because they run out of money.

And so if you can kind of plan for, maybe the summers are slow

for you, maybe the winters are.

All the businesses can be different, but usually you

could pick up on some patterns.

If you can plan for those with some cash reserves.

I think it makes a lot of, it just makes it feel a little bit less, um, less

stressful, and that I think will be better again for your customers and your clients

because when you're stressed out trying to make a sale because you don't know

if you could pay the bills next month.

That comes through, it's almost impossible to ignore it.

So if you can kind of keep things calm and kind of know what's ahead,

so it's not so scary when the phone stops ringing or anything like that

because you know you'll be able to pick it up and fall or whenever.

That just kind of it, it's just a more peaceful way to run your

business then just scrambling at the end of each quarter.

So it's just interesting to have that conversation about

planning even your goals around.

The flows of your business, the cycles of when you're really

busy and when you're not.

Yeah, I think that's such a great point.

And I think because if we plan for that and we know, then we might be

able to look at the money we have in our business and say, okay, for those

two months, that's when I'm going to be maybe reviewing certain things,

seeing if I still need these tools.

Maybe I'll be getting more certifications or education and

something that I wanna learn.

You kind of, if you have a plan ahead of how you're gonna use your time

and your resources, then I think it doesn't feel like panic because

that's just how our brains are wired.

Why is the money not coming in?

What am I doing wrong?

And your brain will tell you a million things that you're doing

wrong and why you're terrible and no one wants to work with you.

But even though six months ago you knew.

That this was coming.

So I think being able to plan ahead and say, I knew this was coming.

I had a 10 month goal.

I'm going to use this time to really, you know, clean house and figure out,

maybe do some process or, you know, operations and see what's, what's

doing well, what I can improve.

I think our brain just kind of likes to know what our, what our plan

is and that'll keep us on track.

Yeah.

I love how you talked about looking at taking the time when you have the time

to look at what you're spending your money on, because I know even for us.

You know, we took some time and said, okay, what have we subscribed to?

You know, and it's usually for us, it's usually, oh, we tried a software, we got

a free trial, and then it just kept going.

Or, you know, something that you just didn't think of that you

did signed up for six months ago.

So I think that's a great point.

Yeah.

And I love canceling things.

I really do.

Because you're right, we sign up for a lot of things and there's.

My space of finance.

There's some really cool tools out there.

There's some really interesting technology.

There's all these systems and tracking, but then there's some

that I'm just like, oh, I don't, I don't use that that much anymore.

But then sometimes everything is, most businesses, and maybe your own is

set up, so it's very easy to pay you.

So maybe you're on auto-enroll or you're on there.

It's just gonna continue going until, until you.

Day, otherwise, and I don't think people understand that.

Like canceling things feels almost as good as spending money sometimes

because you're like, I did something that is helpful now I can direct

this somewhere else or into my own pocket if I wanna increase my income.

And so I think it's really good because when we're busy it's

really, that's not the priority.

But when you do have those times or you block off time to do that,

even if it's once a month or once a quarter, you might be able to find some

money, put it back where it belongs.

I love that.

I think people think it's always like big moves.

But if you're constantly controlling the small expenses, 'cause I feel

like the money kind of leaks out.

Like drip by drip.

It's not usually like just overflowing and rushing out

quickly and so you don't notice it.

Right.

So the next thing you'd like to talk to people about is planning

for taxes and having a tax strategy.

Yeah.

I think taxes, and this is something that all business owners are going to

learn, I. It's, it's unless, yeah, it's either health insurance or taxes or one

of the above that you're gonna have to be like, wow, I gotta figure this out.

So yeah, taxes are usually one of the biggest expenses

for small business owners.

There's not, you know, they all, the tax planning is really done internally.

The IRS isn't gonna come help you out and be like, Hey, you might benefit from

doing these few things in your business.

They don't care.

So I think it's really important.

One of the things about knowing your.

Your books.

One of the first investments I made was in a bookkeeper.

That's not where I wanted to spend my time so much.

But being able to do that to, you know, start playing quarterly, you know,

paying your quarterly taxes, doing these things so you're not just hit

hard at tax time is very important.

And, and so I think those are things that business owners can also do,

but a lot of times they're just not sure how or where to start.

So I think if you have a good CPA, a good accountant in that relationship,

I think that can be very, very helpful.

And a lot of accounts are busy.

I will say that there's a lot of accountants that are, it's a

field that's kind of shrinking.

So I think if you have a relationship or through your network, if you can

meet with somebody who has some time to actually talk strategy with you,

that is such a big investment to make.

There's a lot of different things to consider.

So finding a pro is helpful.

I like this best.

You consult with somebody who knows if it's legal or not.

But I love how you outsourced your, your bookkeeping first.

'cause that's exactly what I did.

And it took, it took so much anxiety and pressure off my shoulders

to just say, here's my receipts.

You know, take care of it.

'cause the guilt of just watching them pile up was awful.

And it actually, I wanna say it impeded on like some of my creativity and some of my,

you know, thinking about how we were gonna move forward with marketing and things

because it was like that pressure that.

Guilt for not wanting to do that.

Yeah.

All of those tasks, they come with a mental load.

And so I think there's certain things that I might really enjoy doing and know

that I'm never gonna outsource at any point in my business because that's,

this is just where I, where I like to be.

And then there's other things that are kind of on your list.

And even if you don't have any money to outsource yet, you can

always start that list and say.

Once I get to this point, this is what I wanna unload.

Maybe it's something in operations, maybe it's bookkeeping, anything.

And then just a virtual assistant, whatever it is that you might need that

might free up some of your time for that creativity or that space to spend more

time working on things that you enjoy.

You can always have that as a goal, and that's where I think the budgeting helps,

because you might say, yeah, I'm at that point where I can, I can hire somebody or

I can outsource something to a contractor.

And like you said, it just kind of takes that stress.

That's not my thing anymore.

So you can move forward, which is, it's a really good feeling,

but it might not be day one.

So here's how controlling we are, or I am.

So we actually have a bookkeeper 'cause you know, we outsource to the Philippines

and we help people, you know, hire marketing virtual assistants overseas.

So we have a bookkeeper in the Philippines who's on our team and

takes care of our bookkeeping and we meet with her once a month to go over,

you know, the reconcile statements go over where everything's spent.

But then I still use, you need a budget.com, which is a budgeting

software, which Jean and I both use for our personal finances.

And I still have a business budget set up.

So even though everything's going into QuickBooks, I still like

having the budgeting software because it allows me to plan.

I just, for whatever reason, QuickBooks just overwhelms my brain.

And the simple budgeting software just makes it very clear for me

to think, okay, well these are the expenses we have coming up.

You know, we have a lot of things we pay annually.

It just helps me to manage cash flow.

And also just to feel like we can make decisions.

You know, if, if something, a great opportunity comes along, we can actually

meet with each other, look at the budget, look at the plan and say, yes,

it's a good time for us to do this.

Or, although we'd love to take advantage of this great opportunity,

cash flow wise, it doesn't make sense.

I just feel so empowered to, to have that information.

And I will tell most business owners, I mean, 'cause more of

them are a little more like Jeanie.

I like doing the numbers.

She doesn't really like doing the numbers, but.

If you can find something simple like you need a budget.com, try something

like that to help you just set up a personal budget and a business budget.

And I think a lot of people think it is restrictive.

I find it to be like total freedom because it's information.

That's all it is.

It's information that allows us to decide how we are going to spend our money.

And a lot of times people spend their money and then they regret things that

they purchased because it wasn't the right time to buy that, or it wasn't

the best investment for them to make personally or in their business.

So for any of you out there, please embrace budgeting.

That would be my number one request to please look into that.

And I, I, I know that you can help them with that as well, right?

Yeah.

I think one thing that I see, which is the, which is even different than

people who spend more at the wrong time.

A lot of people don't know the numbers, and so they feel

like, no, I can't do that.

No, I can't invest in that.

No, I can't afford that.

Personally, business wise, across the board, and a lot of times they could.

It's just really, your brain is gonna be scanning for danger and problems.

And so if you don't have that in front of you, you might miss out

on real estate opportunities, business opportunities, vacations.

I see people who then get to the point where they're.

Retired or working with me, and they could have spent a lot more, and

now I'll show them how much they could spend from now to like age 95.

And it's, it's kind of unfortunate they might have been able to, to

spend a little bit more, live, a little bit more comfortably,

um, but they really didn't know.

And we're going to default to, it's probably a bad idea.

And you don't wanna live your life with regret.

Get to the point where you.

Could have like taken the family vacations or done the things like that.

That's awesome.

Your next principle is investing in your business and yourself.

Mm-hmm.

How do you help people with that?

Yeah, so I think that I'm somebody who's always liked learning.

I've always liked school and I think that, you know, I saw kind of, even with

my father's business, he knew what he could do, but then when there would be

really slow times, he'd almost have to figure out, okay, what is the market now?

What do people need right now?

And so there'd be times where he'd be sitting out on the porch like reading.

He was reading books and, you know, studying certain things at the time.

And so everyone's like, why don't you just get a job?

Why don't you just go do that?

But I'm like, no, this, this is what business owners have to do.

They have to figure out, okay, things have changed.

And the ones that don't keep up with things like technology or things like,

you know, the current trends or needs, they're not gonna do well because they're

gonna, they're gonna eventually either be.

Under price or they're not gonna, you know, have the, you know,

what people are, are looking for.

So I think that if you can always kind of be a leader in your business,

kind of be out in the forefront thinking, okay, what's coming next?

What is, you know, what are people looking for?

Whether you own a store or whether you're an engineer, whatever, like what's coming

at us and trying to really spend some time investing in, in your own brain.

That's what got you to where you are today anyway.

So I think that could be really, really useful.

Or it might be, look, this is where I've decided I am not interested in

this anymore and maybe, you know, maybe I need an exit strategy.

And so that's fine too.

It's just really understanding, kind of 'cause, you know, business changes, it

has its own, it has its own lifespan, you know, it's constantly evolving

and I think people need to as well, training, going to some conferences,

learning what people are talking about now, because we're all kind of isolated.

We in our own little worlds after a while.

So I think that can be something that is a valuable thing to spend your dollars

on, whether it's your company or whether it's a therapist or whatever you need

to invest in for your brain to kind of help you feel like you're there.

So true.

I think most entrepreneurs love learning, right?

And know, we, we kind of, we had to sometimes say, okay, we've gotta stop

learning and actually do more work.

'cause it's, you know, we love taking on new things and learning new things, and.

So it, I think it's a good balance.

Yeah, I think so too.

I think there's a lot of times where people, you know, maybe will I have

to learn more before I can go out there and sell, or I have to be better

at this or get this designation.

And I think sometimes that's us just trying to avoid having

to put ourselves out there.

Maybe here, no, uh, we, we will do that to protect ourselves, but I do think like.

In business.

It is, it is good to kind of, you know, stay engaged with it, stay,

you know, stay up to date and yeah, take care of yourself as well.

Love that.

I love this.

This has been fantastic, Misty.

So before we wrap up, I was gonna just ask you like, if somebody hadn't yet

tackled their money, what would you say?

The first thing they should do right now is.

I think the first thing that they should do is awareness, I think is important, and

also just lose the shame and the judgment.

It is not helpful to say, oh my God, I can't believe I spent this on coffee or

this, and I noticed during Covid that that changed because I used to talk

to people who'd be like, oh my God, I spent so much money at restaurants.

Oh my God, I spent so much money on travel.

I shouldn't have done that.

And it's like.

Then when they couldn't, they're like, well, I'm sure glad I did

that and I'm glad I did that.

But I think awareness is important.

There are gonna be some things maybe that you're spending money on in your

business or personally where you might say like, I don't, that doesn't feel great.

I don't use that.

That's not important to me.

So that could be a helpful way.

And then, yeah, starting to cancel those subscriptions.

Maybe you find things and that just gives your brain proof

that you are good with money.

That you're making smart decisions that you've gone ahead and like, okay, you've

got everything out on a spreadsheet.

So even if you are not where you wanna be, you know exactly

what this interest rate is here.

You know what?

This is here.

And that organization can just kind of calm the chaos

that's going on in your head.

And then you can start thinking about, okay, now what do I wanna do?

Next and just, you know, give yourself, we all have made financial

mistakes, every single one of us.

And so I think it's just important to kind of let that part go and say, yeah,

I might've made mistakes, but now.

What do I wanna do next with it?

And yeah, organization using a tool, using apps, like you mentioned,

you need a budget is fantastic.

There's plenty of others.

Some people do great with a pen and paper.

Some people like a spreadsheet, doesn't matter.

Just get it outta your brain out in front of you so then you can start

really kind of being in control.

Of what you do next.

Great advice.

Perfect.

So, um, Misty, if people wanna get ahold of you, 'cause they're

like, oh my gosh, she's speaking my language, but I know she can help me.

Tell us the best way for them to reach out to you.

Sure.

So my website in misty lynch.com has a lot of resources that could

link you to my business Sound View Financial, if you're looking for

an investment advisor or financial planner to work with you individually.

Or if you'd like to, you know, get a copy of my book, demystifying

Money or listen to episodes of my.

Podcasts, ones that you've guested on as well.

You can find that all@mistylynch.com and I'm on social media at Misty Lynch.

Cfp, pretty easy to find.

Awesome.

We'll put all that in the show notes.

Thank you so much for being here with us today.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to the six Figure Business Mastery Podcast.

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