#259: Knowing Your Numbers with Christyne Gray, Founder of She Profits Now

If you have any questions about your numbers and margins and tracking and the things that actually make you money, get ready for this episode. Welcome to number 259 with Christine Gray of she Profits.

Now.

Let's talk about your business strategy and the juicy details of what actually works from mainstream fashion to fashion on Main street and the entire ecosystem behind it. How do we scale your company and do it with the balance and the happiness that we all seek? Week, let's hear from those insiders, experts and strategists that actually make it happen. I'm your host, Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub and I can't wait to chat.

For as long as I can remember.

Working with boutique owners, I feel like there's always two sides of the boutique owner's brain that makes you successful. There's the creative side of the brain, which loves fashion and marketing and customer service and social media. All the things that I think most people see about boutique owners on a daily basis. And then there's the other side of.

The brain, the analytical side of the brain.

And that's the side that really digs deep into the margins and the turn and the inventory levels and the analytics and all the pieces that make you a true retail scientist and not just a boutique owner. And I think a common mistake a lot of boutique owners make, and I know I've made in my, in my past too, is we feel like we are intimidated by the numbers or the tracking. We don't really know how to analyze them the way that we should. So we stick our heads in the sand and we let them roll on right? So today what I want to do, I want to dig in with a dear friend of mine, Christine Gray, the owner and founder of she Profits Now. She's a profit first certified coach, works with tons of boutique owners, has an accounting service for boutiques, does training and cookbooks courses and all kinds of profit accelerator programs for boutique owners. And I want to really have an honest conversation about the numbers because it's one thing to just track numbers, but it's a whole nother to analyze and to really see where is our opportunity to build revenue and where's our opportunity to get smart and get lean? Someone once told me a long time ago, you guys, and this was from like the school of hard knocks. I will tell you this. Back when the Boutique Hub was at profit zero, literally not paying myself or anybody else, including Beth, I would tell Beth, beth, don't cash your check this week because it's probably going to bounce. I was in this Mode of cut expenses.

Right?

I was so focused on cutting our cable bill and giving Eric haircuts and like all the things that were going to save cost, they're going to save expenses. But what I needed to focus on and what I didn't realize initially was you can't grow a business by cutting expenses. All that energy was such a waste. If I would have just put that energy into figuring out how to build more revenue, how to build lean revenue. Right? That is the key to growing a successful business. No matter what stage you're at, I'm speaking to you whether you're brand new, I'm speaking to you at 30k a month. I'm speaking to you at a hundred k a month and multimillion dollar stores. It makes no difference how much money you make. At the end of the day, someone can tell you they're a $10 million boutique owner.

I've seen that.

And when it comes down to it, they are not putting anything in the bank. So what matters is profitability. And the only path to profitability is to understand your numbers. So total soapbox moment, you guys. But you have to know from my heart how important this is, how important it is to know your numbers. And Christine makes it so easy. So I'm really excited to have her on the show. She answers tons of questions, she gives you some really smart paths forward, and then at the end, I'm going to talk to you about two ways to even take that next step deeper. So get ready, meet my friend Christine Gray and take tons of notes.

Hey, guys.

Welcome to the show this week. This is one that you're gonna need a notebook for because I'm just gonna tell you this up front. There's two types of boutique owner brains. There's the creative side of the boutique owner brain and then there's the analytical side of the boutique owner brain. And unfortunately, I think a lot of people get into this business choosing one over the other, when in reality you have to have both to be successful. So today I'm so excited to have my friend Christine Gray from she Profits now joining me. And we're going to get super nerdy talking about all the numbers. Christine, welcome to the podcast this week.

Thank you, Ashley. I'm very excited to be here.

We have been so lucky to have you as a part of our community for I don't even know how long now. It's been quite a quite a while. And as you have shown up in our community and served others, we got to know you on such a deeper level. You've come to LA with us for our LA experience. You've helped coach retail Bootcamp clients with us, and we're excited to be taking our relationship to kind of even the next level because we believe so deeply in what you provide and making you a real strategic partner and even an arm of the boutique hub as a partner trainer on our team. So are you excited to talk about all the nerdy number stuff today because you love to go deep with our members?

I am very excited. Number one, I'm very excited about our collaboration. I feel that we are serving the same purpose with the same why. And I do always love to nerd out with whomever will join me. And I have to say that I'm also the creative mind. So nerding out with creative mind entrepreneurs is just fun all around. You can't beat it.

I love it. Well, let's break it down just kind of so everyone knows specifically what your specialty is and how you help boutiques. Let's start there and then I'll back into how you got to where you are right now. But when you're working with boutiques, what do they most commonly come to you for?

Boutique owners most commonly come to me struggling with cash flow altogether. They usually come to me feeling cash broke, feeling very uninformed around their numbers, and feeling a bit naive and maybe even a little bit embarrassed about the financial state of their business. But more important, I do believe that they're coming to me because they're recognizing that they can in many ways get a safe space with an all in one profit improvement solution that they've been seeking.

So when you work with them, do you typically work with them on both accounting, bookkeeping, understanding quickbooks? Like, talk to me specifically about some of the pieces of the business you love to dig into most.

So truly we have to dig into the accounting side of the business. It's the nature of the beast. The accounting and the bookkeeping side of the business is definitely where we are drawing information in order to pivot and improve the business towards profitability and resolve their pain points. So the bookkeeping is very important. I do like to bundle our services so that we're able to give an all inclusive approach to our clients, whereas we can help them resolve any accounting issues that they're having, whether it be discrepancies, reporting or just lack thereof, so that we do have the numbers in front of us. I do like to take the accounting system that I inherit and put it into a retail boutique specific format. And that format allows me to Analyze the numbers, talk through the numbers with my client, as well as really, truly teaching the client what those numbers are telling them in terms of not only cash flow and being cash flow poor or being unable to pay yourself or incurring debt, but what they're telling us from a profit potential standpoint, where can we cut back, go lean and invest in certain areas, repurpose that money to really grow and scale the company? So bookkeeping is always really a baseline and a foundational part of our relationship with our clients. From the bookkeeping, we can start to build out clarity around the numbers, like I said, and more strategy around the numbers. And that's really, truly where I thrive. The bookkeeping for me is a tool. It's an opportunity to promote healthy business decisions, but it's the tool to really plan profitability in the company and work towards that profit improvement strategy that people coming to me are really, truly looking for.

Yeah, I love that you said let the numbers speak to you through that process. I feel like, you know, we were talking about the creative side of the brain. For me, anyway, I used to be so intimidated by numbers, and it was like numbers became a task. It was a task to track your inventory. It was a task to look at reports. It was a task, you know, to see what inventory there was on hand or what needs to be ordered, that sort of thing. But really, when you analyze the numbers and let the numbers tell a story now, it becomes a game and it becomes fun. And that's where profit comes from. So for anyone who's listening, that is maybe on the side of the being intimidated by numbers or not understanding that numbers can actually be really fun. Know that the more you know your numbers, the more it lends to your creative side of your brain. Having fun buying or ordering deeper or running promotions around, turning specific categories. There's so much opportunity when you let the numbers speak to you. Do you see that happen with your clients, Christine, where there's like an aha moment and they feel so empowered once they have that information?

Ashley. I do. And I love the fact that you just ended that question with the word empowered, because that is probably the highest or the most feedback that I get from my clients when they've gone through maybe one of my workshops or a coaching program and I give them a survey, what was the number one takeaway? And it was empowerment. And with that empowerment, of course, came the realities around the numbers, the feedback. And, you know, when you led to the. There's energy behind it. When you start to know your numbers, your energy level around how you can be creative with your numbers. Because we're creative personalities, just it rises. And another part of that is we're entrepreneurs and so we have an element of being competitive. I do believe 100% that my client base becomes extremely commit competitive with the goals that they've set for themselves. They set the goals and then they compete against themselves to achieve and overachieve the goals. It's not uncommon for me to go through my coaching program, the steps with my clients and then they come back and revisit and let me know they want to ramp up their goals because now that they're in that mindset and challenging themselves and like you said, it almost becomes a game, they're overachieving it and then they want to ramp them up again and again. So it goes down to what we hear on a day to day basis from a learning basis as an entrepreneur. Is that the numbers that we manage. I'm sorry, the numbers that we measure get managed. It's very true, but I'm going to go a little bit deeper. The numbers we measure get managed and they allow us to compete and thrive and really accelerate.

Okay, Christine, let's break it down for everyone who's listening. Let's say there's three levels of boutiques that are listening. First is someone who's brand new and they're wondering what does know my numbers mean? The second is someone who is has been in business for a while, they've got a growing business but they know there's opportunity to thrive and grow. What does know your numbers mean for them? And third is she may be a multimillion dollar boutique, might be growing significantly but knows there's still more juice to squeeze. What does know my numbers mean for for them? So can you break down those three different levels?

Yes, absolutely. And I love the fact that you've broken it down into the three phases because it does change for each business structure as you grow. For the beginning entrepreneur, I'd say the most important is to truly understand your financial statements, make sure that your accounting system is clean up to date and accurate, and also understand in those financials what your gross profit margins are. As a beginning retail boutique owner, it is common that we're selling at too low of margins and that truly does affect your profitability of your company. But also as a new beginning boutique owner, it's common that we're not paying ourselves and we want to make sure that we are ensuring and keeping our eyes on that profitability so that you can take an owner's pay. And I would even put it as far as saying that owner's pay is a non negotiable. You need to be taking it in order to continue to put the risk out there, to be this new business owner, run the business and grow it and scale it, but also not to shortchange yourself in rewarding yourself for the hard work. So definitely having clean, accurate and understanding and up to date of your financial statements as well as knowing where your profit margins are. And I'd say also where your inventory levels need to be in order to reach your sales goals. And then if we move on to the, the I'd say seasoned entrepreneur in that second phase of business, you're no longer in the infant phase, you're more so in the, you know, say that. Not the toddler phase either, more so the youthful phase. Now is the time to start to grow on your numbers. You should already have an accounting system, a bookkeeping system that you understand, clean, accurate, up to date, like we said, but you should know how to pivot and improve on those numbers. And this is where you're going to start to dig a little bit deeper in finding clarity around where your revenue goals need to be in order for you to cover your owner's pay, pay down any debt or to stay out of debt. Where your numbers need to be from an inventory buy strategy so that you can grow your inventory to grow your revenue. Because now you're past the beginner phase and you've already made that initial investment, but you've got to keep growing that inventory level in order to grow the revenue. So you've got a clean accounting system, you understand your financials, you've got a grasp on your inventory levels where they should be. You truly have honed in on your selling your gross profit margins and you're ready to start to challenge your company from a profit improvement standpoint to be sure that the company not only can grow and sustain, but also that it is starting to serve the vision that you've set for it. And definitely in the second phase of business, your business should be serving you, not you serving it. Meaning you've got a clear vision on what you're going to be able, where you're going to be in 12 months, where you're going to be in 24 months. You've mapped it out and you know how to get there. And that's where we go back to challenging ourselves and really becoming competitive with ourselves to make sure that we're on the right path to obtain that vision that we've set then I'd say from the 1 million plus, you know, the more of the veteran business, the veteran entrepreneur, I would go deeper to say that sales analytics is very important. Having a financial dashboard is very important. Really. If you haven't mastered already the employee cost management side of your business, that's going to be extremely important. By the time you reach the veteran phase, you should have accounting really where it's just very, very comfortable for you to read the financials, have a team member in place that can really help you be strategic and pivot around again setting those goals. So if I were to take the midpoint business to the higher level business, the more veteran business, I would say it goes right into my strategic profit accelerator where you've got a good accounting management system in place, you've got a good cash flow management system in place. You understand and have clarity around how your sales are happening, at what percentages, what inventory levels and just all the sales analytics and the science behind the sale. You, you're growing into it and you're, you're refining it and you're becoming more aware of what those numbers are and goals, measuring goals against your, you know, your actual against your budgeted. But also having a strategy, like I said, around cash flow management and a strategy around your employee cost management. You're mapping out your revenue and truly have it mapped out how you're going to achieve it, whether it be monthly, weekly, daily, by event, by customer, how many customers need to walk through the door and you have a true, true inventory plan around those sales goals. That would be that high, high performing entrepreneur from my experience.

Perfect. As you look at those three levels of businesses that come in and that you work with, do you find that there's things that the most successful have in common?

Definitely. The most successful are going to have a lot of tenacity and I would say that they are going to have complete clarity around their cash flow and they're going to fully understand their profit potential. What is the potential that they have in this industry? And again they're going to have a revenue plan. They're going to understand the margins in their inventory by budget. They're going to have, they're going to be able to live within their means by setting a spending budget and truly they're paying themselves their worth. They're getting something the company is serving them versus them serving the company from a financial aspect as well as from a soulful purpose aspect. But more than anything, they are willing to expose themselves to the good, the bad, the ugly of their business and they're willing to learn and grow and invest in themselves as entrepreneurs. I find that hands down, one of the most predominant aspects of what I actually call the woman warrior entrepreneur.

Absolutely. Talk to me about, you know, you talk about where they're actually working for a profit. How do you think people's perception of profitability has changed because of the pandemic? And knowing that if they didn't have a profit, if they weren't paying themselves, they couldn't apply for the PPP and that sort of thing, how is that shaped where we're going to go forward in terms of profitability?

Ashley, this has this. There's some good in this when it comes to owner's pay, the pandemic and the stimulus packages and programs that the government has put out because there's many entrepreneurs that have, have been operating at, whether it be a loss or very little profit and have not been paying themselves. So depending on the entity structure, there is a large part of this community who did not qualify for the paycheck protection program and it is because of lack of profitability or owner's pay. So the good in this is that if it was me, I'd be 100% making sure I'm doing everything that I possibly can to protect my profitability so that I can pay myself not only for, you know, in this case, we had what I could call a bailout. We had some reprieve with the pandemic sneaking up on us. But what about the future when it comes to really just building a cash reserve for not only you and your business, but also your household and your family, putting away a little extra money for reaching your business goals. When it comes to a growth standpoint, maybe you want to add that brick and mortar in two years, let's plan and make sure that we've got the money set aside so that we're not doing it using day to day cash flow, but also going into or going into debt. So I do believe that there's going to be a mindset that has occurred, a mindset shift towards responsibility around our money so that we can pay ourselves and make sure that we're, like I said, supporting our household and protecting our own fiscal viability. As the business owner, talk to me.

About that going forward in terms of implementing, just like Profit first, if someone's not familiar with that strategy, how does it work?

So Profit first is a cash flow allocation system. To really define it loosely, the cash flow allocation system is where you are defining the purpose of your dollars. What category of spending, they are going to fall within in your business. And then you're creating buckets to allocate that money to. So you've got your deposits coming into your bank account. You're going to define likely. When you read the profit first book, it is by percentages. You would take your deposits from your sales and you would allocate a percentage of your deposit towards the buckets that you have deemed valuable in your business. The retail industry is a little bit different than the profit first book and how it lays it out only in that we have to protect our inventory dollars. So the profit first strategy is a means for us to really have a true cash flow management strategy in place that serves the goals financially that we've set for the business. If we have defined in our profit planning is what I call it in our profit planning, if we've defined that we are going to have our inventory account where we allocate part of our deposits to our inventory account, we're going to have our owner's pay account, we'll have our opex account as it's defined in the profit first strategy and the readings of it as well as our tax account. The strategy is that the book coaches to the 10th and the 25th of the month. I actually coach from a retail side to Monday morning coffee date with your numbers and doing your allocations on a weekly basis because of our weekly buys from an inventory standpoint, that's why I like the weekly strategy. So profit first, you would sit down Monday morning or Tuesday morning of every week, you would look at your prior week's deposits and you would implement that cash flow allocation strategy that is based on profit first. You would take your prior periods, that prior weeks, cost of goods sold, true cost of goods sold, and you would shift that amount of money into your inventory by account. If you are growing your revenue and your your sales, let's say 5% period over period, you would also want to take 5% of your deposits, add that to your, I'm sorry, 5% of your cost of goods sold. So if your cost of goods sold was say $100, you would want to add $105 to your inventory buy account so that you can gradually grow your inventory levels relevant to the growth of sales. Then you would take your sales tax dollars and you would transfer that money out of your deposit account into a sales tax checking account. You're also going to take a percentage that you're going to allow yourself to spend for operating expenses. So for your fixed and variable overhead and you're going to transfer that into your OPEX checking account. So you can see as I'm explaining this, that I'm building buckets with purposed cash flow in them. Another area is obviously that owners pay. That's where we start to protect our money from owner's pay. If we're going to set a standard that we are only, we're going to assure that we pay ourselves 10% of our sales as our minimum owner's pay, then that dollar amount would also be transferred over to your Profit first owner's pay account. So in summary, what you're doing again is taking your deposits and your revenue dollars, protecting every dollar by allocating it into its specific bank account so that when you go to spend that money, you are only spending what's in the bank account for the purpose that that money serves. And you never go, or you never go over and overspend what you're allowing yourself from a budgeting standpoint. And that will protect your profit. It truly, truly will. And it gives those that go into the Profit first strategy and come up with unique to you, Profit first percentages. Because every business is different. It cannot be just based on the percentages in the book. And that's part of the Profit first coaching. Because as you know, Ashley, I'm a Profit first certified coach. So the element of my Profit first coaching that is so valuable is that I coach to retail specifically and I alter the readings of the book to what is working in this industry. And that's why I said the 10th and the. I'm sorry, every week the percentages are going to be a little bit different. Inventory is not going to be just a percent. It's cost of goods sold plus growth. There's really, truly some tweaking that occur. And from a Profit first certification standpoint, one of the, one of the definitions that the Profit first headquarters team puts on it is that we're making as coaches and consultants for Profit first, we're making it sticky. We're adding the uniqueness, we're individualizing it to every business uniquely to each person that I consult and coach. And that makes it sticky. That makes it work. From an inventory standpoint, it's truly a science to make sure that we're using Profit first to protect our inventory dollars but not choke our inventory either.

And that makes such a huge difference. Because if you are allocating too much, then we could be short on inventory, which kind of limits that profitability factor for sure.

Right, exactly. And when we're looking at, say, your inventory profit first allocation account. If you're allocating too much money into your inventory account, all of a sudden you're over buying because you have the perception that you have all this money to spend on inventory. So you might be you're not investing in. So if you're over investing into your inventory account, you're maybe under investing into your OPEX account. You could potentially be over buying inventory but underspending in your marketing. So you don't have a client acquisition or retention plan. So there's a balance there. Think those as an example is that you've got to find the balance of what works really well in your business and unique to your business. And that's truly where my money clarity comes in. My money clarity process where I look back. So it's money clarity look back is the opportunity for us to look back at the 12 last 12 months of your business and we really deep dive into where your money went, where did your money get spent? And we identify profit leaks, but we also identify missed opportunity. One of the areas that's truly a missed opportunity is overspending or underspending on inventory, selling at too low of profit margins, but also a missed opportunity in most of my money clarity look back consulting engagements is that retailers are under spending client acquisition and retention. And I know obviously the hub has a ton of trainings from a marketing standpoint in your content sanity class and retail boot camp. I mean, there's so much opportunity to learn and grow. And what I do is I coach the other side of it to say we've got to protect money funds in your business to make sure that you have the dollars available for client acquisition and retention and the money available for owner's pay, obviously, but also that inventory spend. So it's a balance between where every dollar should be, what purpose it should be assigned, and where we're going to allow ourselves to spend it in order to optimize the profitability of the company and reach all of the goals. Right. It's a balance of reaching all of those goals.

Man, such a good point. Okay, back up. I don't know that I asked you this yet.

Tools.

What tools do every boutique owner, again, this kind of maybe tailors back to the new boutique owners, but what tools do we have to have in place from a tech standpoint just to make sure that we are able to capture the data and information that we need to have to make some of these adjustments and understandings?

Oh, I love that because tools is a huge part of my consulting process as well as what you Guys are teaching in the hub. Number one, have an active bookkeeping system, computerized QuickBooks online. Be the best fit and really understand from a DIY standpoint how to use QuickBooks online specific to the retail industry. So that would be one tool that money management QuickBooks online system where you can pull accurate and reliable timely as well financial statements but also your point of sale system is going to be very important. A large population of our community does use Shopify as a point of sale system. And if you're using Shopify as a point of sale system, I definitely coach to having the mindset that you are going to need to invest in add ons so that you have measuring of inventory and inventory management side of the point of sale system. Most importantly. So no matter what, your point of sale system has got to be able to measure and manage your inventory and then from there you just grow. You know that would be the Basic Beginner Boutique QuickBooks online accounting system. A point of sale system that whether it be built in or through add ons allows you to measure and manage your inventory and have true inventory and cost of goods sold and profit margin reporting. If we can get data from on like Turn and some of the other sales analytics, at least you've set yourself up for growing your sales analytics toolbox, which that's taught in the Hub or in the retail Bootcamp.

Yeah, perfect. Well, let's talk about this, Christine.

I know there's a lot of people.

That have asked, they've asked me. I know they ask you questions in the Hub all the time, how to work with you and just to kind of give a little bit of clarity. So you are our partner trainer inside of the hub. So a lot of the work you do with hub members from our standpoint is through retail Bootcamp. And I know you have your program Strategic Profit Accelerate, which is a great extension for those who go through Bootcamp and feel like they get a really good understanding of all the angles of the business. Because you really have to have a holistic approach to growing a business and then go deeper into the numbers and then also your QuickBooks program that we're partners on. For those of you who are new to getting started on QuickBooks, you know how to set up your classes and all the details that go into that. You can maybe mention more about that. But how else can everyone else get in touch with you and use some of your programs?

Okay, I'm going to answer that first. I'm actually going to touch on the QuickBooks program. The one thing that I want to say about the QuickBooks program that we partnered in designing and publishing? Is that when we built it or when I built it? It was designed initially for the DIYer, the do it yourself bookkeeper. Then as I myself started going through it just to tidy up on it, make sure that I had everything inclusive and get feedback from those who have already taken it. I came to quickly realize that it is an extremely valuable tool for the entrepreneur who doesn't want to diy but they want to be rest assured and have confidence in the fact that their accounting is being done retail specific, accurately and on time. It's a point of going through it yourself as an entrepreneur so that you never feel vulnerable around your numbers and the accuracy of them. Really, truly it's a tool for the entrepreneur that's not going to DIY as well. So just wanted to point that out from a QuickBooks training aspect. As far as working with me, everything that I do is 100% profit improvement strategy focused. Yes, I'm an accountant. Yes I have tax on team. However I don't we bundle our services so when you come to she profits now as a client, we best serve our clients with the accounting service that serves the purpose of of financial reporting so that we know the numbers and that we can make financially healthy business decisions based on the numbers on a period to period basis. Our accounting service is not designed to simply kick out a financial report and wait for tax preparation time to occur. It is more as a tool to make sure that we can coach, consult, be strategic and really work towards that number one goal, profit improvement. So I guess you could say that we're an advisory accounting firm when I say that we are all inclusive. We truly do like to just, you know, when it comes tax time, we'll do the tax return. Because we've been monitoring and planning for tax all along. Profit first comes into play when we're planning for tax, but part of the strategic profit accelerate process in really looking at and knowing where your profitability is. And that's how I always talk to planning your profitability. Tax is part of that. When we're planning our profitability we have to factor in the fact that we're going to owe money to Uncle Sam. So strategic tax comes along with that bundling of service. But again that's just a tool that's for us to be compliant and have the tool to actually make the healthy business decisions where we really truly serve our clients the best and where you'll find that I thrive in working with clients in the retail Industry is again in that coaching and consulting and advisory and really partnering and holding my clients accountable to reaching the goals that they've set when we start working together. And those goals are all based on what's your vision for your company and your family by owning a business and how are we going to get there? What is the profit potential of this business? And let's map it out, build the roadmap, have action, plan around it and focus around that goal and that profit potential and just do it. Really be competitive against our own numbers and just act, succeed. And we said the word at the beginning of this. Become empowered and become a doer around the numbers. And as far as how you work with me, it really truly is the best entry point to work with me is to drop into one of my workshops and coaching program and that's where we've partnered with Strategic Profit Accelerate.

Absolutely. So inside the hub tag Christine, reach out to her and we'll be posting more about. I know you're going to be doing some more trainings and going live and just reaching out to those members who are ready to build more profitability. You know what, I love that you said, Christine, and this is like where our business philosophies are so aligned. You and I learned this lesson in the hardest way possible and that is you can't grow a business by cutting expenses. And I think when we're just trying.

To figure out how to make it.

We get lost in that trap so fast. So I love. And actually before I go on, this is also what I think makes you so different from say an accountant. And I wish more accountants had this philosophy. Like, I think sometimes people think of accountants as like, I just hand my information over and they file taxes and the numbers are what they are. But to me, like we should be looking for accountants or experts that are truly a coach that don't just file something or complete a task, but they actually coach you through improvement of whatever the product or service is that you're working with them on. So I love that that it's profit focused and we're talking about improvement strategy, not just here's the numbers and here's the tax we pay and here's how we're going to cut expenses. So super duper smart. And we appreciate working with you so much, Christine.

Thank you, Ashley. And I actually want to speak to that for one moment, if I could. When it comes to accountant versus advisor or strategic coach, I will have to say that one, my advantage goes back to my roots as a business owner because I have been an entrepreneur my entire career is that. But there was a point in my business where I was able to take on that client that allowed me to really dig deep into their business and start working on the fixes and the strategy behind making the numbers align with the goals. But with that, I was also able to be boots on the ground. I truly have in my past, the roots of my business been boots on the ground. Where I've been in the operation. I've seen how the business flows. I've seen how the employees function. I've worked with the HR side of it. And truly understanding the operational side of a business allows you to pinpoint what is not working in the numbers and how to react to it in the operational side, the operational effectiveness. And that's honestly where I could say I got my advantage in this industry is just back to the basics with clients. From my really just my start as an entrepreneur.

I love it. All right, Christine, quick lightning round. What is your favorite book?

My favorite book is going to have to be start with why by Simon Sinek, definitely. And then One Thing by Gary Keller. I read those probably every couple years. I go back and visit those two books.

So good.

How about your favorite podcast?

Well, definitely boutique chat podcast. Not only to warm you up even more, but also it a lot. Your podcast allows me to really stay in tune with this industry. I gain a lot of insight as well.

Oh, thank you.

I appreciate that.

What scares you the most? Snakes? Payroll or Internet trolls?

Payroll. Because I see too many clients struggle around the concept of payroll and it being just mismanaged. So payroll scares me for my client's sake.

So true. All right, Christine. I always ask people this question, as you know, in the show, because I. I just really believe that we're in this business far beyond selling products, making money, doing anything like that. It's about impacting the world around us and the people that we serve. Right. So I'd love to know from your standpoint, you know, years and years down the road, you. You've exited this business, you've sold this business, whatever, you've passed it on, whatever it is you want to do with it, and you're sitting with grandkids and great grandkids talking about the life that you lived in the business you created, and what's the thing as you have that conversation that you want them to remember most about who you were and the legacy that you left on the world around you?

I would say definitely 100% that I immersed myself into the success of my clients. And them reaching their full potential. And that I developed a ton of wonderful working relationships, friendships out of it. And that each day of my work I'm able to wake up and be energized by who I'm able to impact, what impact am I able to make? And I'm going to look back at that and just say, you know what, I live my life to the fullest in that I was able to serve and really, truly 100% make a difference in other people's dreams.

I love that. And you're definitely doing that. Christine, when you impact a business, you impact a family and a team and a community and everyone in that business's ecosystem. So such important work that you're doing. And I really want to thank you.

For coming into our life at the.

Hub and with our team. We've loved getting to know you and we appreciate all the work that you're doing in our community.

Well, and thank you. And I've definitely found a family within the Hub family as well. And it has been just, it's wonderful. No different than you guys. You work remotely, I do as well. And so it's nice to have family serving the same purpose that we can relate to and really collaborate to even serve to a higher degree. Absolutely. You know, and the one thing, Ashley, I'm going to say about when I look back is I'm also going to look back is that I have an awesome wardrobe because I get to shop all my clients stores.

I mean, it's a perk of the job.

I love it.

Well, Christine, thanks again for your time today.

Thank you, Ashley.

Alright, guys, I told you how I was going to take it a step deeper with Christine now inside of Retail Bootcamp. And for those of you who don't know yet, Retail Bootcamp is like our highest level signature program at the boutique Hub that walks through every single area of your business in 12 modules, hundreds of hours, downloads, templates, checklists, everything. And personal coaching from myself and Sarah Burks. Well, Christine is a partner of ours in Retail Boot Camp for providing some education. She comes in and does a lot of profit strategy and profit analysis and takes your numbers to the next level deeper. And so there's a program I really want to talk to you really quickly about called Strategic Profit Accelerate. This is your opportunity to work one on one and in a small group with Christine as she specifically looks at your numbers, analyzes your profitability, helps you understand your reports and helps you make a plan for the next year going forward of how you are going to build more Lean revenue into your business and a look at your inventory systems. So if you want more information, check out the link in the Show Notes. But I also want to speak to you if you feel like you're not quite there yet. Because Strategic Profit Accelerate is for the more advanced boutique owner. I would say someone who has a good understanding of at least your QuickBooks and your cash cash flow. Maybe you're doing 10, 20, 50, 100K a month, right? You're in that range, you've got something going. But if that's not you and you're like oh crap, I'm overwhelmed. Where do I even start? I want to talk to you about 101 basics getting QuickBooks implemented. We use QuickBooks at the Boutique Hub. It starts out at about $10 a month for the online program and I'll drop a link to that in the Show Notes as well. Well, but Christine also has a bookkeeping basic system that we've partnered on that has a specific chart of accounts built for boutique owners. So in case that seems like German, when you set up QuickBooks, you have to set up all the chart of accounts, of income accounts and expense accounts. Well, we've made it really simple with charts built just for boutiques based on all the boutiques that we've worked with. And it's going to DIY walk you through how to under understand how to implement and how to use QuickBooks on a daily basis so you aren't a shoebox business owner just taking a box of receipts oh God bless to your accountant before tax day. Don't do that, only attract number grows. So we have to have great systems in place to make it happen. So check out those two links in the Show Notes, Strategic Profit Accelerate and the Bookkeeping Basics program just for boutique owners. And if you have any questions questions anytime you guys reach out, hit me up on Instagram @bustiquehubbusiness or AJ Alderson and you can reach out to Christine at she profits now anytime. Hey guys, thank you so much for listening to this episode. We hope that you loved it. Don't forget to hit subscribe and leave a rating and review down below for a chance to to be one of our featured listeners each and every week. For more information on our spirit of community over competition and how to access complete show notes and bonus downloads from our guests, head on over to the boutiquehub.com and join the community. We'll see you next week.

Sam.