160. Reimagining Financial Mindset With Leah Ward

Welcome to another episode of Professional Builder's Secrets. In this episode, I interviewed Leah ward, one of APB's executive business coaches from Raleigh, North Carolina. Leah's extensive background in corporate finance and leadership gives her a unique perspective on the vital connection between mindset and financial performance. We dive into how builders can break through mindset blockages around finances and think differently about managing their numbers and understand the deeper why behind their finances. Keep listening to discover how adopting the right financial mindset can transform the future of your building company. This episode of Professional Builder Secrets is brought to you by Apparatus Contractor Services. Apparatus provides full scope end to end QuickBooks, Precision Construction accounting and CFO services for residential builders. If you feel like you can't completely trust your weekly and monthly financial reports or you feel like you're flying blind, Apparatus Route will rebuild and operate your QuickBooks accounting system and give you precision construction accounting capability you can trust. Learn more@apparatusteam.com or on the APB Rewards Partner directory.

If you're able to transform staff static numbers to more of dynamic tools, you can significantly alter the business and the strategy and the outcomes. Finances aren't just a part of a business, they're the backbone. One of the reasons why I feel like it's so important for them to start thinking differently is so much of our world moves fast. I mean, it's just going all the time. By starting to think differently about their finances, it gives them the ability to to be proactive on situations of opportunities that are coming. You know, really using it as more of a, as a compass and a guide versus a task that they have to check the box every month to do.

Welcome to Professional Builder Secrets, the podcast for building company owners wanting to grow safely and securely. Will I'm your host, Will Blunt and today I'm joined by Leah Ward. Leah, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Very excited to have you on today. Leah, you're one of the executive business coaches here at apb, but before you joined apb, do you just want to give a bit of a background on your life, your business, everything to do with that?

Absolutely. And I'm so grateful to be here today. So if you were to run through my background of finance, even just thinking about before I went to college, you know, finance was never top of mind. I was playing sports, I was running, playing soccer, riding horses, you name it, anything except for anything in business. And when I got into college, I knew I had one goal and that was to help people. And I didn't know how I wanted to help people and When I started looking around, every company needed somebody in finance. And I thought, well, that's a great idea. Every company will need me. I love to be needed. So let's go this direction. And what I found in finance is it wasn't the easiest thing for me. It was something that I had to make it make sense and figure out beyond the numbers, the stories behind it. And so putting in that mindset and thought to get through college and finance took me into the business industry with a much different mindset of how I wanted to approach finance for companies. And I spent a little over two decades in corporate finance of you name the industry, I have been in it. I have enjoyed every aspect of helping companies be successful. I found that it was very rewarding to meet very talented, skillful business owners, industry leaders who I wanted their energy to go into their skill set and I wanted to be able to help show up and support them so that their business ran successfully on the back end so they could put all their energy into the front end of everything. As much as I've loved finance and that is my heart and soul now for many years of it, about eight years ago, I started doing financial management for a professional development company. And I didn't even realize that executive coaching was something that I could have as a career. I knew that I loved to help people, I knew that I went beyond just the numbers when I helped people. But to know that it was a career, it just completely blew my mind and just put me on a path of this is what I want to do. And I want to be able to use my financial background to help support that. So switching careers after about 15 years in one direction led to a beautiful array of imposter syndrome to the point where you name this certification, I have it for coaching, you name the training, I've done it. And mostly because I believe so much in wanting to show up and help support the who's in front of me that I wanted to make sure that I was always my best self for them. And so I was able to join the career of coaching and I fell in love with it. I ran my own coaching business for a while. I was very successful. I really enjoyed it. But the biggest part that I realized was I missed being on a team. And finding APB was just that missing link of they already believed in finances and systems. And I found a team that, even though remote, was so well connected that I got to bring all aspects of what I love into one place. And that is what led me here through a very sideways Journey.

I must admit, Leah, you don't fit the stereotype of someone that's been in corporate finance for 10 years. All of my interactions with you, extremely personable and emotive and all of these things. How do you strike the balance between having such great technical knowledge and also bringing that human side to things?

I don't know if I can say. I'm a Gemini, and I have two very distinct sides of me and how I show up. But in order for me to understand the numbers, I had to dive into them from a different perspective. It wasn't just, I can look at an Excel spreadsheet and I automatically knew what was happening. And I found that if I just spoke the numbers, it felt like I was speaking at somebody. And I wanted to make finance a joint effort where I spoke with somebody. So when I would spend time learning the numbers, I learned them in a way that I could help share and connect with the people that needed to make the big decisions with them. And that was a really big, important space. And it was something that was missing in a lot of corporate finance that I found. And I didn't always fit the mold. I was a little louder and a little bit more bubbly than the typical. But at the same time, I have a really good introspective side, which lets me love to dive in. I have a really good extrospective side, which makes me feel comfortable to be on the outside as well. So I'm happy that I'm a blend of both, even though sometimes I don't know which direction I'm going.

Interesting. I don't know a whole lot about star signs, but I'm also a Gemini, and I didn't realize that a trait of having the two sides, but it.

Does explain a lot.

So let's talk about builders and their finances and dive into that a little bit more. Why do you believe builders should think differently about their finances?

So what I have discovered is if you're able to transform static numbers to more of dynamic tools, you can not only significantly alter the business and the strategy and the outcomes, but it can become more pleasant to be in. Finances aren't just a part of a business. They're the backbone. Being able to understand what is happening at the backbone of the business lets you make all of those decisions in a way that you want to. One of the reasons why I feel like it's so important for them to start thinking differently is so much of our world moves fast. I mean, it's just going all the time. And what that what that turns into is we become reactive. And when you become reactive in your finances, you aren't able to prepare for the future. And so by starting to think differently about their finances, it gives them the ability to be proactive on situations of opportunities that are coming of, you know, specific industry trends that are starting to show up. You get to have that choice versus a forced reaction because you weren't looking at all of the numbers and, you know, really using it as more of a, as a compass and a guide versus a task that they have to check the box every month to do.

Yeah, it's interesting that reactive versus proactive mindset. It's very easy to fall into that reactive side of things and, and all of a sudden think, oh, I need more cash flow now, or, you know, I need to get more jobs into the business because I don't have enough money coming in and those type of things. How do you really shift that mindset?

You know, it's, it's just starting to be inquisitive of what's, what's been working and what hasn't. A lot of times when you become reactive, you're taking work that you don't necessarily want, but you feel like you have to. You start working all the time and that becomes the habit. And because you never feel like you're quite there and being able to, you know, remove that block, which I kind of see two main blocks when it comes to finance. I see either they are, you know, if you ever watched an R rated movie as a kid and you took your hands over your eyes and peeked through, so it's kind of like they're peeking through, like they don't want to see it, but they kind of want to see it. It's the scary part of the movie.

It's a great description. I've done that with my finances before as well, to be honest.

Yeah. So I see that mindset blockage. The other blockage that I think is almost as dangerous is I know enough. That I know enough is a place where they're comfortable enough to keep moving forward, but they don't really know what's going on. And a great example that I like to use is, you know, I've studied accounting, I've done accounting. I am not accountant. I know enough to know that at the end of the year I hire my own personal accountant. It's not that I can't do it, it's not that I'm incapable of doing it, but I know that there's somebody that is specifically trained and they love to do that. And I want them to not just do an okay job on my taxes. I want them to do a phenomenal job because they're in it and they understand all the quirks and the ups and downs. And, you know, those are the two big blockages that I see. And the first part of it is kind of identifying which of the mindset blockages they have. Is it the I know enough, I'm fine, or is it looking through the peeped window because they don't want to actually see what's going on in order to overcome those? It's a space of even though I know enough that it's fine. You know, one of the things that we hear is my business has done well, but I want to take it further. And you can't take it further if you're just doing okay. And you can't take it further if you've pulled the blinds down and aren't actually looking at what's going on. And so the biggest piece of those mindset blocks is truly awareness. And, you know, I know I say this a lot. You can't fight invisible enemies. So if we don't have the conversation, if we don't talk about it, how do they even know that it's an issue and that that's the biggest thing is helping them first kind of identify which direction are we in here?

Yeah, I think that's a good point. In terms of what you don't know as well, how do you confidently invest in a business if you don't know your finances well? How can you invest in marketing and sales and hiring, all of those things if you're not confident with your finances.

Yeah. And you end up doing it all.

Yeah.

And working that 20 hour, beautiful day.

The concept of mindset, you've mentioned mindset and blockages in general a couple of times, Leah. How does the right mindset around finances help builders progress their business forward?

You know, the right mindset, in my personal opinion, is an open mindset. It's a mindset that says, I know I can, but do I need to? Or I'm open to seeing what's going on. And once that space of openness can come, even if it's just a little bit, because if you can start to build confidence through the little steps, and I kind of view the little steps as starting to really understand, like kind of those main concepts, the profit and loss, the cash flow or the balance sheet, a lot of times not knowing the why behind those are just, again, more sheets that you have to Give your accountant. So how can you actually put a story to them, put a name to them if you want to? Whatever helps you connect deeper into the space of wanting to open them up. Because you've got to open them up. Once you can have that open mind to choose to open up, that's when I love to come in and, you know, start to have the conversations around, what is this to you? What do you see? What do we see together? And how can, how can we make it make sense through everything? How can we make it very unique to you? You know, every, every business is so unique. And so how you look at it has to be unique. There's not a one size fits all. So it's not just, here's your profit and loss statement, see you later. It's what does this tell you? What does this tell you about your business? How can you start to feel comfortable looking at what's coming in and what's going out and put more of, again, just that story behind it and that connection that is, that is your business.

Yeah. And then I guess that probably ties into what your goals are as well. Right. Like, where are you, where are you going?

And the first piece is always first identifying what is happening. You know, I'm being in finance, I love historical data. Give me all the historical data so then I can start to, you know, paint the picture. If we don't have the historical data, that's fine, but we got to start here and create that data so we have the history in the future. But really, it's hard to identify your goals if you don't even know what's happening in your budgets, in your, in your profit and loss and in your finances. Because in order to get to the goals, you have to create steps. And you don't know what your first step is until you start to take a peek at what's actually happening underneath the hood of the car. So.

Well, let's talk about that underneath the hood. Let's assume that the builders out there, they've got an open mindset. They want to know more about their finances. And what next? How do they break down their finances to get a better understanding of things?

Yeah, you know, I always like to start with, with the, the profit and loss. You know, this is going to be, you know, your view of your revenue, your expenses, and it's going to give you an insight into, you know, project specific profitability. It's going to give you areas of efficiency or inefficiency in your operations or even if it's, you know, Cost optimization. You're going to see everything that's going to be hitting in that profit and loss. You're going to see what's coming in and what's going out in a snapshot. And you can identify what are your expenses compared to your revenue, what's your net. This is where you find all of that information. And it's a kind of a one nice page that you can look at at any given time that's going to really tell you what's happening now. The next is the balance sheet. And so when you think about the balance sheet, I think about, so we've got assets and liabilities and equity, but essentially this is just telling you, you know, what, what you own, what you owe and your overall financial position. And in that space, that's going to see and give you where you have leverage to grow, you know, you know, what are your assets, what are your liabilities, what is your equity in this? And how can you, how can you look at that at any given time, know what you have the capability to invest in for your company, for yourself or anything? And, and so that's kind of that financial health snapshot, snapshot for it all. And then the other key one is the cash flow. And, and I know that, you know, these start to all run together, but if you're able to then break them down into even just this one line, then you're able to start to add distinction and demystify what's actually happening there. When they're looking at their cash flows, this is going to track that inflow and outflow of cash over that specific time. It's going to help you with your, you know, again, you're investing your finance, your operating, but it's going to really show, you know, where your financial needs and where your financial capabilities are. And in the business industry, it's so unique and ever evolving that knowing how much cash you have at any given time is the difference between being able to take a job or maybe the ability to not take a job if you don't want to. And essentially, if you were to kind of holistically look at that, it gives you choice. It brings you back to that proactive idea, and it gives you a choice which you started a business because you wanted to make the choices, you wanted to make the decisions. And unfortunately, so often we become that reactive that we lose our choice. And when we lose our choice, you know, what was the purpose of us starting a business? So we could make all the decisions. Yeah, we've lost that.

You mentioned the A lot of those different financial statements, and in particular profit and loss is a snapshot in time. What about then going deeper? How does a builder look at that and go, okay, how do I actually adjust my day to day to reflect the improvements I want to make with that?

Being able to dive in to the day to day? You know, I like to start with, with the revenue aspect or what's coming in, you know, what projects do you have going on right now? Are you at capacity? Did you have a conversation with yourself a few months ago that you wanted to get into X, Y and Z type of projects? And then you're looking at that and your revenue and your P and L and there's nothing there. And you know what? You don't. Water doesn't grow. And as silly and simple as it sounds, just taking a look at that makes you come back to, was that your goal? If that was, then how come you haven't put any energy into it? And how can you start to pivot a little bit to start to get there? Or maybe it's you choose to go a different direction. That's always fine too. But again, it's the awareness around it and then with the expenses, you know what is actually happening? What are you paying out? Do you need to be paying out what you're paying out? Do you have the ability to pay more? Are you at your wit's end? You're going all the time and you want to hire somebody, but it doesn't feel like you can? Well, what if you actually looked at what was happening in your business and you had the capability to do it and you had just been holding on because you weren't diving into what your expenses were or your revenue and seeing what was happening at the end of the day?

Yeah, that's a great point. Like, you've mentioned the word awareness a lot and that really is quite a powerful word. Despite being quite simple in nature, the more you're aware of things, the more you can actually do positive progress towards where you want to go.

As a coach, I fully believe that whoever I work with, they are the experts. It is their job. I'm not a consultant for them where I'm the expert of their business. They are the expert of their business. My job is to make sure that they know what's happening in their business. So that way as the expert, they can make the best decisions. I used to one of the jobs that I worked at, I worked with kind of all the cfo, the CMO and the CTO of the company and My job was to present to them our capital expenditures every three or four months of what was going on. If you went to the back end of that, you talk about thousands of lines of Excel, I'll call it heaven. I think that some other people might call it something else. Their time was very limited. My job was to go in there and take all of that data and put it into kind of a bow where they got to make the decision for their company. Even though I was in the data, it wasn't my job to make the decision. It was my job to make sure that they were aware of everything that was happening and they had all the information so they could make the best decision for the company. And I really fell in love with that space, partially because I'm a low, decisive human, so I like other people to make the decisions, but also because it was so rewarding knowing that they had worked really hard to get where they were. And I was able to make their job and life a little bit easier by simplifying all of this data and then helping them just see in one page what it is, what it means, and how they want to move forward. It's their decision for that, but they were aware of it.

Yeah. I mean, that's super powerful. I'm sure there's a lot of builders out there. I mean, even me, I'm listening to that going, you know, it's nice to hear that someone could actually make sense of the complexity of the numbers because it can be quite overwhelming.

Yeah. And even, you know, I joke about in college, you know, I, I don't know if I should say this, but I know my professor in my last finance class said, are you sure this is what you want to do? Because I, you know, it wasn't easy. I had to work so hard. If you don't care about something, it's hard to work really hard at it. And so I had to figure out how to make finance my passion and how to make it in a way that I really enjoyed it so that I could dive deep into it. And it completely changed how I viewed it to a way of it wasn't just a sheet of numbers. You know, it kind of became this. This fun thing to do and figure out. I don't know if I think that might be judged for that statement, but, you know, make it make sense. And that's where my kind of creative and mind would take it.

So, yeah, it's a good way to look at it, I guess. You're looking at finances from a different mindset yourself.

Mm.

So why is it important as well, for builders to understand the meaning behind these numbers?

Going beyond the numbers, it kicks into an area where I always say, you have to be actively curious about what's going on. You know, actively curious about what this means for the business. That's how I like to look at it. You know, if you're not curious about it, you know, you're not going to care about it. And so, you know, I encourage people to engage with the financial worksheets, to not just glance at them when we're just glancing at them. Just like I said earlier, it's kind of that blockage, see what story they can see with it. How can they redefine their business strategy by simply looking at what's happening in the business? How can they go a little bit deeper, understanding, really the why behind it? You know, we talk about the why with, you know, why did you start your business? What's the why behind these numbers? What's the why behind the. The business journey that you're in? And how can you start to kind of find your own narrative that really reflects your business, your story, and helps you not just be okay at what you're doing because it's working for you, but really create a. A deeper connection or a relationship with your finances? So that way you get to choose where they go, how you use them, and what you want to do in the future. You know, if I love, you know, when you think about the strategic planning or the idea of finances, I love the idea of reverse engineering. That's probably one of. One of my favorite words that I use. Because if you set this goal up, if you want to make X amount, that's fantastic. But what are the actual steps to get there? What's the roadmap? And if you create that roadmap backwards to where you are in this point, how can you then move forward in it? And so sometimes it's a little bit like, was it a xylophone that goes up and down? And so you have to kind of start at one end, go backwards, come back. But that creates the story that you want to tell in your kind of strategic plan and future. But it also makes it attainable. And I think that attainable is a good word to look at finances too, because sometimes things just don't feel attainable. Whether it's too many lines of data, whether it's P and L on the cash flow, on the balance sheet, whatever it might be, it feels unattainable. And just like when you're thinking about that Strategic plan, you know, reverse engineer yourself in, come back out. You know, once you start to flow through a few times, it all starts to make sense and it also becomes yours. I mean, you've invested your heart and soul into your business. What would it look like to, I'll say it. Invest your heart and soul into your finances.

Yeah, I like that. I think it's a nice reflection to say, okay, it's easy to look at your finances in isolation, but without the context of where you want to go as a business, understanding the meaning behind them and where you want to make changes is almost obsolete.

Yeah. You know what, what are your goals? Do you want to grow your business? Do you love what your business is doing right now? Do you just want it to be, you know, more sustainable? Do you want to sell your business? Your end goals are just as unique as your business, just like your finances are just as unique as, as everything else. And, and I love that you can go in and, you know, you're not starting with a blank sheet. You've got something there and how can you use it? How can you utilize the tool that you've created so successfully as a business owner? Now you just got to go in and use the tool of finance.

Well, Lee, you've provided a ton of value today about builders just thinking a bit differently about their finances and moving forward in this space. What additional advice would you provide to the builders out there about their financial mindset?

So I would say embrace curiosity, be kind to yourself when you're, when you're going here, have an open mind. Don't look at the numbers as just static data. Look at them with an idea of. These are insights into how to make your business what you want to make it. That mindset will help. It's not just going to help transform, you know, the financial management of your business, but also just the overall success of your business. What if you didn't dread looking at your P and L every month? What if it wasn't, as you put it, at the very bottom of the list and then add a few more things on top of that? It's still not do it. What if you could look at it with a little bit kinder of a mind and think about the idea, you know, what you put your energy to into is what's going to grow. And if you want to grow your business, put your energy into understanding just, even the ideas of your finances and the stories that they tell. Break it down, take it, take it down to a single line of. To me, this is what the Profit and loss says to me, this is what the cash flow tells me because you're now adding in your why. So then when you're looking at it, you're able to reverse engineer and connect that dot. But yeah, the advice is just be curious, be open, and know that even if you do know a lot, it's still a great space to, to ask questions and to spend time in. And if you're, you know, looking at it through a little peep window, just know that it's not going to be a scary movie, I promise. And the other absolutely beautiful thing is if you don't like what you see, because now you're looking at it, you get to make different decisions, you get to adjust. And so that way maybe the next time it doesn't look as bad, and the next time after that, maybe it looks a little better and maybe you're actually excited to look at it.

That'd be nice at some point.

But, but it is, it is, it is ever changing, ever evolving. And what you see now doesn't have to be what you in the next quarter, year, three years. And I think that that's, that's pretty magical. When it comes to finance, there's not a lot of things that can adjust and change like that just by having an open mind and a willingness to, to pivot and adjust a little bit.

I like that one thing you said about being kind to yourself, I think has a really layered meaning in this space because we're very critical of ourselves. And I'm sure there's a lot of builders out there that are probably critical. The times they've looked at, the numbers, maybe they've felt, I've worked so hard, why are they looking like this? And there's been frustration, frustration there, which might, you know, force them not to look at them in the future. So I think being kind to yourself around that, to your point, you know, you may as well know what's there so that you can move them forward.

The other point with the idea of kindness to yourself is you didn't come into your building business because you were an expert in finance. You came in because you had a skill set of whether it was connecting with people, building beautiful homes, being able to handle multiple projects. I mean, I, I look at builders just in awe of what they're able to do. And so that's where I say the idea of kindness, be kind to yourself. Like, I know where my skill sets are and I'm happy to learn around that. And for builders, they're coming in, they might not have come from a financial background. If you didn't come from that background because you started this business, are you now required to be an expert in that as well? And so be patient with yourself and kind. And remember, you came into the business because you loved to build, to remodel, to renovate. All of those things. None of those words have finance in them.

Yeah, that's a great point. You can't be an expert in everything.

Yeah.

Okay, Leah, bonus round. I didn't prepare you for this one, but here we go. How would you describe yourself as a business coach?

You know, I definitely lean into the idea of awareness. And it's really important for me before anything else, that who I'm working with understands themselves. Because if they don't understand themselves, how can I help them move forward? And again, like, I want to move everything beyond just numbers on a sheet. I want to move people beyond that space. I want them to. I want them to enjoy and love what they do. And so I like to first have the human interaction and the human connection with. With people that I work with. And being able to create, that creates trust. It creates a safe space that maybe if you didn't feel comfortable talking about your finances before, you can now. But at the same time, coming from such a heavy financial and business background, I know that if I can connect to the human in front of me, the rest of it we've got made. You know, we can, we can put the business together. Together. Sorry, that was a terrible wording back to back. I got corny there. But. But no, it's the business part. We can learn that. But understanding yourself and how you're operating and how you want to operate is, to me, the most important step and finding that connection. And then you get to make all the choices you want to, and then we'll. We'll build the business together successfully.

Great. Well, I love that, Leah. And thanks so much for coming on Professional Builders Secrets today. You provided a lot of value, but also, it's been great to get to know you a bit better.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Cool. Also, a big thank you to our listeners wherever you are in the world. If you like the show today, please subscribe to Professional Builder Secrets on your platform of choice. And if you're feeling generous, leave us a review. But until next time, have a great day.