Transforming Finances: The Power of Coaching | DaRenda Hanson

And a lot of times when I'm talking to my business clients with CORE and we talk about, you know, if they're taking an S-corp election and you start payroll, well, how much do you need to cover? How much do you need monthly personally to cover your expenses? And they're always— the question is always like, well, I don't know, like, what can I take? And then inevitably we come back around to the same thing about people saying— people asking, Well, can I just take money out of the business? Is it really my money? Is it the business? And we have that same conversation you just had all the time. So I think doing this financial coaching will educate these business owners more on not only the personal side of it, which is what we're aiming for, but also the business side of it.

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Welcome to another episode of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. Shout out to our one listener in Brandon, Vermont. Thank you, whoever you are. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me, Ms. Dorinda Hansen of the Core Group. Dorinda, welcome.

Hello.

I know that you have been avoiding this recording and tried to sabotage it in many different ways, but I am glad to have you on and hear what you have to say.

Thank you. I would like to say that I'm glad to be here.

Well, you know, as I told Jeremy, you were voluntold. But there's a point to my madness, so stick with me. Okay, tell us who Dorinda is.

I am a relationship manager with Core Group. I've been an accountant for, oh dang, almost 20 years now.

Ooh.

I know, that makes me feel old. I'm married, have 2 children, 2 dogs.

Mm, living the dream. What kind of dogs?

A bulldog and a golden retriever.

That's an interesting combination.

Very much opposites.

So, so what do you do in your fun time?

I like to travel, um, but I also like to do, um, home projects, like DIY projects, and that's how I That's my stress relief, actually.

Yeah, it would be stress for me, uh, stressly— stress relief for me if it were destruction demo, but, uh, I don't think trying to create something, do it myself, I, I usually end up just more frustrated than—

that's, that's the part I love, putting it back together, I guess.

Okay, well, all right, I'll leave that there. How long have you been with Core?

I've been with Core for 5 years.

And what do you do for your clients?

I'm a relationship manager, like I said. I always tell my clients that my job is to be their main contact here at Core. If they have a payroll question, I can sometimes answer it, but I can always get it to the right person that can answer it. If they have a bookkeeping question, I can get them to the bookkeeper to answer that question. It's my job to educate them as much as they want to be educated on their financials. And some people want a lot of education and some people don't. A lot of the clients just want us to do it because that's our specialty and not theirs, and that's fine too. So I just always like to tell the clients that I'm there, I'm there for them at their capacity, however much they want to use me or how much they don't.

You have a side gig, a side hustle, if you will, doing personal financial planning. Tell me more about that.

It's not planning. It's financial coaching.

Coaching.

Sorry. So, yeah. So I take on clients and my ideal clients are people who have enough money to cover their expenses. They just don't manage it well. And they've identified that they don't manage it well, and they want to do something about it. So I take that, and I kind of get down to the nitty-gritty with them. And more times than not, it's opening up conversations between a married couple as to, you know, like, who does what, or where their money's going, or— because married couples a lot of times don't talk about finances at all. It's a very big tension point for them. So I act as a third neutral party to open up that conversation and find out where their finances are. Usually it's more educating one than the other, because usually there's one person that handles most of those finances. So it's, you know, we look at their budgets, we create a budget they can live with. We help them set some goals and figure out how they can get from where they're at to reaching those goals. And then we can talk about other things too, like Do they have enough life insurance? What's their health insurance look like? Like, are they making the best financial decisions for their family and what they need?

Well, what I heard in there is that you're a marriage counselor.

Nope.

No, you don't have to do any counseling?

Nope, I'm not a counselor.

Ah, so if they're at loggerheads and they're yelling at each other, you just disconnect.

I will say, you need to go find a counselor and then come back to me. If you want my help.

Yes, I say, okay, well, that is interesting. And I can speak to my marriage. We don't talk about finances because we have very different values around money. And I didn't realize that when I got married that we were that different, although the warning signs were there. I just wasn't experienced enough to understand what they were. But I think when you have people, whether that's business partners or, or a married couple, or, or even an employee and employer that, that value money differently, that have different values around it, it can definitely cause friction. But I think because money is so ubiquitous, I mean, it touches pretty much everything in our lives, it becomes the, um, lightning rod, if you will, that, that a lot of, uh, problems get sucked into. And a lot of times money isn't really the issue, it's just the, uh, issue that people, uh, present— the symptom that people present with— that the— there are underlying problems that just get stuck there. Is that your experience?

You kind of hit the nail on the head with that. Because one of the first exercises that I have clients do is identify their values. And I tell them that, you know, if it's a married couple, his values don't have to match her values. Like there could be 6 different values that we're looking at. But then we find out how to write those values into the budget, assuming that they're, they're going to fit into the budget, because those things are what someone will go out and break the budget for. Like if someone values going to get pampered once a month or massages or whatever, those are the things that even if they don't have that money written into their budget, they'll go out and blow the budget to do it. So we kind of hinge the budget off of those values. And if their values are traveling, then we find a way to set up a travel budget. If their values are spending time with their family, we find a way to fit some entertainment into that budget.

Yeah, because money is just a proxy for everything else, right? I mean, it's, it's not anything, uh, this may sound strange, but to me money is not anything in and of itself. It's just a, it's, it's a proxy for a lot of different things. Um, yes, it is a tool, and I, I mentioned that in my book Profit First for Creatives, which you should all read. So you came to me a couple of months ago and said that you had some clients that were asking if you did personal financial coaching in your capacity as a relationship manager. And you brought that to me and I said, hmm, let's dig into that a little deeper. And because of that conversation, we are incorporating that into our service offerings at the beginning of the year. How do you see that working with a typical client that you work with that is like someone that had asked about it?

So right now, the clients that I work with on, on the core side, so on the core side, it's pretty much strictly their business finances that we look at other than doing a personal tax return. And then on my coaching side, all that I'm looking at is their personal. So, but when you have a self-employed individual, those two have to marry somewhere. Like normally it's that a business owner sucking money from their business to cover their personal life, or they're not paying themselves from the business. And they're living on beans and rice in their personal life when they could be paying themselves a salary or taking money out of the business. But they're just not quite sure how to do either one of those things or how they work back and forth. So what I see is that when we implement this, we will better be able to look at both sides of it. And give them advice or teach them what they need to know in order to pull the correct— pay themselves out of the business reasonably to cover their personal expenses and know that their personal expenses are in an order that they're not taking too much out of the business and not leaving money in the business to grow the business or do whatever they need to do to buy assets and, you know, make that flourish. So I think it's more marrying the two so that they're comfortable and confident in the amount of money they're spending personally and what they're taking out of the business to cover those expenses.

Yeah, I, I write about this in the book as well, that, that money habits and mindsets that you have, uh, individually when you start the business, those translate into the business. You can't, you can't put on a different hat when you walk into the business and be somebody differently, uh, be somebody different, right? And so however you manage your money at home in your personal life is how you're going to manage it in the business. So I don't want to make it sound like someone's going to be very meticulous about their spending in their business and then just go hog wild and spend lavishly on the personal side because that's probably not going to happen. But to the point you're making that if you don't have your personal finances in line, it can really stress the business. You know, I remember having a conversation with a guy, an entrepreneur, a few months ago, and he was trying to decide if he could take money out of his business. And this guy had been in business over 10 years and it was a profitable business, but he was really hung up on like, Should I take that money out of the business? Is it proper? And we, we kind of had this conversation around like, well, do you need it in the business? Are you— and like, why are you feeling like you need to leave it in the business? And it really was, um, kind of like this, this rainy day fund. Like, if things went to hell in a handbasket, uh, he could keep his employees, uh, you know, um on board. And I'm like, well, if, if the bottom fell out and your business was losing money, would you keep those employees? And he was like, well, no. And I'm like, then why are you keeping money for that, right? But there was this— he had really kind of twisted himself into a pretzel trying to decide whether he could write himself a check. So I don't, I don't think it really matters what your, your, your value, your mindset around money is. It has to be It has to be consistent. You have to have a plan for both.

Yes, exactly. And a lot of times when I'm talking to my business clients with CORE and we talk about, you know, if they're taking an S-corp election and you start payroll, well, how much do you need to cover? How much do you need monthly personally to cover your expenses? And they're always— the question is always like, well, I don't know, like, what can I take? And then inevitably, we come back around to the same thing about people saying, people asking, well, can I just take money out of the business? Is it really my money? Is it the business? And we have that same conversation you just had all the time. So I think doing this financial coaching will educate these business owners more on not only the personal side of it, which is what we're aiming for, but also the business side of it, because that's just it. We're the professionals and they don't know what's right or what— they just want to make sure they're doing it right most of the time. And they just know that they have money sitting there and they don't know what to do with it.

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. Pay your accountant more. That's the answer. No, no, it's not the answer. Okay, I'm gonna pivot here for a second. Tell me a story about a client that you've worked with where you felt like you, you— it really impacted you. Like, what, what— either because of what the client had done or what you brought to the table you felt like that made an impact?

Um, are you asking for the financial coaching side or CORE?

Either, both.

I think the same thing really applies for both. Um, I had a client recently, or they're still a client. It's a married couple and like, like my ideal client, they have enough money to cover all their expenses and have extra, save for retirement. Their kids are in many activities, everything like that. And we don't even have biweekly meetings at this point. Um, we just kind of check in and like you and I have talked, 75, 80% of coaching is accountability. And I was getting to the point in our meetings when I wasn't sure that I was still serving purpose for them, that I kind of felt like we were kind of through it. They're doing it on their own. They're doing really good. They've done everything I've asked of them. They've, they come to the table every time we meet, they're ready. Perfect client. And then we met a few weeks ago, and he said, we have never talked about our finances the way we have when we started working with you. He's like, you changed our lives with your coaching. And so to me, I felt like I wasn't able to bring anything new, like I given them what I had, but it was still the accountability part of it to keep them on the same page, to have our check-ins. They have to update their budget when they talk to me. And it was just them saying like, no, you're still making a difference and you've made a difference. And I'm like, well, that's my whole purpose. That's why I do it. And the same thing on the core side of it, you know, when I have clients and to me, I'm explaining something to them that's second nature to me, but they had no idea. And they're like, oh my gosh, it's so helpful. Like, that's why I do it because I know this stuff. I do it day in and day out. Um, but for our creatives, that's not their forte.

Yeah, no, it's not. I, I think back, you, you said accountability and, and I, I think that's, that's, uh, definitely a big part of coaching. I think the, the other part that I think is important is drawing the answers and the conclusions out of the person. Because I guess when I first started business, I never had a coach. And my idea of a coach was my high school football coach who 80% of the time was yelling at me because I was not doing something right and maybe 20%, "Yeah, atta boy." But it was very much a teaching, uh, telling me what I didn't know and then, uh, holding me accountable to that standard, right? And so I, I didn't think that I would be interested in coaching. I didn't think that, you know, that my experience was not something I wanted to replicate until I started thinking about like these professional athletes and, and they have coaches and I'm like Well, what does that look like? Because how in the hell is someone going to teach Tiger Woods how to swing a golf club better, right? Like, he— nobody's going to teach him something, uh, skill-wise that he, that he, uh, doesn't know or hasn't heard of, right? And what I, what I realized through my experience working with my coach over the last 3 years is that It is definitely accountability, but it's also about drawing something out of you that was already there that you just didn't see. Have you had an experience like that?

Yeah. So, you mentioned earlier that, like, your innate behaviors with money are going to transfer over to your business from your personal. Another exercise that I actually do with clients is their earliest money memory, because a lot of times that earliest money memory is what has defined how they look at money. Or it may be, you know, when they were growing up, all their parents did was argue about money. Their parents didn't teach them anything about money, which is what I hear a lot. And all of those things decipher how they spend their money now, whether it's personal or business. So I think so, yes. So we go through that exercise with clients and it kind of is an epiphany as they even go through it as to why, you know, like, they're like, oh yeah, like, I see it now. That's, that's who I think about when I'm spending money, or the situation I think about, or whatever the case may be. And another thing is, you know, just having them go through their bank statements and see where they spent their money for the last 3 months. People do that?

Yes.

Oh. Okay, that alone—

I've never done—

if they have a spending problem, that alone will, um, open up some eyes.

Define a spending problem.

If they're spending more than they make.

Ah, okay. All right.

Or if they're spending more than they want to in a category. Like, sometimes people come to you and say, oh, I eat out way too much, I spend too much on groceries, and then you look at their spending and that's not really where the problem is. Like, but having them do that. If we need to dig into expenses more, and like, I just told them to do it. I didn't tell them they need to go look at their grocery bills or their eating out or their convenience store runs. But doing that in itself, they draw conclusions on their own as to, oh, that's where it's going. They could have done that on their own. Like I didn't— they didn't need me to tell them to do that. They could have gone out and pulled those statements on their own.

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. Yes, that, that exercise of your earliest money memory is, is interesting. I'm going to tell you what mine is, and then you have to tell me what yours is. I— it's not a specific memory, but I, I do remember, uh, when I was young, my dad and my grandfather and pretty much all the males that I, I saw always had these big wads of cash in their pockets, kind of like gangsters do. Yeah, it was weird. But I kind of— my money habit that I learned, my money value that I learned, was that money was always there. Like, it just was. And if you didn't have it, you could go make more. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that belief. And as a matter of fact, a lot of entrepreneurs sign up with that, uh, thought process. But it led to some unhealthy habits because I never really worried about not having money. And I think you, you should. I mean, I think you should plan for those seasons when something doesn't go as expected. And I never did that, uh, which of course drove my wife nuts, but that's beside the point. Um, so what was your earliest money memory?

So my earliest money memory is it was after my parents were divorced. I was about 9 years old and I had wanted this baby doll for Christmas that was like an electronic baby doll. You like could feed it and all kinds of stuff. And it was expensive. And my dad, he has always been a blue collar worker. You know, never— neither one of my parents ever made a lot of money to speak of. And my dad bought me that baby doll for Christmas. And I probably played with it Christmas Day, and then I was done with it. Like, that's all I did. And I remember at the age of 9 that I felt guilty for that. Because I knew that it was a lot for him to go get it. And then I played with it for a day, and that was it. And I held on to that doll until I was probably 15 or 16 because I wouldn't get rid of it because I felt so guilty.

So how did that show up for you as an adult in the way you think about money?

So when I did this exercise, I realized that— well, I know that I'm a very frugal person when it comes to money. My husband's the complete opposite. Yes. But I am a frugal person.. And I tend to mirror my dad in that respect rather than my mom. My mom, not that she's not frugal, she's not as frugal. My dad, my dad is cheap. Like there's a difference between cheap and frugal.

Oh, okay. So cheap is less than frugal. I mean, you're going—

but I found that ironic because I didn't grow up around my— I lived with my mom and my stepdad. And my dad lived on the other side of the state. Like, I did not live with him all the time and see his habits, but I more mirrored his habits than I did my mom's.

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Yeah, and that, that is interesting because I, I, I think It's interesting how we pick up things as children, uh, and carry them into adulthood, and we don't even realize. And I'm talking very innocuous things like how you talk, sayings, things, mannerisms, like, and you don't really know, uh, where they come from or how you pick them up. But I, I remember this, this summer we, uh, went to see my father-in-law and, uh, my wife and him were walking down the hill, and they're about the same height, and I'm like, oh my God, they're twins. And, and then a couple of weeks ago, I caught her, and she, she does this, oh yeah, and I'm like, holy shit, that's Sid. I, and she, she just, she was like, yeah, you're right. I mean, but at, at 55, she's just now realizing that she has these mannerisms that she picked up from her dad.

Yeah. I'm a self-declared horrible gift giver. Like, I never know what to get people as gifts. And I think part of it's because I overthink it because I want to buy them something that they're going to use. And then it's not going to sit in a closet for 15 years before they get rid of it. And I wonder if that goes back to that story. I don't know. My husband would tell you I'm a horrible gift giver, probably.

Well, on that subject, I, I, when my wife and I were dating, it was her birthday. No, it's Christmas. And she said, I want a Ralph Lauren denim shirt. And I'm still in college, right? And so like, okay, so I go to Dallas. I think I went to Nordstrom's and I pick out this Ralph Lauren denim shirt, and I give it to her, and I'm really excited because I got her what she wanted, right? And she looked at it, and she— I could see it on her face, it was like, and, uh, she ended up taking it back and got a sweatshirt, a Ralph Lauren sweatshirt, which she still owns, by the way, 31 years later. But since that point, I mean, I, I had to get beat up over, over time to realize that I can't pick out a gift for her and, uh, she's like, well, I'm just going to tell you what to get me. And I'm like, what? Where's the gift giving in that? That, that, I mean, part of it is like making something, or I mean, selecting something because I'm thinking of you. I thought this would be good for you, something like that. But no, no, it's, it's send me a link. This is what I want for my birthday. And I'm like, this is the worst.

Yeah, see, I like that because I'm horrible at coming up with what to get someone without them sending me a link for it.

Well, just my statement is just go buy it your damn self. Why do I have to buy it for you? I mean, what, how does that make it a gift? I mean, I don't know. Anyway, what would you say the most common problem or problems that you encounter with your clients? What, what are some of the themes or threads that you see at core?

At core, usually that they come to us and they know enough to not know enough. Like they, they're like, oh, should I take an S corp election? Should I do this? And so it's not a problem, because that's what I like to do is educate them on what to do. But outside of that, they always have questions about, well, what's deductible, what's not. So I think it's just, like I said, it's not a problem. But it seems to be like every client comes on about the same, and you just go over the same stuff all the time to educate them on whatever they need to know.

Well, let me ask you a question about that, because that's interesting. Why can't they just Google that shit and get an answer? I mean, like, what— assuming— I'll go ahead and stipulate that what they see on Google is correct. Why is it that they come to you anyway?

I mean, you can Google anything, right? Like I always say, it's not that the information you need isn't out there. It's that you need it all in one place and someone to explain it to you the way that you can understand it. And I think that that's what it is with clients. They can Google this shit all day. But if they don't understand what it's telling them, then it's useless. And I think having a professional to come down to your level and explain it to you and assure you that yes, you're doing the correct thing, or no, I wouldn't do that, then that's worth a lot, that you're confident in the decision that someone's telling you. Now on the flip side, I guess this would be the problem that I didn't come up with while ago. A lot of people nowadays are getting information from TikTok or YouTube. And it's not necessarily good information. And then they come to us and ask us our opinion, and we will tell them our professional opinion, and then they disagree with it. That would be the biggest problem I have.

Do you think doctors have the same problem? Like, oh yeah, where people are going to WebMD and coming in and diagnosing, hey doc, uh, I actually have colon cancer and I need you to fix it.

Oh, definitely. You know, I don't know, it's the same situation, just it's not your health, it's your business.

Yes, we had an interesting conversation a few weeks ago about how, um, people pay you for professional advice and then don't follow it. And I said it's kind of like going to the doctor and they tell you to do something and you don't do it. And I said, who does that? And you said, oh, me, all the time, right? So, you know, talk about that for a minute because I think it's an interesting dynamic of like, why would you pay someone for a professional opinion to tell you what to do with your money and then ignore their advice? Why do you think that is?

A, you don't trust them, or B, you've gotten information elsewhere that makes you think that there might be a better way to do it. And I would say that I'm always open to listen to what they have to say. Like, I'll go research something to the nth degree. That's my, uh, downfall. Um, but I'll go research something to the nth degree to see if it fits in their scenario. A lot of the times with tax laws, people tend to read what they want to read out of it and not the exceptions or something like that. Um, so I would say that's in this case why you would want to hire a professional to either agree or disagree with your findings.

Yeah, I mean, I guess, I, I guess, and, and this would apply to physicians as well, uh, you know, if you don't like what the professional is telling you, you can always go find another professional and keep finding one until you get the answer that you want, potentially. But, you know, I, I think the thing that just really strikes me is that there are, there's a lot of bad advice out there, right? There's a lot of people doing just that. They're telling people what they want to hear, and that always resonates. Like, oh, you agree with me? Okay, great, you know. And, and so I'm gonna pick you, and I'm gonna decide what, what, you know, to do based upon what you say because you agree with me. Um, but, you know, I'm not suggesting you need to go around and get a second professional opinion on everything, but if 80% of the people are telling you that, you know, this is not what you should do, you probably should listen to them rather than go and find somebody else.

Right. I mean, I have a good example this week from a medical professional who gave some advice to my family and we went against their choices and we came out better. But we knew that when we did that, that was, you know, our choice and not what they told us to do. But to go back to what you said, I tell clients all the time that finding an accountant is a lot like finding a doctor or dentist. Like, you hate finding a new one, but sometimes it's inevitable. Them you need to, but you have to find someone who jives with you, gives you the answers when you ask for them, you know, responds to emails, answers the phone, because so many of them out there you only talk to once a year to produce a tax return. And that's just not what we do here at Core. But I guess that's just to say that finding a new accountant can be as painful as finding a new doctor or dentist sometimes. And you don't ever know that they're giving you maybe all the advice you want to hear, but we're giving you the best advice that we see as professionally relevant to you.

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's the reality. When you hire a professional for, for whatever reason, uh, you really don't know the quality of their advice, right? So if I ask a doctor, uh, you know, these are my symptoms, what do you think? And she says, you know, XYZ, how do I know whether she's telling me the right answer or not? I have to— I have to— to your point, you have to trust her. And I, I think that trust is built upon the communication. I, I use the example of a physician all the time because if you went to the physician and you didn't tell them your symptoms, they just had to, you know, go by the blood work or the x-rays, the imaging, and, and you didn't say anything they're going to give you an incomplete and possibly bad diagnosis, right? Um, there is a responsibility on you as the patient to communicate, you know, your situation. And I, I, I find— I think probably because accountants don't tend to be very chatty— that those, those conversations don't happen with accountants. And, you know, if we don't know what's going on in your life, your business, your head, uh, we can't give you the best answer possible. What do you, what do you say to that?

I tell my clients that all the time in our quarterly conversations that we have. You know, like, the conversations are not just to go over their financials or their tax return or talk about tax season coming up or whatever. It's to talk to them about what's going on in life, like what's going to affect your tax return or what's going to affect your business coming up this year. What are you looking forward to, or what's going on in the business. And I am a self-defined not a people person, but I enjoy those quarterly conversations with clients more than they do probably. But I like it because it's not just talking about numbers. It kind of gets me out of my number crunching and tax return element for a little bit and, you know, talks about what they're excited about, about the business and what they're looking forward to and where they're trying to get it. And in knowing those things, um, allows me to better help them with my advice.

Dorinda, I very much appreciate your time today, even though it was non-consensual. I still appreciate it. Uh, I experience, I appreciate your experience share and, uh, your thoughts. Listeners, if you like what you hear, please rate the podcast, subscribe to the podcast, share the podcast. If you don't like what you hear, you don't like Dorinda, you don't like Christian Brim, shoot us a message and tell us what you'd like to hear next time. Until then, ta-ta for now.

And that's a wrap for today's episode of The Profitable Creative. Until next time, you money lovers. And don't forget, Profit First for Creatives is live via Amazon.

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