The Money Storyteller Method with Katherine Pomerantz

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This is the no Closer show where you get the latest developments in distressed note investing and learn the secrets of how you can control millions of dollars worth of property For Panties on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives to support you in achieving the same. Now here's your host CEO of We Close Nodes, Scott Carson.

Hey Real estate investors, this is Scott Carson. I'm known across the country as the.

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Good morning, good afternoon and good evening everybody. Hey. Welcome this episode of the Note Closure show. As always, Scott Clarkson jacked up to be with you today. I am rare, very, very raring to go. Today we've got a very special guest to kick off our really one of our first episodes of the new year. And this lady is an actress turn accountant and she's capitalized amazingly on her artistic background to create the Money Storyteller method. And all of us out there, this is something you definitely learn. I know that in the New Year's people are always looking for New Year's resolutions. I'm going to do things different this year. Well, this is the episode you definitely want to listen to take some notes on. All right. Because with her mindset and an accounting framework, she literally helps business owners scale businesses without mess or overwork. And that's what we all want. We want to be able to make more money without having to put in more work and especially more mess. All right. And I'd be willing to bet she's probably pretty good at going back up and cleaning up some of our messes and helping us out there. But she is. She leads an accounting firm and financial education company and her expertise has been featured by Vice Media Discover Card, the painting order, of course, one of our favorite podcasts, stacking Benjamin's too over there as well. So she loves yoga, walking dogs and throwing rad birthday parties. And what am I talking about? Talking the amazing legend, the counting money coach, Katherine Pomerantz. What's going on, Katherine? How you doing today?

Oh, I'm fantastic. That was the most fun. I think someone has read my intro in ages. Thank you so much. I was also raring to go, but I'm like, oh, God, it's great to be here. Happy New Year, everybody.

Happy New Year. Exactly. You know, I'm available for Christmas parties, bar mitzvahs and weddings too, if you need an introduction. You know, we all want to have like that person goes around. And now coming to the stage out of Houston, Texas, Catherine Pomeran. You know what I mean?

It's a, it's a skill. It's a real skill. So thank you. Yeah. You're bringing the party today.

Exactly. Well, you know, as a fellow Texan, you know, it's, you're just down the i10 from us. You're basically in Houston, Texas out there and we have a very interesting state with a lot of great things out there. But talk about how, how do you, how did you make that conversion from actress into financial mindset coach and accountant?

Absolutely. So. So I always wanted to do arty, artsy things. I was always a very free spirited child. You couldn't tell me what to do. Kind of a, you know, you can picture it. So I really liked the very abstract, symbolic, weird stuff. Right. So I had no interest at all in making money. That was not my goal and I got to do that for a career for a time and it was a lot of fun. But famously, that community did. Doesn't really do well with money. Not only do you not necessarily make a lot of it, you also think a lot of weird thoughts and assign a lot of value to making money. That's not really helpful. So I had an interesting experience in that I didn't grow up with that kind of, with those kinds of stories about money. We're going to talk a lot about money stories. But my personal background, I got to see people from all different economic like stages of life, different age groups, different income levels. And I got to see how different people treated money. And they treated it very respectfully and they treated it it well. And so when I became an adult and as much fun as I was having, I realized I was stressed about money all the time. And so were all my friends, all my colleagues, all my mentors. And the way we talked about it was just like odd. So I started to get curious about that. And I also kind of felt lied to. I was like, I feel like there's something about making money I don't get. And if I could figure that out, I could maybe help a lot of people. Because famously you work multiple jobs when you want to be A freelance artist. You work 60, 80 hours a week. And genuinely, truly, at the time, I was happy when I made three, three hundred dollars a week. I don't even. Nowadays, looking back at my past budgets, I'm like, how did I live off of that? I. I was married. My husband was in grad school. I was the primary breadwinner. That's like 1500 bucks a month. Like, wow. Oh, it was. It was stressful. So I was like, okay, there's something about money. I don't know how it works because I can't keep working harder. I literally can't work harder. And I'm smart. I don't understand something about how the system operates. So. So I was like, okay, I'll study some. I'll just study money. No other thought beyond that. Money work. Then I fell in love. I genuinely was like, oh, my gosh, money is so cool. And I didn't know that it worked this way. And it's actually really easy to get wealthy, and I just need to teach people about it. And so about a year from when I had the thought of I want to have money works, I had started my own accounting firm for small business owners I had already identified. These are the people I want to help. These are the people who can make the most money, who can make the most jobs, who can help build micro economies and help the. Where people. Like, I want more people to be rich. I'm going to do this. And so that's really kind of my. Kind of my journey, which has a little addendum, because as I started doing that work, I'm really good at it. I'm really good at it, you guys. I love taxes and accounting. No professional training. That's kind of a weird story, right? How? I mean, it's a podcast. You can't see me, but I'm cute, little blonde, you know, former actress. Like, how with no accounting classes, no finance classes, no business background, like, how am I so good at this that I have people who admire me? I get compliments all the time. And I just. I didn't even have to market. It was referral, referral, referral, referral. Everyone was like, this woman does stuff different, and she does it well. And I also noticed another trend. I notice trends all the time. It's a money, money storyteller in me. I noticed another trend, that I had clients who were crushing it. All the strategies, all the organization, all that bookkeeping, tax stuff. They'd take those numbers, we'd run with it, we'd make real change, and it was fun. Fun. It was, it was so fulfilling and exciting to get to work with them. And then I had other clients, all that same organization, all those same strategies, and it always stayed chaotic. They reminded me of myself when I started my journey. Right. This is a constant source of stress. And no matter what you change about your external circumstances, your internal circumstances stay messy. And I really wanted to solve that. And when I started thinking about my story is weird. How did I learn this so well? And I seem to have people who were a lot like me who are still stuck. What is in between here? And that is where the money storyteller method was discovered. Because I realized, oh, I don't have background as a finance person, but I'm a storyteller first. And all money is, is a way of communicating. It's just a way of assigning value. It's one of the. It's probably the only shared language in the entire world. Everybody can learn to read financial reports. And almost every business, every household has some sort of financial data to like work with. And I know how to. I was into the weird art, right. I know how to talk in symbolic abstract languages. I had decades of experience in that. So I'm really good at telling stories with money. I'm really good about building financial reports that get to the heart of why are you doing what you're doing? What is the information you need to achieve your goals and explaining it in a way that that's what you're seeing and you're not just getting lost in all the jargon. And when I unlocked that and I started teaching money from that perspective, I started using my storyteller training to teach people how to build accounting systems for business is. Oh, we unlocked all, all the magic happened, all of the stuff. It's fun all the time now.

So I, I think there's another story behind that story though, too. Thinking back about when I went to college. You know, I got a business degree and I had friends that were getting both a. A finance and an accounting degree. And it was a five year dual thing. And I think about them and how dry they were and how very uninteresting the classes. I mean, I know I barely got through them in my undergrad. The accounting class, I knew it and I knew the story behind the story, but it was so boring. I think I made a C or a B minus or whatever, something like that in my college courses. I just got through them because I didn't want. I was. So this is not fun for me.

Yeah.

And I think because it's all just, you need to do this, you need to do this. It sounds almost like Charlie Brown's teachers the entire time. Yeah, but I think that you, not coming from that original background, you weren't programmed to think in a specific way and being outside the box, thinking and having that artsy. And I, I love your website. I love the shirt with the skulls on it and all the stuff that you've got on your website. You guys need to check it out. We'll put it in the show. Katherinepromorance.com But I think that leads to your favor because you're able to speak normal to people versus talking in jargon. It's kind of like when I worked at a bank with new financial advisors that come in and talk to people and they would just start shouting like quoting PE ratios and expense ratios and people like, is this a good stock or a good mutual fund? And I think a lot goes to that. You actually are the. From the people, by the people, for the people.

In some ways, I really am. And it's so funny because even if I wanted to approach it that way because like, I know, I know the jargon, right? Again, I really like this stuff, guys. I haven't stopped studying or talking about money in eight years. Like, this is, this is my obsession. It's still fun for me. So I know all the terms, but I've, I've done it the other way where I sit down with a client and here's all the options and here's how they work and you just see the numbing out happen. And so I'm like, okay, storyteller, first you tell me about you. What, how do you want to do this? How do we. I literally yesterday did an intake call with a client who I told not to work with me based on how he wanted to work. I'm like, we're not going to be a good fit. And S Corp's not going to be a good fit for you. You're at the income levels. But here's some other things based on how you want to work so you have less admin work and way more in like retirement savings in investment accounts you've never heard of before. Because he didn't know the terms to research, right? So in 15 minutes, I was able to get him like tens of thousands of dollars off his tax return. He doesn't need my help for it. And he's got all the tools to make it happen. And I'm like, you know what? I'm really happy. I spent 15 minutes with you, we would have gone around and around and around and around if we had started with the jargon first. But because I asked him about how do you like working? What do you, what are your goals with your life? Why are we talking today? Was it you think you're missing? He told me his story and then I was like, okay, based on that, here's the product that fits that. And in that particular case, it wasn't us. And I was happy to be like, yeah, bless and release. But that, that is the storytelling element. I mean, I'm going to sound like a broken record because I'm doing kind of bringing this up, but that is why this is so effective is that if you start story first, you start why I'm doing this, why I want, what do I want to get out of this. Then you're going to be able to make decisions about how to organize your bookkeeping, you're going to be able to translate your bookkeeping better and you're going to be able to make strategic decisions about how to use your money so that it feels like an investment to get you the things you really, really want.

What are some of those hot buttons when you're taking those intake calls with people that I get the difference between the story versus the product aspect of the. Or the strategies.

Sure.

What are some of those hot buttons you're listening to people see if they're a fit for you or not a fit for you. Somebody who's already got a background in it or they're got a shoebox full of receipts and stuff that they don't know how to implement or what's, what's kind of that process. You want to walk us through that?

Sure. Okay. I'll use an example and I'll use a real estate investor given the audience we have.

Perfect.

So I was working with a young gentleman who, he had built up a really good portfolio of properties. He now owned, I think 13 properties. When he came to me, he had a full time job and it paid well and he was really good at it. So it took him like maybe 20 hours a week. So he had more than enough income and more than enough time to start playing and building up the second thing for himself. But what he ended up doing was building a whole second job that didn't actually pay him very much. And so by the time he got to me, he was really frustrated and he, he said something. This is the story that stood out to me. He said, yeah, okay, I have all these assets and like on paper it looks like I'M wealthy, but like, I don't get any benefit from it. And so what he had done is he had heard, hey, real estate investing makes you a lot of money. I should do that. And then he had followed a lot of really good advice to really level up his portfolio. And I mean, I think he'd done all this work in just a couple of years to have 13 properties in a couple of years that he was managing well. And that was profitable. Fantastic. But he didn't realize that the story he wanted wasn't about having a really healthy balance sheet. He wanted cash flow. He just wanted to make more cash. He wanted to pay himself more. So he had a really good company, but it wasn't the company that was fitting what his ultimate value was. He wasn't doing anything wrong. Right. Let's also emphasize that, like, yes, we all want to talk cash flow because that's the fun stuff. But there is nothing wrong with taking all the cash and just keep buying and keep leveraging and keep building up. That's a good strategy too. It's just that your strategy is that your goal. And so the process, when we started working together became not just about building out the bookkeeping so that we could get better and more accurate information so you could start making cash flow decisions. And it was also to start looking at what is the model here. Are you even investing in the right types of properties that have high cash flow? Right. Are you? I mean, you're saving a lot of money, but would you be happier, like leveraging a little bit more debt and keeping some of that cash? That's okay too. Right? You just have to know what. You just have to know the risk management. And so that was the story we started practicing and that was after, you know, took some time, of course, because it's not like this is a fast moving industry.

Right.

But he, he was a lot happier even just having a better plan where, oh, I understand where my, like, values and story aren't in alignment with how I'm using my money. That's not that hard to start shifting my action to get a little bit more of what I want each month. And again, he was fast. And he did, I mean, he built this portfolio fast. He got it fixed fast in terms of this is a better way of running my company to get me more what I actually want, which in this particular instance, he just wanted to make more money. He just wanted to live a better life. I'm all for that. So I. Did that. Answer your. Did that give you enough process questions?

It Totally did. Because that's the thing is that we, I think, and I see this happening over and over and over and again. I see a lot of investors and me out speaking and teaching. A lot of times I see people that are going to real estate club and real estate conference over and over again and they sign up for all these different strategies that they like the strategy, but when they get down to the nitty gritty like, this just created another job for me and I don't necessarily understand that I want to do this. Well, this may not work exactly in my market like I thought it would. Like the guys from the front of the stage sold it. You know, I mean, like, we get. And, and with what's going on in the market, the last couple, you know, the last 12 and 24 months, interest rates going up, it's affected a lot of people. Cost of goods to rehab, that's also gone up. You look at obviously, you know, the mortgage rates and then also just some of the different strategies that, you know, the Airbnb, I think everybody's getting all, I'm gonna turn my extra bedroom or my ADU or the G into a unit. And that's kind of starting to crater in a lot of places out there too. So there's a lot of things that people have. I, I call your real estate investing is a, it's a living, breathing organism that you need to, to feed and adjust sometimes in a lot of cases.

Yeah. And I think one of the things that, especially real estate investors, they, they don't remember that they're a business and they don't remember that businesses have like brand identities, Right. They have client avatars. So that story doesn't just help your bookkeeping, it also helps you, like, get clear on the lifestyle. And also how do you differentiate yourself? Right. I had one of my earliest bookkeeping clients was a real estate developer, and I was eventually put in charge of his entire back end office for three years. And then I actually ended up running a sales team for one year, not because I was any sales training, but when it became increasingly clear the more we work together that they were making decisions off of inaccurate and incomplete data. And it all started with like, okay, we got to figure out cash flow around profit distributions because the partners would take money from, you know, they do the whole, okay, here's the split, here's the sale, here's the expenses, right. But they would do that before the warranty window had closed. And this particular company had really, really high warranty costs. So defined jargon in Case anyone doesn't know about selling and billing you, you build a new house and then it has a warranty. So like for the first year people can call up the builder and be like, hey, this thing is wrong, come fix it. Right. And they had thousands on average in fixes which, it's a brand new house. There's nothing wrong with this house. Right. But they had, they also really, really valued their customers. They were a small business. They knew referrals were a lot of what was important to them. So the owners really valued. No, we're going to handle this for you. We can, we can take the hit. Well, okay. But they were taking the hit and they weren't really like making the hit smaller. And two problems with profit being overstated, being paid too soon. You got cash flow issues, but also like you've got just profitability issues. And this was a small company. We're tens of millions, not hundreds of millions. So like there's one all I cash to go around. So I eventually figured out, you know, what the issue is, is these people. When I did all the back end digging and we dug into what the warranty things is, people were calling to get things fixed that weren't really wrong because they were buying brand new houses and assuming it's perfect. It's like you're buying a handmade product that is going to shift because the earth will literally move underneath it and they're seeing all these cracks. Oh my gosh, there's a crack in my drywall. Well, you bought a brand new house. That's normal and not, it's not bad. It's, it's healthy, it's fine. You're. It's fine. Right. And it's not covered by the warranty. So leading the sales team, we identified not only what types of client avatars aren't going to have as many warranty calls, but also training them in their sales process to explain this is what's under warranty, this is what's not. This is when you need to call me. This is when we're taking care of you. This, yeah, you might see it, but don't panic. Everything's fine. And it's such a small tweak, but we really had to get clear on the brand identity of the company, who they were serving, the types of homes they were building, and so we could meet that customer where they were at. One of the other things that it's, I don't know, sort of off topic, but it sort of fits, is that their primary market ended up being first time homebuyers because they weren't trying to compete with the big custom designers. Right. And they, you know, they didn't want to be the cheapest and the fastest and the biggest. That's. That was not the model they were interested in. So that high touch customer thing led to a lot more referrals, which again was part of their money story. How they got people, led to happy customers, led to people that especially first time home buyers, they all want their friends to come live with them. So it ended up being a great, great spend to do a little bit more market research, do a little bit more targeted lead acquisition, and then train the sales team so that this could happen faster and a lot less warranty calls. And yeah, it's a few thousand dollars per home, but hey, that adds up. And it did like within three months, we went from like an average of $4,000 to an average of 200 because.

Wow.

Yeah, because they weren't things that needed fixing. It was just that they had a policy. If somebody asked, they would do it. So we trained people so that they stopped asking. And I'm the finance person, so I wasn't training you in sales. I was just educating them on their numbers and the sales people got it and they're like, oh, okay, we can do this. Right. And so I think I always think of that also as like a money story example of like you need to think like a business and you need to have that brand identity and then that story flows all the way through until eventually I see it on your accounting sheet.

Well, that's the thing is you look at, there's opportunities to save money along the across that customer journey, as we like to say, from start to finish, stuff like that, there's an opportunity to save money, but also make money cross selling or other things like that, depending on what your focus is and stuff like that. But knowing where those Fishers, where those leaks in the system are, that's a major leak that you plugged in and just needed a little bit of training, like, oh no, that's not covered. Or that is covered. We can get out to take you there. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to perform amazing customer service. That's a great thing. But it does, like you said, it was literally eating away the profits before they were ready to get paid out in a lot of cases.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the customer service ranking stayed just as high. Customer satisfaction was as high, if not higher, because we were giving it a lot more attention in a way that served the clients Better.

So, yeah, good stuff. Now, when you're talking with your clients right now, or new clients, as we're, you know, in the beginning of the year, what are some of the things that people you know should be doing to help you if they're looking to take on somebody or get their accounting mess into a clean room? What are some of the most impactful things that they can do that can have immediate impact or make it easier on you when you're trying to find out and read their story through the braille that they provide?

Absolutely, yeah. So one of the first things is, are you clear on your money story? I often will have clients just write out what happened this year for me. Right. If we're talking like, okay, new client, I have to finish your tax return, what did you do last year? Every significant event in your life has a significant financial event as well. And taxes are always affected by any sort of financial event. So how many properties did you buy? Did you get married? Did you move? Did you, like, start a new business system? Right. I mean, each of those might have secondary things you have to, like, chase up and finish detailing out, but the big overview can at least be like, did I remember everything? Did. And it gets your brain to like, okay, am I. Am I covering all this stuff? Right. And since it's January, you have the great benefit of, and what do we do this year? I like, okay, this was a story. What do I want to do that's the same or that's different or that I want to see so I can start proactively putting things in place to record that story as it's happening. Right. There's so much about bookkeeping that can be automated, and I love, love that. That's the boring part of our jobs, right? My team is not here for the data entry, although we'll do it. Of course we will. But what can you get proactively that you know, hey, this is going to trigger taxable events. This is going to trigger information. This is what I need to start getting to my accountant. Putting that plan in place can be helpful. So when those things happen, hey, I know I need to take some action here. So what do I need to go find and what do I need to make sure I'm going to proactively keep in check moving forward? And then it's like, you know, it's like, okay, so that's the story. The money storyteller method has three foundational pillars. So we always start with the money story. What's my money story in the past, what's my future money story want to look like, right? So we can like have that vision, keep track of those values, make sure we're getting the lifestyle and the business type we want to have. Then we look at systems, right? So what is my bookkeeping system? Can I automate more? Do I have the right accounting support? Did an interview with somebody where they were talking about like, yeah, I mean it's so, it's so nerve wracking to be like not know how much taxes you're going to owe. And I was like, do you have an accountant? They can tell you. They can, you know, they can tell you that, right? Like, you know that that's something you can plan for. Like so that kind of stuff. Like, are you getting the support you need to have the information you need to feel confident. Not everyone needs to know how much taxes they owe. Because I got a bunch of cash sitting around all the time. Because I'm in good habits. I don't, I could care less. I don't want to waste my time there. But other people, they really want to know ahead of time and know it's handled. So know yourself and know is my system supporting me. Know the money story, build the system. And then we've got our money map. Because every good story needs a treasure map. So now that we've got a vision with your story, now that we've got good data from your systems, let's put it together. Because everything about that vision I could put into real numbers I can measure with money, right? That's the map of where you want to head. And you have the whole rest of the year. You can do it now. It's January. Build a map for, okay, these are, this is what I want to see every month when I get my bookkeeping. Why is it different? Why is it same? Where is it similar? So like the client example about like, hey, he wanted more cash flow. Yeah. We built him a money map there. That became the most important report we made is cash flow forecasting. Right? And that became the report he, that was part of his money map that he paid the most attention to and that he wanted those numbers to shift. And so every month when he took his real bookkeeping and he took his money map and he said, this is what I want it to look like and this is what it's looking like now. Why is it different? How can I change it? What happened that moved this number up or down? Can I get more of that or do we need less of that? Right, that's that fun part of Being in business, that's that strategy part of being in business. But you can't do it. At least I found you can't do it without all three pillars.

Right. Well that makes a lot of sense too out there. And was thinking here we've got a little bit of an older list of, of clients and listeners out here who are working their full time job doing real estate on a part time basis. But they're also doing it kind of a way to help save for retirement, to help them get out of a bad situation because they look at their current job and they're like, I'm not doing. What are some things that people could do right now? Maybe because I, you know, I'm a big fan of self directed ira, self directed accounts to help kind of put money away so that you can have it for a time. But you can also use that money to invest in a couple of ways. What are some things that people could do now before April 15th to help them maximize and start, get on the right track to start saving for retirement?

Sure. If you're spending a significant amount of time like running your real estate portfolio, are you set up like a business? Because if you're really trying to maximize your retirement, being a self employed, being able to identify as self employed is going to give you by far the most options. So there are certain types of accounts like a Solo 401K or a SEP IRA that have much, much higher contribution limits and being able to diversify your income streams of not just real estate income, but taking some of that cash and shoving it into other types of investment vehicles. Really, really great money map. Right. So one of the things like you guys are investors and yes, I've talked a lot about business, but you might want to break down like what are my different revenue streams and how much, what's the percentage I need to set for each of these? Right. That's more of a financial planning question. But that's what your money system is for. Is, is the money going where it needs to go? Right. I always joke like, you know, when I meet with financial planners, I don't do your job for you because I don't, I don't give advice about investment class types or any of that stuff. Right. But I make sure that they make a lot of money and it gets to you. So you can do that job.

Right. Or you're also being able to find, I won't say loopholes, but the cheat sheet and the tax code. They can move some money from the business into their personal stuff by Using some of the write offs or some of the different things they do so they are paying less taxes or using some things to drive some more income and profits in too.

Yes. Yeah. And so going back to your original question of, hey, it's the new year. You have until you file your tax return to make some moves. The really great thing about the, they just passed the Secure 2.0 act, which means that solo 401ks and SEP IRAs, you have until April to fill them, which is new. You used to have to do it in the calendar year with a Solo 401K. So there's still tax moves to be happening that you can still make things proactive, make things more advantageous. And if you're like, hey, I need some more information, like book an action plan, call with somebody. Right. See if you can. I mean, we literally offer them. I'm happy to share the link for that. It's 15 minutes. I always offer a couple a month. Snag them while you got them. Again, happy to share the link if you're, if you guys want to. But this is something that it's like, hey, if you really want to maximize. I mean, I'm biased, but like, that might be a money systems question. Am I getting all the support I need? Do I have somebody who knows the ins and outs of this so that I can just focus on making the money, living my life, and we know it's smartly and efficiently handled.

Now what would you say to somebody who hasn't done their taxes the last couple years? Like, oh my God, I haven't done anything. I've been just kind of kicking the can down the road, filing my extensions. But I need to get back into making sure Uncle Sam doesn't show up in a lot of cases.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I would say let's go meet him, let's go meet Uncle Sam. The worst thing you can do is keep kicking the can down the road. You're going to owe interest, you're going to owe penalties. And hey, anybody who's here investing in like physical property, the government's one of the few things that can like put liens on stuff and take it from you.

Yeah.

So that's not a good story. That's not the money story we want to have.

Right.

It's also something that actually I see this a lot because the way that we deal with money story stuff, I end up with a lot of messy people. I'm a messy person. You all heard my background. Like I was there. I'm a creative First, I get it, right? So this process doesn't change for you, but we want to ask a couple extra questions in the money story of, like, what is this source of anxiety? What is really causing what. What in your background? What in this past money story is causing this stress and anxiety so that you're avoiding it because you're stuck in a cycle? What fundamentally is happening with you is that you're stuck in a cycle of. This is hard for me to look at. Either it's overwhelming or it's confusing or I'm bad with money or, you know, oh, that was like, I'm a woman. So it's like, oh, that's job. Right? Like, you'd be amazed how much that stuff sticks with us. Right? Or oftentimes I'm frustrated. This is too, like, small and menial. I want to focus on the big things, like the big plans. Right. Those are often the two reasons we might be avoiding, but we're avoiding it. So it's super messy. So by the time we get to it, it's really stressful. It takes a lot of effort, a lot of time, and we're like, oh, God, I never want to go through that again. So we make a resolution to maybe do differently, but we end up avoiding it because it just keeps us in that stress cycle and it then triggers shame because I should be doing better, I should know better. I, I know this is wrong. Why can't I figure this out? What is wrong with me? All of those thoughts are so, so, so, so common for me to hear in intake calls. And people don't even realize they're saying it sometimes where it's like, oh, we are in a shame spiral. We. That's why we start with money story first. If we don't clear that and bring that out into the open, I don't care. Again, you're going to be one of my chaotic clients from early, early in my journey. I don't care how good your systems are, I don't care how good the strategies are. You won't be able to implement or move forward. So if you are in a position where I've been avoiding this for years, yes, better systems are going to help you and make it easier.

Right?

You don't even need to look at money maps yet. That is not your primary issue. But we definitely need to get into the story of, like, what is the cause of this avoidance? How can we alleviate some of this? So that's why as part of my services, I have my whole accounting firm. But we also do A lot of coaching, it's about 50, 50 and most clients that are with us, their full service package, they get coaching and they get all the bookkeeping and stuff because this stuff really, really helps and money is really emotional and it really drives a lot of our decision making so well.

And I think, I think it also comes to you mentioned about how they treat it and I think a lot of folks, we live in such a financially uneducated society.

Yeah.

And I've seen a lot of folks that if their parents struggle with things or just completely, oh, I got to do the books. I'm trying to do it all themselves. It seems overwhelming. So when we have a confused mind, it's a no mind. Things don't happen and they don't necessarily implement systems in because they're like, oh, it's confusing, it's a albatross. My neck. It's. I'm just going to be frustrated. I don't, you know, if we have something on our desk that we don't want to do, we sure as hell find other things to do besides doing the things we don't want to do. Right Catherine?

Absolutely, absolutely. I'm really good at cleaning when I have a deadline that I'm supposed to be doing. Oh my God, the dishes.

Right. But that's the thing is if you go back, I mean that's the great thing is if you haven't done that stuff, you can go back and unwind that stuff, figure out what has been reported and then get your taxes redone, refi or file your taxes, even get done so that you don't end up with a huge tax lien or something like that against you.

Yeah. And the IRS offers payment plans so it's not that hard to qualify or get enrolled with one. They're just happy you're going to pay them. And so yeah, that, I mean, I joke that you don't really need the money mapping thing but it comes with a built in debt payoff plan as soon as you get the work finished. So the money map is already there. That's the most important number until it's handled. Let's pay that off. And then you, you've got the systems to keep it so that you don't avoid it in the future. Right. That would be what we work on.

Right. And that's a great thing is that that can be such a lift weight off your shoulders, putting things in. I can remember when I was a banker for JP Morgan Chase and people come in, just an example, people would overdraw their account. A lot of times I'm like, what are your actions? Let's look at your overdrawing your account because you're spending everything before your check shows up. So you're getting these bounce things. Can you just hold off 48 hours on that one thing? Can you adjust the payment and. Well, yeah, I can do. I said, well, that will save everything. And we see that especially in the note business when we buy distressed debt. Part of it is counseling the borrowers to what they can't afford and what, where they've at and, and empathize. Like, listen, you were out of work or sick, lost one or covet or whatever it might be. Let's get you back on track and turn this into a positive versus a negative. It becomes that American night dream of owning a house versus that American nightmare of losing. Losing your house.

Yeah, yeah. It's amazing how much avoiding your money feels like it's helping, right? Like most people, they don't even know they're avoiding their money. But like, oh, I'm busy. Well, you, what you're not measuring is the amount of time spent on the stress and the worry. Like there is so much time to calm our, to get out of that confused mind as you said, to calm yourself back down, to get to a place where you can take action. And we don't see it because it is just stress response. It's just like, like nervous system going a little bit crazy. Right. To not get, not to get a little too woo woo with, with you all here today. But that's, that is the physical reaction to stress in the body. And so when you have money stress, it is unique in that it can just be a constant level that we don't hear anymore, but it's still there. And so the thing we don't see, the thing you don't measure, the thing you're not taking into account. Oh, I'm too busy. Oh, you know, like it's good enough. But how much time and energy is going into maintaining that worry and tamping down that worry and like ignoring the worry so we can kind of show up for everything else, right?

Well, but you're hit. That's the. I honestly, when you talk about money issues being the biggest causes of divorce and breakups and financial stress, I also believe that when you're wearing that stress, it also leads to sickness and cancer and other things that are, you know, we're big with animals here. And also your animals get sick because they see you stressed out all the time and, and you put off this Whole different aura and energy that just is not good in a lot of cases.

Yeah, yeah.

That's the woo woo in me showing. Showing up there for you.

Thank you. Thank you. It. It really does matter, though. And I think that's one of the. Again, again. But money storytelling is, let's be holistic about this. This really does affect your life. So, like, you deserve, you deserve better with this and you can do better with this. That if I could teach myself how to do this, guys, to this level of expertise, you can do this. You. You can do this. Right. And there's people who can help too.

So somewhere Rob Schneider is going to pop up from Waterboys that you can do this.

Absolutely.

You know, so. And going back to you, let's talk about what. When you see people come into money, being an artist and actress, you've got either really the feast or famine side of things in a lot of cases. And sometimes we'll see that on the real estate side, people close a big deal, they make a big chunk of money, and then it's. It's famine for three months or six months or a year till while they're working out for a lot of things. And I see that a lot of times with people like, hey, when's last time we did. Well, I haven't done a deal in six months or a year. Okay, well, what you do, did you invest that money along the way or just let it trickle down a little bit and live off it? So what are some things? If somebody's closing on a deal close, making a big profit, what are maybe a couple things they should look at doing immediately to maybe make sure that money stays around for a little bit longer?

Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I did warn you I'm going to be repetitive, but I'm like, well, what was on your money map? What did you say the money was for? Right. So if you know it's coming up and you haven't done the work of what's my story? What's my vision? That money needs a job. Right. So one of the biggest things about putting them building a money map is that every single dollar you have is assigned a money. We were to work through the whole, like, storytelling method on it. Like, like, literally like the hero's journey, like Joseph Campbell. Like, these are storytelling teachers. The tools there, right? In the role in the story that I always tell people. Money in your story should be your teammate. A lot of people will say money is a tool or money is a resource and teammate is better for two reasons. One, it Acknowledges all that emotional relational aspect that we were kind of talking about. Two, it acknowledges that money works independently of you. So if you tell money, this is the job I need you to go do for me, money will do it. Retirement's the perfect example. Hey, I need you to pay me when I'm older. Go make money. Well, yeah. The magic of compound interest is that money's going to work real hard making more money. Right. And the longer it has, the more it will work for you, the more it will pay it back. And so that idea of money, that image of money, that perspective of money, is what we need to assign money jobs. So when you know there's a lot of money coming and you don't know immediately where all of that needs to go in order to do more of the job, it needs to be. Needs to be done. Right. And it's totally okay if the job is, yeah, pay me for the next six months, because this is the money that we live off of. And I only want to work once every six months. Well, that sounds great. If that's the way you want to work it, I am. I'm full support of that story for you. Right. So if that's as simple as it is, great. But you know what it is? It's intentional, it's mindful, and it's going to do the job for you. If you know you want a little bit more from it, you know you want it to last a little bit longer, you know you want to level it up into another asset or something. Something. Those are all things you can study ahead of time, have the right systems in place to make sure that it ends up there at the end of the day? Does that make sense?

It totally makes a lot of sense. Totally makes a lot of sense. How often should people be looking at their money plan and talking with their accounting, a book bookkeeping coach to help them stay on track versus waiting till the end of the year or the beginning of the year. And how often? Once a month? Once a week? Once every once something changes or a deal closes, what's your ideal time? I know it may be different depending on the individual, but how often should be communicating with your money team.

Very insightful. Yes, I would say it does depend on the individual and the way that you like working with money. But every time I do teach this to someone in the systems, like in my unstoppable program, one of the things we'll work on is your money ritual. So we'll determine how often do you need to look at your money, What Are the money tasks you need to do regularly. You're running a business, you've probably got weekly admin stuff that has to get handled. And using the story into the systems, into the money map. Weekly can just be making sure even when you pay bills. Yes, it fits into the map. Yes. It's like on time. Yes. Cash flow is good. And even though it's a five minute process. Okay, great. There's things that you can do every week. So I'd say minimum once a month. You probably need to look at yourself once a month as terms of like, how often do you need to talk to, to like your coach or your accountant? Well, what big moves are you making? Right? Like if you've got big moves and you need extra support, maybe it's every week, right? Maybe it's. We do need to talk every week because you, you're doing big things and you need that coaching support to like show up fully for this with all of that stress of doing new things that we talked about. Right. But it could also be, and I have a lot of clients that, you know, we have a set monthly fee for a reason. I don't want to charge you by the hour. Something comes up, you get on the phone, you tell me about it. So all of that, like, preemptive money mapping, what's your story? What's the plan for the year? My clients are really well trained on, hey, this is a taxable event. Let me get my team on it right now. It's happening immediately. Actually, my clients are so good, it's happening in a few months. Like the sales of real estate and property. Oh, yeah, I know about that way in advance. It's like, here's what it is. Here's the deal, here's the clothes. I got you all the paperwork already. And I'm like, thank you. What do you, what do you need for me? Right? Like, right.

How are you going to write this off? Are you doing some cost segregation or doing a 1031 exchange or how do you want to realize? A lot of stuff there. Awesome. Good stuff. Now, how well do you work? I'm sure you probably work pretty well with folks, financial advisors, their bankers, their loan officers, stuff like that too. In some cases, if they need to talk and, and match everything up so that the money plan is working together too, huh?

Oh, I mean, not to brag, but this week I was meeting with capitalists.

It's okay to brag.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This week we were meeting with a venture capitalist team who is buying one of my clients businesses Something we've been through a couple times now that we've been doing this many years, right. I love when clients, like, outgrow us, right? Like, oh, time to sell this off, make a bunch of money. And he was amazed. I got on the phone for him and he was having a reconciliation issue. Like, I can't get this to reconcile with the compensation reports. And it's like, yeah, like, hop on the phone with me. Here's where you're. What you. Here's where you're off, like, and I get why you're off. Right? Like, all accounting reports are weird, right? Like, they all are slightly different. Everyone does weird things with them. So I was able to solve it for him. I gave him back the spreadsheet. Gave it back. And he's like, this is for a company this size. I have never seen an accounting team that's this responsive and this smart. And I'm like, thank you. But I know, right? So I am bragging. But it is also, like, to answer the question is like, if I'm not talking to those people, then why do you have us? You know, like, I don't necessarily talk to bankers as much. I mean, usually I'm just giving them reports, but like, especially financial planners and stuff. Like, there are. If they're telling you, hey, you should do X and Y and Z moves, you probably should call me and say, what's that going to do to my taxes? Right, Right. And for a lot of my favorite referral partners, a lot of my people are in my network that I really enjoy working with. Just CC me on the emails, right? It's like, no, I know this person's on the team. It's time for us to talk. So that's one of the things that is special about the way we work is I know, especially for business owners, if all of your accounting is doing is like, getting your taxes filed, then you're working for the government, not yourself. And I work for you. So let's make sure you have us, like a dedicated team that is available to you when you need them to get these questions answered. Because it's not just tax season that, like, we need to pay attention to. So I, I hope that that is inspiring to anyone listening. Whether or not you want to work with me. I mean, that's, that's one thing or another. But if you don't, aren't, aren't this proactive with the people who you're paying, ask more questions of them or find somebody who you can because that they're doing the Bare minimum. And that's I again. Okay. I'm really, really, really biased. I care a lot about this, but I'm like that you're not getting a return on your investment.

Right. So true. So true. If you're the one. If they're you're having to initiate a lot of the phone calls and waiting for questions to be answered. Yeah. You might need to see about adding or changing out your teammates there for you. So what's the best way for folks who are listening to this show? Because we can talk on and on some of these fun stories and stuff like that, but what's the best way for fol there to reach out to you to or to connect with you, see if they're a fit for working with you?

Absolutely. So I'm really active on LinkedIn if anyone is on that platform. Catherine Pomerantz. Katherine with a K, Pomerance with a Z. You can also Visit my website, Katherine Pomerantz.com and as I mentioned, I am offering action plan calls through tax season. They're free, they're 15 minutes. You'll send me some information. I'll let you know with the first part of the money storyteller method you can implement. So if you're interested in that, that's Katherine Pomerantz.com action plan.

Awesome. And then we've also sharing the website, Catherine. But you can book a call there straight on our website and go from there, everybody. Katherinepalmrance.com Definitely this has been fun, Katherine. I know we were bouncing this around a couple times, but glad to get you on. It's been definitely educational and I will tell you this. You are probably the easiest bookkeeping or accountant to talk to out there and you have a personality which is so refreshing.

Thank you, Scott. This is very fun as well. Thank you so much.

You're welcome. All right, guys and gals, you heard it here. Go out there, talk with your pros. If they're not giving you the good deeds, stuff like that, it's probably time to reach out to somebody else and you can reach out to Katherine and her team. Katherine.com book a call. It's well worth it. Make sure you're on the right track. I won't say get a second opinion, but you probably do in a lot of cases. If things are changing your life and you're the one as needs to be proactive, it's good to have a teammate there to help you walk through those steps and help you on that money map and money mindset for you so go out, take some action, everybody, and we'll see you all at the top. Bye.