Money Makes Your Business Thrive with Wendy Brookhouse

Wendy, thank you so much for being a guest here on the Content Amplification Podcast. We work together a lot. You are a client of ours, and I'm excited to have you on the show.

I am super excited to be here because I love talking about money and content.

Excellent. That's exactly what we want to talk about. Let's start with what we all love— money, right? You know, you're a business owner, you're listening to this podcast, you know, and Money is obviously a big part of business. And for a lot of people, they feel they don't have enough of it, or they don't know what to do with the money they have. I'm going to get right into it. What is the most important thing with growing a business that a business owner should focus on when it comes to money?

Profit. So, when we look at business, I think sometimes it gets lost in the whole so much to do, so much to be and the things you're trying to do with your business is that actually a business is, is there really at some level to fund your life. And you need to understand what your life costs so that you can make sure your business will produce enough money out of it so that you can pay yourself either a salary or some other type of compensation in order to have the life you want. If you aren't running a profitable business, that's super hard.

Is there an easy way to understand if you are profitable? I know, I know myself, it's like, okay, I look at the bank account and if it's above zero, hey, I feel like I'm doing good, right? If it's in the negative, I'm like, I'm not doing so good. And a lot of times the motivation and drive is based off of that. So how do you know if you are actually profitable? Is there an easy way to figure that out?

Well, in my ideal world, you would be doing sending all your invoices and all your expenses off to a bookkeeper on a monthly basis. And they would send you back, or you would log on and you'd look at a report called your profit and loss report. And that report shows you the total amount of sales you had for that period of time. It shows you the expenses you incurred during that time, and at the bottom of that is your profit. And it's not all yours, Shaun. Part of that goes to, um, the revenue agency that taxes you. Now here's the thing, when When it comes to your expenses, I think there's two kinds of expenses that need to be categorized or understood. So there is what I call cost of goods sold and overhead. So if you, uh, a cost of goods sold for me, it might be, okay, I have— I had to pay someone to do a data analysis, I had to produce and print some reports, I put a binder together, I shipped it to the to the client. That's a cost of that sale. I wouldn't have that cost if I hadn't made the sale. So that's one way I look at the cost of goods sold. That cost doesn't exist. So for example, if you hire an independent contractor to help you deliver on a particular piece of work, that's a cost of, of goods for that particular thing. If you don't have to pay that person, so if they're a full-time employee, that might be more likely to be categorized as overhead. That's something that you have to pay their paycheck whether you have the work or not. So I like to build it in two ways. Because that affects your pricing, which affects your profit. So pricing to me is about making sure your cost of goods sold is covered. And where people sometimes forget is they also need to cover the overhead. They still have to— they should be thinking about, I still have to pay my internet bill, I still have to pay my phone bill, I still have to pay my rent for my office, or whatever you have in the situation. Those are overhead numbers, and they should be priced into how you are pricing for the end result so that all those things are getting covered. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. And one of the things that I've started to just realize, and I should have learned this a long time ago, was that, you know, let's say you charge somebody $1,000 for a service and you have to hire somebody for $600, a contractor for $600 to deliver. You don't have $400 in profit. You know, you've got those other things that come out. But also, a lot of times people look at you know what, if the client's paying by credit card, you're losing money on the credit card fees too, right? So, you know, a lot of times people are trying to shift to, you know, e-transfer where you're not paying for that kind of thing, right? I mean, I don't remember the last time I received a cheque unless it was a government-paid project that came in. But e-transfers are obviously becoming more prevalent in business these days.

Certainly cheaper. Yeah. So credit card charge is definitely a cost of goods sold. And the typical number I'm seeing is around the 2.9% So if we want to round that up, if you sold that $1,000 product, $30 is going to Stripe. So that's something to keep in mind also when you're pricing something. You got to cover that.

Absolutely. We have a client who, you know, has developed an e-commerce store and they're using Stripe and, you know, 2.9%. And they calculated their charges and it was upwards of like $23,000 for the year that they were giving to Stripe on there. So, you know, they tried to you know, look around for other options just to shave a couple point percentages off. And I think they got it down to like 2.4%. But I mean, if you're looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars of sales, that's going to add up pretty quickly.

And that's where it comes into effect. I think of when I look at my expenses and I regularly do this, Shaun, is look at all the charges that are going through my business. Sometimes I got the best price at the time. When I set it up. It may not be the best price going forward. So it's almost like you should revisit these things because I'll use cell phones, for example. You know, when we go in and we buy our first cell phone and we get our plan, we do the best plan and the best price at that time. Now fast forward 3 to 4 years, your usage has changed, maybe have more people on the plan, all those things you should be going back and revisiting. Is this the best deal? It's not an exercise I would do all the time, Shaun, because it can be time-consuming. But something like, you know, once a year, once a quarter, even just once a quarter, making sure you're not subscribing to something you don't use anymore.

Absolutely. And you know, I think we talked about this years ago. You know, if you sign up for something that is like renewable, you know, put that calendar of, you know, a month or a week before in your, or an appointment to revisit that before it actually auto-renews. Like, do I still need this? Did I get the value out of it? Right? A lot of times, we sign up for things that auto-renew and it's not for months till you review your credit card. You're like, what was that charge? And then, by that point, you either can't get a refund or it's prorated and you've lost that money.

Yeah, we call that donating. That's right. We don't like to donate so we try not to do that.

Absolutely. And a lot of these service-providing companies like your internet, your cell phone companies, they have loyalty departments where after a year or so you can call them up and really kind of just play the next provider against them, be like, you know what, I'm looking for a better deal, I'm looking to switch. They've got the power to give you a far better deal. I mean, I did the exact same thing and cut my internet bill from $160 a month down to $90 just by calling and saying, hey, You know what? There's got to be a better price. Somebody just signed up new. I knew somebody who signed up new and got that price. Why can't I? And I've been with you guys for so long, right? And they'll do it, right?

I mean, that adds up. I think that a lot of when we're talking about telecommunications in particular, for some reason, the new client seems to have more value to them than the old client. So they have to sharpen them up or people just, I know people who do the game of shifting providers every year to 2 years just to get the deals, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's talk about, you know, the view or the wisdom you can give about, you know, paying interest on things. So, you know, a lot of businesses run off a credit card or, you know, some get a line of credit. What's the best way to have cash flow in your business if you're not cash flow positive in your bank account?

Yeah, so there's that. Using credit facilities is definitely one of them. I would want, as a business owner, that you have a point that you know that you're going to get past that, right? So, what is the level of sales that you need to achieve so that you're not necessarily— you're actually start paying those suckers back as opposed to continuing to go into them because that's not sustainable, right, to run your business completely on credit cards unless you're paying them off every month as cash flow comes. But it kind of highlights a couple of things, Shaun, and it goes back to the difference between profit and cash flow, right? So when you talked earlier, you said something about, oh, if I have money in my bank account, I'm good, right? That's more about cash flow than profit. So we have to be careful to differentiate that. And when we look at businesses that are scaling, it's really important that you understand your cash flow as well as your profit margins and things of that nature. Because if you're selling and you're collecting in 30, 60 days as opposed to, say, upfront, you're, you're actually— you have to find the money to fund that, right? Because you know your money's not going to come for a while. And if you're growing really fast, that's when we see really shining star companies fail because because they're growing too fast, they're burning too much cash, and they can't fund it that way. So that's the difference there is to understand the difference in cash flow and profit and loss.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Now, Wendy, you're in the financial space. You help businesses, you know, achieve this and, you know, their growth. And, you know, you've built a really great business that way. Now, you've done that through being out there, through content, either creating your own content or being involved in other people's content.

Yes.

How important would you say that strategy has been to the growth of your business?

I think it's been really, really important. And I think it comes twofold, Shaun. First off, it's introducing the way I am to a bunch of people. I am not for everybody and that's okay. But it's being in front of a lot of people that could be okay with working with me. Then that starts ticking some boxes. And the more often you show up, the more regular and reliable you are showing up, that starts to increased trust, whether we've talked or not, right? Because now I'm consistent in what I do on my social medias and my content production. You can be sure that that's how I'm going to do my, the rest of my work, right? And so the other thing then too is, it also is the second thing a good content strategy does. I think it reinforces a buying decision. So what we know to be true just from our research and stuff is that a lot of people now They're going to get a recommendation from a friend. Well, what's the first thing they're going to do? They're going to Google me. So, the fact that I'm showing up in a bunch of places with really interesting, good content that's educational, maybe a little fun, maybe a little sarcastic, they're going to— they know what I'm going to be like to work with. And that also reinforces buying decisions.

And over time, you have evolved, right? You know, the branding, the messaging has evolved, and it's okay to evolve. And I think a lot of people look at Okay, I have to pick a decision of my dialogue now, who I want to be, and I have to be that forever, right? It doesn't have to be that way.

I feel that what you're saying there is a little bit about the perfectionism that sometimes people fall into that trap of perfectionism. I'm a Seth Godin kind of junkie. And one of the things that he says is if the first thing you shipped doesn't embarrass you like a couple years later, then you shipped too late. So, To me, it's about getting out there, being honest and authentic. I'm an evolving person. So, how I'm going to present and how I'm going to show up is going to evolve as well. And it's also as I understand more and more about what my client needs are or my ideal audience needs, I'm evolving what I'm presenting and how I'm presenting it because I know more now about what they want. And that's ultimately who I'm serving. I don't want to post just a post. I want something that they can genuinely find valuable and will help grow their business or their wealth or themselves. And that is how I feel about content and why you can evolve into it.

And the trap that people get stuck into is listening to these gurus or whoever saying, you got to have this many likes. You have to be posting this many times a day, right? And these are just vanity metrics that are out there that unless they make the phone ring, book appointments, put money in your bank, it's not going to do any good for you, right? So, I'm the fan of saying that if you've got something of value to say, that's when you say it.

There's a couple people that you made me think of in particular who post once a week. It's a bit of a longer post. It's always so transparent and authentic and I love it. You know what I mean? So, I don't need something from them every day. But I love that I get one meaningful, great thing a week from them.

Yeah, it's that quality over quantity idea. Now, you've done a, you know, you've taken the approach of creating your own podcast, The Real Bottom Line, and you know what, you have guests on every episode, right? Except for your solo shows, but the majority of your show is you've got other people on the show. Why did you choose that method versus just being a solo show where you're talking about money and finance?

Well, there's a couple reasons for that. When I first started it, I actually had a live audience. I did that so that it forced accountability. I had to show up every Friday morning at 8 AM with my guest because people were expecting me. So that helped instill a routine and a discipline around that. It also helped us, you know, fine-tune our process of inviting guests preparing them, all those things that you need to do when you're hosting. So we could do that. We ended up shifting that now because we're into that routine now. So that's one. I needed to have a way to have discipline. I needed accountability, Shaun. And I'm sure you can attest that I'm not as good with my solo because I'm only accountable to myself and you. So it's harder for me. I don't deliver as well on those where I have a guest. That I'm going to bring in. I do choose them carefully, Shaun. I want people who have business experience because this is a show for entrepreneurs. So I want entrepreneurs who've been there, done that, have a few t-shirts, and have some lessons to share, right? So that's what I like pulling out of people because I love— I really love hearing people's story. I want to know how did they become an entrepreneur, what have they learned along the way, and then I love learning about their subject matter expertise because I don't know everything. You know, I meet people and I, I, it happens fairly often, I go, oh man, I just wish I could put their brain into my brain and then I would know everything. And so that's what I like doing is tapping into that, pulling a little bit about out of there that can help others with that, those pieces. You know, I always say I've made some, a lot of mistakes along the way, Shaun, and if I can prevent one person from making the same mistake I did then it was okay. It was worth it.

There's so much going through my head that I just want to share and talk about with this. You know, a couple of things, you know, phrases that I've heard people say is, the rooms that I want to walk into are the ones where I'm not the smartest one in the room.

Yeah.

And that's the value you want is you want to surround yourself with people that know more than you because it's the only way you're going to grow.

Yes.

Right?

And like you, Shaun, I've also been very deliberate about trying to get guests from around the world because their experiences are different than ours too. They're— the business culture in California is different than the business culture in Australia, which is different than the business culture in Nova Scotia. So I love being exposed to that because I can learn something.

I mean, on our show, we've got guests from, you know, the UK, and it's just, it's just a whole different experience. You know, talking with them, hearing their stories and everything. I mean, there's so much to learn from every single person. I think you could walk down the street and stop and have a conversation with every person that's there and you'll learn something.

Yeah. Absolutely. And we're on the solo podcast, you know, in terms of content, we're using that, those content to really drive some of our content strategies for the month so that we can provide a lot of value in different ways from that one podcast.. And so, also I have guests is to build my audience because my guests can share my podcast as well. So, there's a couple levels there with the strategy.

Let's talk about simplicity. You know, I'm a huge advocate for keeping it simple. If you listen to episode 73 back on February 4th, that's what the episode was about. Keeping it simple stupid. That's what I wanted to talk about. And you've been able to simplify not only your content strategy, um, and that was just through trial and error and development, but also your client journey. I'm not going to drop the F word that you hate, funnel, but it's a journey, right? I'm not, I'm not going to say funnel. I'm going to talk about journey and experience that's there. So you, you, you have your podcast. That's where your content comes out. You know, your solo episode, like you, you talked about, gets transcribed, gets made into a, a pillar post for the month. And then there's, there's sections that come out of that, that feed other social to lead back to it. Yeah. But you've developed a kind of a 3-step process for getting new clients into your flagship program, which is the last part we're going to talk about. What's the first thing you want people to do?

The first thing I want them to do is take a kind of a financial/wealth diagnostic, Shaun. And I've taken to calling my system 3-10-5. Okay, so in the diagnostic, we're going to measure 3 things. We're going to measure your mindset, your systems, and your actions that you're taking towards building your wealth. And obviously, as entrepreneurs, your business is a big component of that. Okay, you're going to get a customized report from that, and from that, in that report, there's an invitation to join us at an entrepreneur roundtable. This was designed specifically to help you understand more of the levers that you are— have access to as a business owner to grow your wealth. And it's funny, Shaun, in our roundtable, we actually talk about what wealth is because wealth can be different for different people. And it's all valid. But there's different strategies and levers you can pull to increase your wealth, whether that's the time you spend with your family, the money in your bank account, or the people you serve. There's all kinds of different directions. But then what we do is we kind of get people to do a self-assessment in that roundtable of how they're doing on those 10 levers and where do they want to go. And we also then give them a worksheet so they can actually start planning on how to increase their scores on the levers they want to increase them. We also want to make a community. So what I know to be true for a lot of entrepreneurs is that it's lonely. Like, we don't get chance to talk about this. Our friends, you know, depending on how we got into it and who we hang out with, they don't always understand the trials and tribulations and the stresses and the anxieties we have about making payroll, or, you know, deciding how to design the next big product, or should I get this CRM or that CRM. So there's like, there's all kinds of different stresses that we don't necessarily get anyone to talk to. So the idea is that, hey, let's meet, let's meet some more entrepreneurs that we can share that journey with. Um, that's, so that's step 2, Shaun. And the third step is to have a call with me just to do a debrief and see where are you now, is there a fit with my program, uh, and then they can be invited to join the program if there's a fit.

Absolutely. And you know, before we talk about the program and why you chose that, let's break down what you just said there. I mean, the initial kind of lead generation side was this diagnostic, which, you know, is essentially using a quiz system that people, you know, fill in information and then it develops that, uh, that, that report for them. But it gives them a very good snapshot of where they are, drawing that line in the sand, right? And the idea is like, you are here. Let's figure out what needs to change for you to get you to where you got to be. And that's where that roundtable comes into play, right? You're using Zoom, right? Very low friction of entry. They don't have to show up at a physical place. They just connect on the computer at set time, which they get to choose which one they want to go into, right? Still very easy for people to move through that. And then, You know, I've been through the first roundtable and it was really a great experience. You know, when you talked about meeting other entrepreneurs, when you send us out in our breakout groups with other people, we found that we started to talk about the problems they were working with and we just were like, yeah, I can, I can resonate. And there was never like, you wanted to keep going, right? You wanted to stay in that room for hours and talk about your problems, right? It was like, like small business therapy, so to speak.

Just lay down on the floor and start, keep talking, right?

So, so the idea behind that is get people to identify their problems or where they feel they have struggles, get them to visualize what would life be if they didn't have those.

Yes.

And then guide them. You are the guide to overcoming that, which that's where this flagship program comes in, which is called what?

The Total Wealth Accelerator. This program is where we're going to look at everything. So we're doing what you might consider conventional financial planning, and then we're taking it out a whole lot further. So in this program, there is partially one-on-one where we're developing a very customized bespoke plan for you, setting your goals. And then there's also a group program, that community. And then there's also going to be curriculum in there so you can learn more about how to build a more sellable if that's what you want. And whether you're going to sell a business or not, if you do the steps to make it more sellable, it will be a more profitable business. So, you know, there's really good content coming in that side. On the customized side, here's where the 5 comes in, Shaun. We're going to build out 5 numbers for you in particular. The first number is how much can you spend every week in your personal life with no stress or anxiety? You know, no problem, I can spend that. And this is all on your more discretionary stuff. So we call it a lifestyle number. And it shifts every week. The good news is, is we also have an app in the App Store that supports that number so that you can keep on track. The second number is how much does your ideal life cost on an after-tax basis? So then we have that number. Now we can go into your business and go, well, based on our calculations here, your business needs to pay you this, right? Because we have to add tax back in, right? If your business has to pay you this, what does your business have to do to do that? So we work our way through that. That can also involve even just doing a deep dive on some of your products and services to make sure they're profitable. Are you charging enough money? If you're going to charge this much, this is how much you have to sell. All those variables, we're doing a little bit of figuring all that out. And the number we're trying to come up with there is Listen, you need to sell 5 of your package Bs every month and everything else will work. So, that's the kind of— we want to get to that simplicity so that it's an easy number. It's not overwhelming and you can start figuring out, I just have to figure out how to sell 5 of these programs. Makes it a little easier.

Yeah, and for a lot of entrepreneurs, that's what we hear is they say, I'm really good at going out and getting the business. But you know, to, to understand how much do I need, right? And know that this system will take care of itself if you just keep feeding the top in there. Life is going to be the way you want it, right? It sounds like an amazing, amazing program.

Absolutely. Well, it also allows you to, Shaun, because here's another thing I see with entrepreneurs is when is enough enough, right? So we're always hustling, we're always grinding because we don't know what the number is. You know, I've got I'm at, I'm at 10. I needed 5, but I don't know, I'm going to keep going and get more, right? So I think it can give you some peace of mind about how to have some of that balance. You can choose to go over your number and there's where your growth is, right? The big number that we do of the 5, Shaun, is what we're calling the power number, where we figure out exactly how much money you need to have either in income streams or assets or what have you so that you can say, I'm working because I love it, not because I have to.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So the beginning of this, the diagnostic, you can get to that by going to totalwealthscore.com. Perfect. You go through that, everything else will run. You'll get the invite when you complete it and all that. Now, just before we wrap up, yes, you've done a lot to identify who is your ideal target, and that is extremely important in any business, especially when your marketing is not only finding out who is, but understanding and being okay with who isn't. We tend to fall in that bucket of, I need to be everything to everybody. And essentially, you end up being nothing to nobody if you take that approach, right? You guys have developed a really cool acronym for who your avatar is.

Yes, HENRY. HENRY is now a gender-neutral name. Did you know that, Shaun? I did not. Okay. So, HENRY means High Earning, Not Rich Yet. So your business is at the point where you're starting to make some money. You've got some profit, uh, maybe a lot of profit, and you're like, what do I do now? I've been building my business and now it's successful, but how do I take that and make my money make money? And that's where we come in.

Excellent, Wendy. Thank you so much. You can be found at blackstarwealth.com. Total Wealth Score for the scorecard, totalwealthscore.com. And if you want to learn about the program, that's totalwealthaccelerator.com. Great branding, great names. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Shaun.