Ep 159
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Melissa Kellogg Lueck: [00:00:00] Welcome. I am marketing expert and business coach Melissa Kellogg Leuck, and this is the Doing Business like a woman podcast, where we are exploring and teaching you how women are reinventing the way business is done and money is made to help you create greater impact and financial freedom, one business at a time.
hello. Hello. Thanks for being here with me today. I have a guest on the podcast that I'm really excited to get to introduce you to and her name is Becky Spence and she's a client of mine. She is a client in the 90 Day Marketing Accelerator. And we know each other through eWomen Network and I'm really excited to get to introduce you to her today.
Becky Spence is a tax strategist and founder of Checkpoint Advising, helping service business owners simplify money, reduce stress, and make [00:01:00] smarter financial decisions. Welcome, Becky. Thank you so much for being here. I thank you for having me today. It's gonna be fun. We are gonna talk about numbers and we're gonna make it fun, right?
Yes. That's the name of the game. Yeah, I think this is such an important topic that we as entrepreneurs, especially women entrepreneurs, know our numbers and get comfortable with our numbers and really make smart decisions from the beginning. Can you tell me a little bit about why it's wise to know your numbers from the very beginning?
Yes. I think that as business owners, especially when you're a service-based business owner, we get so excited about the service we offer, the product we offer, and we just get so caught up. A lot of times you hear the buzzword that you're working in your business and not on your business. And as long as you have [00:02:00] clients coming in, you think your business is healthy, you have this revenue coming in.
And if you're not watching your numbers, you can get caught off guard There's so many pitfalls if you have your head in the sand about numbers and you think, because I have clients, I'm running a healthy, profitable business, so I say we have to live in the pause, we have to take a pause and we have to really look at what.
What are my expenses? What is the cost of doing business? And make sure that I'm truly profitable with all this activity I'm generating. Yeah. I love that. So tell me a little bit about how you got into this work and why you started your business. Yeah. My husband and I have owned a variety of different businesses or run businesses for the past 25 years.
And one of the things that I [00:03:00] noticed in the businesses that I was running is that I was doing that. I was just getting so busy year over year revenue is growing. Year over year, client base was growing, but my bank account wasn't growing at the same rate, and I kept thinking, where's the money going?
And I really learned the importance of just settling down and looking at those numbers. And what I found that made me really do this pivot was that I was spending way too much money on taxes. I was not privy to a lot of the tax levers that a small business can really utilize. And it made such a difference in my business and my profitability once I really understood those tax strategies, that I became so passionate that other small businesses or solopreneurs who maybe didn't have a high powered CPA teaching them have access to this [00:04:00] information. Yeah. I love that because I think even the CPAs don't always talk to US entrepreneurs about tax strategy, right? Yes. I think as I've grown my network and I am, I'm working with bookkeepers and CPAs, I find that there are some that aren't interested in that week to week, month to month handholding.
They're very compliance based and they will happily create a great return for you, but they don't want to help you strategize, or they don't have time to really strategize with each of their clients throughout the year. So that's a gap that I'm hoping to be able to fill and make it very attainable for small businesses.
Yeah. So at what point in our development of a small business do we start this kind of work? I [00:05:00] think that if you can make it happen from the beginning, you will be better off. You're not having to backtrack and fix mistakes or rework the books. I see a lot of times clients who come to me, they're working off a Excel spreadsheet or a Google sheet. And they're not running a profit and loss, they're not developing a balance statement. And that makes it really difficult for them to really see the health of their business. So I like to create some strategies very early on that they can have some insight into those numbers beyond just the number on the bank statement.
Yeah, that's a great idea. Because then if you start off with good habits and a good foundation, I imagine you're really gonna see that profitability grow and you get comfortable. When the numbers are little, then you can, I would imagine, be more comfortable when they're big. Because I think [00:06:00] as business owners trained in a skill or a craft, we are intimidated by the numbers.
But the longer we wait the this more intimidated we get and then it's this I'm just gonna put my head in the sand 'cause everything's going all right now. And that's when we end up with the surprises, the big tax bill or something like that, that we just didn't expect and now we don't know how to deal with.
But if we're doing like small bites, that's why I call them checkpoints. If we do these things at regular intervals, it's not so intimidating because you can look at one thing, tackle that, and then move on when you're ready. So if we didn't start with you at the beginning or start tax strategy at the beginning and we're feeling that intimidation, which I think can also bleed into becoming avoidance. So what do we do then? [00:07:00] What, why do you see so many so many entrepreneurs get to that avoidance place where they're avoiding their numbers, and how do you help them move past that? I think, things always are bigger in our head than they are in real life.
Everything is figureoutable, but you have to know all the components like you. You can't come to a solution if you don't know all of the factors in the context. And I think that's where a lot of us get if we didn't start out from the beginning. when people come to me and they're in that position.
our very first time together we sit down and we just delve into old tax returns. We delve into the business as it is currently, the profit and loss, the balance statement, and just try to get a really big picture of what's happening in the business and what are your goals, where do you want to go?
Sometimes people aren't really wanting to grow their business, they just [00:08:00] want it healthy. So we can go whichever direction a client wants, but working together we create a roadmap. And on that roadmap there are checkpoints. And the checkpoints are a very consistent rhythm based on each person.
So I have some people that they want daily or weekly checkpoints. Other business owners are more comfortable with the monthly or quarterly. So we make that very individualized roadmap based on their business, their needs and their comfort level right now. And just give them small activities that move the needle forward to a big picture of insight into their numbers.
Wow. That's really cool. I love that. But you're not only dealing with tax strategy tell me all of the ways that you're working with your clients. I I actually started with the intent of just doing tax strategy, but I found as I was working with business owners across a [00:09:00] variety of industries, sometimes we couldn't pull the tax lever because their business wasn't structured or being run in a way that either, gave us insight into how to do that. Or they just weren't able to. And so my services have really grown into some business growth coaching, having systems that support your dreams in terms of those systems and metrics, like knowing what to measure.
Like we all say, what are your KPIs? But sometimes a business owner doesn't even know what metrics are worth measuring. And what are just filling the dashboard. So I like to help them really look at what's going to move the needle forward. And then once we have that in place, then we can really pull tax levers.
That's cool. I love that. So have you [00:10:00] ever experienced a client that has really had to overcome a lot of shame or blame of themselves before they come and talk to you? What is, how do you help them overcome that? I have actually lived that. I went through a time period of how can my business be so big and I be so poor running it.
you know? You just question yourself. And so when I talk to a business owner, whether they come to me for a consult or we're just meeting in passing. And I start to pick up on those feelings of fear and shame. I think the biggest thing for business owners to know is they didn't do anything wrong.
We all do the best we can with the information we have at any given time and sometimes we're not trained in being a CEO. We're trained in providing a service or selling a particular [00:11:00] product and you are not in trouble for what you don't know, but you have to take the steps to get there, right? So we have to face our fear in a way that empowers us to make change by looking towards the future and not living in the past. And I always, say, what's done is done and rehashing it isn't really going to get you anywhere. Let's just see what's the next best thing, what's the first step forward and try to really help them understand that this is a no shame area.
the beauty of that is once you start to look at numbers don't judge. They're numbers are so objective and you can realize that the numbers are telling you like it is very plainly. And it's our feelings that we put onto the numbers, our opinions about them. But if we can step back and learn [00:12:00] the numbers just are a lot of that shame and guilt and fear go away. And I'm seeing business owners become really empowered and almost able to look at it as a game and we're moving pieces on the. Forward or we're, figuring out those pieces of the puzzle and they start to get excited instead of fearful.
And that's the best feeling in the world for me as a coach to see them all of a sudden embracing this thing that was bringing them so much fear. Yeah. And then ultimately they start to love their business even more. That's so good. I love that. I think I have found in my experience, and I'm curious if you have as well, that usually the numbers aren't as bad as you think they are.
I will say eight or nine times out of 10 when I, to ask a woman that hasn't been tracking her sales, 'cause I [00:13:00] deal with marketing, right? That front end of it, but hasn't been tracking even her revenue and doesn't even know how much money she's making. When I ask her, the number that she gives me that she thinks she's making is usually lower and not she's not even making as much as she knows as she really is.
And so it's, it can be fascinating to see that when you actually do look at the numbers, they might be better than you think. Yes. Nine out of 10 times they feel like that is the case. Whether it is how much I owe in taxes, that number always seems to grow, especially if you haven't been paying your estimated quarterly taxes.
It's insurmountable. But any of those numbers, just once you have the number, you're equipped to do something about it. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you, would you say is the one mindset shift that a woman has, a woman entrepreneur needs to make to go from, being that intimidated and [00:14:00] afraid, or feeling guilty about not having attended to that part of her business too?
Shifting, making that shift to, okay I'm ready. I want to I want to understand this and do this and maybe give you a call. I believe that the magic is in the pause. I always say we have to learn to pause. Women tend to do swing one of two ways. Either we panic and we pull a trigger before we have all the information or we get so fearful and we freeze. And I call that like the ultimate procrastination, right? Yeah. So we're panicking or we're procrastinating. Either way, we need to pause, then act. If you're acting too soon, you have to learn to stretch that pause. If you're living in the pause, you need to learn to take that time, pause, get your bearings, and then take action.
And I [00:15:00] feel that if we can do that, if we can find a rhythm to taking our pauses and gathering information, it's so much easier to continue to just move forward and tackle those things that scare us. Yeah. And that's what we have to do as CEOs. We've gotta tackle those things that scare us.
Yes, definitely. If you wanna grow. So tell me a little bit about your checkpoint approach and what that regular rhythm means and does, and why that's important. Yes. I feel so many times we make tasks so big in our head and I can even speak to the 90 day marketing accelerator. I was doing that and you've broken it down.
And so I do the same thing with just business health and metrics and finances, is that we take tasks and we break them down into easily digestible activities. [00:16:00] And the checkpoints, again, like I mentioned before, are based on each business owner, whether it's I have a checkpoint that I take care of each week or each month or quarterly, and each time it moves them forward. I'm a big proponent of what I call the money date, and I love for my business owners, CEOs to have a money date at least monthly, preferably weekly when they're doing kind of their CEO day. Yeah. Where they're really looking through the checklist and that's the best time to, to be able to do their checkpoint item.
And the items are anything from running a report to, checking your status with the Secretary of State. Like we look at what each business needs individually to be good standing. Whether it's from a finance standpoint, [00:17:00] a regulatory standpoint, a tax standpoint, and then again using the proper metrics to make sure that all those things stay healthy.
Yeah. That's cool. How does the, having that clarity really help us in our confidence, especially around the other parts of our business? We use a scorecard. So each week my clients get a scorecard on Friday, and that scorecard has them remember, reflect on what their checkpoint was for the week or their goal for the week. And really look at, was I able to complete that or attain that? If not, was I, stuck in that procrastination? Did I do it wrong because I forgot to pause or do I need support? And that's where I come in if they're needing additional support in something.
And then by really looking at what they were able to accomplish [00:18:00] that week, it sets the goals for the next week. And so step by step, checkpoint by checkpoint, we move forward to reaching goals. Some goals can be accomplished in just one week. Others take 3, 4, 6 months worth of checkpoints. I see. Okay.
And so I would imagine that helps with goal setting and planning also. Yes. Yeah. It gives I think, a visual to really be able to say all these things that were living in my head and just felt overwhelming are now put into a document in the sequential order that feels manageable. And then I know I'm moving forward towards my goals.
Cool. Yeah, I think that's so great because so many women that I talk to, we'll set revenue goals, right? We set number goals that way, but have really no [00:19:00] idea how they're going to accomplish them. So I see how this could be super helpful. And one of the big things I feel like with revenue goals is revenue tells you what's working in terms of your marketing, right? Yeah. But in terms of business health, we really have to look at cash flow. And then profit. So it's a three step kind of approach when you're looking at, once that revenue comes in. Revenue is a very good reflection of am I getting business?
But we have to look at cash flow. Am I able to pay my expenses and what is my cost of doing business? And then once that's taken care of. What was left over for me as the owner and learning to look at all three of them in the right order and giving them each the right weight at the right time I think it's really empowering to a business owner. Yeah, totally. So [00:20:00] then what would you say that are the few numbers that every service base business owner needs to watch and consider around their decision making? Especially for service-based business owners is learning what your cost of business is when you're in an industry that doesn't have inventory items and a dedicated markup, like I know I'm always going to mark this up, 30%, 50%. It's really hard for business owners to really know what does it cost me to do business and have I priced my services correctly? So we do a lot of work on that from a pricing perspective, but also a compensation perspective when it comes time to hire someone.
I find service based business owners are so giving that a lot of times they want to pay their contractors or their employees more [00:21:00] than what they're making per hour. And so we do a lot of work on learning what's that cost of business per hour so that they can make good decisions moving forward.
So I'd say that's the number one number beyond that kind of revenue, cash flow, profit goals is really knowing what's it cost me to do business and when you dig into that, you have a really good look at those expenses in a big picture format. And so that's something you can help them with is figuring out what that cost of is doing business is.
Yes. Yes, I am. I have a plethora of worksheets that we dig into, for different industries. Yeah. And learning how to price and how to know what it's costing you to price your services. Yeah. 'cause a lot of that can be intangible for a service business, right? Like you said, we don't have inventory and we don't have a cost of [00:22:00] goods sold and all of that.
Exactly, and I think, forget to take into account the time we need to spend on activities that are maybe not direct sales. So the marketing, the balancing, the books, if you're doing it yourself, those kind of things have to be taken into account as well. Yeah, very cool. I have to say, I really have enjoyed getting to know you because you have a very welcoming and warm energy to you that I feel like would be very easy to talk to about money 'cause I think I think that's why a lot of us don't have people in our corner because it's scary to talk about money and we feel. Oh, we're just gonna get judged or, because we don't know all the things. And I love your story and how much, how welcoming you and simple that you make the numbers [00:23:00] and make all of this so that's amazing. Thank you very much. Yeah. Yeah. What what would you say would be a really great first step for our listeners, thinking about the women entrepreneurs that could be listening now what would be a good first step for them to take in making these changes?
Learning about their numbers, wanting to really understand and grow their profitability. I always encourage someone who's just getting started, maybe a little bit intimidated to just start with that money date. It doesn't have to be with anybody. It can just be them and their books and really dig in and I actually have a checklist for your listeners.
Oh yeah. And. That we can put out there so that they can get started that way. Especially if they're not ready to talk to someone yet and they're just feeling like I just have to get an idea myself. The checklist kind of helps them walk [00:24:00] through how to get a good picture of their finances for their business.
And then of course I always say a sounding board is a really great next step. whether that's a biz bestie or a coach like me, someone who can give you some objective feedback on what you're seeing with your numbers and maybe some educated answers for next steps. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think I asked this specifically, but so you work with businesses of what sizes?
We talked about those at the very beginning. So we know you work with businesses that are just starting out, but tell me a little bit more about the businesses that you work with. Yeah, so I specialize in service-based businesses and I had businesses from solopreneurs just starting out, even just getting ready to establish their business all the way up to businesses approaching their first [00:25:00] million.
Awesome. All right. That's a really great range that takes care of what 97% of women owned businesses. I would say my my sweet spot is those business owners that have just reached that their first six figures and are really ready to scale and hit the road running. I find like that is a really exciting time that they have enough resources to pull a lot of those levers that I was talking about. Nice. Cool. All right. That sounds great. So as we talk a little bit about the 90 Day Marketing Accelerator, I'm so glad that you've been a part of that. It's been really great to have you in there. tell me a little bit about what your marketing situation looked like and why this container seemed attractive to you.
Yes. in the past, businesses that I've been involved with or own have been very referral based and [00:26:00] I have, I had little to no experience marketing especially in terms of growing an email list and learning how to nurture those new relationships. I would say my method prior to joining the accelerator was just a shotgun, like better, maybe even a shotgun in the dark.
I didn't know what I was doing. somebody would gimme a suggestion and I would go with it. And what I have learned here is a sequence and a flow that makes me feel so much more in control and that it's a calm process that is logical and makes sense. It's not frantic or jumping around from here to there.
It's just, okay, this makes sense and it all feels very aligned with the experience I want my clients to have. That's awesome. And I feel like a lot [00:27:00] of the way that I teach marketing is similar to the way that you teach profit strategy. I agree. And I think that's why I resonate with it so much, because I like even in my notes actually I have my notebook here, even in my notes I am doing like little analogies, like I'll write like a word I use or a concept I use with my clients next to something you've explained because it's really helping me see those parallels.
Oh, that's cool. I love that. Very neat. So what do you feel has been your biggest win so far as part of the 90 Day Marketing Accelerator? So this week I held my first webinar and I had 40 registrants. my initial goal was to get 20 people to register and the fact that I was able to double the number of people that registered was just so exciting for me and [00:28:00] empowering that, okay, I can do this.
I am learning how to be more visible and get my message across. I love that. I know. We really celebrated that. That's amazing. I'm so proud of you. It was so great to see that. Very good. And you're gonna do more webinars? Yeah. Or master classes? Yeah. Yes. Yeah we're doing a back by popular demand for people who couldn't make it to the first one right away.
And then I have a few more planned for the rest of the year yay. Awesome. I love it. I love it. What do you feel like changed for you in getting that masterclass off the ground and, and how did the 90 Day Marketing Accelerator really help you with that? I think really diving into my business value philosophy helped me get out of that.
Pause I was in the procrastination pause. I knew this was something that, this little class was something I really wanted to [00:29:00] do. I knew it held value for the people I was trying to reach, but I was really in my head about how to get it out there and what to do and by sitting down and really thinking about that value I came to realize that.
If I believe this class holds value, then it was really being selfish of myself to not just try it, to not just get it out there because the people that I want to serve and that I felt it would hold value for weren't benefiting at all if I didn't just try. So I think that having that exercise and really working through that and being very aligned in what value I can offer was the big push for a lot of the the marketing plans I have for the next quarter.
That's awesome. Yeah. That's so great. When we change that focus from, what am I doing wrong or am I doing it right to [00:30:00] they need this right and they need it. However I can get it out into the world I need to get out there and help the people. Yeah. So good. So how has the group coaching format been for you?
What have you thought about the the group and the women in this group? So I love the cohort that I am with. We are all in different kind of areas, different focuses, and what I have found is even though we're all have very different niches. there's so many overlapping threads and strings where I can learn from everyone else's story.
And so as we share our wins and as we problem solve challenges with you, and I'm listening to what's happening with others, I am, I'm making connections that apply to my business. there's questions that come up that [00:31:00] I. I'm not at a point to ask you, or I hadn't considered that applied to me very much, but just weren't on my radar.
And I think that's the beauty of the group is that we're getting more than just what we think we need. I love that. That's so good. And I think you really, in doing that, in being able to take what others are experiencing and how they're being coached and then apply it to yourself and your business, I think that really increases your value and your problem solving ability for your clients, right?
Because then you can take what they're facing. I think, grow that muscle of being able to apply different scenarios to different businesses. So I think that's awesome. Good job. Yeah. Very cool. let me know or tell us what is the best way to keep in touch with you and tell us about the the freebie that you have and where we can get ahold of that.
Yes. The easiest way to [00:32:00] find me is checkpoint advising.com. I'm also at Checkpoint advising on Facebook and checkpoint under advising on Instagram. I'm active on LinkedIn as well. So any of those would be great. And the the money date is available to download. From my website and I can also give you a link as well.
Yes, great point. Yeah, we will put all the links to the website and the social and the money date in the show notes. The audience can just hop over there and grab those. But thank you so much for your time today. This has been so great. I've loved getting to know you and your business, and I just love the work that you're doing and I think it's so important.
So thank you so much for sharing your brilliance with us today. Thank you for this visit. Yay.
Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Hey, thank you for joining us for this [00:33:00] amazing conversation. I hope that it was impactful for you. If you're interested in joining us in the 90 Day Marketing Accelerator, we will be opening up a new cohort. And so if you want to make marketing simpler for you, do it in a group setting with fellow women entrepreneurs and have fun doing it.
I want you to join us. You can get all the information on my website, melissa m kellogg.com, or the link is in the show notes and I'll see you there.
