After two-and-half years as a full-time entrepreneur, I have learned how much being a business owner can bring up our own “stuff.” And by “stuff” I mean things that we struggle with in our personal life that invariably show up in our business. If you are poor at time management or struggle with money in your personal life, it usually means you will have these same difficulties when running your own business.
I learned this hard lesson about one year into running my business when I was having difficulty making and following a budget. I had always struggled with this in my personal finances, too. But now I had a lot more to keep track of, and I realized I needed to get my finances right if I wanted my business to thrive. With the help of my CPA, a business mentor and some business finance books, I was finally able to get the hang of budgeting.
My experiences with my business finances reminded me of my good friend Nicole Lewis-Keeber, MSW, LCSW, from Nicole Lewis-Keeber Coaching LLC. She specializes in helping entrepreneurs with their money issues. Officially, she is a “money mindset coach,” and in a former life, she was also a practicing licensed clinical social worker. She was the perfect person to talk to about this difficulty with managing money and other “stuff” showing up in our lives as business owners.
I asked Nicole the most common issue she sees with business owners and money. She says, “People avoid looking at their numbers.” Whether they tend to overspend or are afraid to spend money, folks want to stick their heads in the sand when it comes to looking at actual bank account statements or spreadsheets.
Not paying attention to the numbers can lead to a variety of undesired outcomes, such as making emotional decisions about whether or not to spend money instead of looking at data. Or thinking that you don’t have money to outsource a particular task or expand your business when you do. Lewis-Keeber says, “the best thing you can do is familiarize yourself with your business finances and look at your numbers one to two times per week.”
This doesn’t mean you have to be a financial wizard or do it all on your own. On the contrary, Nicole recommends that you hire a bookkeeper and a CPA to help keep your business finances on track. Another good resource is SCORE, an organization that offers free business advice and classes on a variety of business-related topics, including finances.
Once you become aware of your financial situation, you can start to make changes if necessary. “Pick one thing to work on at a time so it doesn’t become overwhelming,” Lewis-Keeber recommends. For example, you could go through your bank statement and find one thing you spent money on that you could easily cut out of your future spending. “Ask yourself, ‘what is working for me and what is not?’”
Having an awareness of your habits and your perspective toward money is also an important piece of the puzzle. Nicole explained to me that how we view money as adults is directly related to the experiences and concepts of money that we had growing up. These messages can come from our family, our culture or the generation in which we grew up. Anyone else have Depression-era grandparents who saved every scrap of used tin foil because “there might not be enough”?
That fear of “not enough” can also show up in our businesses. Maybe you have a hard time spending money due to this fear, and as a result you do everything in your business and don’t delegate anything. Pretty soon you feel burned out and anxious, and your business is stifled because you don’t want to spend the money to help it grow. Being aware of this fear could help you to realize you need to make some changes to your thoughts and behaviors related to finances.
Awareness of your strengths and weaknesses can help you in a variety of ways in running your business. Maybe becoming an entrepreneur amplified the issue of poor time management for you, or perhaps issues arose related to how to “be the boss.” Maybe you realized you just hate doing a particular task in your business, and it would be less stressful and more efficient to let someone else do it. Delegate it—you will be happier in the long run.
Figure out what you are good at and “let yourself be you in your business,” Lewis-Keeber says. Here are some other tips she recommends on how not to let your “stuff” hold you back as an entrepreneur:
- Have people who “get it” around you to keep you on track. Find a mentor or support network. Don’t feel ashamed if you have to hire a professional to help you.
- Be aware of the language you use about your business. Instead of saying “I have to do XYZ today,” say, “I choose to do XYZ today.” Simply changing the words you use can give you a sense of power and choice in your business rather than it being something you feel you have no control over.
- It’s your business; you get to decide. When we have a lack of confidence or get caught up in the “comparison trap,” it holds us and our businesses back. Take ownership of your choices and feel good about them.
