Episode #26: “I ignored my cash flow & almost lost my business”

Interview
Written By Eman Ismail

Sandra Booker is a fractional COO and right-hand woman to some of the top 7-figure business owners I know.

In this episode, she shares her near-catastrophic business mistake of losing track of her cash flow, and she walks us through her strategies for managing finances, the lessons she’s learned, and money management advice for small business owners.

We also get into the difference between a virtual assistant and an online business manager, common hiring mistakes, and what to look out for when spending money on tools.

 
 

Listen to the Episode

 
 

Show notes

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  • Eman Ismail: I accidentally signed me and my family up for a half marathon. Let me make one thing very clear. I've never run in my life. I've never understood the appeal, honestly. But then I hit 32 and decided I wanted to take up a whole new identity—Eman the runner. So I signed me and my family up for what I thought was a 5-kilometre race. Turns out it wasn't a 5-kilometre race. It was a 21-kilometre half marathon.

    Now, when I first realised my mistake, I had a moment of complete shock. Then I decided to commit. Then I told anyone who'd listened so that I had public accountability and could not back out. I was out running yesterday, and my shins are not okay. I wanted to give up but then I remembered I can't because I've already told everyone I'm doing this, and the only thing worse than having three months to train for a half marathon when you've never run a day in your life is having to tell everyone that you've given up and backed out. So, yesterday, with the pressure of public accountability square on my shoulders, I kept on running.

    Now, I know you're probably wondering, especially if you're a runner yourself, how could I make such a huge mistake? The answer is numbers. I see numbers and I panic. On the signup page, I saw the registration for the 10-kilometre marathon and then for the half marathon. So I assumed that the half marathon was half of 10 kilometres, which equals 5 kilometres. Clearly, I was wrong. Even as I was signing up, the numbers and distances weren't making sense to me, but I chalked it up to my own number issues.

    I tend to hide from numbers. I physically wither around numbers. Not great for a business owner, I know, but it turns out I'm not the only one who avoids numbers sometimes. Even the most numerically competent, intrinsically organised business owners avoid their numbers sometimes. Like Sandra Booker, a fractional COO who's so good at managing numbers, business, and operations that she's the right-hand woman of business owners like Chanti Zak, Tarzan Kay, and Laura Belgray. Sandra's mistake makes me feel a little bit better about my own.

    Sandra Booker: I took my eyes off my cash flow and came very scarily close to losing my entire business. I had one employee and a couple of VAs, and things were going great. And I decided to kind of pivot a little bit. I got really busy and stopped—like up until that point, I would every Friday look at my cash flow. And then I got to the point where I was so busy, I just went, "Well, that can go on the back burner. I'll do that later." And then the next week, I'll do that later. Next week, I'll do that later. And I stopped looking at it entirely for probably like, six months or so. And then I finally sat and looked at my cash flow, and I was like maybe two months—No, I don't even think it was two months, to the point where I was going to have to close doors. I wouldn't have been able to pay myself or my employee or anything.

    Eman Ismail: On today's show, I'm speaking to Sandra Booker, a mentor, fractional COO, and growth strategist who's the founder of Changemaker Inc. and heads Sidekick COO, The VA Studio, the Scale Society, and The 627 Advisory Board. Sandra's here to talk about the time she took her eyes off her cash flow and was shocked to find she was less than two months away from losing her entire business.

    Sandra Booker: All my life constantly like, "Oh my gosh, do I have enough money in the bank? Oh my gosh, do I have enough money in the bank?" So it was so freeing. And I think that's why I let myself just, "It's fine," you know, because for the first time in my life, it was fine. Everything was fine until it wasn't.

    Eman Ismail: Welcome to Mistakes That Made Me, the podcast that asks extraordinary business owners to share their biggest business mistake so you know what not to do on your road to success. Mistakes That Made Me is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name's Eman Ismail, and I'm an email strategist and copywriter for online business owners like you at emancopyco.com. I'm a podcast lover, a pizza binger, a proud mama of two, and I have this radical idea that if maybe us business owners were a little less guarded and a lot more open about the mistakes we've made, we could help each other grow a business that brings us more joy and less regret.

    I've just been listening to Talking Too Loud, a podcast by Chris Savage that's brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Chris, Wistia's CEO and loudest talker, takes you inside the minds of entrepreneurs as they share the hilarious, informative, and most challenging aspects of building more human brands.

    I'd recommend you start by listening to my friend's interview on the show, Sonia Thompson. She's an inclusive brand coach and strategist. Sonia talks about women in elite sports being forced to wear white shorts, which causes a lot of anxiety when these women are playing on their period. Clearly, this white short situation was a decision that was not made by a woman, and it really highlights one of the many problems with not having diversity in your leadership. It's a great conversation. Listen to Talking Too Loud, specifically Episode 90 with Sonia, wherever you get your podcasts.

    Sandra Booker: I'm Sandra Booker. I work as a fractional COO for online service providers. Typically, my clients are well-established. They're already making a couple hundred thousand a year typically on average, and they have offers that sell and they have their ideal client and everything should be good, but they keep getting stuck when they try and grow and scale. And it's typically because they're missing some foundational pieces in their business.

    So they don't have a way of making a decision in their business other than their gut, which guts are good, but way more reliable when backed by data. They don't have nothing that they're tracking, they don't have any way of assessing where they are or where they're trying to get to, they don't have any processes documented, that kind of thing. So I come in, assess where they are, figure out where they're trying to get to, and help them get the foundations in place that'll let them build and grow and scale, whatever that looks like to them.

    Eman Ismail: Amazing. Okay. So I want to make sure that we fully understand what the role of a fractional COO involves. So can you give us a few examples of something you've been working on with clients or the kind of thing that you might work on with clients?

    Sandra Booker: Yeah, definitely. So, for example, one of my clients is my longest client. So we've been together through a few pivots, but my main role with her is to kind of like manage her business in a way that's like, I help her understand her cash flow, I help her understand her numbers, I help her make decisions in her business. So when she's like, "Hey, I want to spend this much money on this program." I'm the sober second thought trying to figure out, "Okay, so what are we going to get out of it? Why are we doing it? Is there another solution?" And I'm also there to help bring on team members, help onboard them, help support them, that kind of thing.

    Eman Ismail: Sober second thought. I absolutely love that. You know, I recently came across someone who said that they consult someone before they make any kind of spending decision in their business, even those smaller ones that we think don't really matter. Because I feel like I haven't spent a lot of money on a course or membership or mastermind for a very long time, actually. I'm in my phase of like, I need a break from coaches. I'm in a couple of memberships, but they're really light memberships, I dip in, I dip out when I kind of need it.

    I realised what gets me is that even though I'm not making those big spends, I do spend quite a bit on those like, "Oh, this workshop's just $100," and "Oh, this workshop here is just $150." And eventually, they all add up. So I love that second sober thought idea. I think we all need someone like that in our business.

    Sandra Booker: Yeah. It's really imperative to have somebody that you can bounce those things off of who's not just going to be a yes man. They're not just going to say, "Yeah, go for it. Sounds great." They're going to ask you the questions like, "Okay, why do you want to take that? What are you going to get out of it? Where's the return on the investment? What are we hoping for? What's the outcome?" Trying to know what your outcome is before you actually get into anything is really imperative, especially as you grow and scale your business. You get to a point where you really shouldn't be taking courses.

    Honestly, generic courses at some point need to no longer be the way you go. And instead, it should be either outsourcing to an expert or hiring somebody in-house that's an expert to do it or getting a consultant to help you with the very specific things that you need because at some point you're just wasting your time with a generic course. You might get one or two great things out of it, but those dollars can go way further if you think about where you're putting them first.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah, it makes so much sense to me. And you have been kind of like at every stage, 'cause you started off as a VA and then you became an online business manager and now fractional COO, right?

    Sandra Booker: Yes, yeah. I started off as a side hustle and then moved into full-time virtual assistant and then business management, now, yeah, professional COO.

    Eman Ismail: Okay. I'm hoping you can help me with something because I am currently on the search for my new—I've called the role an admin and tech assistant because it's very much like admin-y, systems, automation, organisation, but then also the tech stuff of helping with all the automations and helping me during launches and all that kind of stuff.

    So I've called it an admin and tech assistant role, and my 11-page job description that I'm very proud of has caused some controversy because some people say it is a VA role and others have gotten such a need to say, "That's not a VA role, that's an OBM role." And I'm going to be honest. I had someone in this role, and they called themselves an OBM, but I didn't feel like it was an OBM role because there was still a lot of me telling you what to do. I didn't really ever feel like there was any—There wasn't really a point where they were going off and coming up with big ideas, big strategies, implementing big things in my business, which is kind of what I always thought an OBM was. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about.

    I did ask someone that I really trust called Tasha Booth, and she looked at my job description and she said—

    Sandra Booker: Oh, I love Tasha.

    Eman Ismail: Oh yeah, of course you know Tasha. She's amazing. I'm in her new membership actually, which is great for agency owners. And yeah, she's so clever. I love her so much. And she had a look at my job description, and she was like, "Oh, no, no, no. This is VA, but it's high-level VA." But there have been some people who've got in touch with me to say, "No, no, this is OBM stuff." So what is the difference between a VA and an OBM?

    Sandra Booker: Okay. So the problem is, it's the wild west out there. So-

    Eman Ismail: It is.

    Sandra Booker: -everybody's allowed to call themselves whatever they want. And I tell people don't get too caught up in the title when you're looking for a virtual assistant. You do have to look at the role. Because honestly, to me, an OBM, a business manager, is somebody who is managing the business. Their primary role is to manage the business. So they would take care of other team members. They would take care of making sure projects are moving forward, unless you have a separate project manager. They would make sure that reports are getting done. They wouldn't necessarily be the ones doing those reports. They're making sure that the reports are getting done. They're the people that people are reporting to. That is a manager of something.

    And they might help out in the day-to-day a little bit when needed, but a true manager is not doing those day-to-day tasks. You would not have somebody who is a manager loading your emails or managing your schedule. That is not a business manager. Unfortunately, in the virtual assistant industry, people call themselves OBM if they're just doing a little bit more complicated things than what a general admin VA would do. So I would say you need to focus on the role a little bit more. I'm a little concerned with how long your job description is.

    Eman Ismail: No, I have everything. Do you know what? I'm very proud of my job description. It has been described by many people as the best job description they've read, as in people who are applying for the role. Because at this point, I've had such terrible experiences that I know exactly what I need from the person in the role. And so I put everything on the table. I've even included my values. This also includes about the business, my services, what I do, because I want to make sure that the person, even who's at the stage of thinking about applying, knows what they're applying for, what I stand for, what I do, who I help.

    I've just had some really bad experiences, and I'm tired. I'm so tired of the bad experiences. And it's funny that you said it's wild, wild west, because I swear to you, I was on the bus this morning thinking about—like I'm sat on the bus thinking about our conversation that we're going to have wondering why I've gone through so many VAs in my six years of business, and the conclusion I came to was it's the wild, wild west out there. It really is.

    Sandra Booker: Yeah, it really is.

    Eman Ismail: Anybody and everybody calls themselves a VA, and I didn't really know what I was doing initially when it came to hiring someone for the role of a VA in my business. So I really trusted the other people on the other side of this, and we've had everything from—I mean, I had a really great VA. I've had a couple of really great VAs. One of them ended up going back into full-time work around the pandemic. That's why we stopped working together. Another one decided randomly that actually, she didn't want to be a VA anymore. She wants to be an editor. So she was like, "See you later." And I was like, "Oh, okay, bye." Just life happens. And then there have been some really ugly situations, and that happens.

    I've also had people be terrible at the role, but be really nice, and then me not knowing how to handle that because they're really nice and I don't want to hurt their feelings, but you're terrible. And then I've had people who are really amazing at the job, but we just don't mesh personality-wise. We clash, we have communication issues, and then of course things end badly that way too. And so it's been a real, real experience.

    And yeah, I've realised, I think, that all I can do is work on my own leadership skills and my own communication skills, 'cause I think that's very important too, and then also make sure that I am creating a role where the systems and processes are so good that someone can leave and someone else can step into that place. And of course, it's going to take time. It's going to take time to onboard and all that stuff, but that's how clean my business should be. So that is the goal now.

    Sandra Booker: Yeah, that and honestly really figuring out what's important. Because I haven't read your job description, but just from what you've said, you potentially have two different roles, and possibly more than that, depending. And this is the trap that a lot of business owners fall into. They're like, "I need a virtual assistant, and here are all of the things in my business I need them to do." And the problem with that is you need a unicorn for that, and unicorns don't exist, or they're at least extremely rare.

    So instead of trying to find the unicorn and having all of these, poor, disappointing, relationships along the way, I would say really hone down the role so that you can get a nice, solid, sturdy horse. Know what is important and you need to know like, "Okay, so this is the thing I absolutely need from this role. Anything else that they bring to it is gravy." So hire for that role first.

    So for you, for instance, if you really need somebody that's super techy, can handle the automations and understand how to connect things and all of that stuff, if that happens enough in your business that you really need that, then when you bring people on and do whatever testing you're going to do and doing any interviews you're going to do, you really need to highlight that piece and test for that piece and make sure that that is actually solid in there.

    And I see so many people who are like, "I need attention to detail." And then they hire people who have shown throughout the process that they have no attention to detail. "But they were really nice. I could see myself getting a drink with them." No, you don't need to have coffee and tea with the people you hire. You need to be able to have a friendly relationship, a friendly communication, and get the work done. That's what you're looking for.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with you about the unicorn thing. I've tried my best not to do that because one of the things that's always confused me—I'm going to make some people mad now. I'm so sorry in advance. But I have come across people saying they are a VA copywriter, a VA social media manager. I don't know what the heck that means. In my world, you're either a copywriter or you're a VA or you're a social media manager or you're a VA. I don't understand.

    So I've specifically tried to not mesh the roles. So I'm looking at my job description now, and under Roles and Responsibilities, I've divided it into admin, which is the stuff that you can imagine—just admin, managing inboxes, helping me document and create SOPs, that kind of thing, calendar management, helping me with the assets for my podcast, which is all very templated because I have had it designed by a designer, so like put the picture of the guest into the Canva template, that kind of stuff, email marketing, putting my stuff into ConvertKit, putting my emails to ConvertKit, that kind of thing, managing my calendar and invites for guests speaking.

    I think the most kind of techy thing that I have that requires maybe some specialist knowledge is the launch admin and tech prep that I need help with when I'm launching, that kind of stuff, automation stuff to help me systemise the business. I'm hoping someone will know Zapier or at least enjoy figuring it out. And I think those are the most techy things.

    And honestly, Asana was a big one for me. I actually set up the application form so that it was a yes or no question, like, "Do you have experience with Asana?" If yes, they continued on with the application. If no, I just took them out of the application because that was one of those things that it's a non-negotiable for me. That's super important for me.

    Also, have you launched before? Do you have any experience helping clients with launches? That kind of thing. So I've tried my best to not do the whole I need a unicorn thing because I know it's really unfair, but I am hopeful. I actually have some really great applicants, and we are on the interview stage now. So I'm dancing out of excitement. Yeah. And so, yeah, I'm really excited about a couple of people that I'm going to be speaking to. So we hope that it's going to go well. And yeah, I mean, I know that you're an expert at this, at hiring, delegating, building a team, that kind of thing, so always good to have your thoughts.

    Sandra Booker: Yeah. And honestly, so in your case, I would say it sounds like focusing on those admin skills and Asana and all of the tech stuff is hopefully they—it's almost optional in that they need to be able to not be afraid of tech and be able to learn things, and it would be a bonus if they knew how to set up automations and stuff, but they could probably learn it.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah.

    Sandra Booker: Just cause that piece to me is that's a sometimes thing or it's another piece where you could pull that part out as a role for somebody to do like a project-based thing, if need be.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah. 'Cause that's only happening a few times a year, two times a year. Exactly. Yeah. And I am amazed at the fact that you're managing multiple businesses at the same time. So you've got your business, you've got your multiple clients' businesses that you're managing. How do you do all that? Because I'm out here struggling to manage my own business by myself. It's a struggle. How are you doing so many?

    Sandra Booker: Well, I mean, I can turn it around and say like, "You write amazing copy. How do you do it?" [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: Thank you.

    Sandra Booker: 'Cause that is just as baffling to me. I think it's just a skill. It's my wheelhouse and I've just always been that person that has been able to take on multiple roles and be able to see and understand how things are put together and figure out processes and systems that will help alleviate pressure.

    So for me, I have a project management tool. Everything I do goes into that project management tool. Anytime there's work to do, it's in there. I can see it all. I can run reports. It's all fantastic. All of my clients that I work for, there's systems that run the business. It's not necessarily me having to do everything 'cause we have systems in place. So getting the right support in place is super key, but also really understanding where you're trying to go so that you're not distracted by everything and assessing where you are, which is something that a lot of businesses just never do.

    So really assessing like, "Okay, so this is where I am. This is where I'm trying to get to. What do I need to make that happen?" and start setting goals. The number of people I talked to where the only goal they have is a revenue goal for the year, and it's like, "Okay, you need a little bit more strategy around your goals." Revenue goals are great, but we need to dive a little bit deeper.

    Eman Ismail: Give me something else to work with. [laughs]

    Sandra Booker: Yeah. You need something else. Revenue is revenue, but you can have a fantastic revenue year and still have a loss. Revenue is just one number. Profit is a better number to be focused on if you're going to focus on a money goal, but then knowing like, "Okay, what's driving that revenue?" So maybe we should have some goals and metrics around the things that are driving the revenue so that we can actually pull different levers rather than just looking at this one lever that seems impossible to move.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah. That's such an important point, and it sounds so simple, but I have a really good example of me doing this. I used to spend a lot of time and strategy on my LinkedIn. And to be honest, I still do, but my goals are different now, now that I have this piece of information, which is, I used to think, "Oh my gosh, I get so many clients from LinkedIn," because I was constantly getting inquiries, so many inquiries. This was a few years ago now.

    And then one day, I decided to sit down and actually track the number of clients I was getting from LinkedIn. And when I actually sat down and tracked it, I realised that I was getting all these leads from LinkedIn. I was getting so many inquiries, but none of them were ever right-fit clients. None of them ever became clients. But to me, because I was dealing with so many inquiries, I was talking to so many people, it seemed like—There was a flurry of activity. There was just so much going on. It seemed like, "Oh, it's this amazing platform that's really working well for me. I'm getting clients from that." I wasn't. And just seeing those numbers was really shocking.

    And so what that made me do was actually move away from LinkedIn and move over to Instagram, where I kind of feel like more of my clients are—course, creators, the coaches. And I enjoy that platform as well a lot. So I then started focusing on Instagram more. And I do still spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, but now I am not trying to get clients from LinkedIn. For me, what works is getting speaking opportunities from LinkedIn and paid speaker work and all that kind of stuff.

    It's so important to like track your data. It really is. Because you might surprise yourself.

    Sandra Booker: Yeah.

    Eman Ismail: You might find something you didn't know.

    Sandra Booker: Yeah, data is really, really important. It can be tricky because data needs to be interpreted. It tells a story, but you can almost get it to say anything you want. So you have to be careful about the data that you're tracking and really pay attention to it.

    Your situation is perfect for that because the data that you saw, all of these leads coming in, activity on LinkedIn, seemed to be creating leads for you, and then you were getting clients. So in your mind, A, B equals C, but then you actually look at it and get more data points and you realise, "Oh, no, that's not actually what's happening." So you do have to be careful when you're looking at data, that you're looking at enough data points to support the story that you've found.

    So I hear all the time people are like, "I'm going to create a new program." It's like, "Okay, great. You're going to create this new program. Why?" "Well, I feel like I have a lot of people on my list who need this program. They might be beginners," and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, "Okay. How many people are beginners? Where are they in their journey? What is it that they actually need? We need to find the data before creating a new program. That's a lot of work to put in for when you don't even know if it's going to turn into anything."

    Eman Ismail: Yeah, absolutely. So, Sandra, we actually work together on-

    Sandra Booker: We do.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah, we do, on a project of yours called The Advisory Board. So tell the listener a little bit about The Advisory Board.

    Sandra Booker: Yeah. The 627 Advisory Board is something I came up with because I found that for people who were just getting started in business, there was tons of resources out there. There's all sorts of free resources. There's all sorts of courses that you can get that are generic information, like getting you started, getting your first clients, getting all of that information and setup done. So there's tons and tons of support there for people just getting started in business.

    And there's tons and tons of support for people who are already making seven figures plus, multi-million-dollar business owners. It's easy to get support. You can pay for the people you need. There's people who are volunteering because they want to be connected with you. You can get into circles where you can get advice from people because you seem to be big so they want to be with you. Lots of ways of getting support that way.

    But for everybody in the messy middle, which is a term that Jordan Gill told me once. And I was just like, "Okay, that is brilliant. That is exactly where everybody is." Those people who are making a couple hundred thousand a year up to maybe a million, it's really hard to get the really great advice and guidance in your business because you're too established for all of the generic courses and you can't necessarily afford to hire all of the advisors that you need to have.

    So I put together a group of experts in their field. Half of them are marketing and copywriting and branding and all that stuff focused and half of them are more business systems, business operations, business model focused. And every week, you get one of each on a call. So as a member, you can come and ask your questions, get the guidance, talk about what's happening in your business.

    And the real key thing for me is anytime I've been in a group where I'm getting guidance from anybody, it's like you ask a question and somebody just shoots an answer your way. It's like, "Oh, do this. Oh, do that," and that's a lot of the time a lot of the advice that people get. It's like, "Oh, you need an email marketing tool? Get this one," or "You're finding life stressful? Hire a VA." And I don't like that model of advice because business and life are very nuanced.

    And what is working for the person next to you is not necessarily going to work the same way or at all for you because you're two different people doing two different things in two different ways, you have different ways of thinking, you have different ideal clients. So you need to have the understanding of the nuance of the business before you really give it advice.

    So in The 627 Advisory Board, as you know, one of the big things is when people do ask questions of us, as advisors, we tend to ask questions back to get more understanding of the situation before we offer the advice. And that's been instrumental for people, just being able to say like, "Oh, yeah, 'cause I've heard I should do this and I should do this." And it's like, "Well, I don't feel that that's the right way because of X, Y, Z in your business. So I would do it this way instead."

    Eman Ismail: Yeah. It's amazing. There's a couple things that I want to add to that. So I'm on the board. You're of course on the board. We have Zafira Rajan, Stacy Coyle, Tarzan Kay, Chioma Njoku, Mary Chhea, and Michelle Warner. And we're all experts in various different things, like you said. And what I love most is that a member will get on a call and they'll ask me a question, generally about email strategy, email marketing, and then Stacy, the customer journey and buyer experience strategist on the board, will come in and then also answer that question but from her knowledge and her expertise. So I'll answer the same question from an email marketing perspective, and then she'll come in and share her customer journey perspective on the same question. And it's just mind-blowing.

    And as someone on the board, I learn from the other board members as I am listening to them answer the members' questions. And what I also love about this board is that, like you said, a lot of the time, masterminds are—you're actually kind of really depending on your peers a lot, and I don't love that. I don't love paying a lot of money for a mastermind, and I mean, a lot of money for a mastermind, and then the peers being sometimes even more of an influence, I want to say, than the actual coach that you paid to learn from. Sometimes there's a lot of leaning on peers. Now, I have my own peer masterminds that are totally free. Me and my best friends have our own peer mastermind. I don't need to pay thousands and thousands for another peer mastermind.

    When I join a mastermind, I want to learn from the coach, and that's what this is. This is a small, intimate group learning from experts and asking experts very tailored questions about their business and struggles that they're having, and the experts, like you said, asking a bunch of questions back so we can really understand what's going on and then giving a super tailored answer.

    So for anyone that's interested in joining The 627 Advisory Board or finding out a little bit more, like Sandra said, it is for people who are in the kind of that messy middle, mid-six figures, like 200,000 up, right?

    Sandra Booker: Pretty much, yeah. And the revenue thing is more about making sure you're fiscally responsible for your business.

    Eman Ismail: Yes. Because the investment is $500 a month, and so Sandra's kind of given this guidance that to be spending $500 a month on an advisory board like this, you should be making somewhere around 200k a year and it's a really great place to be. So if that sounds like something you're interested in, check the link in the show notes and go check it out. And I don't usually promo stuff in the middle of an episode like this, but it's such a great community and Sandra is so good at what she does that I want you to go check it out if you think it might be interesting for you.

    One other thing I want to talk about is the way that you set the advisory board up for the board members, for us, that a lot of people don't know because why would we talk about it? But you've set it up so that it's a co-op. So we all get paid in a very specific way that I have never experienced before, but I absolutely love it. So tell us a little bit about that setup.

    Sandra Booker: Yeah. So before I started my business, I was involved in a cooperatively owned grocery store. We were trying to bring food to the food desert that is our downtown core. And I just fell in love with the model, the idea that people working together for themselves rather than it be this kind of like hierarchy where things are trickling down.

    So I knew that the advisory board was going to rely heavily on the expertise of the other board members as well as myself. And even though I'm organizing it all and doing most of the promotion and all of that stuff, it would be nothing without all of the other people in the board. It's a really special group. So I set it up so that everybody gets a percentage. So everybody gets a percentage of all of the memberships that come in, and then they also get an extra percentage of anybody that they bring in to the membership on their own.

    So you can be a board member without having to—you don't have to promote. You just have to be there and come, but you still get the benefit of the growth of the membership as well because the more members we have, the more work you're going to have to do. There's going to be more people that you have to wrap your head around and stuff, so it was really important to me that everybody felt like it wasn't just like, "Oh, yeah, I'm going to come in and get a small fee for a speaking gig." I wanted people who wanted to be part of it.

    Eman Ismail: And I think what's really nice about that as someone who is a board member is first of all, is that it feels very fair and equitable. Everybody knows what everyone is being paid. And I've been in some situations where I'm wondering if someone who has a bigger audience than me is getting paid like a million times more than me, you know?

    I actually had a really interesting conversation today that was around that kind of topic where me and someone else were talking about the behind the scenes. "Well, what are you being paid? And I'm being paid this and this." 'Cause I think those conversations are really important, but the difference is that we were having that conversation behind closed doors. But us, the board members, we don't need to have those conversations behind closed doors because everybody knows what everyone's being paid. And we also know that the more people that we bring to the board, again, everybody benefits. We're lifting everyone up and we're also elevating the quality of the board itself as well.

    Sandra Booker: Yeah. And honestly, it just seems like like I can't even imagine how I would quantify who should get paid more. Everybody is so amazing on our board. I picked everybody—handpicked. I thought about who I was bringing on. One of the board members is somebody that was fairly new to me, and I was lucky enough to get introduced to this person, Chioma. And she is just absolutely brilliant. And I was like, "I need her on my board. She is so, so smart."

    So yeah, I could never try and quantify the value. Everybody brings such great value to the advisory board, so I'm just grateful that everybody said yes. It's a great group.

    Eman Ismail: It is, it really is. And if you love the idea of this advisory board, but maybe this specific advisory board isn't maybe in your price range or it's not something you want to do right now, I know someone who has handpicked their own advisory board, has gone to people that they really admire and look up to and said, "Hey, I'm creating an advisory board for my business. Will you be on the advisory board?" And they pick specific people based on what their expertise is and then they basically create this support group for themselves, this literal advisory board where they have a bunch of people that they can go to for advice on various topics. And it is just so smart.

    And I think if you can even just do that on the smallest level, like maybe your partner is on your board, on your own personal board, and that's just someone that you check in with, who provides those—what was it? Sober thoughts?

    Sandra Booker: Sober second thoughts.

    Eman Ismail: Sober second thoughts, exactly. Maybe it's someone that you know, like maybe you have a friend who's an accountant and you're like, "Hey, can you be on my board? I just need someone to sometimes bounce ideas around with or check in with." Have a look at the people that you have around you and figure out how you can do this. Maybe you have some business besties and you can be on each other's advisory board. I just think it's a really clever idea. And I think that you've packaged it up so beautifully, but if this board isn't for you, you can find a way to make something for yourself in other ways.

    Sandra Booker: One hundred percent. An advisory board as a concept is not new. It's something that's been around forever. I didn't make that up. It exists. Lots and lots of businesses, corporations especially, have advisory boards. And you can certainly put your own together. The difference between an advisory board and a peer mastermind is that when your advisory board is in session, it is all about you and your business and you're not helping somebody else. So make sure that you understand what you're creating, if you're going to create one.

    Eman Ismail: Love it. Love it.

    Okay, Sandra, are you ready to talk about your biggest business mistake?

    Sandra Booker: Yes. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: Okay, let's do it.

    Stick around. Don't go anywhere. We'll get right back to this episode after this quick break.

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    Sandra, what is the mistake that made you?

    Sandra Booker: The mistake that made me is a couple of years into my business, I took my eyes off my cash flow and came very scarily close to losing my entire business.

    Eman Ismail: Wow. Okay. So let's kind of go back a little bit. Paint the picture of what was happening around that time.

    Sandra Booker: So around that time, I was working, I had retired my husband. He was doing a few things in my business, but he was basically doing his own thing. And I had one employee and a couple of VAs and things were going great. Everything was moving along. Leads were coming in like clockwork, everything seemed to be going well, and I decided to kind of pivot a little bit in my business. So I wanted to move more into business management. So I started making that move a little bit. So changing my packages a bit. And I got really busy and stopped—like up until that point, I would every Friday look at my cash flow.

    And when I say look at my cash flow, I'd go into all of my accounts, see what was coming out, see what was going in. I have a really fancy spreadsheet that I go through every single week so that I always knew where I was going to be at the end of the week. And also, I had a projection of where I was going to be every week for the rest of the year. And it was great. I loved it. And then I got to the point where I was so busy, I just went, "Well, that can go on the back burner. I'll do that later." And then the next week, I'll do that later. Next week, I'll do that later. And I stopped looking at it entirely for probably like—every time I tell this story, I think a couple of months, but it was probably more like six months or so.

    And then eventually, I got to the point where I'm like, "Oh, I should probably check in on my cash flow. I haven't done that in a long, long time. Let me see what's going on." And in the meantime, I had some clients who—their contracts had come to a natural end, so they moved on. And I hadn't worried about replacing them because, one, I had always gotten new clients pretty easily, so I wasn't really concerned with it. And two, I was still working out what my packages were gonna be and stuff, so I was just kind of enjoying a little bit of extra stress-free time.

    And then I finally sat and looked at my cash flow and I was like, maybe two months—No, I don't even think it was two months, to the point where I was going to have to close doors. I wouldn't have been able to pay myself or my employee or anything. So it was a super, super rough day.

    Eman Ismail: Wow. Okay. So you had at the time an employee and two VAs. So do you remember what your general monthly expenses were? How much did you need to bring in—

    Sandra Booker: My gosh. Oh, I should have looked this up before coming. Oh my gosh, I'm just going to say $15,000. I can't remember exactly, but I have the record of it. I could look it up. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: That's okay. Okay. We'll go with $15,000. So, I mean, it's a significant amount. That's what you needed every month for the business to be okay. That's what you needed to pay out. So ideally, how many months' worth of expenses and money—how much money do you want in the bank to feel safe?

    Sandra Booker: I usually want at least three months at the absolute minimum. And I try and aim for six months. I'm always trying to build up so that I have six months' worth of capital that I can draw on if need be. But three is the minimum that I like to have.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah. Same, actually. Three months is my absolute minimum.

    Sandra Booker: And at the time, I hadn't gotten to that spot yet. I was only a couple of years in my business, so I didn't even have that cushion yet built up.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah. I once heard someone say—I can't remember exactly. I think I know who it was, but it might not have been them, so I'm not gonna say. But I once heard someone say that as a business owner, if you don't have at least six months of salary to pay yourself, you are one bad event away from poverty. I was just like, "Oh my god, that's terrifying."

    Sandra Booker: Yeah. Anything can happen, right?

    Eman Ismail: Anything can happen.

    Sandra Booker: Look at all the businesses that didn't survive the pandemic. It's rough. You need to have some sort of way of floating the business when you need to. And that's also why it's super important not to just to build up money in the business so that the business has funds but to also be worrying about increasing your personal net worth as much as possible as well because you want to have that same nest egg in your home expenses so that if anything happens, you could just not draw the salary for a while.

    And that's a way of increasing your nest egg. Having three months in your business, three months in your personal, there's your six months of your salary you don't have to worry about if anything goes awry.

    Eman Ismail: And there's nothing quite like being in that situation when you know that you're okay. There's so much freedom in it from being able to say no to all the wrong fit clients. I remember getting on a sales call with someone and he was really patronising. At one point, I told him what my payment policy was, and he didn't like it, and he raised his eyebrow at me on the call and made a funny face. He raised his eyebrow and he's kind of like, "Ugh." And I didn't work with him because he raised his eyebrow at me. And I was just like, "Oh, this is why I'm a business owner. Because you raised your eyebrow at me, and so now I'm not going to work with you and I don't need to work with you. And I'm good."

    And there have been times in my business where I have definitely not been in that position, where I would have been begging him to work with me. But having that experience, it's a freedom that is unlike anything else. And so that's a very good goal to want to get to—to have that nest egg in your personal life and in your business.

    Sandra Booker: Definitely. I had the same situation where it's like I didn't have money growing up. I started my business because my daughter wanted to go on a school trip and I didn't have any money to do it. So that's how the business started-

    Eman Ismail: Wow.

    Sandra Booker: -was I needed to send her on this school trip. So coming from all my life constantly like, "Oh my gosh, do I have enough money in the bank? Oh my gosh, do I have enough money in the bank?" So it was so freeing. And I think that's why I let myself just, "It's fine," you know, because for the first time in my life, it was fine. Everything was fine until it wasn't.

    Eman Ismail: Okay. So you said at one point that you had retired your husband. Now I'm really fascinated by this. Okay. So do you mind me asking what that actually means? So you're taking care of the household in terms of finances and money, that kind of thing.

    Sandra Booker: I was, yeah. So at the time, I was making enough that we could get by on just like, I could just pay us the salary that he would be getting and then he would be around to support me and support our daughter. He's not—He is a perpetual student. He's just so multi-passionate. He just loves to dabble in so many things, and I just really wanted to give him the opportunity to just do the thing, just to follow his passion wherever it was leading him 'cause it leads him in so many interesting ways.

    I knew about tapping before anybody knew about tapping. I don't know if you're familiar with tapping.

    Eman Ismail: I do. I do know about tapping.

    Sandra Booker: I knew about tapping in like, 2002.

    Eman Ismail: Oh, wow.

    Sandra Booker: He was teaching me tapping. He's learned so much, and I just wanted to give him that opportunity to follow wherever his interests lay, and it was nice having— He was able to take on some responsibilities and I didn't have to worry about everything at the house necessarily because he was taking on more of that role. Yeah, so that was nice while it lasted.

    Eman Ismail: While it lasted, okay. So I mean, this must have been particularly stressful then because this is on you, like you need to hold down the finances. So if your business is not okay, everyone is not okay. That's a lot. It's a lot.

    Sandra Booker: Yeah.

    Eman Ismail: So what happened once you sat down and realised something's gone wrong here?

    Sandra Booker: Well, I cried and I screamed and then I cried some more. And then I had a full-on meltdown and panic attack. And then I just looked at him, and I'm like, "You need to get a job." And we were so, so lucky that my sister happened to be managing a store at the time for a big chain and she was looking for somebody to come in and install hitches, and so he went to work. Within a week or two, he had a job, which was absolutely brilliant.

    And I'm so lucky and thankful that that happened because it could have easily gone the other way because he hadn't worked for a while. And it's hard to go back to work when you haven't been there for a while to explain that couple of years of no work. And it makes businesses question like, "Are you going to stay or what's going to happen?" So it could have easily been really problematic. But luckily, he was able to get a job really quickly and we were able to start building things back up again. And I never took my eyes off my cash flow again.

    Eman Ismail: Okay. So when you were doing those Financial Fridays, which sounds like a really good idea, I don't do that, but may need to start doing that. What kind of things were you doing? If someone wanted to start implementing Financial Fridays, what would one do on a Financial Friday?

    Sandra Booker: So I'd say at the very bare minimum, my Financial Fridays—and it's funny because I just think back. I remember telling a fairly successful business person about my Financial Fridays, and she laughed at me and said that "Why are you wasting your time? You should just outsource that." And I was just like, "No. I need to understand my money."

    So I would say, at the very bare minimum, you want to just double-check to see where your accounts receivable are. Hopefully, you're getting paid in advance for everything, but if you're not, you want to see, are people paying you? Who owes you what? And then also seeing—So depending on if you have a bookkeeper who's doing your books monthly, they can probably help you with your cash flow. Me personally, I have a spreadsheet where I literally go through all of my accounts and I'm just putting in. Okay. Yeah, I spent that much. I spent that much. I spent that much. I think I'm gonna spend this much. And then I see at the bottom of my spreadsheet how much money I should have at the end of the week and for every week for the rest of the year.

    Now, you don't have to do all of that. It gives me great peace of mind to have it so I do it. It's like a ritual for me. But at the very least, for you, knowing what money is outstanding, knowing what money has come out of your account, what money you think is going to come out of your account, and what money is coming in. Just seeing where that stands so that you have an understanding of what's your bank balance at the end of the week.

    Eman Ismail: Okay, yeah. And the thing is, my accountant does that, but I started realising probably like a year into having an accountant that even though you have an accountant, it's good for you to have a handle on this stuff. Let the accountant do what they're doing, but then you also have like a tighter handle on what's going on in the day-to-day.

    Sandra Booker: Yeah, you need to. Because your accountant, typically, they're going to worry about your profit and loss and your balance sheet. They're going to worry about those long-term things. Most accountants won't give you your cash flow because most accountants or bookkeepers not necessarily reconcile your bank account every month unless you're specifically asking them to, and they're definitely not doing it every week unless you're a big enough account to need it.

    So yeah, so sometimes you have to do it yourself, but there's usually—if you're using QuickBooks or some other software, there's often a cash flow report that you can run. But you just have to make sure that your books are up to date and reconciled, because if they're not, then you're missing information and it won't be accurate.

    But yeah, if you have an accountant and you have a bookkeeper, you need to be asking questions, you need to be getting reports from them and asking them questions about those reports, double-checking things, and see how things go. Especially bookkeepers, they will miscategorise things all the time. So you'll see like, oh, you spent X amount of dollars on software, and then if you drill down into it, you might see half of that was professional development or half of that was something else. And it's really beneficial to know where your money is actually going.

    And the bonus to me for looking at my cash flow every week too, is I hear about people who have all of these subscriptions that they forgot about. I never forget about a subscription because I can see in advance where all of the money is going to go.

    Eman Ismail: Yes. Okay. Talking of subscriptions, I'm really annoyed with myself because just today I signed up for ChatGPT, as in the paid version. And I've been avoiding it for so long because I didn't want to add yet another subscription onto my huge tech stack, which by the way, I'm happy with my tech stack because I get to hire fewer people because of it. I can pay for these subscriptions instead. But I'm really annoyed because I really didn't want to you know do the whole ChatGPT thing, but it's so good.

    Sandra Booker: It is so good.

    Eman Ismail: I feel like a traitor.

    Sandra Booker: It's so good. That's a whole other podcast, man. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: I know.

    Sandra Booker: I could go on about that forever. No, you don't have to be a traitor because it's not about—ChatGPT is not going to replace your amazing copy because ChatGPT still can't write amazing copy. But what it is going to do is it's going to help you shortcut some processes around writing and implementing. Not even just the writing, but one thing that I like using it for is to mine content. So it's like, "Here's a bunch of transcripts. Can you pull out what are the common themes?"

    Eman Ismail: It's so funny you said that.

    Sandra Booker: And that's super handy to have, you know.

    Eman Ismail: That's why I bought it because I put in a bunch of survey responses, and then I said, "Just summarise the common themes for me." And it did, and it was amazing. And then I tried to do it again, and it was like, "Oh, sorry, you've hit your limit." And I was like, "No. No. Upgrade," and then ended up upgrading. So now I have yet another subscription.

    But going back to this cash flow mistake, you had an employee and two VAs. Did it cross your mind that you would have to fire any of them? Did you let any of them go?

    Sandra Booker: I didn't let any of them go, but I did have a plan to let them go. If he hadn't have been able to get a job as quick as he did, I would have been having to give my employee their notice basically within a week or two. So when I realised the error and lost my mind about it and finally got back into like, "Okay, how do I fix it?", first thing I did was go through my expenses, figure out what can I actually cut? Where can I pull back? I love tech, so I'm always playing with new things. I'm always getting new subscriptions just to test things. So I just be like, "Okay, so this and this and this, I don't need all of those. Can I consolidate?"

    And then I also had a plan for like, "Okay, so if he doesn't have a job by this date, I'll have to let my VAs go. And if he doesn't have a job by this date, I'll have to let my employee go." So I had it all outlined. Called my accountant who's also my bookkeeper, let them know because she was only reconciling my accounts every three months so she didn't even know yet that there was a problem. Actually, I don't even think she was reconciling them every three months. I think it might've been twice a year at that point. So yeah, so she didn't even know yet. So it wasn't something that she would have seen. So it was like, "Oh, this is what's happening."

    Eman Ismail: Yeah, that's a lot. Out of interest, in terms of your management style, did you have a conversation with your employee and VAs about it or is this something that you would just keep to yourself and deal with it?

    Sandra Booker: I gave myself two weeks. That was the thing, is like I'm going to give myself two weeks to turn it around, and if I don't have it turned around or see it moving the other way, then I would have been sitting down to talk with them and letting them know it was coming up so that I could give them as much notice as possible.

    But it's not something I would have brought to them right away, and I didn't bring it to them right away because for me, it's like I didn't know for sure what was going to happen yet and I didn't want them stressing out about it, so I want to give them as much notice as possible so that they can find a job and I can help them do all that, but I didn't want to put—there was a chance I was going to turn it around really quickly and it would be fine, so why make them worry?

    Eman Ismail: So you said just then that there was a chance that you were going to turn it around really quickly. And I was going to say two weeks isn't a lot of time to give yourself. So in those two weeks, what was your action plan?

    Sandra Booker: So in those two weeks, the action plan was cut expenses, get more clients, and have Caleb get a job. So those were the three things. And so the very first thing I did was I reached out to Tarzan, who had been my longest standing client and my number one advocate, and I said, "Hey, I'm looking for clients if you know of anybody." So she actually put a thing out in her newsletter, and that brought in a few leads right away. I sent messages to my list, like, "Hey, I'm looking for clients." So that was step one. Step two, reducing—well, I guess step one was crying at Caleb and telling him to go get a job. [laughs] So that was step one.

    Step two was reaching out to Tarzan and starting to get myself out there, telling people that I'm open for clients. And then step three was reducing those expenses.

    Eman Ismail: Okay. Brilliant. So let's talk about the other side of this. How did this mistake make you?

    Sandra Booker: This mistake made me because, one, it gave me—I mentioned that person who had laughed at me when I was doing my Financial Fridays. And that stuck with me because I had thought maybe I was wasting my time doing this thing that maybe I didn't need to do, like she wasn't doing it. Maybe I don't know as much as I think I know. It actually gave me the confidence that, one, I was right, it is something I need to be watching, and two, it made me because that moment, I knew I could do anything. I was able to turn that thing around.

    And first of all, I was able to have the emotion of like, "Oh no." And I am a very emotional person. So I've always thought like, "What if I can't handle, emergencies?" I thought I was no good at handling emergencies. Proved myself wrong there. I can handle an emergency. I'm allowed to feel what I need to feel, and then I can get to work and I can do pretty much anything if I put my mind to it.

    So it really did end up giving me this real boost of confidence that I know way more than I let myself believe I know. And I know what I need to do in order to make things work, and it's just about doing it.

    Eman Ismail: So what do you do now to make sure that that never happens again beyond bringing back Financial Fridays?

    Sandra Booker: Yeah. So I brought back Financial Fridays, for one, and then the other thing that I do is I talk to my accountant and my bookkeeper, same person, but I talk to them more often now, and I have them reconciling my accounts more often now. And if she sees anything early on that makes her go, "What's going on?", like a dip where she doesn't expect a dip, she'll ask me about it. I communicate way more with her.

    And I also am constantly—Well, I don't want to say constantly because I don't want to sound like I'm preoccupied with it, but I am constantly assessing the return on my investment for any expenses. So I'm always looking like, "Okay, so how is that either reducing my workload or bringing me money or what is the benefit of that?" And if something is not giving me the return on the investment, then I'm rethinking what I'm using.

    So just the other day I was looking at my Acuity Scheduling account. When I first started my business, I was needing to book a lot of calls and I needed to have a lot of control over my calendar and I was using a lot of the features that Acuity Scheduling had. And then I looked at it and I'm like, "Hmm, since my pivot, I don't need all of these features. I just need this." So instead of spending—I can't remember how much I was spending, 30 some odd dollars a month, I spent 30 once and bought TidyCal. So now I use TidyCal for my scheduling, and it works great. It has everything I need.

    So I give myself the opportunity every few months to just reassess these expenses and reassess my tools and what do I actually need. And I want to put a caveat on that because I know a lot of people who get preoccupied with the idea of keeping their expenses low. And I don't want to say that I'm keeping my—I'm not just cutting out expenses. I'm making sure that that expense has the return on the investment, that I actually still need it. It's not about saying, "Ooh, I can't afford it, I want to get rid of it, I want to try and find the free thing." I pay for what I need to get the return on the investment that I want.

    So I have a ChatGPT subscription, and I have had one for a while. I use it all the time. It has saved me way more than $20 worth of time. So I'm happy to pay that. I have my email program that I use is a program called Superhuman, and I had been looking at it for probably two or three years before I finally bought it. And I finally got it, and this thing just saves me so much time. I can get through my email—everything is controlled through the keyboard. I could geek out on this, so I'm not going to talk about it anymore, but it was worth it. It was worth the $30 or $40 a month because I'm saving way more than two hours a week in email time now.

    Eman Ismail: Oh my gosh. That sounds amazing.

    Sandra Booker: So being able to really understand my expenses, the software that I put out and who I hire and what I'm hiring them for and what I expect to get out of the relationship is—yeah.

    Eman Ismail: So I've looked at Superhuman quite a few times, and it looks great, but I haven't gone for it yet. [laughs] I think I'll just keep looking at it for a little while until I make some decisions. Because you know what? I do that where I do assess the tools that I'm using. And one of the tools that I keep giving a side eye to is VideoAsk because I

    have Typeform, and I generally use Typeform mostly for my client surveys because I need the conditional logic usually, that kind of stuff. I've actually started using it a lot in my own business as well for surveys and that kind of things, but I have VideoAsk as well.

    And VideoAsk, just so you know, is owned by Typeform.

    Sandra Booker: Yeah, I had it.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah. I'm giving this company I want to say like $80 a month between Typeform and VideoAsk. And so I keep looking at VideoAsk, and every time I'm about to cancel it, every time, someone uses the VideoAsk feature on my evergreen sales page to ask me a question and then they end up buying my $1,300 course. I can't get rid of it because it actually works, and it does a good job for me and I don't mind paying that like $40 or $38 I think it is a month when someone asks me a question through it and then buys my $1,300 course.

    So I think it's exactly what you said. It's about assessing, not just trying to get rid of stuff just to keep your expenses low, like what is the return? Because that's a great return.

    Sandra Booker: Yeah. Well, it's a great return depending. So how many months go by before somebody asks a question and buys? If it's happening every month-

    Eman Ismail: Regularly.

    Sandra Booker: -then it's a great return. So then the thing that I would say to make sure that so that you could stop feeling that you need to give it the side eye, is start finding more ways to use it in your business.

    Eman Ismail: Oh, I love that.

    Sandra Booker: So start putting it in more things because then you won't have to give it the side eye anymore 'cause you're really like, "Well, it's saving me time here. It's saving me time here. It's saving me time here, and it's bringing in cash here. This tool is for me."

    Eman Ismail: Oh, that's so true. 'Cause right now I'm only really using it to gather testimonials, and it's great for that, but I'm really using it to gather testimonials and customer support, and I could do a whole lot more with it. So yeah, I'm going to do that actually. I'm going to do that. 'Cause I'm also like you, I love tools. I love playing around with them. I love signing up for stuff and seeing what's working for me, what's not. Is it Senja?

    Sandra Booker: Senja, yeah.

    Eman Ismail: Senja. Okay. It's like a testimonial. I know you know, but just in case you're listening and you don't know, Senja is like a testimonial gathering, collection, distribution platform. And it looks so amazing. And I've had the free trial for a while. And I haven't got it yet because I'm trying to just have some restraint, like just have a little bit of restraint. But my Google Doc full of testimonials—not Google Doc. My Google Sheets full of testimonials right now is looking really just not okay every time I look at Senja, so.

    Sandra Booker: Yeah. I ended up getting it, and I really like it. One thing to know about it is it is still pretty new, so it's in constant development, and they still have some kind of server hiccups. So quite often, I'll be using it and it'll freeze and stop working and I have to refresh. So there is some work for them still, but they're a great customer service. They're pretty prompt with answering questions. And it's just like a two-person company, right? So they're working really hard. But it's pretty neat. I do like it. I'm going to try and use it more to get more testimonials and see if it helps people actually submit testimonials to me because that's something that I have a hard time doing, like asking and stuff and making it easy. So this makes it pretty easy.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah, agreed. Okay. So going back to your money management situation, how do you manage your money today? And I guess I'm asking that because well, I think you're the right person to ask. You are the kind of systems person, and I feel like you would have good systems and methods around this.

    Sandra Booker: Yeah. So for me, it's like—Well, one thing to know is I'm in Canada, and I charge in USD because most of my clients are in the US. So because of that, I have to get a bit creative with money because I can lose a lot in the exchange. So I have a Wise account that money goes into so I have USD funds and they give me the best rate of exchange on anything. So I have a little bit of a complicated setup for how money comes in and where it flows to and all that stuff.

    But I'm always looking at where are the little places that I can save money? So not just in my expenses, but I bring up Wise because, especially for any of my Canadian friends out there who are charging in USD, it's been really instrumental in me saving money on fees for expenses 'cause most of my tools are billed in USD. So what was happening is I would pay for them on my Canadian credit card. I would get a terrible exchange rate and often some sort of foreign transaction fee. There would always be an extra charge. And that depends on your credit card and all that stuff, but the exchange rate was just horrendous.

    And then if I ever got a refund, I would often lose money anyway because the exchange rate changes, so now the refund came in and I got less back than what I paid out. So I make sure to use the tools and find the ways of offsetting that cost as much as possible. So I try and get people to pay me through bank transfer as much as possible or through Wise as much as possible. I use Wise to do the exchange rate. I have Wise's credit card so that—It's a debit card rather, so that all of my software, USD software, just gets paid from the USD account so there's no foreign exchange fees or anything like that.

    So that's one thing I do, is really optimise and take advantage of all the things, not just reducing expenses in software and professional development and all that stuff, but also in how the money is managed. And then I also have a budget, for the business. So, in addition to my cash flow, I have a budget laid out for like, okay, this is how much for professional development, this is how much for advertising. So if a course does come up or somebody that I want to work with does come up, I can say like, "Do I have the money for that?" If that amount is zero, there's no money, sorry.

    Eman Ismail: Okay. Wait. I love that, but I'm laughing because I have the same thing, but my issue is that I will find a way. I'm just like, "Oh no, this budget is zero. Well, I could really do with this. So let me just do it anyway." [laughs] So is there anything you can tell me to help me with that?

    Sandra Booker: Oh my gosh. Well, one thing is sometimes you just have to be responsible to yourself and be fiscally responsible to your business. So kind of like thinking about it, try and get yourself out of it. Bring that to your peer mastermind, ask them to help you be accountable to your budget. That might be a good thing. Have them ask you questions about like, "Why are you willing to go against your budget?"

    I have written on my mirror in my bathroom is something, I can't even remember where I heard it, but it stuck with me and it says, "Don't sacrifice what you want most for what you want now." So if what you want most is bankable profit and financial freedom and the comfort and security of having a cushion and all that, then don't sacrifice that because right now, today, you want this fun Facebook Ads course that just came out or something like that. Like, really think about what you might be sacrificing when you say yes. So that's one thing.

    Two is also getting somebody to help you be accountable to your own wants and desires and your business strategy, having them ask you questions or ask yourself questions about why do you need this? What's the benefit of it? What's the return on the investment going to be? Making sure you understand that.

    And then three, if it's something that's like you have no money for it, maybe you say, "Okay, well, if I'm going to buy this, I have to go and make the money first. I have to go out and sell something that I wasn't going to sell before." I already know that I'm going to get X amount of money every month, so I'm going to go out and sell something extra so that I can pay for this thing that I want.

    Eman Ismail: I love that. I love it. We've spoken a lot about cash flow, and it made me think of the things that I've done to improve the management of my own cash flow because I've definitely had this issue before. And I realised fairly early on that if I don't figure this out, it's going to completely destroy my business.

    So one thing that I did was, you mentioned it earlier on, start getting payment upfront. I don't do 50/50 payment plans anymore. Unless a client specifically requests it, I won't do it. My standard policy is just upfront payment, unless they ask for otherwise. And the reason for that is because—well, the policies can be a little bit all over the place. Generally, people want to pay the second 50% after delivery, and after delivery for some people is just very loose. You can be chasing someone for their invoice for God knows how long.

    I have not had to chase anybody for an invoice for years because the payment was made upfront for me to even put the project on my calendar. And in fact, when a client does ask for a 50/50 payment plan, I still receive the full payment upfront because I plan the schedule of the payment plan so that I get 50% upfront in that, you know, this is to get onto my calendar, and then I do the rest 50% 30 days later, which is always going to be before the project starts because I have about a four-week lead time when it comes to working with new clients.

    So that was the first thing, get paid upfront. You'll be amazed what a difference that makes. And then increasing my rates was another one because my rates were not high enough, and so increasing them was the fastest way to make more money, which is great. Having a minimum rate. So I decided basically on a figure that was like, if the project doesn't come up to at least this amount, I'm not doing it, I'm not getting out of bed in the morning for this [laughs] because it means that you're spending time on all these little itty bitty projects that are just wasting your time and you're not making much money from it, and it is destroying your cash flow, your business, your time management, all of it, when I could just be working on a bigger project.

    So for a while, actually, my minimum rate it was $1,800. And then, until recently, it was $5,000, and I've now added a consult call for like, $550, $600 for anyone who just wants to get some strategic email ideas from me. But other than that, the next thing, the next amount to work with me is 5k.

    And then finally—I know you're a big fan of this, this is what you tell people to do all the time—I time myself and figure out which of my offers and services are the most profitable and least profitable. So I've actually got rid of quite a few services that I realised actually don't make much sense.

    It takes me a long time to do them. The hourly rate—the internal hourly rate that I'm not giving clients, but is in my head—is just not working out, so I get rid of them, scrap them, and I focus on the services and the offers that are high in profitability. Is there anything else you'd add to that?

    Sandra Booker: Yeah, no, that's perfect. I'd say just talking about profitability of offers, when you are doing that, it is important to look at how the offers lead into one another as well. So sometimes you may have a small offer that feels like a loss, like it feels like it's not worth your time, but you'll find that it is a loss leader, so like it leads into way more paid work. So similar to you go into a grocery store and the milk and bread are at the back 'cause people have to go through and those things will be put on sale because they'll be the loss leader so that you have to go through the whole grocery store, get the thing that they're probably not making a lot of money on so that you will buy all of the other things on your way back out.

    Eman Ismail: They're awful, aren't they?

    Sandra Booker: Yeah, well, it's strategy, right? But it is possible to have a loss leader, so you do need to also see how things are connected. And then the only other thing I would add is find ways of reselling and upselling your clients. So it may or may not be necessary for you, but just for other listeners, is see where you can add something to the experience that doesn't take up any of your time, but they would want it and pay for it. It could be like if you have—like for me, it could be my budget template with my cash flow template or something like that. It could be like an extra consultation call that's not going to take up a lot of my time, but they're going to get a huge value out of it or whatever.

    So you can think of little things to upsell them, but then also, how can you make sure that you work with them again? So thinking of making sure you build into your offboarding process for a client, that opportunity for them to book in for something down the road. And then also, if they don't book right away, making sure that you have follow-ups down the road to try and get them back in. So it's really about trying to maximise how much you do with a client other than just increase your rate.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah, no, I absolutely love that. So first thing I want to say is love this idea of loss leader. That's what I'm hoping my consult call will be. So we'll experiment with that. And after this call, I'm going to make sure that I create my dashboard for that and track exactly what's going on with those consult calls.

    The other thing I want to say is, I actually went into a shop today that was designed like that, but it was one of those ones where it's a maze. So once you go in, the only way to get out is to zigzag around the entire—I'm just not doing it anymore. So I walk into that shop and I started going through like the zigzag and I just thought, "No, I don't have time for this." So I walked back out and I did what you're not supposed to do and I kind of snuck around the back, went past the till points because what I needed was at the till points. I refuse. I'm not doing those psychological games. So that's just a random point I want to add.

    And then the other thing I wanted to say was upselling. Yes, upselling is the lifeblood of my business. I have had nine clients a year for the past couple of years and been gone beyond 100k into—I can't even remember. Anyway, into six figures with just nine clients. And that's simply because of upselling. And I think one big thing I want to say about upselling is I totally agree to systemise it so that it's part of your offboarding process, a hundred percent.

    But often what people don't realise is you don't have to wait until the offboarding process. I like to upsell in the kickoff call. [laughs] Initially, when we're getting into the project, if I can see that there are missing gaps, and I think that they need X, Y, Z, I will say, "Hey, you need X, Y, Z, and this is why," and often, they'll say, "Oh, thanks so much for that. Let's do it."

    And I think it requires just that, first of all, the ability to spot those missing gaps and then also to just to have the confidence and the belief that upselling is a service. It's not you being sleazy or weird or too salesy. I am helping my clients because I want them to do even better and this is how they can do even better. So yeah, love a good upsell.

    Sandra Booker: Exactly. Yeah. Upsells, to me, they are unobvious at the beginning, and it's something that people—"Oh, I upselled them, sold them at the beginning and they didn't buy." It's like, well, that doesn't mean you can't upsell them down the road. Or if you see something, say something, right? It's like, if you see that they need this, say something and give them the option. So they can always say no, and no is not a problem. But you're doing a disservice to them if you see that they need something and you don't take steps to provide it if it's something in your wheelhouse, obviously.

    Eman Ismail: Exactly. Absolutely. Okay, Sandra, what do you want people listening to take away from this? What do you want them to learn from your cash flow nightmare?

    Sandra Booker: I want people to understand and take away the absolute necessity of understanding their business, especially the money. You need to understand where your money is going and how it's working for you. You need to understand what's profitable in your business and what isn't, and you need to understand how much money you're gonna have at the end of any given week, especially if you're just getting started, but honestly, all the time. You need to have a good understanding of that. Somebody in your business needs to be watching that. And if you're a solopreneur, small business, it's going to be you. So you need to know that.

    And you need to ask questions about your money. If you have an accountant and they give you a profit and a loss, don't just say, "Great!", like file it away. Look at it, ask them questions. Be in communication with your finance team, and make sure that they understand what's coming down the pipeline. If you have something big happening, if you think your revenue is going to increase or decrease significantly for any reason, give them a heads up. Make sure you're doing tax planning. Your money is so important, and it can make or break you, obviously like nothing else can in your business.

    Eman Ismail: I totally agree with what you said in terms of making sure you're asking questions. I think sometimes you don't even know what questions to be asking, you don't even know what the right questions are. What do I need to know? What do I need to ask to know what I need to know? And so I think that realisation is helpful in itself because then you can at least think, "Okay, well, how do I educate myself on that?" Who can teach me the questions I need to ask so that I have the answers that I need to have. So if that's you, 'cause that was me for a long time, that's where I would start with that scenario.

    Sandra Booker: And honestly, if you don't know what question to ask, just sit with your accountant and just say what you see. Look at your profit and loss and instead of thinking of a question to ask, don't worry about the questions. Just say, "Okay, so I'm seeing this and this and this. Is that correct?" And then that in itself can be a question because if you are wrong about what you're seeing or you're misinterpreting, that's the opportunity for them to correct it. So sometimes we get wrapped up in this, like, I have to ask it in the form of a question, and if you can't think of a question, just say what you see and see what comes up in the discussion.

    Eman Ismail: Oh, I love that. Thank you so much, Sandra. This has been amazing. I've loved chatting to you. Where can people find you if they want to stay connected?

    Sandra Booker: They can find me at sidekickcoo.com, and that's the website. And you can also find me there on Instagram and on Facebook.

    Eman Ismail: Amazing. And I will also put in the show notes the link to The 627 Advisory Board if you want to go check that out. And of course, I'll put in all those links as well so everyone can find you. Thank you so much for being here. It's been brilliant chatting to you.

    Sandra Booker: It's been awesome. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I've loved it.

    Eman Ismail: Once I hired an accountant and bookkeeper, I thought I didn't need to know my numbers anymore. I thought I didn't have to worry about numbers. I thought I didn't have to think about numbers. But having had my accountant and bookkeeper for, I want to say three years, I've come to realise that that is not the case. Yes, you've got to hire your accountant and your bookkeeper, but you also need to have your own tracking system for income and expenses too, even if it's just a spreadsheet.

    And just like Sandra talked about, you have to be continually looking at what's going on. When you hire an accountant and bookkeeper, they are only showing you your numbers periodically. It might be monthly, it might be quarterly. When you have your own tracking system, you can constantly keep an eye on what's going on, and that is what is most important here. That's what Sandra, I think, was trying to get across.

    One of the biggest lessons I got from listening to Sandra was just stay on top of your numbers. Don't avoid them as much as you want to. And honestly, there's something that I'm kind of avoiding right now that I need to go and do, that I will go and do after listening to Sandra's story.

    I know it can be really challenging to find time to do all the things we need to do in our business because there's just so many things we need to do, especially when we also have clients who need us to do things for them, who we need to take care of. But remember, your business has to come first. Taking care of your business has to come before you're taking care of your clients even because if you're not taking care of your business, you'll have no business. And if you have no business, you definitely won't be able to take care of your clients. Your business comes first, your clients come second. That's how you can best serve your clients and make sure you still have a business that they can come to and rely on.

    Ever wondered what goes into creating this podcast? What my production process looks like? How I came up with the concept for this show? How I choose which guests to invite and how exactly I research them? Well, I'm sharing everything inside my bonus episode, Behind the Scenes: Making the Podcast. For this special episode, the show's podcast producer, Zuri Berry, takes the reins and interviews me so you can find out all the juicy details and behind-the-scenes stories.

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    If you want instant access to this bonus episode, click the link in the show notes or head over to emancopyco.com/bts, that's behind the scenes, emancopyco.com/bts. Put in your email address, and that's it. It's yours.

Eman Ismail
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