The Everything Business Episode

86. How does the demise of DEI affect small business? What to do if you are a government contractor in 2025? How to know what profit margins should you have? How much does your payroll really cost you? Today, Sevana and Tiffany talk a little bit of everything in business.

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Got questions or have a topic you want Sevana and Tiffany to cover? Email us at thebusinessbehindsmallbusiness@gmail.com and see your question answers or topic of interest discussed on a future episode!

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About BBSB - We are two business owners with two very different perspectives on building business, and the business behind that in order to achieve your goals. One of us built to sell, and will continue on the serial entrepreneur path, which means your focus and drive should include very particular tools and tips in order to achieve your goal. The other, is building a generational business, one that can go on long after she’s let go of the wheel. This type of business also requires very specific tools and platforms to achieve this goal. Both women have been successful in their own right, but in honesty - haven’t scratched the surface! 

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Disclaimer - Details of today’s story was inspired by true events but are not based on proven facts. Also, we are NOT licensed financial experts, nor do we give financial advice. Anything we share with you here on our podcast, whether it be a personal experience or submission, or advice/tips that have worked for us, or that we believe would work for you should not be viewed as either financial, business, or tax advice. We ask for you to do your research, have open and honest conversations with your company’s own support providers and make decisions based upon that. Throughout this broadcast we will share our knowledge and give suggestions and hope you will receive them as part of your overall research to better your own company.

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Alternative Titles:

• Is DEI dead?
• Messy Affairs of Government Contracting
• Know Your Profit Margins

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Oh my gosh, can you believe that we have finished season four? I think four years old art. I know. Today we're going to reflect on our last season. Go back, look in the past, see, talk about what we've talked about, and then we're going to share with you a medley of topics that we plan to tackle in season five.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Or if for the people who just wants to uh see the summary, just go to our show notes.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Yeah, I mean you could do that too, but you would much rather watch or listen to us.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Well, no, but at least you can get a preview. I mean, we're not going to put everything in the show notes, right? But then you're going to the notes to look for the paragraph guy, right? Here's the summary of what's the topics you're going to talk about.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Yep, absolutely. So, in saying that, welcome to our show, The Business Behind Small Business. In every episode, generally, we dive into one area and what you need to build a lasting business. So, today we are going to do um a medley. We're going to we're going to talk a little bit about some topics that we are hoping to tackle. And so we're really excited to get started on that. So things are going to be a little different with today's episode. I'm Savannah Stone, Tiffany K.O. And no one gets to a million without getting a little do-day. There's a lot of business behind small business, so let's get to it. All right. So one of the topics that we're going to be talking about in season five is DEI because why not? Everybody's talking about DEI.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Everybody's talking about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Yeah, everybody. But you know, it is important for us to try to unwrap or unravel what it means for you and your business. Because, you know, is it going to have an effect on your business? What kind of effect could it have on your business? What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

How much of the trickle-down effect there was for the DEI programs of small business? I think I don't know. I don't know. Do you see a lot of people with DEI programs in their small business, Savannah?

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Not that they necessarily have DEI programs per se. Perhaps they adopt them without officially adopting them. Okay. So I don't know. I don't know. And you know what? I keep seeing, I'm trying to be very unbiased about it all, but can we be unbiased? It's so hard to be.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

We're two women who weren't born in the States.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

I mean I mean, I was born here, but I I might not have come off the boat. I I I grew up on the docks, so I didn't like come off the boat, but I grew up on the docks.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

I didn't realize you were born here for some reason. I always thought it was okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

No one ever thinks I was born here, so you're not alone on that. Uh, because I had to learn English. I didn't learn English until I was like five. So, you know, because my mom didn't speak English, and you know, she learned her English from Price's Right and Young and the Restless.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

So that is so cute. My mom learned it from Little House on the Prairie. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

So, and no one spoke English in my house, nor did I have any white friends. I didn't have anybody like to to emulate or to learn how to be a member of society with.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

So I would say that we are allowed to have our opinions about DEI, or we have a very interesting perspective about it.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Yeah, I agree. I agree. And and also, like, what have we experienced? Have we ever experienced it? And and you know, there was variations of DEI during our upbringings. So what what do we think?

SPEAKER_01 3:27

So, I mean, personally in my experience, when you know, with all the small business and everything, especially with my clientele who are small business, and we're talking about like five million dollars and below one to five million dollars. I would say that I I think everyone's too busy trying to make money to really like to really consider it. Not that I would even say like the opposite, where they needed it. I just don't think a lot of people thought about it until it became the forefront in the last few years. But I'm not sure if any small business I worked with really had the capacity or the resources to set aside a program split for it. I feel like that was a lot more of the big corporate companies, you know, the big mega businesses that had the ability to do that.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

And it's an interesting offshoot that you and I had talked about that we never quite turned into an episode, which was when you walk into a room, who do you normally gravitate to? And how um men generally go to men, women generally go to women, and and there was this whole um uh series of episodes that we never quite formulated that perhaps we can dive into, especially now that it seems to be more important. Not that it wasn't important before, but seems more impactful now, is you know, sometimes I'm looking for the curly girls and I'm I'm walking over to the ones that I think might be adjacent to my ethnicity. And am I doing that subconsciously? Am I doing it consciously? And what does that say about me? You know, so I think there's a lot that we can tackle with DEI and what that could potentially mean to your it's it's not always about who you're hiring, is what I'm saying. It could be about who you're networking with, who you're doing business with, who's doing business with you, you know, all of the things.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Yeah, I mean, I would like to think, and it's not this way because we're we business is about human beings, right? And human beings are not created equal. We all have our own bias and experience and everything like that. So I would almost like to say in an ideal world, business is somewhat colorblind, gender blind, you know, everything blind to everything but the color green.

SPEAKER_03 5:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Um so if you come to a table, you bring value, you're able to make revenue, you're able to bring profit. A lot of people don't see color or gender at the end of the day. But it's the initial part of it that's kind of interesting because, like you said, like some people don't maybe not even get the opportunity because you gravitate toward people you are familiar with. So I'm not gonna lie, I've definitely, you know, gotten some advantages from other Asian people because we Asian, we speak Asian, you know, we're like, hey, get each other, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

And that's also a part of our culture, you know, which is to well, well, kind of part of our culture. There's definitely so like our culture is so prejudiced that I'm just like maybe not. We're not the best at working together all the time, but you know, in America, sometimes you run into the people who are like, hey, I'm Asian, you're Asian, like let's help each other out. And it makes it a lot easier.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

And I assume, you know, other people are like that. You know, they they tend to help out people they're a lot more familiar with because you feel comfortable with them.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

Coming from our minority's perspective, it will be an interesting conversation that we have when we do that episode. So moving on from that, another episode that we're planning to do is uh how to find your value within your field. Now, this was a topic that you and I talked about when we were at a networking event, and there was a woman who was struggling with what her voice should be, and I felt for her. I felt like she didn't quite know how to articulate her value to her clientele. Um because she was still new to business, and I felt like, you know, I've certainly gotten been there before, and I feel like I'm there still. I feel like it's still something of a struggle, even 14 years later.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's uh it's I think every new business owners tend to struggle with it, especially if you are you're you're you're selling some kind of service, something that is not tangible. I think it's really hard to put a dollar value on it. You kind of do it a little subjectively, and it's a reflection of how competent you feel in yourself, which sometimes is hard when you're starting out. But you know, we gotta remember that just because we're good at something and it's easy to us doesn't mean that there is less value in it because it comes easy to us. There's a lot of experience that go into that that makes it easy for ourselves. So, really, when you're deciding your pricing, you're kind of packing in there all the experience and all the trial and errors and all the time that you've put into it that nobody gets to see today. But that's the reason why they get this amazing outcome in a short period of time versus them hiring somebody who's a little novice and are you know floundering and figuring it out. I think uh speaking up and asking for your price is just a common challenge that um as business owners, to be quite honest, you probably want to get over that as soon as possible because I even you know had amazing clients my first year, but totally underpriced myself because I didn't know any better. I just didn't know. And I'm like, why would anybody pay that much, right? Like for uh when I started was bookkeeping work. So so those clients stayed with me, but dang, it was a hard trying to raise those prices after the fact. Yeah, so hard. And there were there were definitely still a handful of clients that when I sold the business, I definitely was still underpriced because to get them up to my retail price at that point, it would have been like a 400 400% difference.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

Yes. So and it is difficult to uh determine whether value pricing is the way to go.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Well, even if you don't value price, people underprice their own hourly rate. Correct. All the time.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Yes. Yeah, yeah, totally. So that that'll be that'll be a fantastic conversation to have. Um moving on, uh, we're going to talk about figuring out what your profit percentages should be when you're looking at your financials. So let me explain. If you're looking at your payroll, and Tiffany and I were just talking about that, you're looking at your payroll, and it's eating up 70% of your overall profit, something's wrong. And that goes for all of the other things that are in your profit and loss. It's important to know what percentages, what your ratios should look like. And I don't know that there's enough easily attainable information out there for our business owners. And maybe we can we can help them with figuring out easy formulas, easy ways to figure that out.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

So I think if you are lucky enough to be in an industry that has a lot of associations, usually those associations will have some kind of benchmark um margins for you to use, right? So if you're like um in a trade business, especially, like they have a whole bunch of things that they have available of what kind of is the perfect margin for you to strive for. And then for the rest of the business, I mean like our business and finance, accounting, consulting, like that's where it gets to be a little bit wild, wild west. Yes. I feel like even restaurants have very good, like, you know, comparable information of how much how much you should make. But outside of that, in lieu of that, I mean, you know, I feel like every time I look at financials for a business, at a minimum, you want gross profit margins of 50%. At a minimum, right? So which means for every a hundred dollars you make, only fifty dollars goes into cost of services or cost of goods sold.

SPEAKER_03 11:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

At a minimum, right? You don't want to go into anything higher than that, because then you drop below 50%. And then the uh sweet spot for the net profit margin is always between it's always around 20%. For most businesses, 20% is a little rich, so it probably swings between 10 and 20. Um, and so if you're somewhere in that range, nine times out of ten, you're you're doing pretty well for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Yep. Well, I'd like to think that there are um, well then I feel like I've come across enough people who are, for example, I recently met a very young, uh, very very lovely lady who is a government contractor that opened up a little restaurant. Um, and this is all of this is new to her. I feel as though I've been coming across quite a few people who are going across their industries, getting involved in something that looks great on the outside, and then they get in it and they're like Well, restaurants have pretty thin margins, so that's what they are struggle with to begin. Right. So it can be it can be dimarky.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Well, I think the margins are so important for any small, like any business owners to know, and they don't think about it because all they think about is really dollars and dollars and dollars where they first start. But if you aim for margin percentages rather than dollars, you'll end up in the long run a lot better because then you can take out the confusion of seeing dollars and cents, and you're just aiming for a percentage. And I would say that if like I think if anybody's really struggling with that, like one, hopefully talk to another business owner who got a handle on their books. But I mean, you're absolutely right, Savannah. Like most owners can be in business for 10, 20 years and still don't realize how important their margin is, or they have very elementary or basic bookkeeping that's being done that doesn't track the margins properly. So looking at your profit and loss, but if things aren't in the right accounts, you're not looking at your margins in the same light because things aren't being placed in the way it should be. That's also a lot of the struggle, too.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

So in saying that, in saying that, I think one of the most exciting conversations we'll be having is AI versus CFO. Could Chat GBT ever be a part of your executive team? Now that I think is both exciting and scary.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

I think for us, yes. I think the writing is on a wall for our industry. I'm kind, oh God, uh, I'm gonna get well, luckily I'm not part of any association, so I guess they can't boot me out. But I mean, this is gonna be an unpopular comment, is that I think ChatGPT or any kind of AI program will quickly, quickly replace most of services in our accounting and finance industry. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

I'm not too concerned. No one can ever be me.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

But I think it's good though. I think it's a good thing. I I really do. I think it is way to allow small businesses to get started up at a lower cost because I mean, let's just say, let's just say for CFOs, and you and I have met a lot of CFOs. Let's just say not all CFOs are created equal. Unfortunately, it is one of those consulting that anybody can call themselves a CFO, right? Well, there's no licensing to it or anything like that. There's no standard. So people who feel like they're really good with a spreadsheet can call themselves a CFO. And they go consult these small businesses and they charge a lot of money for it, and they suck. And it harms a small business because they they're paying so much money for something that doesn't have the value for it. So I really love the fact that AI is gonna replace that and standardize it, and hopefully we'll bring up the importance of people like yourself and myself, who are there to get it done.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Like we're there to execute on analysis, we're there to execute on what the numbers tell you, I feel like, and what how to pivot from that, then it is the making of the numbers, I suppose.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Yeah, so sorry, Samana, I know you want to retire before all that happens.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

I would love, would love to. However, my children will are are always gonna keep me broke, so I'm gonna have to work until I die.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Anyway, so now Clayton, if you feel like that's the same situation for you. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Uh, before I move on, speaking of which, before I move on to uh our next uh set of topics that we will be tackling in season five, I would love to hear from you. We would love to hear from you. We want to hear your questions, we want to hear your comments, we want to know what you're thinking. We will give you a shout-out according to what your email address is. If you don't have your name on there, or if you give us your name, we will give you a shout-out. If you give us your business name, we'll do that too. Whatever works for you works for us, and we really just want to hear from you because in the end, it shouldn't just be uh a one-way street. We should we should be making this a bigger conversation. This should be a bigger conversation, and and I want it to be. So I don't know, chat away. Anyway, all right, so moving on, we are going to talk about the true cost of payroll. And when I say that, I don't mean what you're paying a person, it's all of the other fees and taxes that you pay in payroll. And can you afford it? And the reason why I wanted to bring that up because I've had a couple of conversations with some of my a couple of clients of mine who are thinking about uh switching their contractors over into payroll. And once I brought up how much it's going to cost them, they they were like, Oh, I guess I cannot afford, I can't afford payroll. I was like, Well, you know, it's good that you're even thinking about this because I know enough people that just go into payroll without thinking about it, and then they're upside down. So what do you think, Tiffany?

SPEAKER_01 17:11

About labored, which is the largest line item in most businesses, and I want to control and track lots of thoughts about it. I think a lot of small businesses start with having contractors, and because they do that, they miss, they underestimate the value of their labor, which means they underprice themselves for the long run. And uh, to your point, when you hire somebody, especially if you want to hire them as an employee and not a contractor, you have taxes that you have to consider, you have benefits that you need to consider, you have PTO that you need to also consider because PTO means unproductive time, right? And likely non-billable time to your customers. You have holidays to also consider now. You probably also have some element of HR because that uh handbook isn't gonna write itself and templates are great, but it's only probably gonna get you 80% of the way there. So most likely you're gonna have to pay somebody to help you with that one. You have training, right? So if you have people, you have training costs, and then you have some form of management costs. So if you don't have a manager or somebody who is a manager title in your business, it doesn't matter. Somebody is still doing the management function. And if it's nobody in your business, most likely is you, which means a portion of your cost is going into managing that employee.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Yeah, I would say the first person you hire is a manager.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Second person you hire happy.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Then you have to also consider equipment, right? So if you have employees, do you want them to use their own computer and equipment, or do you want to use your computer and equipment? In which case also means you probably have to hire IT because you need somebody to make sure the network is secure and can set up everything for you.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

It's like the book if you give a mouse a cookie. If you give him you might not be as familiar with that book as I am, but it's like if you give a mouse a cookie, then you're gonna have to give him milk. And if you give him milk, then he's gonna have to use your bathroom. And if he uses your bathroom, he's gonna need your toilet paper. But your toilet paper is too much for him, so then you have to, and it just goes on and on and on and on and on. And that's essentially what it's like when you're doing payroll, because you think of the one thing, the cookie, but you don't think about all of the things that happen when you offer that mouse a cookie. So that that I think is also a very important conversation to have. And also, if you are also, I think it's also good for businesses that already have quite a few employees, because over a certain m number of employees, things start to change.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

True. I mean, not even just I don't, I think you're talking about more than just compliance, too, right? It's even more beyond compliance. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

20 employees, 50 employees, yep.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

It for some reason it jumps like that, which is funny.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

It's bizarre, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Yeah, it's like 10 is a big change for your company, 20 is another big change, and then from that, for some reason you're like hosting until 50, and then you'll and then that's also because once you hit 50, you also do have compliance requirements, so that also makes it a little bit more tough um to deal with. But at the end of the day, this is also why we go back to margin, right? So if we're calculating that margin correctly, this is why 50% is kind of usually the lowest margin you want to meet, because usually that is calculating a lot of the stuff in already.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

And that way you don't, you know, accidentally eat it.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Mm-hmm. Yep. Absolutely. Because you can accidentally go backwards.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Yes, you can actually go backwards. And then, like, kind of like a random offshoot. I've seen people do this to themselves all the time, which is first of all, if you also have employees, you need payroll service, right? Don't don't try to totally don't first of all don't try to do yourselves. And I will also say this is don't freaking pay your CPA to go do it. That blows my mind when we have such great companies out there now, like ADP HXGS, you may hate them all you want, but they're very well established, right? Yes. Um, but yes, it surprises me to this day, there are still companies where like, wait, my CPA process oh gosh, okay. By the way, most of them might label ADP anyway. So that's right. Going back to the same source. But the thing about payroll is they get themselves in the pinch because I mean, if you hear nothing else we say in this whole episode, this might be the number one thing you walk away with. If they're like, oh, so I'm hiring people, they need to be paid right away. So to make math simple, um, if they work for me Monday through Friday, I'm gonna pay them on that Friday for Monday through Friday. Don't ever do that. You are gonna screw yourself so badly, especially when you get more people, because you have what we call no lag time between the end of a pay period and when the paycheck needs to go out. Not to mention not enough time to float your cash flow. Right? Because just because that person has worn through Friday and you need to pay them on Friday, I guarantee you your customer is probably not paying you on Friday.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Mm-hmm. That's right. And then you end up with some stoppage with your cash flow. And then what do you do? So, yeah. Mm-hmm. More money, more problems. So this is an interesting one because government contractors have had a great run. But right now it's like, I don't even know. Is it like purge right now?

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

I mean, it's almost like purge or whatever it was called, Fourth of July. Purge, Fourth of July. Yeah. What is the future of the government contractors? We have some sense of what it's going to look like, but I think it's important for us to have that kind of conversation. How can you pivot if the government decides you're you're not valuable?

SPEAKER_01 22:51

One diversify.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

So don't do just government work. Also have non-government work that supports your revenue.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Which most of them don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

They don't because they feel like this is a gold mine that'll never go away. And you know, welcome Trump to the picture, and here we are.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

So I mean he's making a lot of changes to everything. Even people who are on, I think, GSA schedule, which is supposed to be one of the most consistent and safest kind of vehicle to be on, is now worried because all that is getting cut drastically. So it it is going to be interesting to see what comes next after this duration. We talked about my theory of things, but I'm not sure I I don't know. I mean, who knows, right? I mean, the man, that whole administration, I mean, how many days has it even been?

SPEAKER_02 23:39

It feels like 5,000.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

How many number of executive orders are we on now?

SPEAKER_02 23:43

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

I'm I don't know. I'm like every day I'm just like, oh, so what else did you do today? Because it's gotta be the fastest moving administration I've ever like encountered.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

I mean, it both feels like yesterday and 5,000 days. I don't know where I am right now. Like it's like an episode of Doctor Who. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

So this is the type of work that I'm in now, which I love, even though it is particularly stressful at times. But I often walk into companies who are who needs a turnaround for of some kind. And they're at this uh one to five million dollar place, and what happened is the systems, the people that they've built their business on to get them over a million is no longer the people in the systems that's gonna get them over three and five million. So there's a drastic turn for the business around this time where you basically have to undo everything and then like rebuild it all, which also means usually a lot of people get fired or let go or they resign during this time because there's so much change. Well, so I feel I don't know, I feel like maybe something like that where you know they're going in and doing like the drastic version and cutting everything. And then usually what we do what I do is when they cut everything, you basically run it on a very bootstrap, very slim because you're trying to suss out what didn't work and what needs to be cut and what fat needs to be trimmed even more, and then you start rebuilding the process better, and then you start putting people back in. So I'm hoping the light at the end of this tunnel is that they'll eventually turn that faucet back on once they kind of you know dug out what they're trying to dig out, but who knows? Who can anticipate what's gonna happen?

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Oh my gosh. I watched a a skit, I think his name is John Malaney. Malaney, Malali, Malani, John Mullaney.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Yes, because we're wonderful with names on this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

So great, so great. I I find it hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

It took five years, and we still cannot pronounce half the people's name properly. Like, well, you know, maybe I love it too, because I said our last name properly.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

No one can ever say my name correctly, so maybe it's my vindication. Maybe that's what it is.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Transparency, a trauma.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

Yes, yes, exactly. Well, I saw it was from 2016, so it was from Trump's first, you know, go-around. And he was like, I feel like we have a horse in a hospital. I know that in the end it's all gonna be okay, but the horse has never been in the hospital before, and the hospital's never experienced a horse in the hospital before. So and every day we're like, I don't know what's going on. What's the horse doing now? And then the newscasters are like, Well, what we have this person who had a bird in a business before, and he's like, get out of here. That's not the same as a horse in a hospital. So it's just it's funny because it's true. We kind of do have a horse in a hospital. None of us have, and then he's like, and then and then you come to find out that the horse used an elevator. The horse knows how to use an elevator, so that's kind of where we are with Elon. Like, he's a horse in a hospital, and and this whole thing. We know it's gonna be okay in the end, I think. Maybe I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

But anybody really know, but no one really knows. We do know that this has not been seen before.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

Exactly. You're kind of like a horse in a hospital.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Yeah, that's it. That's all we're gonna explain the next four years. It's gonna be like a horse in a hospital.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Yes. I gotta send that to you because it was it was funny, and I was like, oh my god, it is still so and bring up a pretty funny visual. Yeah, yeah, but I mean that's where we are. We don't know what the future of anything is gonna be at this moment. So, although that will be one of our episodes, it'll probably be a later episode because we just kind of need to see where all the chips are gonna fall right now, because we don't know what's gonna happen in the next hundred days.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Yeah, who knows how they're gonna change the contracts. I think like it's interesting because in government contracting, you have yes, very profitable contracts, but you can also lose your shirt like really, really fast. Yes. One of the hardest things about government contracting that a lot of businesses can't get over very well is cash flow.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

They don't know how to float the cash flow very well because they usually have a huge payroll expense, but the government pays when a government pays. So if you can't float that 30, 45 days the government wants to pay your invoice, or you don't have your, you know, together and you can't invoice timely, which just delays it even more, your people need to get paid. So typically they can't flow that cash flow and they usually become cash flow dry, and that's why they run into problems.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

And to no fault of their own, oftentimes people who start government contracting companies are not they themselves business owners or have experience. Um, oftentimes it'll be engineers who get together uh who start a company, or it'll be, you know, whatever other industry a lot of technicians that get together who's very good in a certain something.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

What are yeah, this very specific outcome that has all these credentials, and they can essentially answer that RFP. Well, I mean, a government does want you to be around for at least two years before you're allowed to get into government contracting, but two years is not enough.

SPEAKER_03 28:50

No, first of all.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

And then what happens in those two years is these gum they want to see what they call past performance, which means for those two years, a lot of times you're subcontractors, which means you're still kind of living in this like government ecosystem of how business operates, which is not how commercial business operates at all. Like different terms, different wording, different goals, and so it's very strange and very niched. And so without feeding these government contracts, like it's government, I think I don't know, I think it's gonna be a little tough, but it's also a sign that if you haven't diversified, now would be the time.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

Absolutely, absolutely. And uh another thing that is hot topic right now, but not really something until until the dust starts to settle. But so we're looking forward to it being a future episode is what going back to the office is going to look like, not for the employees, more so for the employers. Yes, there is going back to the office on the government level, but there's a lot of employers, companies, businesses who are like, okay, you know what? I've decided that I want to go back to the office. We've been doing this remote, and remote is not working. I just want we're gonna go back to having an office again.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

And what does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 30:04

I know you've always done your company remote.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

And I was like, uh I was hybrid, but now I had my business. But I think I lean more if I was gonna have a business with a big team of people, I would probably lean more toward having it in person or some kind of hybrid than fully remote.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Yeah.

unknown 30:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

And to be honest, I've I've floated that idea around a lot over the years where I feel like maybe I should have an office, maybe I should do this, maybe I should do that. And sometimes most of the time I feel like it's okay. I don't think I need to do that just yet. But maybe I will. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

I also would say that what working is like 10 years ago is not what it's like now. Not at all. 10 years ago, what YouTube was just starting. Yeah. Um, Instagram may have just been starting. I'm not even sure. Facebook was still hot. Like, there's there was no TikTok, there was no one-minute reels, there weren't all these things where people kind of go down this rabbit hole where they're at work, they pick up their phone, and now they're like on the phone for 30 minutes because they're just watching people after reel. I think there's so much of that distraction that it's too easy at home. I get distracted at home and I run my own business. So there's anybody more productive than a business owner, I'd love to see who that is, right? But I get distracted.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Well, and you and I have talked about this in a previous season, uh, probably either one or two, and I stand firm on my inability to work in an office.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

I can't. I work, I am head down when I'm working from home. I am head down and I get it, I knock it all out. But when I'm in an office, I am so distracted.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Yeah. So I'm with you, dude. That's why I think in the end, if I if all else being equal and I didn't have to choose between in office, out of office, I like the hybrid model.

SPEAKER_03 31:56

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

There are certain days you're in office, you do your team meetings, you do like stuff you need to get done with other people. You get your social FaceTime in, you get your relationship and connection in. But then there are days where I'm heads down, my phone is on do not disturb, my emails are off for blocks at a time, so I can actually knock through things.

SPEAKER_03 32:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

And that's yeah, that's important because even right now, like I find myself, like I go to client offices and then I get swept up in conversations, right? Even if it is productive conversations, but guess what? Am I sitting there talking to you? I'm not checking my email, I'm not doing things I need to, like, you know, need to do operationally.

SPEAKER_03 32:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

And it's hard to get that um that time where you're like, you still have to do tactical stuff, I guess. So I like hybrid. You know, I get I get how government agencies are, you know, asking for people to get back. I think it's I think there's a very small percentage of the population that could truly work remote and do it effectively, much smaller than people are willing to admit.

SPEAKER_02 32:57

I don't disagree with that.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

So now Tiffany and I are going to share with you not necessarily books and apps or or platforms that we recommend. It's going to be more of the things that we're currently using. I have discovered a few new fun toys. And I don't know, Tiffany, have you are you messing around with anything new that you're like, I I think everybody should know it?

SPEAKER_01 33:22

I have. I have. Just for like the last month or so.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

I I I adopted Notion. Okay. Took me a minute.

SPEAKER_02 33:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Fully on board.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Yeah. I love Notion. It is still lacking in some ways, but like it's really awesome in so many ways. And I have been saying, I've been saying that if Notion and Financial Sense could get married and have a kid, that would be awesome. Because that's like one thing that's missing from Notion is the ability to request something from someone in an email with um encryption.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

Oh, okay. Well, I actually don't know anything about financial sense, so you might want to share it.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

So yeah, so I well, why don't you first tell everyone what what your what give a quick breakdown of um Notion and then I'll go into Financial Sense.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Okay, so Notion is oh gosh, how do you explain what Notion is? So people who would like use Evernote, so I switched over from Evernote, or you use like if you're a Microsoft Teams, you've used the planner before. So like Notion's a combination of all these things. So in this one platform, you can create and organize like all your notes, but also different types of media as well. And you also can create it in different formats. So you have like lists, then you have boards, then you have pages, then you have bullets, you just have all this array of options. And I about a year ago, a year or two ago, I did try Notion, and I'm like, yo, this is I'm not smart enough for this. Like, I don't, I can't figure this out. So I decided to uh go into Notion because I think Evernote like raised their prices, and I'm like, that's way too expensive for me to just note. And I was like, I need to find something else that I can also merge my planning and my you know project management and my note-taking all in one place. And that's pretty much Notion. So everything I have is in there as far as my calendars, my project lists, my uh to-dos, uh compilations that I have to use later for. Like if I'm reading something or I see something online, I compile it in Notion so I can then make some kind of content out of it. So you it just becomes a one place, one-stop shop. And then I bought the uh the subscription up-level subscription for Notion AI. I've been using Notion AI quite a bit. Like it's not, I mean, it's not it's not basic AI, but it is better than than most. And it is kind of cool the things that it does spit out, especially like summarizing like a whole bunch of notes and things like that. It's pretty spot on, which is really cool. Yeah, so I've been using a lot of that to also help me organize my five million things, and that happens at the same time all the time.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Yeah, I used to use Notion as an office management tool, and I used it in so many ways, and I had different spaces for everyone in management. Yeah, and it was great for me to be able to see what everyone was doing, like what was in the done pile, what was in the working on pile, things that had questions. But the thing that it was missing was the ability to kind of send checklists to my clients, and I wanted to be able to request things. The first time I came across a platform similar to that was when my CPA sent me something through carbon. And I really liked carbon, but I felt like one, it was missing a few things that I wanted, which were notion-related things, and also it felt that it was too, I felt that it was too expensive for what it was offering me. I looked into financial sense, and that to me is giving me as much as I can possibly get from one product that isn't notion. So financial sense is really geared towards those in the financial field, so accountants, bookkeepers, or anybody or financial advisor. I don't think financial advisors could use it, but you know, anyone who's in the financial field, it does have its own encryption. You has a client vault similar to LastPass. So it takes up, it takes on the role of something like LastPass, uh, something like Note Shred. It is connected to it's not, is it connected to DocuSign? You can ask for a client to sign something right in the product. You can chat with a client within the product. I like that it gives me a spreadsheet similar to Airtable, and I can categorize my clients according to the either the industry that they're in or the product that we or rather the service that we provide. It's really, really fascinating. I love it. It's getting ready to to introduce can ban can boards. So that would be that module of notion that I really enjoyed that doesn't exist in financial sense just yet, but you know, they're growing.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Yeah, it sounds like a new issue software.

SPEAKER_02 38:18

It's like a firm management, it's like a yeah, it's like a firm management, but that's how I am making remote work. And it's great because uh I can also, like on one page, I can see how far along certain client books are. And there's also kind of what I call a bat signal that uh one of my bookkeepers could put in there once I see needs help or I or need help or stuck or something along those lines, we know who to who they're talking about and what the problem is.

unknown 38:47

Right.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

So it's been it's been fantastic. Another thing that I'm really enjoying is brand spanking new, which is Gemini. Uh, and Gemini is through Google. There's been a few meetings that I have used Gemini to uh take notes, and it's been pretty spot on with I mean it definitely rivals otter.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

Yeah, one of our clients is using Copilot, so which is the Microsoft AI.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

Correct, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Which is pretty easy to do.

SPEAKER_02 39:14

Yeah, so I mean it's the future. Um, and I mean Canva's not new to anybody. However, the way in which I've been using Canva, especially within Jotform and with MailChimp, I've been discovering how in what ways I can use the brand kit to create a 360 experience with my company.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

Yeah. Okay, that's a good way of putting it though. I love Canva. I've used Canva a lot for the last two years. I probably was one of their like when they were first coming out, and I was like, this is the most brilliant like creation. Uh also inspiring too, because I think the uh founders are pretty young. I want to say they're like early 30s.

SPEAKER_03 39:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

Like in their late 20s when they started it.

SPEAKER_03 39:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

It's it's pretty inspirational about how they all came about, and it's just everything it does is amazing. Like, I don't think I could create half the content I do. Like, it's almost just skipping the whole need to like pick color and design and all the stuff. I'm like, I could do everything in freaking Canva.

SPEAKER_02 40:13

Yeah, so not too long ago they had a um, and I like that they do these um uh workshop. Well, I workshop isn't the right word, but I guess presentations, even that they invite their Canva users to, and you learn a lot, you learn a lot about what they're planning to bring to the table, what they're working on, what they're developing. You could ask questions, they make it very it's very integrated. I really, really enjoy that. And it's exciting, it makes you feel like you're a part of their growth.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Yeah, and um think about community, which is really yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

And I've been experiencing that with Financial Sense as well, which has been fantastic, also. So they whether this is just how these two companies do it and they're doing a great job of it, or this is the direction in which these new platforms are going, is to integrate the user as part of the experience. I don't know, but I love it.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

I would say that you're probably pretty right that more and more things are trending toward just building communities or whatever it is that you you do. And I think as the world becomes more remote, which I know people are going back to work and they're going into office, but I mean, COVID has happened, COVID has had an impact. I think a lot of people are still gonna be remote. They're looking for ways to stay connected, and online communities are the way to do it, especially shared sense of either software or design or something that you feel like you can kind of get together and all geek out about. It's kind of nice. I I think it's a it's it's kind of a cool direction to see where business is going with that.

SPEAKER_02 41:45

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you and I have been doing this for so many years. Business, not the podcast. We've been doing this for so many years that it's still so exciting to me. And yes, we are going into our fifth season, but it still feels like you know, the honeymoon. I still feels like there's so many things that we haven't even tapped into yet. So I'm super excited about all of the things that we talked about that we're gonna talk about, but also all of the things that we're going to discover along the way that, you know, we'll have shows about.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

I think that even I mean, so many years later, I mean, obviously, we are not full-time podcast hosts by any means.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

No.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

Okay. Um I was like talking to somebody the other day, and they had turned on for the first time I saw them online, like we had a meeting online, and literally straight, it was like a podcast studio kind of like layout where they had like the mic coming in, and then they had like the background, all you could tell, like it was all like nicely staged, right? And I'm like, yeah, after five years, don't figure that part out. We ain't got that. I don't have no, I don't have the time. No time, and I also don't have the time, right? A lot of this is maybe like we're still growing out a sense of betting that our content and what we say will exceed the value put on our look and sound, because my gosh, have we struggled with those in the past.

SPEAKER_02 43:14

I mean, if you're gonna be watching us or if you're gonna be listening to us, you should know what you're getting yourself into. We know what we know. We don't know what we don't know. And don't expect us to know what we don't know.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

So I think the I think our uh theme has been like if it gets too complicated and we don't have fun with it anymore, we're just gonna stop doing it, right?

SPEAKER_02 43:35

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

So, like, when we tried to start doing this in person and it got too complicated, too time consuming, we were like, I mean, I think you and I were both kind of feeling like, well, this is a bit of a stretch between our normal day jobs, I guess you can call it. And so we were like, let's screw it. Like, we're just gonna go back to doing it remotely because I think we'd rather do the podcast than not do it.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

All for sure.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

And I think like tripping over the fact that we're not sitting in a nicely lit room with a background light or some you know high powered.

SPEAKER_02 44:07

Hey, we got this now. Well, I mean, we got that. We've got a nice little poster board with our pictures on it. So don't expect much more than that.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

Yeah. I think this point is like we're just gonna be like, you know, I think it's more important for us to get our voices out there. Yes, go through. I don't know, who knows? Who knows? You know, still maybe one day. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 44:25

Maybe one of our listeners will feel sorry for us and donate us a studio, but otherwise you're not gonna get much more than this from us. But I mean, we are so busy. Yeah, well, yes, we are, and thankfully, but it's also, yes, we are busy. However, it is extremely important to us to continue conveying to our listeners and to anyone who wants to be a listener or a watcher what the business is behind a small business, because it's almost selfish, right? We know a lot about business and we want to share what we know about business with people who want to learn how to be a better business owner. Because if you own a company or organization, you are you are committed to giving people work, you're employing people, they're making money, they're spending in their local community, you're paying local taxes, the local area is just going to grow, the economy is going to continue to grow, and that's part of the circle of life. And so that's why we, I feel, especially myself, I'm sure it's the same for you, are committed to making sure that these businesses stay in business. Because it there's it's a butterfly effect.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

I do think, you know, again, my my uh thought has always been, you know, the world would just be better with more entrepreneurs or if everybody was entrepreneurially minded.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

I feel like I have grown and changed and become a better person by what business has taught me um about myself. Hope for anybody else who's brave out brave enough out there to go start a business from scratch, right? You know, you everybody can use all the help they can get in the beginning. And so, you know, I feel like we're lucky enough to get it somewhat pretty much get to the other side of things that you know paying a forward is very much top of mind. And I think it's like that for a lot of people. And so, yes, could we go and maybe rent a studio? Absolutely. Yes, can we spend time out of our day to go commute? Which, by the way, if you don't live in northern Virginia, you don't know what commuting is.

SPEAKER_03 46:25

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

You know, like trying to get from your side of town and my side of town to an equal spot, maybe in the middle, or like we carve out a room in our place to go do like all those are options that, yes, are we capable of doing it? Absolutely, but we like we said, we're like the moment doesn't feel fun anymore and feels like a second job. We're not gonna do it because we all have multiple jobs per se, right? You have to keep not only your business going, Savannah, you also have little human beings you gotta keep alive. Kind of important, and also a large human being.

SPEAKER_02 46:55

I mean, I have large human beings too, but I still gotta make sure that they're alive because I feel like they're constantly like like ping-ponging through a forest on fire. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 47:05

Not to mention your four-legged, you know.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

Yeah, then there's them. There's them too.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

And I myself have a total of three separately running businesses and an organization that is kicking off. And you know, I don't have a lot of clients because I don't need to have a lot of clients, but the ones I have are, you know, very busy and they go through a lot. And you know, I'm there with them every step of the way, so it's almost feels like another job for every single client. So, you know, it is what it is.

SPEAKER_02 47:34

Yes. Yes. Well, we're gonna keep on pumping out these episodes because we're still passionate about it until the passion is gone. We'll let you know.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

And I will say too, though, how long you've been you've been in business for how long, Savannah? Like 14. Okay, so since you were like 10 years old, I understand. Similar here, right? Because we met when we were first just starting. Is that how old your kid is? 14? Yeah, because when I met you, you were pregnant with him, right? Which is crazy because now he is you know running around talking back to you.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

Yep. Got peach fuzz and like hair throwing his faces.

SPEAKER_01 48:10

It is voice drop yet.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

Yes, and it's weird. He's taller than me now, it's bizarre.

SPEAKER_01 48:17

So I will say in 14, 15 years' time, over the hundreds of businesses we have dealt with, hundreds, because that's just the uniqueness of in this industry and being such an intimate part of a business and finance and accounting, hundreds, still the same challenges, still the same questions, most of the same problems. And it's not that just because you're at a hundred thousand dollars versus a million versus ten million, like there's different sets of challenges, it's literally the same thing, just more volume. Yep, more money, more there is a pattern there, which is why you know, till this day we're talking about business because I feel like these problems are going to be evergreen, and I think any new business owners are going to find themselves in it. So as long as there's business around and we have a camera and a mic and an internet, a chair, chair, microphone, we'll keep recording.

SPEAKER_02 49:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

Until you tell us to get off stage. I don't know. You tell us.

SPEAKER_02 49:18

Sounds good to me. But please hit the like buttons and the follow buttons and tell all your friends about us. Our show is on all of your preferred podcast platforms, social media, and YouTube. We'd love for you to also share our episodes. And like I said, if you have a comment, uh if you have a question, you can email us, put it put it on any of the it would be easier for you to leave a comment than an email. So much easier.

SPEAKER_01 49:45

The two of us not looking at our emails as much as we should, because I don't know not you, but I also have like six other email.

SPEAKER_02 49:52

I don't even want to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

You probably have so many for each one of your clients, and you're nope. So leave a comment.

SPEAKER_02 49:59

But leave a comment and we'll give you a shout-out. So, you know, wherever it is that you see us, leave a comment. And all of our links that we're going to be sharing, Tiffany said that you were going to what did you say you were gonna leave it linked for? See, I already Goldfish Brain?

SPEAKER_01 50:14

Yeah, Goldfish Brain. It's okay, I'm there too. No, I'm not gonna so you know how like uh I don't know, I do this too. When somebody's like watching like a video and you're like, let's go to comments, can somebody just summarize this for me?

SPEAKER_02 50:25

Oh, yes, summarize. That's what you were gonna do. Not all of our links, the summary will be posted below. That's why.

SPEAKER_01 50:29

I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the paragraph guy for ourselves. Awesome. Yes, but in less detail than a paragraph guy, because we really do want you to listen.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

Yeah, please.

SPEAKER_01 50:42

Today I felt like the show will go by quick because we're hitting up so many different topics.

SPEAKER_02 50:45

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

If you hear one that you like though, like the button, leave a comment so then we know should we do another episode that's a little bigger out of it and get into the details of it all because we can. We don't have to hold back any secrets. No, you know, we're not selling a course.

SPEAKER_02 51:00

I'm not selling anything. I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

We don't need to, so we're more than happy to just tell you what it is.

SPEAKER_02 51:06

Um I'm so good. Until next time, mind the business behind your business. I feel like I need to put it to a jingle because all great successes start small. Bye.