The Right Way To Spend Your Business’ Money

#65: Continuing on the series about your business money, Sevana and Tiffany talk about the #1 wrong way to spend your business money so you can avoid it to spend it the right way!

Famous Examples:  Nissan & Business Adventures:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/11/why-billionaires-warren-buffett-and-bill-gates-agree-this-is-the-best-business-book-of-all-time.html

https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/the-7-books-that-created-our-modern-business-world.html

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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 entrepreneurial 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 - 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.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi everyone. Thank you for listening to our podcast. Tiffany and I give our all to this podcast with curating information, researching platforms, and creating a show with the best up-to-date information we can. We have a vested interest in the growth and health of your business and hope you feel the same way about us. Would you like to produce a show? All you have to do is email us at the businessbehindsmallbusiness at gmail.com to express your interest, and we will share with you what you'll receive with your investment. You'll have the opportunity to have your name and the name of your business mentioned multiple times during our show, have your company logo on our social media, along with details on how to get in touch with you and other marketing opportunities as well. Sounds amazing, doesn't it? So please support us so that we can continue supporting you. Hello again, and welcome to the business behind small business. Whether you're selling or staying, we're here to remind you that just because you own a business, that does not mean you are a business owner. We are your hosts, Savannah Stone and Tiffany K.O. And we're going to get down into the nitty-gritty to walk you through the more finite details of entrepreneurship, revealing the dots between startup and success. No one gets to a million without getting a little dirty. There's a lot of business behind small business, so let's get to it. Oftentimes, when we think of budgeting, we are considering tight cash flow or the lack of funds. We've focused our last few shows on funding. However, today we're going to talk about what to do with that funding. Or maybe your company does not require funding at all, but you want to learn how to be smart about your money. You'd be surprised how many clients the both of us have had that are quite successful on paper, however, not so smart with the way that they commingle. I didn't want I wanted to use a different word, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 2:13

Commingle for commingling. It's commingling.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah. Hop and hop and bids. So you want to grow your company in a healthy manner. And you know what? We all have dreams, we all have goals, and every one of them are different and unique to each of us. However, they do all have one thing in common, and that is the seed. The seed we are planting today is how best to spend your company's money. But before we begin, please note our disclaimer. This is available in both our show notes and on our website and should be referred to before and or after this podcast.

SPEAKER_04 2:52

So I think the focus of the show today, at least in terms of money, is really about commingling, right? The personal um business. Yeah, what is another word for commingling? Mixing up a personal and business funds? Is that a good way of putting it? Yeah. Yeah, mixing business with pleasure. There you go. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we're gonna talk about commingling, but we're also gonna talk about how to be more how to be more smart.

SPEAKER_04 3:21

Yeah. We're good with words today. It's gonna be a winner. I can I can I can hear it already.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

But you know, so what are some alternatives, you know? Because I think sometimes people commingle their accounts because they want their money, or rather their business. They're trying to fund their business, but and sometimes they commingle because their business has a lot of money in it, their business account has a lot of money, and they're like, Oh, I'm just gonna open that that cash register and take money out of it. They don't realize what it does to their to their books, to their accounting.

SPEAKER_04 3:54

So you're absolutely right though. I mean, um I've seen companies, startups, I've seen companies multi-million dollars still commingling. Um, and it always it causes problems. So um just to set the stage, right? Um have a couple examples of what commingling is. So and um I'm not making this stuff up. This this stuff is actually stuff that I've come across with clients. So I'm not actually making it up. I'm just not naming any names, so you know you know who you are. So let's so this is like all like what like the owners think, which leads to commingling. Right. So one, take a like you've worked really hard to for your small business and you're not taking a salary. So, you know, charging the personal gas in your personal car, uh, meals you take maybe for yourself, with your family every once in a while, travel expenses, like family vacation is how you deem yourself as getting aid from your business, which is coming.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Like, yep.

SPEAKER_04 4:56

Um another scenario would be, you know, let's say you own a food truck and you get better prices because you're buying in bulk from like your food vendor or distributor or whoever of choice. And so, you know, to get to that bulk amount to be able to get the bulk discount, maybe you add some of your personal groceries there because it's easy and why not? I mean, it's all food, right, at the end of the day. And afterwards, it's too much work trying to separate out the receipts and the purchases between business and personal. Besides, nobody will notice, so you just kind of leave it as is and you let it run through the business. That's comingly. Another thing is maybe uh you have a business credit card and it gets a lot of high reward points or cash back. And so you charge some of your personal stuff to it because hey, who would want 5% cash back or some something along those lines? Um, maybe some meals, maybe some gas. Plus, you think, well, I mean, it's great for taxes, they're all write-off, so it means I get to pay a little bit less taxes at the end of the year for my business. Sounds like a win-win. That's commingling. And then last but not least, let's say you're a little short in your business, the uh in your personal bank account to kind of cover your expenses. So you take the money out of your business bank account to cover it just temporarily. I mean, it's just one month, you just need to cover a couple things, you'll you'll put it back. Now, temporarily, it's temporary becomes it is temporary, but it happens maybe every few months. So, you know, that's not a big deal at all. Or a few weeks, or a few weeks. But that's still commingling. Right. So the point is commingling happens. Um, sometimes this this has happened to me. I'm standing in line, I look at my wallet, like I'm standing like the grocery store, I'm looking at my wallet, and I realize, oh crap, I grabbed the wrong one, and all I have is my business credit card. So I'm obviously not gonna go home and start over again. So guess what? I'm just gonna use my business card to be able to pay for that. But that's okay if you treat it right. Like that every once in a while that happens. It's fine if one, you don't make it a habit, and two, you're not doing anything to clarify it afterwards so it's accounted for properly on your business look. And you don't intend to really pay it back. That's when you really run into a lot of issues. Accidents happen, card cards get swapped, it happens all the time, but it's what you do afterwards that really speaks to whether or not commingling is going to be a problem for you.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Right.

SPEAKER_04 7:17

Now, our listeners may be like listening to this and going, you guys are crazy. Blowing this out of proportion, like it ain't that serious of a problem. You can just calm down, right? So that being said, right, occasionally charging personal travel expenses, rent expenses, meals, maybe fun personal outings and stuff that you pass off as business stuff. Sure, it may not be a huge deal to you today because you're probably seeing it from a point in time. But let's kind of, you know, entertain that idea and think about the consequences of these extra actions down the road. So let's say, for example, you count a lot of personal expenses as your business success because you think the company owes you. And it's not a big deal to write off more expenses just to pay less taxes at the end of the year. Then next year, a year later from now, you find yourself needing to go to the bank for a loan, maybe to a lender to get some more money, or maybe you're trying to raise money from investors. So then what'll happen is these investors, these bankers, these lenders will ask you for two years of financial reports. And that's a completely normal ask, by the way. Three years if you're unlucky.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:27

And one of the questions you're gonna get is they're gonna go through and they're gonna scrutinize all of your expenses and they're gonna ask you why is your meals and entertainment so high? Why is your travel expense so high? Because it impacts your bottom line. They wanna know is this really the overhead you need to support your business and generate the money that you say that's coming in. And if it doesn't look like you're dr generating enough revenue to cover all your expenses, well, that likes them to think whether or not your business is good to invest in, or whether or not you're good to pay back the money they're gonna lend you.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Are you going to be irresponsible with the money?

SPEAKER_04 9:01

Exactly. So think about how this still impacts you in the long run. Or let's do this. Let's say that you take money out and your balance sheet shows a larger account. Sometimes I've seen it done a few different ways. It's some sometimes people put in a line that says paid by owner, pay to owner, uh, by the way, which is not the right way to do it, uh, really, so don't do that. And if your bookkeeper's doing that, ask some questions. Or you have a really high like distribution account in your equity, or you have some kind of payable to owner. What and depending on what kind of um incorporate entity you are, meaning if you're like a sole proprietor, you're an LLC, C corp, like this is gonna show up a little bit differently on your balance sheet, but still, regardless where it shows up, your lender or your investor will ask about that. That is always the number one thing to hone in on and be like, well, why is the owner having to put money in and take money out of the business on a regular or it's a high amount? So if your bookkeeper is doing their work properly, which you know, if they are, they're gonna be able to account for this in the right accounts. But the fact that this account exists on your financials is gonna cause questions. And you will have to be able to defend yourself. Now, let's say let's talk about the IRS because who doesn't want to talk about the IRS. Now, writing off a few extra meals isn't probably that big of a deal to investors and lenders, even if you know, suppose it's reasonable, right? Um, but you know, if they want to see all the ins and outs to see what kind of return they're gonna get and um what um if you're able to pay back the money that they're gonna loan you, that's probably why they're gonna take an extra good look at it, right? Um so having a few extra meals in there, all right. You probably have to explain yourself. But don't forget, on the IRS side, uh meals are only f 50 cents 50% deductible. Um it's 50% deductible for a reason because they're not stupid, they know people are doing this. Oh yeah. But at the same time, we also know the accounts that are um always abused or commonly abused by business owners. So they will also look at travel expenses, they'll also look at marketing expenses, um, and certainly travel uh meals and whatnot. And so if and when you get selected for an audit, they'll forget the burden of proof is on you to be able to show them that these are legitimate business expenses. And if you can't, meaning you can't produce that receipt and you can't produce that proof, then what they'll do is they'll back out all these expenses, recalculate how much taxes you should have paid, and then charge you penalty interest on the portion you haven't paid for yet.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:35

It's not a fun, it's not a fun ride. No when that happens, right? So even if you don't get that much uh slack for it from your investors and your lenders, you still have the IRS to consider as well. So just kind of keep that in mind when you, you know, should me down this road of commingling a little bit. So the key is of course is that yes, it can happen, but let it be infrequent, if at all. And then when it happens, do the right thing afterwards. Account for it correctly, or if you have a bookkeeper, have them help you account for it correctly or pay it back rather quickly, um, so that you keep things between yourself and your business clean and separate.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 12:13

Okay. And now I think Savannah, you're gonna talk about how to keep it clean and separate.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

How to keep it clean and separate, and then I also am going to share some points uh, or rather some tips on how how best to use your company's money. That's a good idea. So yeah. So I'm going to speak to the points that you made. I'm just gonna go down the list. So the first point that you made is about not taking a salary. This is a big no-no. You must take a salary. Uh, in case in point, I have mentioned uh this one time when I was a part of a potential purchase, and the bottom line number, the amount that it was, I was like, wow, that doesn't seem like a whole lot of money, but yeah, it looks like the company is profitable. But I'm like, but then I see no salary here. I see no money being given. And so, whatever the amount, the bottom line number was, if you took that amount, so let's say it was $100,000, if the person had paid themselves, they would be upside down. So that's the reason why you want to be paying yourself because if you end up wanting to sell your company and investors or purchasers, you know, potential buyers are not seeing that that that's on your profit and loss report, it's gonna harm you. So take out whatever amount it is that you think you need to live your life. If it costs you and your family $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 to live the way you do, or $5,000 a month, whatever it is, pay yourself. If you're paying yourself, then it then it's clean.

SPEAKER_04 13:50

Well, yes, don't pay yourself by running your business card to pay for all your personal stuff.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Absolutely. Now the the the catch to this though is to pay yourself what is an whatever is an appropriate amount. So don't be paying yourself. If you're considered the admin of your company, you should not be making $150,000 a year. So make sure that you pay yourself appropriately, whatever the amount is. I I would go to, I guess, Glassdoor, or or indeed, I think can tell you what the national average is or whatever the average is in your area. It doesn't have to be precise, but it needs to be close to whatever it should be. If your company can't afford it, um, that's okay because we're going to, I'm gonna skip over, uh, I'm gonna skip over to the fourth point that you had made about um you're short in your personal account and we need to cover expenses situation. Um, if your company does not make enough money to cover to cover whatever it is you're purchasing, either you can put it down as a um an owner equity then and make sure that your company reimburses you for it. So, whatever way it is that you need to tag that purchase that you made as a reimbursement, reimburse yourself as part of your payment.

SPEAKER_04 15:09

Yeah, but just one copy after that though. It depends on what kind of business entity you are. For sure. You can't put everything in owner's equity. No, no, no. Yes. So it depends on what kind of what kind of entity you are, how you're gonna account for and how you take money out. And that does have a tax impact as well as a business impact. So talk to your tax account before you just willy-nilly take something out and then don't account for it.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Agreed. Yeah. Um, I would say a probably a good example would be if you are a um a newer company and you need to purchase inventory, and maybe your company does not have enough, and you correct me if I'm wrong, but if your company only has, let's say what again, I'm gonna use $100,000. Let's say your company can only pay about $50,000 of the $100,000 of that inventory. Okay. But so therefore, you have to make a $50,000 investment into your company. You have to make sure that your company starts paying you back, put it in as a loan and pay yours pay yourself back.

SPEAKER_04 16:04

That is one way to do it, yes. Yes, you can do that. Um, it's probably better to do that, but well, not that it's better to do that. There's there's a couple ways for you to put money into your business. And again, a lot of this goes back to definitely talk to your accountant or your tax accountant balance, just to make sure you don't you don't end up tripping something that you're you're not aware of. But you can loan the m you can loan money to your business, yes. And you can also invest money into your company, in which case you can use that money to do whatever you need to do, which becomes maybe an equity investment. But if you loan money to your business, meaning that you fully intend your business to pay you back, meaning that it's an actual loan, uh, treat it like a loan, like you are a lender to your business, meaning you have paperwork that says, I loan my business this amount of money, and guess what? Charge interest.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 16:49

Right? Because that's how you're not gonna get an interest-free loan from anybody else for six months, right? So why would the business treat you any different? So if you treat it like a loan, then it becomes clean.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Yes. Uh okay, so now let's talk about the business card. Uh, this was something that our guest Phil Gardiano had touched upon. Uh, using a uh uh business card for, or rather, you know, for rewards or cashbacks. Yeah, the credit card. Using a credit card for uh reward points or cashback. Um you could use a personal card, is what he said. If you could use your personal card, it's probably better to do it that way. Use your personal card for business transactions and then have the business reimburse you. So, I don't know, let's say you gotta buy paper, paper, you know, pins and things like that. Um purchase it with your business credit card so you can get those points or whatever it is, uh cashback or whatever, and then have your business pay you back. It has to be on on the books that way, though. That if you paid for something with your business with your personal credit card, say like for $25, your business has to pay you back, reimburse you that $25.

SPEAKER_04 18:05

So think about a little bit like this it's like you being an employee of your uh business and you ask the employee to basically front the money, pay what's on the pay for something on their personal credit card, and then a company's gonna reimburse it. So you in this case, as the owner, is basically the employee in the situation. So you act like the same way. So, yes, if you want good points and you have this credit card that you really want to use, um, I think when we were, and of course, listen to that episode too, but I think um one of the things we were talking about is like if you had to choose between having a high point reward card as a business card than putting personal expense on it versus vice versa, if you have a personal credit card with high uh rewards, it's better to have a personal credit card with high rewards that you put business expense on it than treat yourself like an employee, fill out an expense report, get reimbursed by the business, have this all well documented, and in that way you get to enjoy the high reward points as well as um being able to account for the business expenses properly.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yes. Agreed. And uh lastly, the groceries scenario, I think that's a really easy one. Just separate whatever it is that you plan on purchasing for yourself personally. I mean, you can always like put that divider in and like put your regular food. I've done that, you know. Put the divider in, put your food. I I I do I don't do that for my c my company because my company doesn't require food.

SPEAKER_04 19:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

But I do that with my kids.

SPEAKER_04 19:30

Well, so in the situation for the uh food truck, right? Or you talk about the grocery store.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

The good like the grocery store for the food truck, you know, like just I mean put I get that you're buying in bulk, but you can either you can either separate it, like you can have them separate it for you. Because I mean I've been to restaurant depot, they restaurant depot, yeah, restaurant depot, where they tell they do, they'll separate it. Is this personal, is this business? So just have you separate it.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

Yeah. Yeah, I mean definitely. I think um when you we have situations where you can separate, absolutely separate. I do know that there are some food providers that obviously they don't sell personal.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

Right.

SPEAKER_04 20:08

And so if you're trying to be able to buy at a discount, one, I mean, just don't do it. I can't. I would say don't do it at all. I don't imagine that the savings is that much. That's not. But you know, if for whatever reason this is the road you're going down, again, the the caveat here is that after the purchase, you do the right thing, you do the clean, like you do the thing to separate out what your personal is, mark it on your receipt so that when it gets added to your books, your personal expenses are not part of your business expenses, not showing up in your problem and loss, and it's again appropriately accounted for. So I don't know. I mean, that again, we're going back to saying, you know, how much savings do you have? Because now you have administrative work that's gonna cost time and money as well, right? So how much are you really getting out of it? But in that in that in that particular situation, that's how I would say to handle it is you know, do the right paperwork and add to to be able to separate it exactly.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Yeah, you're right. You're gonna spend at least an hour of admin time trying to separate it out. It's really not worth the savings because you're likely not really saving much of anything. Yeah, enough to it's not enough to to quantify what you're doing, so just don't do it at all. Um, okay, so I think that the both of us have uh made it clear how bad commingling can be. It's of course bad for business, but also you'll have no idea how much money your company or little, how much or how little your company has if you're not true to your accounts. Now, let's say that you are being responsible, let's say you don't commingle. Um, let's see your comp let's say your company is doing well, and maybe what you have is a good problem. If your company is making a considerable amount of money, you may come across this idea of okay, well, what do I do now? Uh I think with commingling, that tends to happen with clients, or rather, not clients, as well. Yeah, they do turn into clients. But commingling tends to happen with people who are not understanding the true sense of their um of their accounts, of their accounting, of their finances. But I want to talk to the people as well. Sorry, not to the people. I want to talk to you.

SPEAKER_04 22:20

I'm about to forescore. Are you about to break into songs? I feel like I'm an idiomatic speech.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

Not enough coffee of it.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Not enough. I want to I want to talk or make a point. I want to make a point that if you have money in your business and you're not sure, it just letting it sit there is not necessarily a good thing either. It's kind of like it kind of speaks to that whole like when your parents, grandparents, or whatever is stuffing money under the mattress, like they're saving their money, but really they're not making many money out of their savings, right? So I'm gonna talk a little bit more about that. First things first, you're gonna want to boost efficiency and streamline your operations. Let's say you already have a platform like QuickBooks. I think most uh companies or most people use QuickBooks for their accounting and or to manage their money. You're also going to want a customer relationship management tool or a project management tool that's going to help with tracking projects or inventory and keeping track of clientele, whatever it may be. There are some great platforms out there, and there are some excellent platforms out there. So take a look at what you can afford and select what's best for your company from there. I personally love Notion. I think it's a fantastic uh tool. Uh HubSpot is also super phenomenal and has all the bells and whistles, but kind of expensive.

SPEAKER_04 23:52

Uh yeah. You're talking about CRMs now, right? I I am.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Well, I'm talking about for that.

SPEAKER_04 23:56

For that for that. Yeah. HubSpot Zoho. Yeah, that was active campaign, you know. Yeah. A good CRM will go a long way.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Definitely. So that's definitely something you want your to uh invest your company's money in. Uh next, you're going to want to allocate a portion of your budget to targeted marketing strategies. This might involve social media advertising and content creation, or SEO efforts to expand your reach and uh attract potential customers. So look into investing into Google Analytics, Foot Suite, Canva. These can aid in analyzing data, managing your social media, uh, and creating engaging content. Um, granted, this is also something that I think this and the bookkeeping part and the CRM part, I feel like if you don't know enough about it, hire somebody. We've talked about it before. Take a look at our previous podcast for that, for more information on that. Uh next, uh, one of the things that that brings me the most joy is knowing that I've made a difference in someone's life. Whether or not they work for me, uh, and that should be the case for you and your employees as well. This is the time to invest in your workforce and offer training and skill development programs. This is going to enhance their satisfaction within your company, and it's also going to increase productivity and efficiency. Look into LinkedIn Learning, uh, Udemy or Coursera. These offer a wide array of courses that are suitable for skill enhancement. Okay, now that you can offer more. Create opportunities to improve customer satisfaction and customer experience. Invest in software like Zendesk, Intercom, or HubSpot, as I mentioned earlier, and these can help manage your customer interactions effectively. Lastly, it's time to take your company from good to great by investing in the newest and best infrastructure and equipment so that you can operate smoothly. Maybe this is reliable hardware, more reliable hardware. Maybe this is software licenses, upgrading facilities, um, secured servers. Research these, research your options and of course don't be willy-nilly about it, but research your options and be responsible about it. Because if you're commingling your accounts, you're also taking yourself further away from the opportunities to further your company.

SPEAKER_04 26:30

So then it sounds like we're saying that you know, if you can, if you have money, pay yourself first. Yes. Uh, make sure that as the owner, you are taking a salary, you're taking a draw. Again, a lot of this depends on what kind of entity you have, what kind of business entity you have. So how the owner takes money out of the business comes with several forms. We're saying that ultimately you want to think about being able to take money out because you don't want to end up in a situation where you have a business with an owner who is CEO and doing all CEO things, and you're not being paid like a CEO because you like that bottom line to be as high as it is, but it's not really true. It's not true yourself, right? Yeah. And it eventually maybe one day you're either gonna retire or leave your business voluntarily or involuntarily. It works in life, apparently. Um, you know, when that day comes, you you somebody's gonna be taking your place and they probably would like to be paid something, um, probably a reasonable salary for the job they're doing. And so having that already built into your business, even though the money's coming to you, just kind of helps your business in the long run. So that you're preparing to hire somebody on the top level to take over what you're doing eventually.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Well, and to speak to the um the possibility of sales, possibility of moving on, and loans and grants and funding and all of that, all of these things require clean profit and loss reports, all of them require clean balance sheets. All of them do. Uh, it always comes back to the same place every single time. And to what I was saying about being able to expand your company and the offerings that you have, again, it always comes back to the same financial reports. Can your company afford it? And if your company has gotten to is at a point where you have a CFO, your CFO can't make decisions on behalf of your company based on a profit and loss report that you are, which I say this, I say this only because I have had experience in this, and I'm sure you have too. So when I say this, I'm not saying this like this could never happen because these things happen. So I'm gonna go back to the sentence. If your CFO is getting a profit and loss report, or rather, a financial financial reports that are skewed, they can't make appropriate uh decisions for your company. Because oftentimes a owner of a company will skew the the financial reports by commingling and not sharing their information with and I'm talking to you, CEO, or I'm talking to you, owner, um, and then it causes a ripple effect with their company.

SPEAKER_04 29:09

So you're saying that if so you're saying skewing by commingling or the fact that they're not taking out a salary. Exactly. Or a appropriate amount of salary. Yes. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Um so I would I mean, you know, it's interesting, right? Because we're talking about how to spend your business money. So we're assuming that your business is making money and you have a cash shipping um to be able to do this, right? And it is true. I mean, companies who are doing quite well and have a good margin oftentimes do end up with a pot of cash. Um that honestly, I guess what we're talking about is how do you spend that pot of cash? One, pay yourself, right? Um, two is kind of what you were talking about, which is let's go ahead and reinvest into the company to be able to get get more returns on on your business.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Be responsible about how you're spending it.

SPEAKER_04 29:58

You know, the great the thing is like if your business is at a point, and again, we're saying that you're fairly oh, okay, actually, no, this is the first time in your business you've got a pot of cash. Let's just say it was like that. Right. Typically, when that happens, the business is always at a stage where their back office is on fire. Um, and the front the front of the house, which is sales and marketing, is doing extremely well, right? That's why you're bringing in all this revenue and all this income. But usually this is always at a point where a business has a lot of problems with the internal process and internal operations. Yeah. Because you spend so much time at the front of the house. If we think about it like a restaurant, like you spend so much time, you know, in the front, making sure that your servers are doing things right, you're you know, greeting the customers, the customers are somewhat getting their food on time and they're tipping and they're paying their bills and it's doing great. But in the back, in the back, like you don't have enough kitchen staff, like your chef's about to quit because they're overworked, uh, nobody can find anything, it's a complete mess, nobody's cleaning up after. Like this is kind of where most companies end up at. And the funny thing is being we do what we do and we see so many companies, you're starting to realize that this is a very normal part of growth, right? This is what inevitably happens to a business. And so if you're sitting here with a pot of cash, this is what you should what I would recommend um is invest into the back of the house.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_04 31:20

So that's a little bit along the lines of what you're saying. Get your financials up and running, right? So invest in that fancy new accounting software. Love QuickBooks, but if you're at a stage where you're making oodos of money, QuickBooks may not be enough because you're not getting the information you want. You can always invest in that next next system up. You know, invest, you know, ask, you know, invest maybe you get a different team or a better team. Maybe you need somebody, you need an extra staff on your accounting and finance team to be able to process things faster. Yep. Um, that's something to consider too. And then start looking at all your software that kind of holds up your back, right? If you're using like, you know, Slack or um CRMs, like you said, what like um Zoho or HubSpot. Maybe, maybe you always wanted HubSpot, haven't bought it yet, your poor, you know, salespeople are managing things on a lesser system or they're managing things on Excel. This is a time to invest money in that to be able to boost that side of the house up, right? So a lot of this is kind of like back of the house little nitty-gritty things that really your money should be investing. And yes, it's not directly related to a dollar for dollar for every single revenue dollars, but what it does is it builds the potential of your company to be able to make much more multiples after that. And that's what I think people don't always see. And your CFO would be very instrumental in this if they can get the data to actually advise you. Yes. There's there's that too. Yep. They're not miracle workers, they're not magic, they can't just create magic. Um, but if they don't have the right um support in the back of the house to be able to accumulate the right data for you to show you how your investment is making a return for you, you're kind of gonna always be in this weird nebulous state of not really know what your money is doing, right? And that's that's that's just silly. Why would you do that?

SPEAKER_00 33:02

You know, I it just made me think about um one of the best shows that I have ever seen that exemplifies exactly what you're talking about is The Bear. I have no idea what that is. It's the it's a show on Hulu. So if you have Hulu, it is a fantastic show that I think is the most honest representation of exactly what you just said.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Uh so if you don't know what I'm talking about, this uh the show The Bear is about this um Michelin star chef who uh is in New York, you know, just doing all kinds of fun stuff. And his brother, who has a owns a family-owned uh restaurant, it's just this little hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Um, he dies. Okay. And he leaves his restaurant to his brother.

unknown 33:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Now there's a lot of family dynamics in this show as well. Very, very well cast, very well put together, but it is an absolute show. The whole thing. Like he walks into a mess like he's never seen. And he's used to processes, he's used to people like knowing what they're doing, people like this mom and pop shop that does yeah. And he's like, How was my brother? My his brother literally was just like opening the cash register, taking the money out, and just going off, you know. So he has to fix the finance, and then after he finds out how much money the company actually makes, he's like, Oh my god. And then he realizes that his brother had a loan that was ginormous. So, you know, there's a lot of other things about this show, so I'm not gonna minimize it to it being a great business show. But I will say that while I was watching it, I was like, Oh yeah, oh yeah, I've got science like that. Oh, I've seen that before, you know. So I I would say definitely if you if you want to see what it can be, what your company could turn into, watch the video.

SPEAKER_04 35:06

Well, so I I I love the analogy to restaurants always because a great restaurant, if you walk into any great restaurant, um, what is the great American change we have around here? Any kind of chain restaurants, ones that have multiple locations, like ones that have been around for a long time, they're expanding all the time and a lot. They're not expanding because their back of the kitchen is a mess by any means, right? I like the restaurant analogy because these restaurants thrive and survive because they have meticulous processes that they follow. And every single person, every single staff member knows the process, they know what process they're part of. It's very cool the way a good restaurant is set up. And it's very close to how a great business should be set up. Exactly. Think about the back of the house, back of the kitchen as your HR accounting, your legal, your back of the office staff, and think about the front of your house as your sales and marketing and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Well, to go back to the bear in the third and the third season. Oh man, like he had turned it around, yeah, and it was yes chef, yes, chef, yes, chef. And then who's doing this? Who's taking that? Where's this one going? Where's that one? You know, and they he's like timing them. And they are they only have like oh sorry, I thought I would I thought I hit myself. Sorry, never mind. You heard you heard nothing. But anyway, so it's like really cool because there is a process that is so finite that they have 30 seconds, 30 seconds, 30 seconds, 30 seconds. So that's what I mean. That's why I like this show because he walks into an absolute like three-ring circus. And he turns it around. And he turns it around with processes that are so tight. Yeah. And he turns the restaurant into, or rather, he turns this hole in the wall into a top-tier restaurant.

SPEAKER_04 36:47

And that's the thing. I think, you know, at a point in business, you can only get so far by keeping adding in new revenue and sales, thinking that that's what's gonna be the fuel for your growth. Your fuel for your growth actually at that point will now switch into your back office process and processes. And that's the part I think a lot of businesses don't foresee and they don't, and then that's why they get into this like pickle when they get to a certain um stage, which I mean, honestly, I love the stage because this is the stage I always come in and consult and fix, but that's the idea, is they always get so I've seen enough of these companies and similarities be between them to go, oh my gosh, like this is this is a again, natural part of growth, but this is something that's very commonly felt and unknown. And you know, if if as a business owner you are aware enough before you get that point, and you know, you have you're starting to grow your capital, like you've you've kind of accumulated capital, then you easily should know that deploying the capital to your back office is what you know, right? And then at the end of that, you know, worse comes to worse, if you've no idea where to spend your money or how to do it, or you've already taken money out, you've already invested, you have money left over, or you just don't know what to do beyond that. At the very least, please throw it in a high yield savings account or something. Yes. Right? Like don't let it in your bank account, you know, throw it in a CD or something, right? Like let it at least earn something back for you, even if it's not directly like from your business.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Yep. I agree. So before we move on to the raw truth, we want you to be a part of our conversation and let us know what you want to hear. Send us questions or comments to our email, the businessbehind small business at gmail.com, to ask questions related to our show, or just let us know how much you love us. We want to give you what you want to learn about. All right, now we're gonna move on to the raw truth, uh, where we're each going to share our gritty experience with today's topic. We want the listeners to know that success is not easy, it's not gritty, and it's certainly not a straight line. We hope you will hear our cautionary tales and learn from them.

SPEAKER_04 38:56

Do you have a in addition to what I I mean, it's funny because I feel like I've been like doing the wrong truth. The whole thing. I know the whole thing. Because I know like the examples sound kind of out there, but I'm telling you, these are actual scenarios. Like this is none of them is are fake. They they've actually happened. And, you know, and in in my line of work, you know, I work with multi-million dollar businesses. I mean, mind you, they're not like $50 million by any means, but I'm in that sweet spot of the five to ten, or maybe even to fifteen. And that's kind of where I like the bulk of what I do is at. And these are real, real life scenarios, even at that level. So we're not talking about just mom and pop. You can definitely get a big size and still be, it's really I think more about the mindset of the owner, right? And understanding what a business needs and how a business needs to be set up.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 39:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

I do agree. And uh I've been using uh I've been I've been peppering um experiences that I have had, as one can imagine, over the last almost 14 years. I've certainly come across some businesses that I'm like, how? You should not own this. This should not be yours. And you know, one there was one in particular that always I always always go back to this one uh as a cautionary tale because this person um took so much money out of his company that he ended up bankrupting his company.

SPEAKER_04 40:21

Oh, ow.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

Uh and and it wasn't that he bankrupted his company, the it was the taxes that he did not pay. Oh no. That bankrupted his company.

SPEAKER_04 40:33

Oh, and it was sad, show up and take your stuff.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

And it was sad because this was a not a small comp this was not a small business. A lot of people worked for him. And I don't know why he was so irresponsible. Uh he was one of those people, you know, you know, you meet some people who are just so smart, uh like book smart, but not like life smart. That's that's kind of where he was. And I did all I could do with his attorney. He ended up, whatever was left of his business, selling it to uh one of the people that worked for him. And that person turned it around, thankfully. I continued doing, we continued doing the accounting and um consulting with them until they had it turned around to a point where they felt comfortable to bring it in-house. But man oh man, this guy for 15 years, any money his company made, he just pocketed. Pocketed.

SPEAKER_04 41:27

Yeah, unfortunately, there's a lot of stories like that. And some of it is habit, some of it is not knowing, and then some of it is just habit. Um, you know, you just can't use your company like a bank. Well, not your personal piggy bank, but you know, all those little things we were talking about earlier with the grocery store, with the um being able to um buy stuff in bulk and slipping your personal expenses in there, just running your credit card for like some personal items, you know, they all seem like little things, but they add up. They do add up a slippery slope, right? Because it's again, it's like a habit, like, oh, oh, if you can do this little thing, you know, as you get more money, then you can do that little thing. That becomes a middle thing, that becomes a big thing. And then before you, you know, know it, it's just it's kind of out of control, right?

SPEAKER_00 42:10

So well, and and then also like there that other point that I made, the company that was looking to sell, uh, she desperately wanted to sell her company, but she couldn't sell her company to anybody because her uh her she never paid sales, yeah. Yeah, she never paid, she never paid herself. Ergo, everybody sees it as a as a loss. Yeah, and uh, you know, she ended up losing.

SPEAKER_04 42:32

I and I don't know her, but I can promise you, like and again, I'm just kind of picking at her because it's only the only thing we have, but I can promise you that over the year how how long did she have a business for?

SPEAKER_00 42:43

Oh gosh, many years.

SPEAKER_04 42:44

15, 15 years, 15 years. Over 15 years time, I bet she thought she had a pretty profitable business. She probably told people that, look, I made, you know, a million last year, maybe like, you know, two million this year, and things like that, right? And maybe on her bottom line, maybe she is looking at her PL, maybe she has a bookkeeper, but on bottom line, keeps showing her, oh, we're making a profit, we're making a profit. Never thinking and never understanding that she does a job in the business. Because she was she hands-on in a business. Yeah, she was. She worked in the she worked in the company. She worked. Okay. So that's what I'm saying. She actually does a job in the business.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Not only did she do the work, not only did she work in the company, but she had a um what do you call it? Uh a branched out, she had a branched out company that was doing work for her. Okay. So she could have been getting a salary if she thought if she had done it correctly, she could have been pulling a salary from that business. Okay. And then the business could have been co contracting.

SPEAKER_04 43:40

Oh, so she didn't do any of that. She just Okay, got it.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

Like she had another comp I'm trying to be as vague as I can. But like she had a another brief.

SPEAKER_04 43:48

In other words, she was very involved in the business, but not paying herself any shit. Not only not paying herself. So let's just let's assume that she like a lot of owners do, probably either wear the sales hat, the business development hat, or the marketing hat. That's what most distance understood themselves, right? And they're probably doing all three of those and not paying themselves appropriately, right? Which means that if I was to buy her company, guess what? She's not coming with the company. So I'm gonna have to go out and hire somebody to do the three jobs she was doing, which means if that's not in the profit and loss, I'm gonna add that to the bottom and be like, well, if I go hire somebody to do all these three jobs, she's a full-time person. How much does the sales and marketing and um business to a person run me? Probably about what in our area, probably about 80 or 90 at least. Yeah, I was gonna say about a hundred, yeah. So if her bottom line was showing that she was making a good eighty thousand a month for the year, that's actually pretty nice, right? If you think about it for the year, yeah, that's quite a bit of money to take home, but then she's not paying these people. So I would take that out and be like, uh, so you're telling me that your company actually makes zero dollars at the end of the day? Yeah, I'm not buying that. Why would I buy that?

SPEAKER_02 44:49

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 44:49

Unless I want to be her and then I just bought myself a job. Right, right, right. Right. So that was that was a good one.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Why would you want to do that? Right. Or let's say, you know, so on paying job, apparently. Right, right. So and the other thing was not only was she not paying herself, but she also wasn't paying her other company that was doing outside work.

SPEAKER_03 45:10

Oh, well, that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Like she could have been paying her other company for having done whatever work it was for that company. So it was it was such an upside down. It made me so sad for her.

SPEAKER_04 45:22

And the thing is, we it's not like the way we look at it is so unique. Every banks look at it almost similar, right? They obviously have a little bit of different criteria for what they're doing. Yeah, investors for start for sure, because they need to know the return. Future buyers are gonna be scrutinizing this stuff. Like, this is a very common way that people look at businesses to see what the health of the businesses. Yeah. So what's she ended up doing with the business?

SPEAKER_00 45:41

She couldn't sell it. She couldn't sell it. What'd she do? I I don't even know. I think she just lost it. I guess she lost it. I know it's not there anymore. So I don't really know what happened, but I know she wasn't able to sell it. I heard through the grapevine that there was a couple of other potential buyers that had stepped away because probably the same problem.

SPEAKER_04 45:58

They probably saw the same thing. Yes. Very apparent.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Yeah, because once they found out, once they saw that that she hadn't been paying herself, they're like, oh wow. So this company's like really and then they found out that there was that she was also having her other company doing like let's say marketing and average. Let's just say it was that. For free. And it's like, uh, so you also weren't paying for that. So not only do I have to pay for someone to do whatever it was that you were doing, I gotta pay for that too. But you I'm um I'm looking at $200,000 here.

unknown 46:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:24

So that's which means that your uh your nice little profit now is in the negative.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

Yeah, I think she liquidated her products, and then I don't know what she did with the couple.

SPEAKER_04 46:33

Well, that's so sad after. It makes me sad.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

It makes me sad because I know like I don't know. I I she had been in business for a very long time, and it made me very sad for her because I know that's not what anybody wants. You don't want to work that hard and then come to find out to basically close your doors and walk away. Your business is worth nothing. So what you did was you had basically bought yourself a job for however long.

SPEAKER_04 46:53

So what we're telling our listeners is don't do that. Don't do that way. You're working way too hard in your business to end up that way. Yes. Don't do it.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

So uh before we move on to our next section, we're going to take a short commercial break. We're um gonna be done. Um commercial break. So listen, we're still a little bit like strings and gum attached together.

SPEAKER_04 47:15

So as our listeners are probably like, and fast forward 10 seconds, 10 seconds, 10 seconds. So it's a really break for them, not a break for us. So much so, yes.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

I mean, we're getting there, all right? Listen, we need we need the uh funding. So wouldn't it be great to hear the sound of us promoting your business for you right here on our show? Oh yeah, you can have that and more by producing a show or shows, and then you could get a real commercial in between.

SPEAKER_04 47:45

Not one where I'm looking for my uh my mic because apparently I like tore it off by accident.

SPEAKER_03 47:52

We'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

Yeah, like all you have to do is email us at the businessbehind small business at gmail.com to express your interest. We will share with you what you'll receive with your investment. You'll have the opportunity to have your name and the name of your business mentioned multiple times during our show, and have your company logo on our social media along with details on how to get in touch with you and other marketing opportunities as well. Please support us so that we can support you and uh create a real commercial with like music in the background, maybe even like something going on behind me, maybe. All right, so uh in each episode, we like to connect a famous example to our discussion to help you relate our talking points on a more global or well-recognized scale, revealing the dots between a living room startup and the success story on the cover of Forbes. Sometimes we use exact examples of either famous persons or successful business owners of today or in history, and sometimes we use examples of people who inspire us and have inspired today's discussion.

SPEAKER_04 48:59

Yeah, I don't know if this is an example of a successful business owner, so we'll so yeah, so I thought this was kind of interesting, right? So, as like a larger scale, I mean we all heard of Nissan, um so in 2018, this is when all this happened. Um Carlos Gosen, I want to say his last name is Gosen?

SPEAKER_00 49:19

It sound it looks like right. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 49:21

Uh he was once celebrated as the savior of Nissan, actually started facing allegations of financial misconduct that was actually very shocking to the entire automotive world because obviously Nissan is not a name that you are unfamiliar with. He was the CEO and chairman of Nissan, and he was arrested in Japan in November of 2018. And what he was accused of is one underreporting income. So he basically was charged with underreporting his salary. Uh prosecutors allege that over several years he's understated his compensation um in the Tokyo Stock Exchange Securities report, which amounted to about 44 million. So man, yikes. That's a lot of money. Then he misused company funds. So apparently he used company funds for personal purposes, which includes using investment funds to cover personal investment losses during the 2008 financial crisis. Wow. And a misappropriating company assets. So it was there was also a claim that he used company assets for personal benefits, including residencies in four countries that were financed by Nissan. So naturally, when this came to light, Nissan stock prices reputation took a hit because you know, as a CEO chairman, I mean, what else can you expect doing? They had to go through a complete governance overhaul. So of course, people are like, How did you let this happen? Um, so this of course highlighted the weak the internal weakness they had internally, and I'm sure it cost them millions of dollars to do a governance overhaul at this point. And then of course it's legal and financial challenges because there's you know system lawsuits, I'm sure, are over the place because of this. Um the the dramatic twist in this particular story is the fact that of course he said he did not do any of this, and that he claimed that he was a victim of board a boardroom coup. Right. Which can who knows, right? We've seen enough, you know, uh shows like millions and stuff like that that hey, it could happen, right? But before he could be caught and put on trial in December 2019, he actually fled Japan to Lebanon uh while out on bail. And as of this year, he's still there because there's no extradition treaty to Japan, Lebanon. So he's just he's kind of hiding out. So we will never know if he was falsely accused or not. I mean I'd say Lebanon is a great place to be, but uh Well, it wouldn't be the first time that a big old CEO took advantage of the money and cash he had at his disposal in the business to go buy himself something pretty like a big house or jet.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

That is right. So I was thinking it's been a minute since I've brought up and a historical example. And so I did some digging and I found two phenomenal articles that you just you must read them. Um I might be picking up some of these books myself too. Uh but you can't guess which list I'm going to be going off of. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates both loved and lived their lives by the book called Business Adventures by John Brooks. I think it came out in 1968, something like that.

unknown 52:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

Um actually classic. Yeah, Warren Buffett's actually uh Warren Buffett, sorry. Warren Buffett actually lent it to Bill Gates when they met in 1991. Uh so this book is about some of the most important events in 20th century corporate America. And each profile that is mentioned, uh, I think there's like 12 examples, something like that. Um, each each one is a fascinating account of how a certain moment in history shaped an entire company. Uh the other article takes you through the seven most impactful books that shaped our world or our business world. I'm happy to say that one of my favorite books, uh, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, is included in that list. There is a book that is from 250 BC, it's or BE or whatever we call it now. Um really, really cool. Uh and there's also one about um uh double bookkeeping that was written in the 1500s. It's fascinating. Uh you may find it funny that uh one uh busin that's that Wealth of Nations is the one business book that I have read from beginning to end. And it happens to have been and it happens to have been written in 1776. Um fun fact, my other favorite book is favorite book of all time is Candide by Voltaire, which was also written in the 1700s. Just born in Rome, since I really was. Um I like the classics, what can I say? Yeah anyway, so the two links are going to be in our show notes, and uh I really, really highly suggest that you guys read them. Uh all right, so there's a saying that goes, put your money where your mouth is, and we're gonna drill down a bit further here to connect what we've discussed at a granular level to tangible sources you can take to you can take to get you to that next level. What is wrong with me in my mouth? I get words are not your friend today. No, and my words are not wording today.

SPEAKER_04 54:19

No, we're almost there. We're almost there. So close. Stick with us, we're almost there. Yeah. So um, I just said two two two things. Um, I know that, like I said, uh, companies of all level and sizes do have some convening at some level because sometimes it's like, whoops, you're just happening to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Business card is all you got. Yeah. Um, so if you're on a go and things like that, just you know, remember there's a lot of applications out there to help keep things easy. Um you know, to keep that receipt, make the note on it so that you know you can market this as a personal expense or something that it isn't. So you can use things like Expensify or Expensify. You look at any accounting software you have. Typically they have now some kind of expense tracking part where it allows you to, you know, download an app, take a picture, it gets scanned, it gets uploaded. The whole key of this thing is you know, have good communication and uh with your bookkeeper or accountant, um, if you still have one that keeps your books, so they know how to actually separate things out properly on your behalf. But that starts with you being able to tell them what you did because they ain't gonna be able to tell the difference between one Starbucks from another on your you know business credit card receipt because true. They ain't following you around. Yep. Um, but if if you happen to be a smaller size and you're doing it yourself, then you know, for your own sake, just kind of get in the habit of this and you don't know where to stick it on your on your um in your accounting system, then always ask. Ask your CPA, your tax accountant, whoever accountant is helping you, or you know what, I'm sure Chat GBT might actually give you the answer, or you can Google it, or you can call somebody to ask. But uh don't don't um don't give yourself the excuse to not do this right from the start, even if you are small, because that's where the habit starts.

SPEAKER_00 55:59

Absolutely. Absolutely. If you are small, you want to start your habits and your processes and all of those things, you want to create them while you're still small, because I can promise you, once you become big, you're it it will be hair on fire. You don't want to get yourself to a hair on fire point. So um I mentioned quite a few platforms and tools that you should look into. However, I do have a few other recommendations to make. So as far as books, there's the lean startup by Eric Reese. Reese arise. I'm gonna say Reese. Um this offers my track record.

SPEAKER_04 56:31

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 56:32

I don't know. Uh this book offers insight onto how or into how to build a successful startup and then efficiently utilize resources. So next would be Profit First by Mike Mikolowich.

SPEAKER_04 56:47

Definitely don't ask me to figure out how to pronounce that right.

SPEAKER_00 56:50

Mikelovich? I'm gonna go with it. Uh this one is going to give you a guide to managing finances by prior prioritizing profit and cash flow. So it will really help you. Even if you're not the one doing your own books, this will help you in learning how to understand what it is that you're doing. Uh as far as apps, I would say QuickBooks always is a great place to start. If your company is too big for QuickBooks, I personally like Sage, you know, but do do your due diligence. Look at what you think is best.

SPEAKER_03 57:24

Which Sage are you recommending?

SPEAKER_00 57:26

I like Sage 600.

SPEAKER_03 57:27

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

But again, you have to have a company that is of I guess of that level. It's got so many bells and whistles. So, but QuickBooks will take you pretty far, though. I will say that. QuickBooks will take you pretty far.

SPEAKER_03 57:40

Um, yeah, yeah, they'll take you far.

SPEAKER_00 57:46

Story for another time.

SPEAKER_04 57:47

Yeah, I'll just say is this this is one of those weeks where it's been a little bit too many touch points with QuickBooks support. And it's not impressive, people, not impressive. So that's why.

SPEAKER_00 57:56

I I agree. I think I think yeah. Okay, so um, and this is something that she and I have talked offline about multiple times. So, okay, moving on, I would say uh Trello is fantastic. I mentioned Notion. I use Notion, I love it. Um, you can use any anything that's gonna be a project management tool is gonna aid you in organizing your tasks and your team collaboration. I will also add to that that if you have Google Workspace, uh, you might not realize some of the things that your um Google uh subscription will offer to you. Google has come out with a lot of fantastic uh add-ons that are part of your workspace uh subscription. So look into that. I have found some that I was like, oh, that's a part of this.

SPEAKER_04 58:40

And um Google, Microsoft. Yeah, Google. Google, Google Microsoft.

SPEAKER_00 58:47

I know. I'm like, I'm not just drinking the punch. I'm like, give me the mix.

SPEAKER_03 58:51

That might be the only thing we disagree on. I know Google or Microsoft.

SPEAKER_00 58:54

I totally I'm a I'm Google all day long.

SPEAKER_03 58:57

Microsoft.

SPEAKER_00 58:58

Okay, so then online platforms. The SBA website. SBA website. Score, yeah. Yeah, and score. I've got score on here as my one of my notes too. Uh SBA offers resources, guides, and all kinds of assistance for small businesses. We've talked about it before that there are m look into your county, your city, uh, your state to see what kind of free um things that uh oh hello.

SPEAKER_04 59:26

Oh it's time to go. Apparently. I thought you said you turn the lights down when it's time to go, not the other way around. Not the other way around. Lights up, get out.

SPEAKER_00 59:36

You can't stay at the you're not you don't have to go home, but you can't stay at the time.

SPEAKER_04 59:39

I'm standing at this office, office background forever.

SPEAKER_00 59:42

Yeah, we're moving. We're moving. We're gonna talk about that too.

SPEAKER_04 59:45

We're gonna grow up.

SPEAKER_00 59:46

Yes, we are. Um, okay, next is SCORE, and they provide mentoring and educational resources for small businesses. Take advantage of both of those. And um, please join us for our next episode where we're gonna dive deeper into loan, grant, and aid options and also exciting stuff. Uh, not sure if the next one or the one after that is gonna be in our new location. Um we don't know. I'll be surprised. Like you'll be surprised. Yeah, it's gonna be a surprise for the both of us. But uh, I'm really excited because uh this is part of us growing up as a podcast and podcasters. Uh, and we are super excited. So please show us your support by following us on your preferred podcast platform, social media, and YouTube. We'd love for you to also get out of his way. We'd also love for you to also share. I don't know if you guys heard that, but that was a honk, like a more honking. We'd love for you to also share our episodes. Honking won't be happening at our new place.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:46

I mean, this is just a day, can't find words. I know.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

Uh unfortunately, there may be a dog or a cat or two. Um, maybe. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:58

Don't be surprised if you see one behind me soon.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:00

I know. Okay, all of our links are posted below. Until next time, mind the business behind your small business because all great successes start small. Bye.