The Confident Entrepreneur With Jennifer Ann Johnson
Jennifer is a multifaceted entrepreneur while also actively involved in her community. She owns True Fashionistas (Florida’s largest lifestyle resale store), CooiesCookies, Pink Farmhouse (online store), and Confident Entrepreneur, which encompasses her podcast, blog, motivational speaking, and coaching business for women entrepreneurs. Jennifer is an inspiration to other women business owners - showing it's possible to be successful in business while also making a difference and giving back to her community. Jennifer lives in Naples FL with her husband and twins.
The Confident Entrepreneur With Jennifer Ann Johnson
New Year, Better Finances: Practical Tips from Naomi Riley
Kickstart your new year with financial clarity as Naomi Riley, a thriving entrepreneur, shares her insights on financial organization. Learn practical tips for managing spending, evaluating profit and loss with tools like FreshBooks and QuickBooks, and balancing frugality with quality. We dive into SMART goals, debt consolidation, and leveraging AI for new income opportunities.
This episode is packed with strategies for financial success, including reviewing past income, streamlining transactions on Venmo and Cash App, and making incremental investments with Stash. Discover the power of visual reminders and the importance of organizing key information like passwords to protect your legacy. Get ready for a transformative journey with Naomi Riley!
Visit us at jenniferannjohnson.com and learn how Jennifer can help you build the life you dream of with her online academy, blog, one-on-one coaching, and a variety of other resources!
It's a new year and we often make resolutions around health, wellness and, of course, money. In today's episode, we're diving into getting your financial house in order for the new year. We welcome into the studio Naomi Riley. Her consulting agency flourished during the pandemic, where she provided pivotal financial guidance and grew her business to become a multimillion dollar enterprise, making her services highly sought after. Welcome.
Naomi Riley:Naomi, thank you so much for having me.
Jennifer Johnson:I am excited to have you today because we meeting me and my listeners. I know we can't get enough of financial pieces on how can we do this, how can we do this better and that kind of thing. So tell us a little bit about your company and how it started, and I know you had great success over the pandemic.
Naomi Riley:Yeah, yeah. So to be honest, my business flourished, actually, through the pandemic. I had studied some nonprofit laws during that time Excuse me, your pace just fell out and you know, a lot of businesses were struggling during the pandemic and so one of my best friends was working in accounting and he had asked he was losing staff left and right through the pandemic and and he knew that I was intelligent, very intelligent with my crafts and and he's like you know, all of these COVID laws are coming out and I'm going to need someone to help me with this, would you mind, you know, tackling it on. And so I put my head down into the books and started, you know, researching and studying all that I could on all the relief that was out there for for business owners, and really put my head to work with it and, you know, just guided tons and tons of business owners on a really good trajectory to get them through the pandemic business owners on a really good trajectory to get them through the pandemic, wow.
Naomi Riley:So it was kind of born out of all of that. Yeah, yeah it was. I had worked a little bit in the accounting industry, but nothing like I had. When it powered down and everybody was taking work off, I was sitting in my office saying, okay, how can I help? Who can I serve? You know?
Jennifer Johnson:And it was kind of like baptism by fire.
Naomi Riley:Yeah, here you go. Yes, amen to that, amen to that. So, um, yeah, god is good and and you know I was able to our company was able to help. You know, a lot of businesses survive instead of shut down, and you also own other businesses as well.
Naomi Riley:I do. Yeah, I own an AI company, a startup AI, a startup education. That is just getting out there. You know I'm an avid entrepreneur. I love sharing my message, what I've learned throughout my life. I'm a brain injury survivor turned savant and I love to read and research and find new ways to help our youth get through what we've allowed to happen in society.
Jennifer Johnson:I love this because so many times we meet people who I'm a financial advisor or I'm a whatever, but they've never walked in the shoes of a small business owner and I was just literally having this conversation with someone else. So it's so great that you know, from the standpoint of the business owner, the concept we're talking about, because there's that authenticity, there's that vulnerability, there's that empathetic I know what you're going through, I've been there kind of space.
Naomi Riley:Yeah, that can be. One of the biggest challenges that we as small business owners can go through are the fluctuations of you know what a business intake and outtake is and or outgoes, and you know, really making sure that our bottom line is always covered. So looking at those profit and losses are always going to be huge for every single month and then making sure that we can, you know, leave enough money in the in the pot so just in case, you know, unexpected expenses come up.
Jennifer Johnson:So yes, I do know. Always do Very, very important, very important so let's talk about setting goals and intentions for the new year. I know we have some buckets that we're going to be talking about and I'm going to let you take the lead on this, because it's really, really important things for our listeners.
Naomi Riley:Yeah. So you know how. One thing that you're always going to want to do is look back and look at how did the income and expenses fluctuate over the year. Did you have any extra income from the year? Go back and look at the months that for your previous year and just look at your months months that for your previous year and just look at your months. Did I have any extra income that was unexpected or added to my business in that way? Apps like Venmo, cash App, zelle they're all asking that the work be identified. If you're a small business owner and you're Venmoing or you're Cash Apping or whatever it is, make sure you're identifying that in those transactions because you know when it comes tax time, you know those are going to be looked at too.
Jennifer Johnson:And when you say identify, like in the memo area of when are you paying this person?
Naomi Riley:Any transactions over $600 are always flagged, and so you want to make sure that you're identifying like where did this go for? Was this a reimbursement for an actual personal expense or was this a expense for a business? And so you want to make sure that you're identifying those so that you can go back. I know, as busy business owners too, looking at your profit and loss on a monthly basis can be hard. I always encourage it, first and foremost, on a quarterly basis if at all possible. There's a lot of great platforms out there now that help you with online doing your profit and loss statements. A really good platform that I like is FreshBooks, and there's QuickBooks online too, so those are really, really good. So then you're gonna wanna also look at what spending habits worked well and where can I improve.
Jennifer Johnson:That's always the bucket right, Always the spending.
Naomi Riley:Yes, yes, you know identify. Are you a frugal spender or are you wanting those high quality goods and services? Now, I know a lot of us do right, but you know there's I'm high on the bucket. Yeah, you know. If you're the latter, you know there are times where the high quality goods and services may do a one time yearly sale or offer their services at a discounted rate. So make sure you're on their email list or you know their text message campaigns to to watch out for those sales, watch out for those sales and then always, you know, if you're the very frugal spender, you can always look for those deals on. You know the certain discounted site, sure. So another thing that I want to talk about is savings and investments. You know, did you reach your savings goals for the year? Do you have savings goals for the year? If not, I would always recommend just setting aside something, making sure that, if you didn't have any this past year, set aside a goal every month for this coming year.
Jennifer Johnson:Are you a proponent? Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
Naomi Riley:Yeah, go ahead.
Jennifer Johnson:A proponent and I don't even know if you can do this in business, where you can. I know you can do it in personal, where you can say I want $100 out of my check every month to go into savings. Can you do automatic transfers like that from business to business or no?
Naomi Riley:Business to business. No, I don't think you can do that. However, you know, if you are set up as a W-2 or you're on a payroll, yes, then those disbursements can be done that way. But if you are a contractor, then you have to do that personally and I would check with your accountant to see on how you want to make sure that that is done. So you know, if you're and again, this goes for the business owner too If you are, you know, setting aside an income for yourself on a monthly basis, make sure that you're line-idling, itemizing what you want to go into maybe a 401k, a Roth, all of those things that are very important as we age, Exactly you can forget, you know.
Jennifer Johnson:and then, all of a sudden, five years have gone by, and then we're behind Exactly.
Naomi Riley:There's some really good sources out. Stash app is a really, really good one where you can invest little increments into new stocks that are coming out. I always recommend that because you can invest very, very little, but it will increase over time. So another thing is look at where were your? How did your investments perform? Did you? Are you good on your debt management? Do you have high interest credit cards? Maybe think about consolidating those credit cards into something smaller. A lot of the credit card carriers will offer a 12 month introduction at a 0% rate. So if you can get on one of those offers and consolidate, you're really eliminating your interest rates and that more and more of those as of late.
Naomi Riley:Yeah, you know another thing for setting goals and intentions for the new year thing for setting goals and intentions for the new year. So you know, one thing that you're going to want to do is what are your top financial priorities for the coming year? Are you planning on buying a home, saving for retirement, paying off debt? Right, I encourage you to write them down and focus on making sure they get done. You know what things, what expenditures maybe I could eliminate to like pay down that debt or save up for that down payment for my house. You know those things are really important.
Jennifer Johnson:And if they're not in front of you, you don't remember them right. I have, I do this intentions at the beginning of every year and I have it on a bulletin board right next to my desk so I can see that. And there's buckets there's the money bucket, there's the personal bucket, there's the relationship bucket, and it's a visual. I can see it. Yes, it's so important.
Naomi Riley:Put it at your desk so that you're looking at it every day. If you work in an office setting, just put it around you, making sure that you are looking at it every day. If you are working remote, maybe stick it on your laptop or make a sticker out of it. Do something where you're checking it out every day to hone in on those goals that you want to get done for the year. Smart, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound goals can set you to achieve these priorities. And you know what are the specifics. So smart is that we say what are the S stands for specific, so what are the specifics of your goals? And then measurable, that's the M part.
Jennifer Johnson:What are?
Naomi Riley:the measurable amounts that you can use to. You know, put into these, these accounts, or what your savings. Are the achievable, what can you achieve? You know a lot of people work paycheck to paycheck and I understand that can be very difficult, but possibly look at some of the things that you might be able to do to add to your income, if that is a an issue for you. You know there's a lot of things that you can do online now, especially with the revolution of AI, now that we're seeing, and you know I actually, you know, do consult and share a lot of ways that you can monetize with AI.
Naomi Riley:And so, you know, don't limit yourself to say, hey, this is who I am, this is what I do and this is the only amount that I can make. Exactly, that's the point, yeah, so set aside a couple hours to explore something new and and learn. You know, we're always growing and evolving, and so it should be an important part of our daily life to learn about new things. Whether we want to pursue that or not, that's up to us, but at least we're learning about something new, and we're to pursue that or not, that's up to us, but at least we're learning about something new and we're training our mind to say, hey, I might be able to do this, I might be able to add a little bit more to my income.
Jennifer Johnson:And a lot of the times it's about being open to it, because you can't be the kind of person who no, I don't do computers. And I will tell you. I fell into that trap for a long time. I don't do numbers, I hate numbers Truly. I do hate numbers, but I kept saying I don't math, I don't do this, and what did I not do? I didn't math, I didn't learn how to do things that I should have learned how to do. And then my husband, who does all of our he's our CFO ended up in the hospital and here I am.
Jennifer Johnson:I have no idea what I'm supposed to do or how I'm supposed to do this. I don't even know how to check it at account balance. Oh no, but we put limitations on ourselves by what we say to ourselves and what we say to other people. So don't say I can't. You know, I'm not good with technology or I'm not good with numbers, because you are what you what you right.
Naomi Riley:Yes, absolutely what you ask right.
Naomi Riley:Yes, absolutely. And you know, as we grow and evolve, you know there's more and more opportunities for us to, you know, learn different things and make sure that we're setting our, our legacy up to be protected right. So, as small business owners and people in finance are, you know, working toward our goal, we want to make sure that we are having that book that has our proper passwords, our sign-ons, I know right, but, god forbid, if something ever were to happen to us, we want to make sure that we're protecting all of our IP and everything that we have to make sure that whomever is going to take over our businesses, it flows very easily for them. I think that's it's. It's it's our adult report card, our you know everything that we are. We're working as it's kind of like our adult report card.
Jennifer Johnson:People really, for you know, like I didn't think about it until that point, I I know that I keep my password somewhere, but then you go in, uh, just talking about passwords, for a second I'll go in and change it because, oh, I can't remember my password and I'm not near my book. So, password and then not remember to change it in the book, and then nobody can get into the account, and you know, and you can't.
Naomi Riley:Yeah, you know, in the accounting world over here we work with a lot of small business owners and we do that, we've done here in house accounting, and so we will have to contact the business owners.
Naomi Riley:Obviously, the banks are very, very hard to, you know, get into and when we have the flows that go through, we have to do this, hey, put in the code and all of this, and you know it is, it is time consuming, but it is a really really good way to protect yourself, your business and then any of your, you know, descendants that you know could potentially help take over your business. Another thing that I want to really emphasize, too, is making sure that you have enough insurance for down the road to cover all of your expenses as well, because business owners, you know we get so busy in our daily lives and making sure that you know everything comes and all the income comes in and all the expenses go out on a monthly basis. That is really important. But we want to make sure that you're line iteming everything and every cost that you have so that it's easy for someone, you know, looking at it from a bird's eye view and saying, oh, this is easy, this is a great company. They got it all together Right.
Jennifer Johnson:Because it also makes you when you determine it's time to exit, to sell your business.
Naomi Riley:Absolutely. You want to show those, those quarterly profit and losses, those yearly profit and losses and your tax returns are going to be important to you. Verified tax returns are huge with any business exit. Tax returns are huge with any business exit. So you definitely want to make sure that all of your checks and balances are right there in order, you know.
Jennifer Johnson:Going back to the budgeting and spending bucket for a second, I did this, and I'm trying to do it once a quarter now, but I did it last year, kind of at the end of the year, and we took our bank statements for business and personal separately of course and went through and went what's this charge, what's this charge? And now, granted, I'm sure you're going to say you should probably do that monthly, but it's difficult.
Naomi Riley:What's that? It's difficult, I understand.
Jennifer Johnson:But I found all of these little things that I, oh I had subscribed to this or this or this. I don't even know what it is. I'm not using it. Why did I sign up for it? So you're basically kind of doing an audit of everything that you spent during the year and then going in and canceling all of those automatic subscriptions. Yes, oh my gosh, I can't tell you how much money. It's ridiculous. And now I'm trying to do it once a quarter because I see how much money I wasted on something that I didn't even know I had.
Naomi Riley:Yes, it's very, very important that you're doing that because, again, I am the same. I am a guilty party of that one right there. The subscription yeah, definitely. Just doing that audit to make sure that you are not paying for something that you shouldn't be paying for anymore is huge. Another thing that you want to do is to protect your credit. I know that there's been a lot of fraud out there with so many individuals, and so I do have a lot of resources for individuals that have dealt with fraud issues. So make sure that you're checking your credit report at least once a quarter, and if you have any issues, I do have some resources that you can go to to, you know, check into those and dispute what you need to dispute.
Jennifer Johnson:So onto the credit check thing is there like one site that's better than all of them for them to be able to go to, to do that on a quarterly basis, or maybe an automatic Every quarter? Yeah?
Naomi Riley:Well, my free annual credit report is something that you're allowed to have every single year. Otherwise, transunion, equifax, those are really good at giving you your credit report. I think you get one credit report if you go to the actual website per year, so I would definitely look at that. I know that a lot of them now have subscriptions where they will flag saying, hey, your credit reports being monitored or is there an issue? You know something going on, and so that is that's really important Because, again, you know that's that's our adult report card. But I understand my myin-law was a victim to credit fraud and it takes a long time to get those things removed and it does impact your credit score.
Jennifer Johnson:It certainly does. It does, and we don't think about that every day. It's not the typical crime that we think about, but it is every single day. I mean, we've recently had it at a post office near us, so it's, it's, it's crazy, for certain.
Naomi Riley:Yeah, you know, and I I'm more than happy to leave you guys with a small business planner, that I use and I recommend it always helps to just really hone in and just say, okay, here is, you know, my quarterly expenses. It's got a lot of great ideas for you to, to really just like dive in and say, okay, here's what I need to do and here's, here's the things that I need to really focus in on. And then also, you know what can I eliminate from the budget or my expenses, you know to and also increase my income. We live in a in an age of new revolutions and new AI, so there's a lot of opportunities to make money online right now, wonderful.
Jennifer Johnson:Is there anything that we've forgotten?
Naomi Riley:No, I think that, yeah, I'm so happy to have been here and to share with you, you know, our thoughts on just preparing for this year and making sure that your your income and expenses and profit losses are all aligned.
Jennifer Johnson:Awesome, and if they want to get your planner that you have or get in touch with you, how can they do so?
Naomi Riley:Well, you can put it in the show notes. I'm giving everyone that listens to this one for free, and then they can go to NaomiLRileycom to learn more about who I am and what I do.
Jennifer Johnson:Thank you so much for being on today and enlightening our listeners on how they can get their financial house in order for the new year. Appreciate it very much. Thank you so much, jennifer, and thank you to all my listeners. We'll see you again.
