10 Years of Entrepreneurship - Part 2

In Part 2 of my 10 Years of Entrepreneurship series, I’m sharing one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned: making money and building wealth are not the same thing.

We hear so much about revenue, but not enough about keeping, saving, and investing what the business earns.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the House of CEO podcast, where entrepreneurship meets intention. I'm your host, Nikondra Moran, here to share how building a business with purpose can create freedom and balance in life. Join me in inspiring guests as we explore exciting stories and insights that help entrepreneurs align their work with their values so you can craft a business and life that truly reflect who you are. Let's begin the journey to success on your own terms.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Hey, hey, welcome to another episode of the House of CEO. I have been talking about 10 years of entrepreneurship. And if you missed part one, I encourage you to go back and take a listen to it. For part two, I would say one thing that I have learned, not only from myself, but for a lot of business owners being behind the scenes, is I would say that making money and building wealth are not the same thing. One of the biggest things that I've noticed, especially in the small business space, is how much we are obsessed with talking about revenue. We are hearing about the six-figure year. We are talking about a five-figure month. We are selling, okay, you can make the six-figure month, a seven-figure year, how much somebody made from a launch, how quickly somebody scaled their business. And really, it is this selling point, which is really smoky mirrors, to be honest. It is really obsessing and selling over revenue. A lot of us are attracted to that kind of marketing, right? Because revenue is important. Being able to make money is important. Being able to create an offer and sell it is important. But what I like to talk about and what I think we really don't talk about enough is what happened after the money actually came in. What did it cost you to make that money? How much of it did you actually keep? How much of it went towards your team? What did you have to pay for you to be able to bring that in? I am more interested in what the profit is, how much you actually made, what it took for you to make it. Did you have to work 60 hours a week to produce it? Did you have to hire a bunch of people to deliver it? How much of it actually stayed in your business? I am more so focused on that than actually the revenue. To me, revenue is that is a shiny object syndrome. That is a form of just like smoky mirrors. I'm always most interested in what is behind the scenes. And likely so, right? That's what I do for a living. So, but I would say here in part two, you can make a lot of money, you all, and still not build wealth. And you can be great at sales, you can be great at marketing. A lot of us are. You can be great at closing the deal, you can have money coming into the business, but still really not have a plan. So you can spend as much money, you all, producing the sale as you earn from the sale, and still be very financially anxious and still sell other, sell a product that's based on revenue when you are feeling that financial anxiousness as well, because there's really no plan, right? And financial anxiety is not going to go away just because your revenue increases. So people think the answer is, well, I just need to make more money. No, that's not the only answer. Because if you don't have a plan or a structure for the financial increase, what's going to happen is your expenses are going to increase, or you have no direction into what exactly you're trying to accomplish, right? So as you increase, your personal spending increases, and before you know it, you are making all of this money, but you still feel like you are making very little. And it's because there is no plan. The revenue increases, but the expenses increase, the team gets bigger, software gets more expensive, then you go back, you invest in more programs, your lifestyle increases. And so I've really had to really tweak my business model over the years to really create sustainability for my business and really get down to a lot of what I talk about in the house of CEO: like what are your core values? What are the actual systems that need to be in place? Because a lot of the times we are taught to make money, but we are not taught what to actually do with the money once we actually get it and what systems are coming into place. And that's the stuff that's not so glamorous. That's that inner work, that's that what we call that shadow work. We don't want to do that work because we're attracted to the revenue. We're attracted to the sale, we're attracted to just bringing in money. But when we have to go and check up under the hood and do some stuff under the hood, that stuff is not as sexy. It's not as exciting. It's not something that we want to do. We don't want to clean the house, right? But we have to do that because that is what translates making money to actually creating wealth, thinking about your retirement, thinking about taxes, thinking about your family, your kids, all of the plans like that you have for you and your husband and your future. So I guess that's what I'll leave you with today. That making money and building wealth are two separate things. And just because you are making money, it doesn't take away the financial anxiety that you may have if you don't have a plan or structure to actually keep it. And if you are feeling that in your business, that is a sign that you have work that you need to do around creating structure and financial systems to help create a plan. And maybe that looks like you can't take so much out of your business. Maybe that looks like having a structure payroll, having a budget, making sure that you have a system for what the money does in your business after each launch, what it does after each month, right? It's creating a plan. And so I will leave you with that. And I will say that revenue matters, profit matters, and learning how to manage it, learning how to keep it, and learning how to direct it is going to be that thing that helps you to grow as a business owner, have sustainability as a business owner, and really create what it is that you are really wanting to do with your business. For the finances, that systems piece, that sustainability piece is so key. And I want to leave that with you. So I'm hoping you're able to take what I'm trying to say out of this podcast, but it is so important for so many business owners and really want will unlock a lot of the financial stuff that you may be experiencing, anxiety-wise, stress-wise, that is really the missing key that will unlock the sustainability that your business needs. It'll prevent you from saying yes to things that you really want to say no to, to being able to make decisions from a place of alignment. Maybe you don't want to launch this year, maybe you don't want to launch every quarter, but you're doing things because you are on this treadmill and you can't get off. So this is the missing piece to being able to slow down, right? If you need to take a break, if you need to, or to hop onto another exercise machine if you need to, right? So hope this was helpful. That was part two.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

I will see you in the next podcast episode. Thank you for tuning in to the House of CEO podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who would benefit from these insights. For more updates and resources, follow me on social media or visit Nicondramoran.com. Remember, success is yours to define. Keep building a business and life that reflects who you truly are. Until next time, take care.