As writers we often think we shouldn't have to bother with something like money. Nothing could be further from the truth. Join me as I interview Money Coach, Dawn Kennedy, who gives a lot of top notch advice when it comes to managing your money as a writer.
As writers we often think we shouldn't have to bother with something like money. Nothing could be further from the truth. Join me as I interview Money Coach, Dawn Kennedy, who gives a lot of top notch advice when it comes to managing your money as a writer.
Hi, and welcome to the writing and Marketing Show brought to you by author Wendy H. Jones. This show does exactly what it says on the tin. It's jam packed with interviews, advice, hints, tips and news to help you with the business of writing. It's all wrapped up in one likely podcast. So it's time to get on with the show. Welcome to Episode 52 of the writing and Marketing Show with author entrepreneur, Wendy Jones. Yes, you heard that right, Episode 52. We've reached the magical one year mark on the writing and Marketing Show. So we should be having birthday cake today. But due to the lockdown, there's not much cake around in the house because I'm not much of a baker. I'm better, right and I'm a baking and, and there's, I'm not going to the shops. So hey, I'm still in lockdown. But I'm still celebrating one year of the writing and Marketing Show. And as it's one year, I've got a really cracking guest. Today, I'm going to be speaking to Dawn Kennedy and she is a money coach. And we're going to be talking about something that is very often not covered, or should I say not very often covered in terms of the in terms of writing, it's the money aspect and how you manage your finances on the money side of your business. And I think that's extremely important. And particularly so in the times in which we live, which are in the middle of COVID, because COVID is still going on. Now one of the things that has come out of it all is that and I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of why. But the social media platform parler has been pulled because it was a free speech platform it mainly dealt with politics are and people were saying that it had a lot to do with what happened in America. And as I say, I'm not going into the politics of what happened in Washington, because this is not a political, political podcast. But what happened was overnight, anybody who was using parler, it was pulled, it was pulled from every single platform, Apple, Google, and Amazon all pulled it and so did a lot of the smaller platforms. So I'm using this as an example. I'm using it as an example. Because we've got to be careful what we use, we can never guarantee that anything we're using any social media platform whatsoever, will last forever, it could go overnight. And then you're in a difficult situation, if you've been using that platform as the main source of your advertising or promotion for your books, which is I think another good reason to remember that email, and your own website are the only two places that you control. So build them, build them up and focus on building them up. Because there are a lot of other ways of promoting I agree. And I use them as well. But if they go, then you have a problem. Before we speak to dawn, I would just like to say it's an absolute pleasure to bring you this podcast every week. And I do so willingly. And I do it so that I can help you However, it does take time out of my writing. And if you would like to support this time and tell me that you enjoyed the podcast, then you can do so by supporting it by for just $3 a week, a week, it's not a week, heavens, that's a lot of money,$3 a month, which is the price of a tea or coffee per month, and you can support the show. And you can let me know that you enjoy what I'm doing and that you would like it to continue for another year. Because I really would like it to continue for another year, 10 years, 20 years and bring you value. So just go to patreon.com/WendyhJones and you can support me for the price of only $3 per month. I've got it right this time. It's always a good thing if I get it right. So what I've done I'm going to introduce her. Dawn Kennedy is an attorney, financial coach, author and serial entrepreneur, who is passionate about helping small businesses thrive in the face of unexpected market changes by ensuring there is a plan to protect financial milestones and a plan for the company's successful growth. She gained an extensive background in programme management and strategic planning, working for the US Army and as a consultant for companies in both the government and private sectors are focused on financial coaching began when she faced some tough financial lessons with you and EQ consulting, LLC, a six figure consulting business she ran with Her husband, Mike, on November 1 2013, Mike had a near fatal fall 18 feet off a ladder. And by the grace of God, he survived their company did not. Mike went into rehabilitation, and they were forced to confront the stack of bills they could no longer pay. It took 39 months, but they paid the business and personal debt off at a total of over 60$76,000. Today, she applies the lessons learned from un EQ, and her training as a financial coach, project manager, strategic planner, and attorney to work with other entrepreneurs to implement positive and powerful changes to help their businesses thrive and grow. Excuse me, Dawn solves problems with creative options to get results. So without further ado, let's get on with the show. And hear from dawn. Hi, Dawn, and welcome to the writing and Marketing Show.
Dawn Kennedy:Hey, Wendy, thanks so much for inviting me. I'm really excited to be here.
Wendy Jones:Hey, it's great to have you. Now. Where are you in the States? Do you mind telling us?
Dawn Kennedy:Sure. I'm in Van Wert, Ohio. So,I'm in a small farming community on the border of Ohio and Indiana. So up in the Midwest,
Wendy Jones:right. Okay, so what time is it for you?
Dawn Kennedy:It's about 830 in the morning,
Wendy Jones:830 in the morning, what is we forgot half our day gone? We're halfway through the afternoon here. So welcome to Scotland and welcome to the show. And I'm very excited to have you here today. Because I think talking about money on the financial side of writing is really important. And what better topic to have for our one year anniversary. It's our birthday today.
Dawn Kennedy:Well, happy birthday, I am really excited to be this episode. And yes, talking about money is you know, critically important and something I don't think we're comfortable doing very often.
Wendy Jones:No, certainly not as writers we're not, it seems a bit of a I'm not Don't take this the wrong way, Dawn. But as writers we seem to think that talking about money is a bit of a dirty topic. You know, it's up there with some of the other words in the dictionary that you shouldn't be saying, you know, but I really am glad to have you. Because whatever our thoughts, we do need to worry about money, we do need to worry about our finances, and particularly saw at the moment, which was why I was so excited for you to be able to come on the show. So thank you for taking the time.
Dawn Kennedy:Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Wendy Jones:Yeah, so as I've already alluded to, most writers would say they only want to write and they don't want to worry about money. So what would you say to them?
Dawn Kennedy:So I think the first thing is the perception that writers have to be starving. I think there's this starving artist and I see it not just with writers but with other creatives that it's okay to be starving because I am a whatever fill in the blank. But the fact is, you're a business owner, and you are self employed, and you're actually running the business of you. And to run a business, you must have some money. And when people say they just want to write and not worry about the money, what they're saying is, I'm not interested in you know, protecting, growing and developing the business of me, which is the income generating and income, you know, revenue generating source of my business.
Wendy Jones:You know, that is so true. Because most writers, I think, forget that they are running a business. Yeah. And you put it perfectly the business of you is absolutely perfect. Because nobody thinks of that. They don't think themselves as a brand, the business, they just think themselves as a writer. So what do you mean, you've absolutely put your finger on that, that you're saying you're not interested in yourself if you say you're not interested in money?
Dawn Kennedy:I think so. And I think that this misconception comes out because people think they don't need money to necessarily be happy. And we tie money to some emotional state when in reality, money is the engine that keeps you able to write and bring your gifts to the world. So as a writer, you've been given certain gifts and storylines and things that you are, you need to bring out what they need to happen. But you can't right. And also hold you know, a day job at the exact same time. There are some people who do you know, right part time, but really honestly, the goal should be to spend the majority of your time in your zone of genius, bringing forth your products. And in order to do that you have to be compensated. We do not live in a world where you cannot live without money.
Wendy Jones:No, that's so true. Now, ahvign read hyour bio. I mean, you certainly had a rough trot when it came to becoming financially stable. I'm going to help people in I hope people in America understood understand what I'm saying when I saya rough trot because, you know, we speak differently, but what are the lessons Would you say you learned from your own situation?
Dawn Kennedy:So I'm going to say the very first one is don't ignore your money. And the reason I say that is because we actually didn't realise that we were in as much trouble as we were with our debt. We just didn't, we never had a full picture. And even though, you know, we would pay what was right in front of us what we absolutely needed to take care of. I would say, in a way we did ignore the rest, we didn't know our balances, we didn't know who we owed money to. And that ignorance cost us a lot more in the long run, because we, I mean, we had the the emotional toll of having that kind of be brought to our attention at the same time, that we had this emotional toll based on my husband's accident and things. So had, we had at least an inkling of what was going on have we had an awareness of it, I think it would have been easier to go Okay, well, at least we know where we stand. And instead, it was the secondary punch to the gut, that we didn't even realise how much trouble we were in when we lost our business. So that's number one, do not ignore your money. You don't have to be a financial advisor, you don't have to have an MBA, but at least know who you owe, how much and be willing to have that awareness face that. The second one is to have and keep a financial goal in front of you. If you don't have a financial goal that you're working towards, whether it's building up a savings, or if it's paying off debt or doing and you don't have that in front of you, it is way too easy, especially today, to spend money on other things or to use your money on other things. I actually had a conversation with somebody the other day about how people have been using Amazon and other online shopping things as kind of self soothing and comforting themselves, during the lockdowns and during COVID and things and, you know, they don't realise what they're necessarily spending, because it's so easy with one click. But if they had a financial goal in front of them that they were working towards, that didn't really permit that or did it that wasn't serving them, they could make the decision not to spend money on those things. And by making that decision, they could honour the goal that they're working towards. So always having keep a financial goal in front of you. It doesn't have to be huge. It just needs to be there. And then the third one, and this goes to us getting out of debt in 39 months is if you're committed, everyone will be paid eventually, after the accident, you know, people were screaming for their money right away, because we owed business credit cards and things and you know, they would call on the phone, we would make arrangements with them. They wouldn't like those arrangements. somebody tried to sue us those kinds of things. But here's what happened. We were committed to taking care of it. And we would calmly say over and over again, you know, we will take care of it, we will keep our arrangement. And eventually everybody was paid off, including our internal revenue service where we owed back self employment taxes. And they were $27,000 that we had to come up with. And we did that for about two and a half years. But this idea that, you know, it looks like it's forever out there, it's going to take me I hear this all the time. Boy, it's going to take forever for me to do that, oh my gosh, it's going to take that that may feel that way. But if you are committed to whatever it is, you're committed around debt around savings and things, it will get there, eventually, you will get there as long as you stay the course.
Wendy Jones:Now, they're really good lessons. So thank you for sharing them. And thank you for being so honest. And because I think it's true that most of us are not aware of how much money's in the bank because we never look at our bank account. Right. And especially at the moment, I agree with what you're saying about Amazon, but when you do go out, you're literally just using contactless. Nobody wants any money. So you're using contactless for everything? And that's no way can you follow what you're spending when you're using contactless?
Dawn Kennedy:Yeah. Yes, it's very true. And that is kind of what they've designed over time, because they have proven with studies that you spend more money if you don't use cash. So if you're using a debit card, or if you're using contactless or something like that, um, you know, you will spend and I believe that statistic is an average of 18% more in that transaction than you would if you used cash. Wow.
Wendy Jones:Yeah. Because it's easy. You just wave your phone, you don't even have to get a debit or credit card out anymore. Right?
Dawn Kennedy:Yeah, it does. It makes it very, very easy. And they, you know, again, that the marketing that goes behind that the retail sales that go behind that, I mean, there is a reason for it, and it's does benefit the merchant and the vendor much more than it benefits the consumer? Yeah,
Wendy Jones:yeah. But to anyone who is listening to your story, and saying, I don't even know where to start getting out of debt, what advice would you give as a possible starting point?
Dawn Kennedy:So my number one advice. And the number one thing I have all of my own clients do, and I did myself was stopping the auto pay. And in fact, I still have very few things on auto pay just the things like my zoom account and things that I have to I pay everything intentional, I am intentional with my money. Nobody else has access to my checking account. But me. And by doing that, I control the cash. And by controlling the cash, I can control who gets paid, and when. So you can have a strategy to get out of debt. And you can have a strategy to pay things and you can have a strategy to save money. But you can't do that if other people are actually going into your account and taking money out. Because they you know, you risk a cash flow issue, you risk a bounced check, these things happen. And you know, those other people could care less what happens to your account, if you have been like going in every month and taking money. Visa couldn't care less if your water gets cut off.
Wendy Jones:Yeah, no, again, that's true. Because with auto pay, things come out all through the month, and you think, oh, I've got you know, $800 left, and then you discover you've actually only got $50? Because you've got so many different bills coming out. And you haven't budgeted for that, because it's not in your brain?
Dawn Kennedy:Yes. So a lot of my businesses, I actually have them doing things like paying bills twice a month, and taking paychecks twice a month. And I and I do this myself. So we will sit down and we pay bills, basically twice a month. Yeah. And we write all the checks that we need to write. And we live in a very small farming town. So we run our little checks out, because we have to pay for our trash service. And we pay for our propane and things like that. And that's all paid locally with checks. But you know, even if it isn't, you sit down and you say, Okay, I pay my bills on the first and 15th, or the fifth and the 20th, or the eighth and the 23rd, whatever works for you, your due dates, your you know, vendors, that kind of thing. It really does put you in control of your money where somebody is not going into your account every single day. And it does allow you to manage, again, who gets paid how much and when, when we were in severe financial trouble. There were times where I had to pay the electric bill in two separate payments, I had to have it, I paid half one time and half the next time. And if I would not have been in control of that money, I wouldn't have had the freedom to do that. I mean, they still got paid, but I didn't honestly have the money to pay them what they needed all at once. So I would pay half the bill. And then I would pay half the next time. Or I would pay one, you know, the first week in the third week, I would pay it in two instalments. And there were a couple times where it got really, really tight. And I paid half the electric bill one month, the next month, I paid half the water bill. And I had to kind of juggle and do that. But I wouldn't have had the opportunity to do that juggling and keep everything turned on. If I had not had control of my money,
Wendy Jones:yeah, no. Again, it's solid advice. I'm taking it all in and writing things down. And because it is it's so important. And I want to go back to the fact that authors only want to write and nothing else. I'm a bit like a dog with a born with this one. They might not want to do anything else, but they still have to price their books and services now. And I know if somebody is traditionally published, the Publisher Sets the prices, but then they have to sign a contract saying how much money they're getting off the publisher, you know, so and they need to know how much money is going to be coming in, really. So. But most authors don't know how to go about pricing their books and services. Is that a formula or anything they need to take into consideration to price their books, or even services their courses appropriately?
Dawn Kennedy:Absolutely. So one of the things that people forget is their their monthly operating expenses. But before I go there, I want to talk about as a writer, it is very hard sometimes to imagine recovering some financial benefit to all the hours you put into developing your work. It is much more difficult than somebody who say like a jewellery designer, who knows that it takes you know, an hour and a half to make a certain piece. And so we can put $1 figure to what they want to recover. So I'm going to start by saying I understand that writing is hours and hours and hours and having an hourly rate that you recover, you know actually could be very difficult to calculate and could give people you know, a little bit of a pause about taking a formula Because it would seem more complicated, yeah. But two things that have to happen is one is you need to know how much you need to recover for your personal money. So knowing what your own personal money needs are your four walls, unless you have a business, then you have business for wealth as well. So you know, on average, what do you need each month for food for your rent or mortgage for your transportation for all of your utilities? Having that as a base as an operating figure that you would use? You know, how many months did it take you to write this particular piece of work? How many months of operating expenses Did you basically put out during the time that this was in development and being written, so having that number there gives us a place to start for you to recover money for your personal needs. And, you know, profit margin, of course, is another thing that people don't think about plugging into a number. So if you were to consider your operating costs, let's say, operating costs, let's say that it took you five months to develop this particular piece of work, and your operating costs every month, or $3,000, or 3000 pounds, you're looking at a$15,000 base amount of money you need to make back in your sales, that is the minimum that you need to make back in order to cover what it is that in reality, you loaned the book. And if you will, so that is money that you that's real money that came out of your pocket that you had to spend in order to develop and create this work. So we would call that basically your operating costs. And that would be you know, this this base amount of money that you'd want to make sure that you made back, then we would want to do a profit margin of some kind. So maybe the profit margin that's appropriate would be 30%, maybe the profit margin that's appropriate would be 40%. And we would take a profit margin, either on top of the operating expenses, or we would just call it 40%. And we would figure out whatever our base cost ends up being, we're just going to tack on that much more money. And there are costs associated with developing this work, there's research, there's, there's all kinds of things and we can go ahead and put $1 amount into those particular hours. So maybe we can't sit down and say, it took me 200 hours to write the book. Or maybe we can, but draft saying and, you know, rewriting and things like that, you know, how do we compensate for those things, you know, we want to get a figure that we want to recover. And then we would add that to the operating expenses. So let's say that for revenue, for example, let's say we did take 200 hours to write the book. And we wanted to be paid$40 an hour for writing, right? So 200 times 40, that's $8,000. If we were to add that $8,000 to the 15,000 of our operating costs, we would end up with$23,000, which is not very much money. But if we were going to go ahead and then put a profit margin on top of that, you know, we could put a profit margin 10% would be another 2300, which again, is not very much money. You know, this is just an example, you know, where at$25,000 would be the minimum we would need to recover, to make anything on the book ourselves. And we could do that by the number of expected sales, which is easier if you have a volume out there before and you know how to generate book sales. But you would go ahead and then you could divide that by the number of books that are expecting to be sold. But leaving out an operating costs leaving out a profit margin is actually going to cost you a lot of money, you really need to consider all of those things. And if there was an hourly that you can put your finger on the number of hours it took you, we can always recover that as well. I just know that for some people, it's a little bit harder to figure out, you know, the hourly that they actually put into their work. Yeah,
Wendy Jones:no, they're really good points. But what the other thing that we need to take into consideration is that the cost, the expected cost of books, price of books, in different countries. So for example, I was doing book signings in America a couple of years ago. And when I was in the bookstores, I was looking at the prices thinking Gosh, these are expensive and there's just no way these books would sell for that price in Britain and I'm talking about even if you even if you you know, take the conversion rate, the into consideration from dollars to pounds, right is far, far far higher in America than it is in the UK. Now we have no tax on books in the UK. So pay only what people pay for that price of the book, say $25. But they were paying tax on top of it, which was taking up to you know, needed $30 for a paperback book that was in the UK. It just wouldn't. That's interesting.
Dawn Kennedy:Yeah, I'm not familiar with some of the overseas markets, but that is definitely something you, you do need to consider. If we have a base amount that we need to recover, let's just say in our hypothetical example, it took you 200 hours to write it, you wanted to put a profit margin on there, and then it costs you, you know, you did it over five months. And you know, you spent$15,000 in operating expenses. In other words, your, your food, your, you know, utilities, and all those things, put that together. And let's say that the total came out to $60,000. By the time you were done, we would want to make sure that we had the expected number of sales to get to that 60,000 mark. And, you know, sometimes I think for new writers, particularly, you don't necessarily know where you're going to sell and what volume, so it can be a little bit tricky. But you know, 60,000 you know, if you sold 10,000 books, you would have to sell them for 6000 or $6 apiece to make your money back.
Wendy Jones:Yeah. And my novels sell for 9.99 And my nonfiction books are 8.99. Okay. In the UK, which is about $10 is about a 10 pounds is about 13 $14.
Dawn Kennedy:Yeah, probably about Yeah, about 13.
Wendy Jones:Yeah, when I was in the UK, in the USA, people were buying my books like nothing else. And that's because they're cheap, like, frightfully ch ap. Everybody in Britain compla ns they're a bit expensive. ight, you know, so it's just d fferent perceptions. But there's not much we can do about that. I mean, we can discuss tha ad infinitum here, but there's nothing we can do about it, b cause it's just the different c untries and what is expected.
Dawn Kennedy:Right. That's just it, you know, we unfortunately are also, you know, at the whim of the consumer and what their perceived value is when we're pricing. Yeah, but just pricing a book and hoping to sell a bunch of copies isn't necessarily the best business model, because you don't know whether or not you're actually making back what you're putting in to generating the work.
Wendy Jones:Yeah. Yeah. So and, and what you've talked a bit about profit, because profits are key word when it comes to running a business. But many authors don't like to think in these terms, how would you help shift someone's mindset in regard to making a profit?
Dawn Kennedy:So it isn't just writers there for some reason, everybody wants to be the altruistic entrepreneur. I only work with low income people, I hear that so often, I only serve people that do this, or I don't need to make that much. That's the other one that that I hear all the time. And the fact is this profit is impact. If you're not making a profit, you can't have a level of impact above anybody else who works a job where you live. If you're not making profit, how can you be insanely generous and donate to the causes? That means something to you? How can you hire people, whether it's a cleaner for your home, or an editor or anything, you can't do those things without making a profit. Profit is not something that is, you know, extra or over. In some ways, profit is your duty as a business owner, because you really are the only engine that is going to generate additional money in the marketplace, to support other people causes allow you to do volunteer work, all of these kinds of things. And when you look at profit as impact people go, Oh, it's okay to make a profit. Of course, it is 90% of the money that is really given to a lot of organisations is privately raised. And that's globally. Yeah. You know, the way that you generate money and income, it's privately, it's through the sales of goods and services or investments. And if you are in the marketplace, and you're not willing to generate profit, then it's no different than you just having a job. It's no different than you just being employed by someone else, and giving a portion of your savings. And you know, around the world, there are places where people tied 10% you know, those kinds of things. But as a business owner, as a creative as somebody who has a gift to be able to generate profit, I think not doing so means you're not actually you know, doing your duty, you wouldn't have the entrepreneurial spirit, you wouldn't have these gifts, you wouldn't be a person who can generate these things. If you didn't also have an innate sense that you were made for something more, and you wanted to bring this to the world. Well, why not bring money to the world as well? Why not? Go ahead. And make a contribution and make a I don't know it. I mean a commitment, right? I mean, I know an entrepreneur here in the United States, you just committed to a local organisation or not a local, but a national organisation that deals with, you know, trial, child trafficking, basically. And the way that they go about it in these types of things, it costs anywhere from 12,000 to$50,000, to rescue these children. And you know what he did, he committed to supporting that organisation, which means he needs to make more money this year, but it's something he's passionate about, it's something that it's very important to him right now. And the price point didn't matter, because he could generate the income to cover it. If you get behind something where the price point doesn't matter, or you get behind something where you can make a huge difference with your private money, then I think we're more apt to say profits, a good thing profits, okay, it's being used in a noble way.
Wendy Jones:That's brilliant. Yeah. I mean, it's what a great way to think of it. And I am going to think of it in that that way in the future. So thank you, you're, what the steps should anyone who's listening to this tape today, in order to ensure they move towards a financially stable footing.
Dawn Kennedy:So the first thing is, again, going back and stop that auto pay, and start to get intentional with your money. So that's, that's number one. If we stop the auto pay, and we start to get intentional, we start to take control, we're actually going to start to feel more empowered with our money. And when we feel empowered with our money, we make decisions a little differently. Because we're not making them from a place of fear, like oh, my gosh, I need to take care of this. We're actually making it from a place of, I get to do these things, I have this money, I get to pay my electric bill, I have this money I get to do. So it's also a mindset shift when you are the one in control. And you don't feel like you're at the mercy of the credit card company going into your account, that kind of thing. Yeah. Number two, you need to get organised, you need to know basically, what you owe, to whom, and when, and that's personal or business. I have a sheet that I keep that tells me you know, who I owe, and the date that I owe them. And I have also on that sheet, contact information. So I'm not I, here's the story, I threw away an electric bill by accident one month, and we were living down in Georgia at the time. And our electric bill in the summer with the air conditioning running in the south was tremendous. $600 was not unusual, very, very high bill. And I threw the bill out one month accidentally. didn't mean it wasn't you know, and I didn't know that I didn't pay the bill because I wasn't organised. So I thought everything was I mean, there's no bill sitting here. So I must have paid them. All right. The fact is, that bill came the next month. And it had a past due amount of an incredible amount of money with a disconnect notice, with a new amount attached to it. And it was very unnerving and scary. Because you're looking at this number, and you're like, Oh, my gosh, you know, how do I owe this much money. And the fact is, I just wasn't organised, I didn't have it written down everywhere. You know, this bill got paid this month, this one, this one, this one. And when you have a list in front of you of what you owe, to whom, and when, with account numbers, and points of contact also, so that you can reach them if you need to, you can go down the list and go Yep, paid, get paid, get paid, oh, oh, I didn't get paid, Oh, I didn't get a bill for this this month. But let me call them and see how much of this, it actually keeps you in control of what you pay. And when, and then again gives you the freedom to pay a little bit less or a little bit more, or whatever it is that you need to do to protect your own money. And that is kind of the second thing. So if you take it all off, auto pay and control it, and then you go ahead and get organised, you know exactly where your money is all going. And the third one I have actually two so one is if you are a business, know your business for walls. And if you are a writer, again, I would argue that you are a business, you need to know the minimum amount that you need each month to keep yourself open and making money. So you have internet bills, you know, you have these other bills and things that are just part of doing business. But know what that number is and include a paycheck for yourself in that number. That is something that I see a lot of artists and creatives do is they have horrible cycles of feast and famine. You know, one month they make this and then three months later, they're broke. And then one month they get this huge check and three months later, they're broke. And it's very stressful to run life that way. Whereas if you have this cheque come in and you put it in the bank and you wrote yourself a paycheck every other week, you would be able to predict Your personal income, and you would be able to make that money last you through those three or four months or five months between checks. And, you know, I don't know how all publishing houses pay, but even you know, Amazon, they hold your royalties for several months. So I don't know if they do that in a traditional publishing house if they hold your royalties,
Wendy Jones:You only get paid wice a year
Dawn Kennedy:twice a year, okay, so it's even more important that you would put your royalty cheque in the bank, and that you would have a paycheck set up for yourself. So on, you know, 26 times a year, every other week, you write yourself a paycheck, that covers your taxes, and it covers your breakthrough number, so that you can live and that includes also your paycheck, what happens is we take the leftovers, right, we pay all the bills first and we have a leftover, that is really no way to live, we really need to start, you know, talking about the importance of taking your check first. And you do that by making your paycheck a priority. So if you have, you know, your check what you need net, to cover all of your expenses, plus, you know, a little for you, and your taxes built in there, then when you do get paid twice a year, there's no panic time, because you just you're just gonna you're you can predict, every other week, this is what I get, and I can manage my money.
Wendy Jones:Again, these a e fabulous tips, thank you. And I want to move on to your boo, because I know you're bringi g out a book and it's on p e order. Can you tell us bo h about the book and how you he p others as a money coac
Dawn Kennedy:I sure can, I'm ery proud of this book. So I do alk through the profit accelera or for small business talking o small business owners and solo reneurs, helping them take con rol of their money doing so e of the steps in here, there's few more steps in there, t ere's some worksheets in it an things. And I did this for two easons. One, you know, there's ome shame around money stuff. A d we hit on that a little b t. And this allows people t start taking control, sort of nonymously, they can get into this book, and they can follow t e step by step. And there's ctually going to be a workbook that comes with it that people c n get. It's just a free gift, bu they'll be able to follow t rough. And this will allow I hink, many more business owners to become empowere with their money, if they don t know where to start, or if th y don't think profits importan. You know, if they don't wa t to worry about their money, i's like, great, you don't ha e to worry about it, let's pu this system in place. And then you'll have a regular system t at we don't need to worry ab ut. But the key thing about my book is that it's not complica ed. Not everybody loves software not everybody loves, you know spreadsheets, not everybod loves those things. So I design d it also around financia personalities and the way that you relate to money. Because y number one goal with this boo is to have you stick to whate er you put in place. And you an't stick to it if you don't li e it. And I think that that's s mething that turns people o f in their money manageme t is, well you know, you're i business. Now you must use Quic Books or you're in business Now you must use this spreadsh et, garbage, you have a personal ty and a distinct relation hip to money. And I want to elp you find the system that wor s best for you that you may neve fall in love with managing your money, and I get that, bu you'll tolerate it and you'll d it and you'll stick to it. And ou'll reap all the benefits of doing it that way. And as a money coach, I do a lot of what' in the book. But often oftentim s, I have to take it a step fur her, because I help people i prove their profit margins, and I help them sustain and grow their businesses in a way that protects their finances After Mike and I had the acci ent, we realised that we had n t been protecting ourselve at our financial mileston. We were growing, we had hire we had done all those things, ut we did not actually have a s able foundation. And when all of the income went away, I ean, it all went away and we l st almost everything. Have we ust had this financial foundati n at each level of growth, e actually would have been in uch better shape. And you know there's there's certain trategies and things that we an do to protect business s, whether it's a solopren ur or if it's a freelanc r, or writer or a jeweller designer. I've worked with dog trainers, I've worked with bou ique owners, I've worked w th deli managers I've worked w th across industries, there ar just some certain specific strategic things we can do to he p you protect and grow, protect nd grow. And at each level, y u're making more money but more importantly, your business is keeping more profit, because just don't believe people s ould break even.
Wendy Jones:Excellent. And I've seen an arc and to be hones, it is a really good book ecause I'm very fortunate a d I saw an advanced reader c py so I've actually read it and it's a brilliant book. So, guys, it's well worth getting i It really is. And it's so hel ful and so useful. So what' it called again,
Dawn Kennedy:It's the profit accelerator for small business.
Wendy Jones:Right there you are the profit accelerator for small business. And so if you would like us to take one thing away from this podcast, what would it be?
Dawn Kennedy:empowered money management does not have to be complicated, you can pick any one of the things that we just talked about, and you will be a step ahead.
Wendy Jones:That's brilliant. That's absolutely so true. Thank you. Just choose one thing, guys. And you will be one step ahead. I love that. And I particularly like it because very often people will go you need to do this, you need to do that you need to do the other you need to and by that point, you've lost the world to live and you think I can't do all of that.
Dawn Kennedy:Yes, we just need to keep it so that people can take that first bold step. And whichever step you choose out of all of the things today, you know, notice how you feel. When you take that one step, you will be more empowered than you were before you listen to this podcast.
Wendy Jones:Yeah. Well, my podcasts have to come to an end. So this is my final question, which is where can my listeners find out more about you your book and your coaching business?
Dawn Kennedy:That's a great question. I am also known as the entree money coach, entrepreneurs money coach.
Wendy Jones:And so how do you spell that on tree?
Dawn Kennedy:It's E n t r e, and then just money coach and that is me on Facebook. On Instagram, my website is entre money, Coach calm. And all the information about my coaching business and everything are are there. And I also I'm on social media quite a bit. There are free resources on the website. So if you can remember that I'm the entree, money coach, you can find me anywhere.
Wendy Jones:Brilliant, brilliantly easy as well. Well, thank you very much, john, for taking time out of your busy day to join us.
Dawn Kennedy:I so appreciate this opportunity. And any questions or anything come up, please don't hesitate to reach out.
Wendy Jones:Yeah, I've learned so much. I really have. And I'm sure my listeners will as well. So thank you and all the best with your own book.
Dawn Kennedy:Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Wendy Jones:No worries. Have a good day.
Dawn Kennedy:You too.
Wendy Jones:That brings us to the end of another show. It was really good to have you on the show with me today. I'm Wendy h Jones. And you can find me at Wendy H jones.com. You can also find me on Patreon where you can support me for as little as $3 a month which is less than the price of a tea or coffee. You go to patreon.com forward slash Wendy h Jones. I'm also went to h Jones on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Thank you for joining me today and I hope you found it both useful and interesting. Join me next week when I will have another cracking guest for you. Until then, have a good week and keep writing. Keep reading and keep learning