Expand Your Fempire Podcast #35 Transcript

Planning for More Profit with Marcia Riner

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:25] This is Caterina Rando. Welcome to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. Today our guest is Marcia Riner. She is a business strategist, and she is all about helping you have more profit in your business. She has strategies. She has super tips. She has great ideas that we’re going to talk about today.

[00:00:54] Marcia started in financial planning and in the financial [00:01:00] advising world. She found that as she was working to grow her business and she was talking to other business owners, that they were having the same challenges she was having. She wanted to help business owners bridge the gap between running a business and having profit, because one doesn’t necessarily equal the other.

[00:01:25] We’re going to talk about many strategies so that you have more profit today with our guest Marcia Riner.

[00:01:33] Marcia, I am so excited to have you with us today to share your brilliance. Let’s get started.

[00:01:40] Marcia Riner: Well, thanks Caterina. I’m so honored to be part of this.

[00:01:43] Caterina Rando:  you know, the first thing I always like to ask is tell us a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey.

[00:01:51] Marcia Riner: Well, planning is super exciting for me. It’s that weird thing of being super creative on one side of my brain and I’m super analytical on the other side of my brain. And then just sprinkled pixie dust of ADD all over me. And I get super excited to talk planning.

[00:02:10] And when I look with my service-based businesses that I’ve worked with, I saw a common thread and the things that I was learning, I started sharing with them and They were like, “Wow, you need to do this more. You need to talk to us more about this.”

[00:02:25] And then that’s how I evolved into being a strategic planner and profit business strategist. It’s definitely a strange evolution, but that’s how I came to be. And I got to tell you, I love it.

[00:02:38] Caterina Rando: Well, one of the things I bet you love is that you love numbers. Would you say that Marcia?

[00:02:43] Marcia Riner: You know, I would say that I love what numbers represent, you know? I never was a strong person in math. I can’t add two and two without my calculator. But there is something to what numbers represent and yeah, that’s kind of geeky, and it makes people uncomfortable when they start to think about, “Oh, well, what does this financial statement mean? And what does it mean to be profitable? And what do you mean I can’t do that with my numbers?”

[00:03:11] And so I think I take it out of the traditional “here’s the numbers,” and I put it into everyday English so that the listener can really take that information and get it and it not be a foreign language.

[00:03:27] Caterina Rando: Let me ask you this question. What are the important numbers that people want to have their attention on when they have their own business? And where do you see that maybe there’s numbers that people are not having their attention on, that you want them to have their attention on?

[00:03:46] Marcia Riner: Well, you know There are percentages and pieces that you would pull out of ratios that you would pull out of your financial statements, but you know what, that just gets into that foreign language thing.

[00:03:56] I like to think about something super simple and I claim this because I want to coin it, you know? It’s a very simple math equation.

[00:04:06] Profitability in my mind is income plus expenses, not minus expenses plus expenses.

[00:04:14] So we look at things that we have to spend money on and how do we take them and make them generate income for us?

[00:04:23] So if we’re spending on two of our highest expenses as a business owner, which is usually office space and people, and there’s not much we can do on office space unless we own our own building.

[00:04:37] But let’s focus on people. How do we spend money on people and have that turn into an income generation for our business, right? You start looking for people who are either going to be client-facing, income-producing members of your business, or they are taking tasks off your desk so that you can be more forward-facing and income-producing. So people are a huge way to look at your numbers.

[00:05:07] But I think that’s one of the basic ones that you look at is “what am I spending my money on?”

[00:05:12] If I’m spending it on marketing, what am I doing to get that return on that investment and make that marketing dollar so much more expensive? Marketing tends to be one of those elusive things that, that people think, “Oh, I put money on, but I never really get a return on it, you know? I throw money on it and I don’t know if I’m getting business out of it.” unless they’re looking at their quote numbers.

[00:05:36] But it is a scary thing. But if you do the work prior to doing your marketing, then that’s where your marketing can start producing money for you.

[00:05:46] Caterina Rando: Well, what I’d really like to know is there a formula? Meaning, Hey, don’t exceed this much in what you spend on people. Your marketing should be about this percentage of your revenue. Don’t spend too much on overhead. Are there any formulas that you use or even guidelines that you would like to share?

[00:06:09] Marcia Riner: Well, when it comes to your expenses, you know, you have to figure out what is necessary.

[00:06:15] I think when it comes to office space, you know, and in getting more comfortable with the fact that you can work from home office space isn’t quite so important as it used to be. Unless you are practicing something like dentistry or chiropractic or some sort of service that requires hands-on work.  I think that having that office space in that overhead and that realm, should be re-evaluated.

[00:06:42] What do you need, you know? What can you get away with? And that’s a form of trimming your costs. I think when you’re looking at what you need, you know, that’s the basis. It’s not like 25% of your gross income is going to be spent on your building. It’s what you need.

[00:07:01] And you’re also asking about marketing. Marketing should truly pay for itself. So, if you’re investing, let’s just work a basic number. If you’re investing a thousand dollars a month, you should be netting five or $6,000 in new business because you spent that marketing.

[00:07:19] Now it doesn’t happen the day one, you do your marketing. But you should be getting a five or six times return on the amount of money you’re spending. Otherwise, you’re not doing the correct marketing, or you haven’t done the homework to be able to understand who that ideal client is.

[00:07:35] Caterina Rando: And Marcia what do you find are some of the things that business owners often are not looking at that they should be looking at when it comes to their profitability and their numbers?

[00:07:47] Are there things that you see over and over in working with your clients that get overlooked?

[00:07:55] Marcia Riner: You know, it’s kind of simple stuff. We do it in our personal lives as well. Subscriptions, organizations that we belong to, things that aren’t producing revenue for us, or not producing an opportunity for revenue. Those things get overlooked often.

[00:08:11] But I think they’re not looking at their operating costs. And so most all of my clients are service-based professionals. So, I try and stay away from those that are selling a widget, because then you start getting into cost basis and how you can drop down the cost of the materials you’re getting and the delivery, and the production and the manufacturing and all that kind of crazy stuff. Yuck. That’s a nightmare for me. 

[00:08:35] So when I talked to my service-based professionals and those are people that could be categorized as the actual professional sources, the doctors, the attorneys, the CPAs, those kinds of things, or it could even be someone who is going in and doing packing before a move or training physical, you know, for workout trainings or doing some sort of [00:09:00] a procedure on somebody.

[00:09:02] But when you look at that it’s the cost of what it costs you to actually do the service you’re doing. People forget to look at that.

[00:09:11] if you have to buy or rent the equipment, or if you have to hire the employees to help you execute it. A perfect example is a gal I work with she’s an organizer and she does packing and unpacking for high-end real estate folks. So, she does this for their clients. But the thing we noticed is that she didn’t understand what her project was actually going to cost her when she bid it out. She just figured, “Oh, I’ll bid this, and I should be okay.”

[00:09:45] But when I got her doing a project budget to figure out “okay, what do you estimate in labor? What do you estimate in supplies? What do you estimate in potential breakage? ” And you know, all these other pieces in here.

[00:09:59] Then once we did that, we got super clear on what her profit margin was. And then she understood, “Oh, I can go down this low if I have to negotiate, but ideally here’s the margin I wanted to get on this deal.” And so, it became clear, and many people don’t do that.

[00:10:17] Caterina Rando: That’s a very good point because I like you, Marcia all my clients are in service-based businesses and they just kind of pull a number out of the sky. And I’m sorry, I’m laughing, but it’s the truth.

[00:10:31] So one thing I want to say is that, like, I don’t really encourage them to look at, especially for service businesses, what Mary, Jane, and Sheila are charging. Because Mary, Jane, and Sheila may have a very different revenue model or different business or different expenses.

[00:10:49] That they have to look at what do they need to charge based on what they want to earn and what is the cost of the services that they’re selling? And this is a very important point that you’re making that it’s not just, “Oh, well, Tom, Dick and Harry you’re charging this, so I’ll charge that too,” but we really have to decide for our own business.

[00:11:11] Let me ask you this next, very important question. What amount of surplus or reserve revenue do you think a service business should have?

[00:11:25] Marcia Riner: Great question. And you know, it depends where they are in their cycle of business. As a startup, I’ve been asked this question, I don’t normally work directly with startups. My businesses are already in motion and going, but I was asked a couple of times recently about startups. How much money should you have? And we just got hit with a really nasty year 2020 that cost a many of us our savings to keep the lights on per se and the business moving.

[00:11:56] When we’re looking at that number, it’s just like our household income. In the household world, if you’re single, you should have six months of your household essential expenses in a reserve. If you’re married, both working, each should have three months of their household in the reserve.

Well, we want to look at that in our business as well. How much do I need to weather a storm?…And the only way you would know that is if you did the homework and you created a factual budget. -Marcia Riner

[00:12:14] Well, we want to look at that in our business as well. How much do I need to weather a storm? To be able to continue to pay the staff, pay the vendors that I have, and continue to market, which is a huge expense, but to continue to market for their business. And the only way you would know that is if you did the homework and you created a factual budget.

[00:12:43] And it’s funny, I like to say, “Budgets are not a diet, you know?” Because people cringe when they hear the word budget. A budget is simply a calculation of what has happened in the past and what you’re forecasting is going to happen in the future.

[00:13:00] And so if you have a calculation of your fixed expenses and your variable expenses… fixed meaning things that are always going to be the same and variable are things dependent upon the business that you do. You’ll have a pretty good idea of what you need to cover each month in income to be able to support the expenses that you have going out.

[00:13:23] And then, so to use that calculation a little bit further, I would say, you know, normally three to six months of reserves are fantastic. But considering we are not even done with the COVID nightmare. And that started a year ago March 17th.

[00:13:42] You know, what kind of reserves did you have to tap into this year to continue to make it? And I think that’s the question rather than some “oh 20% of this and that.” makes sense?

[00:13:56] Caterina Rando: Yes, it makes sense. Well, I mean I agree with you that, you know, three to six months of course, you start with three months and then if you’re good, you build to six months.

[00:14:04] And most of us though, as you say, have been here for almost a year. I mean, in addition to my virtual speaking and teaching, I have my center in San Francisco, which has been dark for almost a year. And I have been paying the expenses on all of that for almost a year now.

[00:14:24] Now, fortunately, I own the building. Therefore, the rent part of it is not something I had to do, but there’s still the internet. There’s still $400 a month for maintenance. you know, the water company doesn’t say, “Oh, you don’t have to pay.  And the electric company and the garbage company, you know, all of these.  So, it’s been a significant expense even though it’s been dark for so long.

[00:14:49] Fortunately though, like many of the service businesses that I work with, we’ve all pivoted to virtual and pivoting to virtual has really supported expenses going down.

[00:15:03] Now, let me ask you a couple more questions to make sure everybody is on top of some other aspects of profitability and finance.

[00:15:14] I always encourage everybody to have a line of credit, even if you don’t need it. And to make sure that you have good credit. Would you concur on this?

[00:15:24] Marcia Riner: One hundred percent! People don’t think about that. Your personal credit is not your business credit, but your business credit cannot survive without good personal credit.

[00:15:36] So, yes, absolutely. You have to have two forms of credit. Two credit lines or credit cases on yourself. You have your personal credit line, all your bills and debts and things that need your credit scores on that.

[00:15:51] But then there is a separate credit that you’ll need for your business. And the best place to get that started with, is to go to the bank that you have your business bank account with and start building credit relationships. Whether it’s a credit card or a line.

[00:16:09] But absolutely a line of credit is an open opportunity for you to borrow money when you need it. Say it’s $10,000 or $100,000 or $300,000, whatever that number is. I highly recommend that you have that as an emergency fund. Or if you’re planning to buy something that would be advantageous for you to use that line, buy it, and then pay down that line quickly so you could pay that off. So, it’s not necessarily using new capital.

[00:16:43] One of my favorite tools in business and in anywhere is using other people’s money. Other people’s money is the bank in most instances or, you know, other providers.

[00:16:55] But that is a huge opportunity to expand your ability to buy assets and take advantage of opportunities when you have a line available.

[00:17:08] So absolutely, a hundred percent, get your personal credit in line. And what that means… several different accounts, different types of accounts that are revolving on a regular basis. Several loans that are revolving on a regular basis. And that credit score on your personal side should be at least in the mid-sevens. That would be “best-case scenario.” I mean, you can go as high as 850, but in the mid-sevens.

[00:17:34] And then on your business side, they don’t necessarily use the traditional FICO scores for that. They used some other scores and they use some other scoring avenues. So, I would say you want to do the same thing for your business.

[00:17:49] If you have a business vehicle, buy it in the business name. And increase or create credit in the business name. Get the credit card for it. It’s not even bad to get a quote “business loan,” whether you’re using it for a specific purchase or not. But to have that as another line of credit.

[00:18:10] You can also get non-reporting companies to give you references for your credit. Maybe it’s your cell phone or equipment you bought or vendors that you regularly purchase for, and they give you 30 days to pay them back each month.

[00:18:25] These are wonderful lines that you could submit into your credit history for your business to give that more straight and get that score up on the business side as well.

[00:18:35] Caterina Rando: That is a great super tip. And Marcia one of the things I recommend to my clients is to always have a personal relationship with your banker. To have a banker that is on the lookout for you and your business.

[00:18:51] Marcia Riner: Yes. Yes. Yes. There are several professionals you should have on speed dial in your business. The first one is absolutely a banking relationship. And that’s not with the teller, that’s with the business banking department who can write loans, who understands like in the time of PPP that could have pushed your name to the front of the list, that kind of thing.

[00:19:12] They could have had opportunities to connect you with community financing. Another one of my clients got a significant… actually two loans… and one of them turned into be a grant from the city that they happened to have their businesses, and that introduction was done through their bankers. So awesome relationship that should be on speed dial.

[00:19:34] And how to build and keep that relationship going is to stay close with them. You know, once a month kind of conversation, instead of direct depositing, walk into the bank and deposit your checks. You know, those kinds of things.

Never.. And let me say this one more time… Never, ever, ever, ever do your own business accounting. -Marcia Riner

 

[00:19:50] The second relationship that you absolutely have to have is an accountant. Never.. And let me say this one more time… Never, ever, ever, ever do your own business accounting.

[00:20:02] Have a third party do your accounting for you. They’re really not that expensive when you look at what they’re offering and the explanations they can do for you. And unless your business is accounting, that’s the last place you need to be spending your time.

[00:20:20] So have a relationship with an accountant, a CPA, a tax preparer, that kind of person that’s going to be forward-thinking on financials for your business.

[00:20:32] The third piece that is always great to have is a business attorney. It’s better to have a business attorney that you talk to on a regular basis and even if you go visit them twice a year and you just say, “Hey, look over my agreements. Tell me what’s going on with the new employee regulations and should I have done this or this or that?”

[00:20:55] It is so much more inexpensive to have an attorney on retainer and meet with that attorney, even if it’s only twice a year, to make sure that you have your agreements correct. You’ve corrected yourself against any employee problems that may occur, any current law changes.

[00:21:14] Here in Southern California, laws have changed over the last year with having employees versus contract employees. So, making sure that you’re in with that. Even COVID regulations on your HR documents and things like that. 

[00:21:29] It’s so worth the couple hundred dollars you pay to meet with an attorney twice a year to review everything you’re doing, rather than going in and going, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t know. I should have known.” And now it’s going to cost you thousands to get yourself corrected, if that makes sense.

[00:21:47] So there’s three key players. You’re going to want to have that business banking relationship. You’re going to want to have that accounting relationship that is forward-thinking, and then you’re going to want to have that legal representation that can guide you.

[00:22:03] Caterina Rando: Now, I agree with you 100%. I’m going to also say that I love my bookkeeper. And I do encourage everyone to have, not only a bookkeeper, that they love, a bookkeeper that they can communicate with, a bookkeeper that is going to go over the numbers with them.

[00:22:21] I meet with my bookkeeper every month to review the profit, to make sure everything’s in the right column, to make sure everything’s gone in the right place. So that at the end of the year when we’re preparing for my tax man, my accountant, that everything is already where it’s supposed to be.

[00:22:42] What are your thoughts?

[00:22:43] Marcia Riner: Absolutely. I definitely combined the tax and accounting and bookkeeping all in one. I know that those are three separate people. but yes, that is the last step you ever want to skimp on in your business is your numbers, your accounting and your bookkeeping.

…the last step you ever want to skimp on in your business is your numbers, your accounting and your bookkeeping. -Marcia Riner

[00:23:00] They need to be done properly. And by being done properly Saves you tons of money and tons of anguish.

[00:23:09] Caterina Rando: Absolutely. Marcia what I’d like to hear from you is money habits you recommend for your clients? I recommend clients look at their bank account every day. See, what’s come in, see what goes out.

[00:23:22] I recommend they track their revenue at least on a weekly, if not a daily basis for not only what’s been coming in the door, but what’s been sold. So, if they’re going to have multiple payments over several months, these are some of the money habits I suggest. What are some money habits, profitability habits you recommend for your clients?

[00:23:45] Marcia Riner: Yeah, part of that is clean lines, clean books. You know, many small businesses will take things out of their personal or pay things out of their personal and then reimburse them from the business. And then that kind of stuff.

[00:24:00] Start with clean, crystal clean lines. You have business money, business credit cards, business expenses all need to be done out of the business account. Then your personal lines and personal expenses and personal credit cards are for your personal use.

[00:24:21] Having that clear clean line, will save you headache, will save you money with your bookkeeping and accounting. And that’s the first thing.

[00:24:32] So just draw a line in the sand. If this is business, paying it with the business side. If it’s personal, I’m paying with the personal side, and there’s no crossover. Even if there’s points and air flights and what have you, draw that line in the sand as the first thing.

[00:24:48] Second is, yeah, be aware. You know, when you’re aware of what’s going on in your business, you can make changes. If you’re not aware, then you’re going to be surprised.

[00:25:01] So that daily activity, Caterina, that you just mentioned of looking at your accounts and being aware of what’s coming in and out. Being aware if you offer a 30-day payment plan for your vendors that they’re paying within that time. And maybe you’re rewarding them for paying early.

[00:25:22] Or even on the flip side of that, if you have a 30-day due and you pay it in 15 days, will they give you a discount? So, there’s some negotiating items. Most vendor relationships say, “pay me in 30 days,” just like your credit card. You charge this month, and at the end of the month, you’ve got to pay whatever you’re going to pay on it.

[00:25:43] It’s helpful. And its credit boosting because one of the credit scoring pieces on the business side is how soon you pay your debt. If it’s due on the first and you pay it on the first, that’s kind of like a zero number. But you’ll get positive numbers if you pay that debt on the 20th and it’s due on the first, because now that vendor gets their money earlier and it improves their cashflow.

[00:26:10] So yeah, be aware of what you’re doing. See if there’s any opportunity by paying early, or are you giving opportunities to your vendors that are paying you to pay you early?

[00:26:23] Many of us in the service world will offer. Well, my bill is going to be $10,000 for the program that you’re in or the service package that you bought. Well, I can offer you $ 9,500, if you pay it up front, or if you’re going to pay over time, then I’m going to charge you 3,500. And then now, because you paid over time, I’m getting paid a little bit more for it.

[00:26:48] So being aware of how money moves in and out of your account will help your profitability as well.

[00:26:54] Caterina Rando: Absolutely. I always like to give a discount for full pay. I don’t like to penalize for multi-pay. That just doesn’t feel good to me. I know that some people do that, but I guess everyone has to decide what feels good to them.

[00:27:08] Marcia Riner: Sure. It should still be the same number. So maybe your full pay is already the calculated amount that you would give them. It’s still the same thing. A, you’re either paying an amount or you’re paying a discounted amount. But I would recommend that if you are making payments over time, you are doing them a service and therefore they should be paying you interest on that money. So, if you are making payments over time, It has to be more than what you would have charged them if they just wrote a check for it.

[00:27:40] Caterina Rando: I understand that’s a practice I think everyone has to decide for themselves. Because for me, I like to get paid every month. So, I don’t mind if it takes 10 months, you know, because then I have lots of money coming in for the future. So that makes me happy.

[00:27:56] Right. I think it helps with your cashflow. And that’s another thing is to make sure that everybody’s looking at their projections, you know? They may have great money in their door this month.  And so, I …just like the beginning of every month, I look at the next six months.

[00:28:11] What are your thoughts about projections, Marcia?

[00:28:15] Marcia Riner: Well, again, projections are based on what the known is. And if you know what’s happening, then you can make those projections. And projections will allow you to also plan your spending around the income that is coming in.

[00:28:31] But one of my favorite ways of bringing in income is just what you said, have it come in over a period of time, so you don’t spend it and get it all in one month and then it’s out the door the next.

[00:28:43] But yeah, I think that having a standard flow of income that’s coming in is super important to balancing out what goes out each month.

[00:28:53] If you are in a position, say you’re a realtor, which is a common industry that you get paid a big chunk, and then unless you’re a super top producer, you’re probably not going to get paid every single month the same amount. You may get one month good. And then it may be every other month you get paid or every three months, God forbid, that you should get paid.

[00:29:11] So then what you have to do is you just have to budget that income that has come in and spread it out over those three months.

[00:29:20] Caterina Rando: That’s very important for people to know what is the trends in terms of their industry. And also, then to look at what are the cyclical revenue trends in your business? Like, for example, we had a great January, but usually, January is not that great in my business. December is usually not that great.

[00:29:40] So I know what are the months that tend to have a little dip. And every industry does tend to have that. So, it’s important for people to know what that is.

[00:29:50] Marcia, I want to back up just a little bit. We were talking about vendors. And one of the things that I want to encourage people to be hip to is to, at the end of the year, look at all your vendors and look at how much you paid your vendors. And see if you want to negotiate either the same rates for next year or even a discount rate, you know?

[00:30:14] If you can say to your graphic designer, “Hey, I spent $20,000 with you this year, and I bet I will do the same this next year. I promise to give you all my business. If you give me a 10% discount and I promise to pay you on time.”

[00:30:29] You know, it’s all negotiable. And a lot of times women I’m going to talk to cause that’s who this podcast is for. We often don’t take the moment to negotiate. What are your thoughts?

[00:30:43] Marcia Riner:  A hundred percent. One of my clients delivers like you just said and most of her business to this one partner that she works with and she expected last year to get paid a commission for referring over. And when it came down to it for this $10,000 jobs, she got like a $200 commission, which was quite ridiculous. So, she is in the process of negotiating with that company to get more.

[00:31:14] But in that kind of situation, she didn’t know until she got to the end and did her calculations. So there again is being aware of how much you do with each vendor.

[00:31:25] And by the way, you don’t have to wait till the end of the year…

[00:31:30] Caterina Rando: Great advice

[00:31:31] Marcia Riner: You can negotiate any time that you like. If you’re foreseeing that you’re going to be giving one of your joint partners or one of your vendors that you work with frequently, that you’ve got a lot of business coming their way over the next few months.

[00:31:45] What a perfect opportunity. What a little bit of the leverage you have to say, “Hey, ABC company, I have projected that I’m going to be giving you five deals. And those five deals represent a significant amount of money. How about I get blank, blank, blank for it?”

[00:32:06] Now, in any business that you’re in, if you are getting a quote, “kickback or commission or referral fee,” you should absolutely disclose that to your clients. Because it is just good practices. Many industries require that you disclose it.

[00:32:26] But you should disclose it. “Hey, I work with this client because of these five reasons. They’re an awesome company. I can’t find a better company that I would work with, but because I am such a high referral partner to them, they do pay me a referral fee. That referral fee is in representative of the fee you’re paying me as well.”

[00:32:49] So being open and disclosing that. Businesses, clients, they appreciate that. They appreciate knowing.

[00:32:56] Caterina Rando: Yes, it’s important to be overt versus covert with everything in our business. And I recommend that people put their referral program, their referral commission structure, whatever they’re doing on their website to make it public so that anybody can see it.

[00:33:15] And the thing, Marcia, about the example you gave, a lot of times people make an assumption. But they don’t have the conversation. And that’s the thing, is that again, we want to be upfront. We want to be overt with our conversation. “Hey Sheila, if I dropped some clients on your lap, is that worth a percentage?”

[00:33:36] And let’s have that conversation up, but this is a whole ‘nother conversation, my friend, on how to set up your referral partnerships, et cetera.

[00:33:43] Marcia Riner: Absolutely, and it is so important.

[00:33:45] Caterina Rando: It is

[00:33:46] Marcia Riner: when you are facing your customer, if you can say to your customer, “I highly recommend this one company. And because they do this, this, this, this, and that, that’s why I’m bringing you to them. Plus, we have a great relationship with them.” really, you’re saving your client the headache.  You’re giving the confidence to the client about the relationship that you’re recommending. And you’re being known to that client as the person that can connect them with anybody which opens the door to so much work.

[00:34:21] Caterina Rando: Absolutely. Marcia, any final words for our listeners and also let people know how to connect with you?

[00:34:29] Marcia Riner: Absolutely. This time has gone by so fast. I hope you all have found some value in the little tidbits that we’ve been sharing with you because you know, Caterina and I both have so much that we like to give to our listeners and share. And just make sure that you are better prepared to run your business in a way that will only lead to greater profits.

[00:34:52] So, there’s opportunities to catch me in many different ways. I have a podcast that I run each week called “profit with a plan.” it’s released every Tuesday on YouTube, as well as at Profitwithaplan.com in the sound version. I do some little things called “profitable strategies,” weekly on LinkedIn as well as YouTube.

[00:35:14] And then I just like to share, so I also am starting up a weekly webinar to give business owners some really super valuable things that they may not be aware of. As we all know, business is hard, right? If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. And so, I’m sharing these ideas out of the lessons that I’ve learned and earned in my business. And I think that when we’re doing our business, we need to know what the gaps are.

[00:35:47] We come into business because we knew our gig, right. We knew what it is that I’m really good at, or I can do this thing better than what I was doing in the corporate world. Whatever that gig is, you know that gig.

[00:36:01] Chances are you can’t see the forest through the trees. So, there are probably some gaps in your business that you may not be seeing.

That’s the number one trick that I recommend is get some help. You’re not an island. – Marcia Riner

 

[00:36:12] So I encourage you to reach out to someone, whether it’s myself or Caterina or any businessperson that you know that can help you see the gaps in it. That’s the number one trick that I recommend is get some help. You’re not an island.

[00:36:30] The second trick I’ll share and then I’ll hand the mic back, is don’t be reactive in your business. Have a plan. Planning is so important to driving the business where you want to go.

[00:36:44] That plan involves your financials like we’re talking about. It involves your organization, the product you offer, the marketing and growth you want to have. When you have a well-developed, detailed, super detailed plan, you get up on Monday morning and you know exactly what you’re doing. And what you’re doing is moving your business forward. Tuesday, you come in and know exactly what you’re doing. This is what a plan represents, or at least my plans represent. And I encourage you to make sure that you have a plan and you have someone to help you see those gaps so you can make sure that your business is moving optimally and striving for those profits that you want.

[00:37:24] Caterina Rando: Marcia thank you so much for all your super tips and your massive value.

[00:37:31] My friends, I’m hoping that you took lots of notes. I want to invite you if you haven’t already come to join me, coming up very soon, we have our Selling with Ease and Authenticity free workshop. And then we have a three-hour Set Yourself Up to Thrive at Sales workshop coming up in a couple of weeks as well.

[00:37:51] I would love to have you join me for those. Because they will be more massive value for you. And we’re not going to really talk about what we discussed today. This is a special hot topic that I knew would bring you some value and support you to thrive and bliss in your business.

[00:38:06] Bing, Bing, Bing. Can’t wait to be with you again. Thanks, my friends.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.