Posts in category: Featured Blog

The number one thing I wanted when I was simultaneously growing a business and a baby was balance.

I wanted to have it all.

I wanted to be the best, most present stay-at-home mama to nurture my brand new baby AND I wanted to continue growing in my career.

The problem was, I had no idea what that actually looked like or how to make it happen.

This is probably because if you ask ten different people what work-life balance is, you will get ten different answers including “work-life balance means having it all” and “work-life balance doesn’t exist”. Even if you narrow your pool down to the niche group of entrepreneur moms that roll in the same circles as me, you would likely get a handful of different answers.

I have the answer to what “having it all” means. And it involves pie.

Your life is like a pie. Each slice of the pie is a different part of your life – kids, marriage, family, business, hobbies, fitness, friends, etc – but there is a finite amount of the pie every day. You get to determine how big or small to cut each slice every single day.

Having it all, and achieving that prized balance, is all about being okay (satisfied…happy even!) with the size of each pie piece at any given point in time.

For the first year of my daughter’s life, I focused my time, energy, and attention on her and on my business. I didn’t want to send her to daycare AND my business was at a growth point so I focused on serving my clients and making sure my baby was well taken care of.

That meant that my pie had two giant slices (baby and business) and everything else got crammed into the remaining sliver. My health and fitness were put on the back burner and I didn’t make my friends or hobbies or marriage a top priority because all of my human energy was spent on clients and the baby. There was only so much of me to go around and I made the conscious choice to give that energy primarily to my business and my daughter.

While it worked for me during that season, it wasn’t sustainable and I knew it.

So I made a shift.

I’ve added several talented women to my team to help shoulder the client load and my precious newborn has grown into an active toddler who goes to gym class and preschool and doesn’t need me to snuggle her 24/7 (I wish!) so those pieces of the pie have gotten smaller.

As a result, I’ve had room to grow other important parts of my life while still feeling like I have balance. My husband and I have had more time and energy to focus on our marriage by going on date nights and even getting away for a weekend, I have regular girls’ nights with my friends, and I’ve regained all the fitness I lost during pregnancy by making OrangeTheory classes a huge priority.

Oh, and I sleep 8 hours a night, every night.

My life isn’t perfect, and I’m often riddled with guilt too. Are my three days in the office enough for my clients, my business, and my team? Does my daughter get enough quality time with me? Should my husband and I be doing more date nights?

But when I look at the big picture, I believe I have achieved my ideal balance for this season.

Practically speaking, the most important thing I’ve done for my sanity, inner peace, and leadership ability is to establish a morning and afternoon routine. Our days often start with a whirlwind of activity and before we know it, we’re closing the laptop completely exhausted and ready to drown the stress of the day in a big bowl of pasta. Or maybe that’s just me?

Earlier this year I established a solid morning routine and by starting my day calmly, in the same way, each day, I am more focused and joyful and have less anxiety, especially around balancing work and family.

Similarly, by closing out my day with a similar routine, I leave my (home) office feeling accomplished, calm, and ready to take on the next day with peace and ease.

Morning

• I get up at the same time each day, early, and before my daughter (Why early? Check this out.)
• I spend at least ten minutes quietly journaling, reading, or meditating
• I don’t touch my phone or computer until I’m done (most of the time!)

Afternoon

• I plan tomorrow’s priorities and ensure they’re aligned with my big picture goals
• I update my to-do list accordingly, then cross at least one thing off
• I clean off my desk. Remove empty cups, stray post-its, and put everything in its place

As busy leaders changing the world and mamas raising our kiddos, we think we don’t have time for luxurious self-care but all it takes is a few intentional actions each day to bring us closer to balance.

1. Are you on the list? In our next email, I’m sharing the number one thing I did to build my business and achieve this balance. You can’t miss this one. (Click here to make sure you don’t!)
2. Want to hear the story live? I shared tons more in several recent guest podcast episodes. Check them out!
3. The 3 Day Workweek Podcast with Cailen Ascher
4. The 6 Figure Mompreneur Podcast
5. The Inspired Entrepreneur
6. TL;DR? I’m launching something awesome, starting early August 2019. Find out everything here!

I have a little secret.

I fell into finance.

I didn’t start out my career intending on being a CFO, an entrepreneur, or a number cruncher. I actually wanted to be a lawyer since I was 12 years old, and I lined up a legal assistant position at a huge law firm in New York City the minute I graduated college. It took me less than a year to realize that I couldn’t stand legal jargon and reading through massive reams of paper, but I felt totally lost as to what I did want to do. I kept pushing, though, and spent an entire summer studying for and taking the LSAT.

Just before law school applications were due, fate handed me an “operations” role at a nonprofit. My nonprofit leader friends chuckle because they know that “operations” means wearing every single hat and doing everything from post office runs and designing event brochures to grant reporting and board management, actually quite similar to entrepreneurship.

Guess what was also one of those things?

Finance.

I learned everything on the job, from budgeting and accounting to audits and tax forms. I did it the hard way. At first, I Googled my way through it all. I spent a lot more time than I had to on finance because I had nowhere else to turn.

Throughout the process, I happened to fall in love with all things financial management, so I supplemented my on the job experience with a Master’s in Public Administration, focusing on nonprofit finance, from New York University. I quickly moved my way up to the CFO of a global nonprofit organization before I turned 30 years old. I worked directly with the CEO and Board of Directors, I was leading a team of a dozen people around the globe, using the knowledge I gained from my Master’s Degree, and feeling incredibly fulfilled in my career. I was constantly learning, being handed more challenging tasks and increasing responsibilities, and truly thriving.

In between jetting off to Nepal, Haiti, and dozens of places in between, I had gotten married and my husband and I were trying to grow our family. After a year with no hint of a pregnancy, we visited a handful of doctors around the country, tried dozens of procedures, including multiple rounds of IVF with no success. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) there was nothing wrong with either one of us; we had “unexplained infertility”.

I eventually decided to leave the job I loved so much. The amount of travel and stress I endured each month was surely not helping our struggle to have a baby, and in fact, it was probably holding us back. It was an incredibly difficult decision and I felt wildly torn between two identities as a potential mom and career woman.

I got another job at a local university. It was…fine. The people were nice and the job was easy, but I was unfulfilled, unchallenged, endured a daily two hour commute, and took a massive pay cut.

But just a few months after I changed jobs and significantly reduced my stress levels…I got pregnant! As my pregnancy progressed, I kept imagining what my life would look like after the baby arrived. The thought of bundling my precious little baby up in the cold, dark mornings, dropping her off at daycare, making a grueling commute in traffic to a dreary office where I spent half the day surfing the internet until 5pm because I’d already finished all my work, made me feel sick. Nothing about balancing career and motherhood seemed to make sense.

As I got closer and closer to my due date, I started to brainstorm how I might be able to use my decade of experience to do consulting work, so I could stay home with my little baby but also continue to earn money and do work I enjoyed.

I spent hours Googling how to start a business while I was at my day job but felt lost as ever and decided to hire a coach who’d been there, done that. Together we defined the type of work I could offer, who my ideal clients were, and how I could get them to hire me. During the last three months of my pregnancy, I worked double-time. I came home after my day job and sent dozens of emails to potential clients, refined my website portfolio, and eventually landed not one, not two, but three clients.

Knowing that I had three ongoing clients, I had the confidence to leave my current job and cruise into maternity leave with the knowledge that I never had to go back after six or eight weeks like many of my friends.

Since then, I’ve chosen to build my business, grow to multiple six figures in revenue, bring on more clients, and hire a team to help manage them, all while having childcare for my now 2.5 year old daughter just three days a week.

1. Are you on the list? In our next email, I’m pulling back the curtain to share how I’ve achieved the elusive work-life balance. Click here to make sure you receive the next installment to your inbox!
2. Want to hear the story live? I shared tons more in several recent guest podcast episodes. Check them out!
3. ​Influential Motherhood
4. 6 Figure Mompreneur
5. The Inspired Entrepreneur
6. TL;DR? I’m launching something awesome, starting in early August 2019. Find out everything here!

One of the most important things I’ve discovered to building my business is making sure I have the tools, resources, systems, and mindsets in place. These are also things we help our clients with because once we have a solid foundation in place, organizations can grow.

First up? MINDSET.

Are you one of the leaders I know who is trying to grow and create change but simultaneously operating their organization paycheck to paycheck? For a long time, I didn’t understand why people avoided their financials since playing around with numbers is fun for me. I didn’t understand why organizations were operating on a shoestring when there is a world of abundance out there.

But leaders told me again and again: Financials are scary. I haven’t looked at my numbers in months. I’ll feel guilty if I have too much money (for a myriad of reasons).

Why do we keep telling ourselves these things?

First, we are thinking from a place of scarcity. We believe there is a limited pot of resources (money, clients, donations, etc) so we create small goals and try and cram our expenses and impact in.

Second, we lack a growth mindset. Growth is necessary for survival AND impact. I know that every single person who’s made it this far is a purpose-driven leader and without impact, our work is pointless.

So! Here are a few tricks to love your numbers:

1. Stay curious. Nothing good comes when we’re stagnant (thinking about that murky pond of stagnant water I saw on my last hike – infested with buzzing mosquitoes and totally unfit to swim!). Impact doesn’t come from repeating what’s not working.
2. Keep your eyes on the future. “What are you doing today to ensure that you’ll still be here tomorrow? Strategizing and planning for increases, both financially and in terms of capacity, are critical success factors.” I love this because in order to ensure we will be here in 5, 10, 20 years, we need to make sure we have the balance sheet and income statement to support that.
3. Think like a business person. Know how to read your financial statements! Yes, yes, yes! (Want to be super savvy with your financials? Check out my article about insights hiding in your financial statements.)
4. Practice gratitude. This might seem a little woo-woo to some of you, but the simple act of writing down 5 things that you’re grateful for every day is a lovely reminder of how much you have and how much opportunity is available to you.

Are you ready to ditch the scarcity mindset and build your profit plan? Download our Profit Playbook here where you’ll get free budget and cash flow templates to help lay out your financials for the next 12 months!

A couple weeks ago I posted just four things to do each month to practically guarantee you rock your goals this year. Have you implemented your CEO day and these four action items yet?

Today I want to share with you behind the scenes of my own CEO day, so you can get a feel for how easy AND impactful it can be! Let’s crank up the Vivaldi (my get-it-done music of choice) and focus on the numbers.

First up: Complete my bookkeeping. Since I’m a numbers gal, I do all of my own bookkeeping in Quickbooks Online. And since I’m a complete nerd, I usually do my bookkeeping the moment my bank statements are available which is the first of the month.

Next up: Run my reports and update my forecast. (There are actual numbers in mine, don’t worry!) Using this template, I can easily see my revenue and expenses by month AND totaled for the whole year. As of the end of June, I’m still on track to meet my 2019 revenue goals but I’m hoping to decrease my expenses a bit – I made a TON of investments into the business last year and I’d like to increase my profit margin this year. One thing I’m excited about? I’m totally caught up on quarterly tax payments so far this year – last year I delayed them because, ICK, taxes.

Finally: I update my projections for the rest of the year. I’m able to see now that if I want to meet my 2019 revenue goals, I will need to ramp up my revenue starting in July.

And a bonus! I also use this time to look at other metrics in my business, including my number of email subscribers, email open rates, prospect pipeline, and Facebook ad performance. I have set aside this time to focus on the health of my business, and I encourage you to do the same, whatever the most important metrics in your organization may be.

If you need a tool to help you create a CEO day like mine, grab your FREE Profit Playbook here.

Yup, I’m still talking about cash flow over here. I’ve said it a million times, what you focus on expands, and our cash flow is no different. Today I’m quickly explaining perhaps the most important metric on your cash flow forecast (that I know you’re totally using now, RIGHT?).

Months of cash on hand. Cash reserve.

In other words, if not another dollar were to enter your bank account starting today, how long could you operate without going into the red? I’ll show you exactly how to figure this out.

First, take your annual expense budget, divided by 12. For example, if your annual expenses are $1M, your monthly expenses would be $83,333. This is your monthly burn rate, or how much you spend, on average, each month.

Then, take your bank balance (literally, the amount of money sitting in the bank right now) and divide by your monthly burn rate above. For example, if you have $100,000 in the bank right now and your burn rate is $83,333, you have 1.2 months of expenses on hand.

Not sure if this is good or bad?

Our goal in building a reserve is to have 3-6 months of operating expenses in the bank to support the organization in times of shortfall or emergency. In the example above, our monthly expenses were $83,333, so a 3-6 month reserve should be $250-500k.

This number may sound downright terrifying, and I agree, it’s a BIG goal especially for an organization that coasts into payroll every two weeks on fumes. But we’re not going to get there in a month or even two months. This is a long-term process that will lead to long-term sustainability.

Because you’re a purpose-driven leader who’s ready to change the world, I know you’re in it for the long haul and you value sustainability. I encourage you this week to start building your 3-6 month cash reserve by setting up a separate bank account for this extra special cash.

By shifting your mindset around cash and building a strong foundation of sustainability, you will no longer let a low balance paralyze you in fear or a high balance cause you to invest in ALL THE THINGS. With this new cash reserve + mindset, you will never run out of cash again.

That sounds pretty darn good, right?

#cashmanagement

Hiding from your bank balance, that is…

A couple days ago, as I was opening my bedroom blinds, just like I do every single morning, I happened to notice the tree just under my window had sprouted colorful pink blossoms. It took me a moment to realize that it’s actually SPRING. I’ve looked out my window and only seen gray for what feels like six years instead of months, so this tiny vision of spring took me by surprise.

And because I’m always drawing parallels to financial management (I can’t help it!), I immediately thought of cash.

Cash flow has ups and downs, and for many leaders and businesses, is often seasonal. We have strong months when we invest in all-the-things, followed by not-so-strong months when our bank balance makes us cringe, or even worse, hide in fear.

Just like the seasons, cash feels unpredictable, uncontrollable, and frustrating at times (ahem, snow in April!) and we hope that by not thinking about it too much, it will magically fix itself. But we logically know our cash flow issues won’t be fixed via ignorance.

The problem is, most leaders I talk to don’t do any cash flow forecasting. When I take off my finance hat and put myself in their shoes, I get it. A cash flow forecast is not something that’s easily generated from Quickbooks, your bookkeeper probably doesn’t have enough info to do it herself, and it involves a spreadsheet. Yuck.

But I want to help you! Cash flow forecasting does NOT have to be scary or take more than 30 minutes a month (seriously), but it WILL help you regain control over your organization and confidence in your financial sustainability.

Here are three quick tips (and a freebie!):

1. Understand your cash inflows and outflows each month. As the leader of your organization, you could be able to answer these questions: How long do your clients or donors take to pay you? Which months are the strongest or most profitable? What are your average monthly expenses? Do your expenses fluctuate throughout the year or are they pretty steady?
2. Get into the habit of checking your bank balance weekly. Neglecting your cash accounts will NOT help you regain control and confidence in your financial management. Know your numbers!
3. Plot all these numbers into a spreadsheet and update that baby monthly! Lucky for you, I’ve created a template that will help you do this yourself, very easily. And because I adore you, I also created a video that walks you through exactly how to use the template so it is completely foolproof. (It’s all included in one great Playbook.) Download it here!

#cashmanagement

Raise your hand if you’ve heard one of these three quotes before:

You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.

If you are the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.

If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

Now raise your hand again if you’ve heard it so many times it’s kind of lost all meaning. (I see your hand raised over there!)

Stick with me, because the last element of leadership self-care that I want to talk about this month is community.

(Missed the other elements of leadership self-care? Check them out here and here, and no, they don’t involve a glass of wine or a massage!)

Most busy leaders I know get their work done by operating in a bit of a vacuum. They collaborate with their team and communicate with other stakeholders closely outside the organization, but lack a community of peers.

In fact, I recently talked with a purpose-driven leader who said: I literally have no one to talk to about running my business. I can’t talk to my team, I can’t talk to my board, I have no one.

Enter: community.

The best investment I’ve ever made into my business and my own professional development was a paid mastermind. These brilliant, high-achieving women from around the country have inspired me to play bigger and pushed me when I needed pushing. The ROI on being part of these groups has been incalculable for me, but you’re probably wondering: Okay, how do I find my own community or mastermind?

I’ve got your back, my friend!

Here’s three ways to create community to elevate your biz and life:

1. Figure out the gaps. What type of people are you looking for? Other business owners? Other nonprofit leaders in your field?
2. Ask around. Tell your friends and peers you’re looking for a mastermind or community. Leave a comment and tell me, as I may have just the group for you!
3. Choose one inspiring person. Tell them why they inspire you, get on their email list, follow them on social, digest their content.

When is the last time you invested in professional development for yourself?

Think about it. Six months ago? A year ago? Can’t remember the last time you learned from an expert in your field?

We have a responsibility as leaders to ensure our teams grow and learn new things to better serve our clients, customers, and community, but we usually put ourselves last on the list for professional development.

I’m pretty sure in my ten years of working for different organizations, I only attended two professional development seminars. That means I only learned something new, from someone outside my organization, once every five years.

That’s. Not. Enough.

Professional development is an investment into the future of your organization. It gets you out of the daily grind, stimulates new thoughts, and spurs growth and innovation into the business. Development offers you a competitive advantage in the marketplace and elevates your team.

In other words, there’s no reason NOT to get yourself learning!

Here’s how to bring new insights, ideas, and growth to your organization:

• Allocate funds! Set aside money in the budget for professional development and hold yourself accountable. You don’t need a treasure chest of golden coins to invest in yourself – allocate a few thousand (or maybe just a few hundred) bucks for you and you alone.
• Make it easy! You don’t have to travel across the country and spend thousands to learn something new. Udemy, Coursera, and Creative Live are just a few examples of online platforms filled with literally hundreds of courses on almost any topic imaginable. Budget friendly AND can be completed in your pajamas on your couch. Win. Win.
• Pick what’s most useful! Choose a course or experience that addresses your biggest current challenge because you will walk away with the most value. Maybe you’re struggling to accurately share your story with your people or you need help with time management. Choose a course that specifically targets that area so you can achieve HUGE wins.

As for me? I’m learning how to better connect with my audience and tell the story of how we can help purpose-driven leaders through the StoryBrand method. This numbers gal struggles big time with marketing! My brain only works in spreadsheets, I guess.

#leadership #development