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Free resource list!

As I wind down my month of celebration, I’m still in a little bit of shock that this business, dreamed up in a windowless office at a very boring job, has taken on the life that it has, thanks in no small part, to our tribe of purpose-driven leaders. A quick note of motivation for you today:

No dream is impossible, no ideas are too crazy, and there’s almost always a way to make something work.

But if you need a little help making that dream happen, I have a handful of free resources for you today. In a little trip down memory lane, I combed through everything we’ve created and compiled the most popular resources that our purpose-driven leaders have read, downloaded, and loved!

  • 4 Finance Pros – take our brand new quiz to learn which finance people you need on your team
  • Profit Playbook – a guide and Excel template to help you create a roadmap to greater impact and income, like a CFO
  • Storytelling with Financials – a free masterclass to help you analyze your nonprofit’s numbers (plus a free Financial Metrics Calculator)
  • Our Top Tools – the tried-and-true software that we swear by to keep the biz running
  • Quickbooks Review – my take on the best accounting system out there
  • FAQ – a classic if you’re new around here and want to know how we roll

PS – Reminder! We opened up a couple slots on our calendar before year-end for Strategy Sessions. If you need to pick the brain of a CFO for 30 minutes about anything and everything numbers, make sure to grab one here! >>>

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How to create projections to achieve your goals

My daughter starts her second year of preschool this week. It’s hard to believe the summer has come and gone, and now it’s time to make sure I have adequate school snacks on hand at all times. I hope you had a glorious summer too. Even if you don’t have kids, there’s something in the air that changes when the calendar ticks over to September. Yes, it’s getting cooler but it also feels different, like the world is getting back to business.

Many leaders I know are gearing up for Q4. Our retail clients have their biggest sales months, our nonprofits are in the thick of fundraising, and everyone is putting in a 110% effort to meet their 2019 goals. Does this sound like you?

One thing that I’ve found super helpful as we enter this busy season is mapping out exactly how we’re going to achieve our goals, or forecasting.

You probably (hopefully?) created a budget in the beginning of this year that mapped out revenue and expenses from January through December, but that was a LONG time ago. Likely, you didn’t meet every single budget number for every single month, so forecasting is an opportunity to redo the upcoming months. You have a whole nine months and lots of information under your belt to make even better projections for Q4.

So here’s how to create Q4 projections. Open your budget template (Need one? Grab mine!), your financials for the year, and all your hopes and dreams, and let’s dive in!

How to create Q4 projections:

  1. Look back. Review your financials for the year so far. Compare revenue and expenses to your budget. How did you do? How far off were you and why?
  2. Look back even further. Check out your Q4 financials for last year. That’s often a decent place to start to help anticipate what this Q4 might look like.
  3. Build your projections! And I seriously mean build. Start from the bottom up and create your forecast with building blocks. For my service businesses: How many clients do/will you have? How much do you charge per client/project? How many new clients will you get? For my product businesses: How much did you sell last year? How much new product have you purchased and what are your prices? What’s your advertising budget? For my nonprofits: How much did you raise last year? What big grants or major gifts do you have in the pipeline?
  4. Don’t forget expenses. Often we’re just thinking about the finish line in terms of revenue, but net income or profit (revenue – expenses) is really what we should be aiming for. Build in any and all expenses that you’ll have in Q4 and check out your net income. (Quick reminder to nonprofits: you can have a positive net income even though you’re a nonprofit! That’s how you build a cash reserve and long-term sustainability!)

For my friends out there who hate numbers, this can seem like a useless exercise (But I already created a budget!) BUT it’s truly the only way to stay on top of your goals during what is often the last season of hustle for the year. AND, if you create this forecast now with a clear path of building blocks to achieving your goal, maybe it won’t feel like such a hustle after all.

Stephanie

PS – Feeling a little overwhelmed? I have a template, complete with a video walkthrough, here! Download it for free and get started.

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It’s not autumn, but I’m talking pumpkins!

Between our clients and new entrepreneur friends from the Creative @ Heart conference, I’ve had dozens of conversations in the last month about how to grow businesses. Some of these entrepreneurs are making just a couple thousand bucks a month and not even paying themselves yet, and others are bringing in several million dollars a year.

I’m in the same place with my business. I’ve primarily built the company with one-on-one client work and I’ve just added a coaching program, but when thinking a year or two down the road, I wonder how I can continue to grow without working a ton more hours.

All of our business models and stages are different but we all have the same challenges.

How do we grow and create more impact in the world without burning ourselves out or sacrificing our precious work-life balance?

Last weekend, I picked up a book that had been sitting on my shelf for months: The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz (yup, the Profit First guy).

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One quote in the book hit home for me and gave me the clarity I needed to figure out exactly HOW to grow my business, and I think it will resonate with you too:

“Entrepreneurs identify the problems, discover the opportunities and then build processes to allow other people and other things to get it done.”

In other words, if your business relies on YOU to do all of the work, you will hit a ceiling of growth and potentially make difficult sacrifices along the way.

For my business, I mapped out the tasks I could and should confidently hand off to someone else. I had to ask myself why I was still doing the daily bookkeeping for a handful of clients instead of operating in my zone of genius. When it was all mapped out I realized it was enough for another entire team member! So now, the search is on because I’ve built processes to allow another person to get it done.

BOOM!

Add a comment below and tell me, what do those processes or people look like in your business?


One of the first things the book suggests to do is map out your revenue goal for the year. If you haven’t done it yet, grab our Profit Playbook – it’s an easy template to help you map out your revenue goals.

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