Hello and welcome to the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. And my name is Melanie Boylan. I'm afraid Esther has once again let me loose alone on the podcast, but I'm not going to be just sitting here talking to you by myself today. Thank God you all sighed with great relief. I'm here today with Carmel Seery, who's going to be a financial Queen on the podcast today. Welcome to the podcast, Carmel.
Thanks, Melanie. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here and talk to you and keep it interesting. Talk to all your listeners about the numbers in their business.
Yeah, because let's face it, most of us go, oh, God, really finances. But there is a few pertinent things that we want to tell people today, and particularly our audience largely would be startups or early businesses. And then we have quite a large portion starting to build up, scale up now. And we're quite lucky. We've got quite a wide audience across the UK, across Ireland, of course, and over the US as well. I believe you have quite an extensive range of clients yourself.
I do. I am a business strategist and management accountant. And as a management accountant, I'm slightly different to the accountant that you're probably more you and your listeners are probably more familiar with. Most businesses will have an external accountant that works. They bring their paperwork to at the end of the year, they work out the taxes and then they file your taxes and they keep that a compliant accountant. So they work outside your business and they make sure that your business and the tax office in your country that are happy with you and they make sure that you're finding all the returns and making all of that sort of legal stuff done. And that's the first type of accountant that most people will engage. And it is really important that you do that. However, there is a lot that goes on in your business. And as a management accountant, I would typically work inside your business. So I would look at the sales figure. But also, what is that made up of what products or what service is made up on that sales and work out where as a business, you would need to focus on to grow. I'm a huge advocate for cash flows and budgets and one eye to the future. And then obviously, we have to review what's happened. So bookkeeping and reporting, all of that goes into both the compliance side accounting and the management accountant. We all use the same information, but we just use it in slightly different ways.
Now, one thing I learned very early on, actually, about my accountant is as much as we trust our accountant to be adept at what they're doing, ultimately the responsibility falls on us that the accounts are correct and everything else. So we can't just literally hand over our accounts to somebody even though they know what they're doing. We have to have a full understanding of those accounts as well, don't we?
You do. The legal obligation remains with the business owner to understand and file those taxes and make sure that they are correct. But there is also a fundamental for growth and for being in business and to see your business move and grow in the right direction. You won't be able to do that without any clarity unless you look and understand the numbers. The numbers, if you like, are particularly say, now we're in January and you're looking at the previous twelve months. I know that's slightly out for the UK. It's April, March, but we're looking back anyway on the last twelve months of our year, and we give all that information to our external accountant, and then the reports come back, we look at the tax figure and we put those down in a drawer in the file, never to be looked at again. And you get on with the business at hand. But the story of what happened in your business are in those numbers. So in the last twelve months, what do you want to repeat and what do you want to avoid? So as a management accountant, one of the things that I would like, I helped businesses and small entrepreneurs and small businesses to control their business through the numbers and that I helped them build simple processes so they will always know their cash flow and their numbers, even if they hate accounting.
So one of my great strengths are when people come to work with me is that I'm able to explain things and break things down so that it's not daunting. And for people who don't like accounts or don't like numbers, it can be really off putting it in to see a profit and loss account or a balance sheet. What's the difference where I need to know one from the other, but there's a vast amount of information in there that you need to use to grow your business.
Okay. So would you be able to advise people on money they should set aside for marketing budgets and maybe upskilling and updating products or maybe their assets, for instance? Is that something you could advise as well?
Well, every business is different, so their requirements are different and how they want to grow can be different. But there are fundamentals that all businesses should be using. And one of those would be rolling twelve months cash flow. So I would break that twelve months into quarters every three months. So you'd have maybe January, February, March, and then at the end of January you would move that on, then to February, March and April and so on. So you're always looking at twelve months, but you break them down into the three into the quarters into the next quarter. So you're only ever looking really at three months in detail and then less detail. But overall, the twelve months, and this is how you have your goals. You set your goals at the end of the year or at the beginning of the year what you want to achieve. And you need to put money against those. You need to put sales against those. So, for example, a lot of us will write down, well, I'd like 20% increase on sale. So we just think if we had made 100,000, say, for example, last year, we're going to make 120 this year. But how is that broken down? What month is that going to happen in you need to get real with that. And then what does that extra $20,000 mean to your business? Is that one client or is it 20 clients or is it more or less than that? And that's where the numbers. So it's not just about the sales money coming in your expenses. You're looking at all of the information that you know that you want to put that into a process and into a format, and then you can work backwards. So if you want an extra 20 clients and you think there is such and such marketing media was coming up in March, if you're going to go there and you're going to get five clients, that's your goal to justify going. You're going to get an extra five clients. So you come back with those five clients and maybe they pay you in April or maybe not. What does that look like? Or maybe you have another campaign going on, you're going to have to put money aside for marketing. So the whole idea of a cash flow is where do you want to be and what do you need to get there? And when you're having it in your head, it's very hard to come back to that on Monday. So if you have all these ideas on Friday and you'll say, well, I need to do a marketing campaign in February. If I want to fill this venue or this Zoom call in March, what's that going to look like? And if you have it all in your head, unless you write it all down by Monday or Tuesday, when you come back to work on it again, you're starting off from scratch, but also you build on it. So I'm great believer of what's going on in the back of your mind as well, your subconscious mind. So when we write things down and we get things down, I liken it to doing a blog post or something. When you write your blog post, oh, my God, I am fantastic. That is brilliant. And then you go over the weekend and you come back and say, that's really not as good or allowed to happen with your budget and with your cash flow. And you improve it. You're continuously improving it. And the more you dip in with this and check it and look at it and review it and crack it, the more alive those numbers start coming. And you start then thinking, all right. Okay. There really is a reason for doing this, and then we can tend to look back as well. So we're coming now to the end of January. I'm not sure when this is going out, but anyway, so we're coming to the end of the month. Actually, we're in the middle of the month. But when you come to the end of a month
You're giving it away, Carmel,
I have to be that's me in numbers. You see, I have to be precise. But when you get to the end of the month, say at the end of January, and then you're going into February, then you look back and you think, right, I said I was going to do 10,000 in sales or 5000 in sales or 500 in sales. It doesn't matter. You have a budget. And how well did you work towards that budget? Do you know what happened? Or is it that you just didn't try anything new and therefore it didn't work, or did you try something new and it didn't work? And that's as valuable as
the lessons.
Yeah. So just get those lessons because the numbers will tell you the numbers don't lie. And then obviously, as business owners, we understand once we know what the reason is, we then make an informed decision. Was that a one off thing or is that a problem? And then you use that information going forward, and what the numbers do is bridge those gaps so you can see them coming. So if, for example, you want to buy that hardware, you know you want to buy a new computer and you know it's, this year, you will know when the best time to do it is and when the worst time to do it is particularly startups. But as a sole trader, as an entrepreneur, things come up and surprise us, and that causes of anxiety and stress. So somebody turns up with a bill tomorrow, an opportunity comes up next week and we don't have the cash in our bank to meet it. Whereas when you had a planned out and mapped out, you see those gaps as a longer distance. You can see them a couple of months before they happen. And therefore, you have a chance to change something and move different things around so that you're able to react more to opportunities that are coming up. And you plug in any of those money holes that you see coming along the line, which reduces the stress of money.
See, one of the worst things I remember when I first started, because it takes a while for your business to start making sufficient money that you can get a regular salary. And the way you were describing that and saying these opportunities sometimes come very quickly out of nowhere. And unless you spend the money, then you miss it. But it's really difficult to budget like that when you first start, isn't it? Because there's so many things you feel you need to get the priority matrix is a bit of a nightmare. So you think, oh well, I need a roll up banner and you're like it's COVID. No one's going to come, but you're going to get a roll up banner anyway. Not just you, but accountants in general. Would they try and add and inject a sense of proportion and priority and sort of help people say, look, you don't really need that right now. What you do need, however, is better wheels on your car so you can get to these conferences and that sort of stuff. So is that the sort of thing you guys would do as well?
Well, that's such an individual requirement, what you do with how you actually spend your money. But it's all connected. The numbers are connected to your business, are connected to your marketing budget, are connected to your sales, are connected all those different things. So once as a business, you know who your customer is and what is your priority for this year? You can't do everything. And to be honest, sometimes not having the money can be a good thing because you can't do everything. Then, you know, it gets you to focus on what is it that you want to achieve. And this is where you need to sit down with your goals and then you need to put those goals on the plan so they don't work independently. There's no point in just sitting down there and writing up numbers to beat the band. If it doesn't tie in, everything should tie into your goals in that year that you want to achieve or that quarter, that month, that week, whatever. And then from that, then it doesn't really matter how big the company, you will never have an unending supply of resources. So as your company grows, even Facebook and Google, the marketing manager has a budget and they have X amount of things that they need to do to meet that budget. So even though they do have big persons, they don't have an unlimited amount of resources and it's what that manager chooses to spend that money on and they will always choose what their goal is and what their priority is. Unlike that, the cash flow supports that idea and backs up that idea and allows you to achieve those goals. Because 42% of our goals are become more achievable when we write them down.
That's pretty high. Actually,
it is quite high. So when you have your goals, I want to grow my business by 50%. By writing that down, you're 42% more likely to achieve it. Now if you were to put a plan in place with numbers, I don't know what that number would be because so many, few people at startups are doing it. But I can tell you because what you focus on is where energy goes, your focus goes, is this your focus? So whatever you focus on basically is where the growth is going to happen. And that's why we need to be very mindful of where our attention is going to and what we're working on. And often we work on the customer who's allowed us because they're the biggest pain. And that's not necessarily moving you towards your goals. And when you have the numbers and when you have something that you're measuring it back against, it's easier to see.
I think a good example of that actually is the scale ups that you probably work with, because before we started recording today, we were both talking about growing businesses our own and clients as well. And we tend to put off the scaling up of our business because it's hard and had we actually sat down. And as you keep saying, and I've got to encourage people to listen to Carmel, what you're saying is if you set down a strategy and a plan and prioritize, you'd be amazed what you can achieve. When under pressure, you can achieve all sorts of stuff.
If you even look back last month or last year, what did you achieve? What was the one thing that you achieved and what did you do well? And you will find that the things that we care about the most is where there was a strategy in place, even though maybe we didn't write down a Word document, but we probably discussed it with someone. We probably said, what are we going to do? There was a plan of sorts in place or you built in accountability somewhere. It's what we do automatically and naturally when we want to achieve something. But I suppose with working, particularly working for yourself and working as a sole opener, you get pulled in so many different places that we end up at times reacting to what other people want us to do. And I suppose this is where a growth you need to sort of detangle yourself from that work out exactly what it is that you want to detangle from and how you're going to do it. And that might be outsourcing if you're spending time setting up your diary and sorting all of that out. If you're doing all of that that's time that you could be doing other things. So maybe getting a VA, maybe up in their hours, what does that look like? What's that cost? Where are you going to make up that difference? And that's how you move the dial in the business. You've got to have this strategy and this plan in place. And once you have the process in place, it's easier to follow when we have it, open our heads, we're holding too much information and our heads get wrecked. So you need to kind of diffuse it somehow and often that's anyone who's in the mind who would tell you to Journal it out, get it out of your head, write it down. So to get it out of your head, not when you do that, then you can see sort of patterns and different things like that.
You can also get more constructive criticism as well when you can get feedback from others. If you take it from your head and put it on a sheet of paper, you can show it to your best friend, you can show it to your parents and you can start getting some genuine feedback. That's what I found. Thinking it in your head isn't quite the same as doing it exactly.
That's why your elevator pitch is so hard, because in your head you have it so clear what you're going to do, what you're saying and who you're helping, and you just see them all coming to you, flocking to you. And then someone says, what do you do? And you kind of go, Well, I do know, but I don't know how to tell you and it's just so hard. But if the process isn't in place, it's not going to happen. And the process needs. And the thing with numbers and with the accounts is that for some reason, people put themselves under pressure to know it all. And it's quite a big topic. Well, it's a huge area. There is a method to it, and you have to learn that method if you haven't been taught or you don't understand it, I come in Facebook, I still haven't done any Facebook ads. I'm still afraid of them because I don't understand how it works. You know what I mean? I'm not putting myself under pressure from that or thinking that I should know it for some reason, because the numbers are money and there's a lot of mindset that goes on with money and that we can sort of beat ourselves up.
One thing I have learnt in the many years that I've been in business is that I don't need to know absolutely everything about everything. I take my car to the garage to get it fixed, but I know how to drive the car and I know what it sounds like when it's not right. Okay. I know that I take my books to my accountant because they know what they're doing and they know how to do it. But I read enough that I understand what it means. I don't have to understand the machinations behind it, but I do understand what I do now, what a profit and loss accounts look like and that sort of stuff. And it's the same with websites. And we don't have to know absolutely everything about everything, but we have to have an understanding of everything. That's an overview of what's impacting our business. And one thing you've definitely drilled home today is we need to have a strategy for our cash flow and for our budgeting and for learning to understand how these things work as well, because we have to take time out. We have to spend time with people such as yourself, Carmel, to understand how these things work so our listeners can learn more about yourself and what you do. What would be the best place to reach you, Carmel?
So if you come to my website carmelseery.com that's Carmelseery.com and I hold regular talks on these subjects and workshops on them. The latest one will be on my website. I do free webinars so come and check those out. I'm doing the next one on the 26 January. I'm not sure if our timing is going to work for that but if you've missed that one, do come. There will be one more a month later.
Very often, don't you?
At least about once a month I do talk and help people out or email me hello@carmelseery.com and just ask questions. I have a Facebook group know your numbers and if you hate accounting but need to know your numbers, I am the person that you need to connect with.
Yes, absolutely. Now I can agree with that. I would consider myself numerically dyslexic. If it wasn't for you I'd be nowhere, frankly. Well, thank you so much for your time, Carmel. Absolute pleasure to have you on. It's taken awhile so apologies for that. But we've had you on now and we will be back very soon and hopefully one day with Esther. I don't know why she keeps trusting me like this, I think. But yeah, we'll be back very soon with another podcast. Take care guys. Bye for now.
Thank you. Bye.