Overcome Your Fear of Finances with Confidence

65% of small businesses won't make it to their 10th anniversary. And I think that's just bananas, and I kind of want to change it. So here at Mackey, we came up with five ways that small business owners could change their habits and their behaviors to create enduring businesses. First is balance your head and your heart. Next, use data as a convener. Third, change your focus. Fourth, stop being a fulcrum, i.e. get out of the way. And five, which we're going to talk about today is build a better toolbox. So, I think that there are two types of business owners when it comes to their finances. And we all know that when we're in fear, we have two responses, right? We either fight or we flight and that happens in our finances, because finances both personal and business freak people out, right? We are fearful about our finances is the thing. It's like the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we have to have it to feel safe, and it creates a lot of fear. So, then we get into these two ways of being. The first way, which is I think 95% of small business owners is we flight and what that looks like for small business owners, is we actually become flightless birds, we become hostages. So, we stick our heads in the sand. It's like, I don't want to know about it. I don't want to know about it. I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist. I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. I know, I have clients, I know I charge them, you know, pricing. I haven't overdrawn my bank account in a couple months or even close. So, I think I'm doing well. And that's enough. That's all I can handle right now because I'm so freaked out about my finances. I'm just I can't I can't even look at it. Every time I do this analogy, I feel like so many people are like, yes, like, this is me. So, if you are feeling very ostrichy right now, you are not alone. Now there are 5% of other small business owners and the 95% of us when we finally feel like we're going to have enough gumption to like, look at our finances, we swing wildly in the other direction, and we become archaeologists. And what that looks like is that's the fight, right? Sure. Like, I'm going to figure this out, I'm going to sit down. And you look through every single transaction that has happened in the last week, the last quarter of the last year, the last I don't know, decade, right? And you start saying, oh my God, I spent this much on this, or I only charge this person this much. Or wait, did that, did that person even pay me? Right? And so, we just go down this rabbit hole, we spiral and just like we were trying to get control. But really, we're creating more feeling is out of control because we're looking at too much data where we're sifting through all of this stuff that doesn't need to be sifted through. So, there you go. We've got your ostrich she was like; it doesn't exist. I don't even like I can't even deal and you have the archaeologist who is like Kim's Manian devil, like looking through everything. And neither of these are good. Because if you're an ostrich, you're just you're in inactivity, you shut down, you're just like, trying to tread water. And if you're in archaeologist, you are just reacting, okay? So, you're just reacting to all of this data input and not thinking about what happens, you're just making very quick fear-based decisions. Okay? So, what we want to do is we want to keep moving into the middle, where we're more intentional about our choices, we feel confident in our finances and what we know about them. And we can start planning, and like doing things that aren't just spinning our wheel, or doing incremental change, like big transformative stuff, so that like, we're killing it in our business. So, I'm sure you are wondering, okay, I'm an ostrich, I'm an archaeologist. What do I do about it? And, you know, I have to tell you, professional service firms aren't set up to really help the small guy. But at Mackey, we love the small guy. So, we have done a couple things for you to help you start moving more to the middle, feeling more confident and more intentional, and making really great decisions. And so, there are a couple things I want to point you to on our website. First, if you go to mackeyadvisors.com And you go to the resources section, there's going to be a financial factors scorecard. I want you to download it and rank yourself one through 12 on the nine areas of finance that we have there, which is income tax, internal controls, profitability, and just be really honest with yourself about where you are now. And maybe there might be one of those nine factors you didn't even know you need to be thinking about good. You learned something fantastic. And I would say then pick the thing that is maybe a one and work at two or five. And maybe you work the thing that's an eight to a 12, right? Incremental change. The next thing I want you to do is I want you to go to the prosperityplaybook.com which is where we have our online learning library. And there there's a free finance 101 course for you to take. It's four classes super quick. Mackey teaches it and it will help you get a much better understanding of what's going on in your financial life. And then three, what I would really love for you to do is tell me what you need. Drop a comment. I don't care if you don't know what you need. Tell me your problems. Tell me what freaks you out about your finances because if I don't know I can't help you. So, I love it if you left us comment and tell us what's going on with you so we can create more kick ass tools for you