I am super pumped to bring this post to you. We’re talking all about the system that I use to manage my finances in my business to go from insecure stay-at-home mom to confident CFO. 

When it comes to managing money in my own personal life, that kind of bled over into the ideas and the thoughts that I carried around which we’re going to talk about today. That kind of carried on over into what I thought I was capable of or wasn’t capable of in my business. I know that I know how to do math, I just need a system to be able to help me. And just so happens a system fell in my lap a system that will help you go from insecure stay-at-home mom to confident CFO in under 3 months.

I did not create the system that I’m sharing with you today, but I am going to tell you how I’ve gone about implementing it and how my confidence is skyrocketed. How managing finances in my business is not even a thing anymore. I don’t even bat an eye at it and I actually love it, which is what systems do. 

So I’m super excited to walk you through this one system that I’m using and really how it only took me three months. I’m talking like from knowing nothing to having it fully implemented in three months and feeling super confident with it. So I’m confident that you could have this in your life too.

Listen below for the entire episode on The Systemize Your Life Podcast

Become The Confident CFO Of Your Business

I’ll give you a little background on me and handling money before I go into telling you what the system is that I use and how you can get it implemented in your life to go from insecure stay-at-home mom to confident CFO

I had a hard time, I’ve always made money. I’ve always been a really hard worker but I always spent my money. And so I went back and forth in this cycle, you make money to spend money. There wasn’t really a whole lot outside of that that I really knew to do with it and I just thought I was going to be in that cycle. It’s the kind of cycle that my family had when we were growing up. We made money and we spent money and there wasn’t just a ton of surplus. 

Then I became a single mom. I was the only one working when Frankie was really little. I still was supporting her on my own whenever I had her. And I just had been told in a couple of different relationships that I didn’t have the skills that I needed to be financially successful. And those words stuck with me for a long time and I just held on to them.

Then when I met Blaine, I knew one of the things that were really important to me was that I didn’t hold onto that forever. I knew I was going to need a partner that really cared about the growth that I needed in order to change my mindset around money and what that looked like in my life. Believed that it was possible for me. I just didn’t necessarily know how to make that happen. 

Money Mindset

So when I met Blaine and he would literally sit on a riding lawnmower and he would mow grass and listen to Dave Ramsey for hours on end. He’d geek out over this stuff. And I remember when we were dating, he was literally dating for marriage. He cared about what he was doing. 

When we got together we would ask each other hard questions from the get-go. And he talked about when you get married, what do you want to do with your finances? He just started talking about what his ideas were and I was like, yeah, let’s do that. You can do all of that because I don’t know about any of it. And that’s just what it came to be. 

I trusted him wholeheartedly. And when we got married and he came into my life with Frankie. We laid it all out together. We did this over multiple marriage retreats where we sat down and we talked about what we felt God’s vision was for our money and for our family and how we were going to steward that money. 

I really just was there to be on the same page. I asked a lot of questions, but I never really got involved in it. And so out outside of that, I gave my opinions, and I just let him do everything.

Getting Involved

So I finally came to him and told him that I really have no idea how he was doing any of this at all. I don’t even know how you pay our bills. Literally, I handed everything over to him because I don’t know how to do it. I probably won’t pay our payments on time. I just couldn’t wrap my brain around it. No one had ever had the patience to really sit down and teach me how to do it. And I didn’t really know where to figure out how to do it. 

But then something changed, which is what we are going to go over today. This system that I found for my business has drastically changed the way that I interact with my finances in my home too. It helped me to go from insecure stay-at-home mom to confident CFO.

Business Money Mindset

So, when I started this business, I was terrified of actually making money. I did not want to screw it up. I really didn’t know what to do with all this money. How do I manage it? How do I know that I set enough aside for taxes? So, I started hoarding it. I refused to spend anything on anything, I was not going to spend it. I had totally swung to the opposite side of the pendulum. 

Then one day a person named Mike Michalowicz popped into Donald Millers, Business Made Simple podcast, as a guest speaker. Mike has a business finance system that Donald Miller thought was so unbelievably ingenious that he had him on the show. And when I listened to it, I immediately knew that was for me. It was the answer to all of my insecurities. It was a straightforward, succinct, plug-and-play system. 

So I immediately got his audiobook and I binged it. I had this entire system in my brain and I was like, this is the answer. I am doing this. And then when I went to put it into practice, I got all clammy and I started panicking again. What if I’m doing this wrong? So then I dove into it even deeper and I started working with somebody that helped me implement it.

Determination

I was determined to get this figured out so that I never ever have to go back to those thought patterns about me and finances. This is my company and I’m not just going to have somebody else be the person that takes that over without me feeling confident. 

When we hold onto insecurities, it drastically changes the decisions that we make. That’s what’s going to hold me back, the finances that happen in my business affect the finances that happen in our home. All of that is very important. It affects the finances that we give every single month. 

So that’s what I did. I took Mike Michalowicz’s system, called the Profit First System. And here’s what the system is in a nutshell. He has likened it to the Dave Ramsey solution for your home finances, but this is for business.

My Profit First System

I literally take the money that comes into my business and it is set up to where specific allocations go out every single month for my taxes, profit, expenses, and for my owner’s compensation. So it is also set up to where it comes into my bank on a set day every week. Or you can set it up however you want, say twice a month but I do it at the end of every Friday. 

Any money that I’ve made gets allocated based on a percentage and goes into each of these buckets. That is everything, that is the entire system. Now you do have to go in and set things up. There are a few weeds to work through, of course, as there is with setting up any system.

But here’s what happened, I begin to see exactly what I needed to do in order to run my ship in my finances. We always talk about this as we run our ship in motherhood and I can identify my weak points in home, marriage, motherhood, and business. This was a major weak point for me. And what do I turn to instinctually without even thinking about? Well, it’s a system and I clearly believe wholeheartedly in systems. I don’t have to think about anything at all. 

Profit First Specialist

Now I made that seem really, really simple, but I told you it took me three months. Then I found out that Mike has Profit First specialists that he’s certified all over the country. There are quite a few accountants and bookkeepers that have seen the insane impact that Profit First has had on people’s businesses and they become certified. Then they can offer coaching services to people like me that want to become proficient and quickly and painlessly set up profit first in their business. 

We found an accountant who is certified in the Profit First Method. And so I’ve been working with her one-on-one to really go through all of the nooks and crannies, and ask every question that I have. I am literally ironing out that yarn, that ball of yarn that’s been dipped in wax. It’s ironed out and we are walking. 

I cannot tell you the relief, the excitement, the joy it is to understand how to run my finances in my business.

Recognize Your Weaknesses

I could not be more grateful. I mean, there are a lot of things I’m grateful for in my business, but I am really grateful that I took the time to learn this. 

But I had to stop and take the time to recognize where my weaknesses are. And take the time to find the solution and the system that I knew was meant for me, to just dive straight in. I made no excuses. I knew that it was going to take time and work. 

Could I have still set it up within three months without a coach? Absolutely, I didn’t hire a coach because it was complicated. I hired a coach because I was holding on to thought patterns, processes, and old voices that had told me that I was not good at handling my money. I knew that I could be, I just needed to learn something that made sense to me and was proven to be completely effective. Something that would not lead me astray in my business. 

Taking Control Of Your Finances

I want to steward my money, be wise, and really heart-led and God-led in everything that I do with my money in home and in business. But at the end of the day, I can’t really fall back on Blaine. We’re not doing my business finances together. Can I talk to him about it? Absolutely, but at the end of the day, these are my decisions.

I needed to have complete and utter confidence in every decision that I made surrounding money in my business. I knew that this was the way I was going to do it. It has been so unbelievably powerful using the Profit First System that has been proven in multimillion-dollar companies all the way down to startup companies like mine. Where I had just started bringing in revenue and wanted to know. 

This has opened up a lot of doors by taking the time to get coaching on this specific topic with my accountant. Which, she works virtually with anybody. Her name is Stacy Lang of Lang Accounting Services and her accountant, bookkeeping, and Profit First coaching services are available to anybody, no matter where you live or what kind of business you have.

It’s just really allowed me to learn a lot about business finances in general, like accounting and QuickBooks, and just the terminology that they use. Those things can intimidate us and if they’re intimidating, that’s when it’s time to dive in. 

Lessons Learned

With my first business, I just jumped in and for seven years it was not profitable. It was a really good time, an amazing bonding experience for me and my mom. It provided so much to me, but it didn’t provide for my family financially. And I’m pretty serious about taking time away from my family to work on a business, it needs to provide for me financially. I wouldn’t want my husband going out and saying he’s working and it does not provide for us financially. To make sure that I was actually producing something with the time that I was putting into it. 

I want you to know that no matter where you are in your business, even if you are afraid or you have some type of apprehension, or are feeling reluctant about what to do with the finances in your business, there is a solution.

“I want you to know that no matter where you are in your business, even if you are afraid or you have some type of apprehension, or are feeling reluctant about what to do with the finances in your business, there is a solution.”

The Solution

This is the solution that I have found that has worked for me. There are other girls in my mastermind that are using it that absolutely love it and swear by it, but it doesn’t mean that it has to be the answer for you. I just was so unbelievably transformed by putting this system into my business and heard about it on a podcast. I really want to put it back out into other people’s minds because it has blessed me so unbelievably well. 

The book is unbelievably affordable and the audiobook is totally worth it. I can’t even tell you how many times I went back and relistened it over and over again.

If you’re sitting there feeling like you are incompetent, incapable, unsure, insecure, or any negative feelings associated with how you are managing your money in your business finances, look into this system. 

You can reach out to me. I’m happy to talk to you about it. It literally is as straightforward as I told you, and I have five accounts. All the money comes into one, it gets allocated into the other four based on a certain percentage. 

Example:

So say a hundred dollars comes into the bank account, 10% goes here, 5% goes here, 35% goes into my income, 35% goes into my operating expenses. And I always make sure that my percentage is set aside for taxes and I never have to worry. It’s automatically done. And it just gets broken down, it gets allocated into those buckets and that’s it. So everything that I could have ever dreamed of having in finances and a business is literally coming to life because of this one super genius, simple system.

Now go look into it, it’s Profit First by Mike. I want everyone to know about it because it is amazing. It literally has changed everything for me. I’m proud of myself, and I want you to be proud of yourself. I need to pay bills. Sure, not a problem. Never have to worry about that because I’ve been setting it aside the way that I’m supposed to because I have a system in place. 

If you found this helpful, head over to our Free Systemize Your Life Facebook group and let me know what you struggle with most in your home or business financials. I would love for you to start a chat and bring some other like-minded women together in this. Of course, if you need more personalized guidance, we would be thrilled to have you join the Systemize Your Life Academy.