The Business Millennials Podcast

Managing Business Finances for Growth

• Ashley Dreager & Safa Harris • Season 1 • Episode 17

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In this episode of the Business Millennials Podcast, hosts Safa Harris and Ashley Dreager dive deep into essential financial strategies and market insights for sustainable business growth. They discuss the importance of understanding cash flow management, adjusting pricing strategies, and the impact of current economic trends on business operations. The conversation also covers market rate corrections in various sectors, particularly focusing on UGC and influencer content. The hosts emphasize the necessity for businesses to diversify their marketing channels and adjust operational strategies to adapt to changing market conditions. Listen in for practical advice on making data-driven decisions to ensure long-term business success.

Key Takeaways:

  1. The influencer and UGC market is experiencing a bubble, with rates likely to undergo a correction as the space becomes more saturated and businesses reevaluate their marketing budgets.
  2. Businesses must adapt their marketing strategies to account for changes in consumer behavior and the effectiveness of various marketing channels, including influencer marketing.
  3. When facing financial challenges, businesses should first examine their foundations, including cash management, operations, and pricing, before increasing marketing spend.
  4. Analyzing financial data can help businesses accurately diagnose issues and make informed decisions about adjusting sales processes, marketing efforts, and team structures.
  5. Continuously monitoring and optimizing financial performance is crucial for long-term business sustainability and profitability.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to the Business Millennials Podcast
00:58 Amazon's UGC Content and Market Manipulation
05:47 Economic Shifts and Market Corrections
25:09 Optimizing Your Team and Strategy
26:34 Understanding Financial Data and Making Informed Decisions
31:30 Addressing Cash Flow and Budget Issues

Referenced Links:
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Safa Harris:

Welcome to the business millennials podcast. This show brings you strategic insights through raw and unfiltered real world advice to accelerate your business growth for longterm success. I'm Safa Harris,

Ashley Dreager:

and I'm Ashley Drager. We're the founders of scale and thrive co a full service marketing and business development firm, helping visionary companies scale sustainably.

Safa Harris:

Expect us to have the uncomfortable conversations that no one else is having. We'll break down what it really takes to grow and scale your business beyond six Seven or even eight figures, as well as inspiring interviews with diverse leaders across marketing, product development, sales, and more

Ashley Dreager:

via fly on the wall as we conduct strategy sessions with business owners, experiencing issues such as plateaued income, burnout, and generally dropping the ball, giving you the tools and resources to break through your own roadblocks, but also personal development methods to grow you as a balanced conscious leader amidst business growth. Let's jump into this week's episode. So I know with Amazon, you weren't allowed to get, like, to buy a product, to get reimbursed and then post like five star reviews for it. Like that was,

Safa Harris:

I know.

Ashley Dreager:

that was an issue. Um, but it's surprising to me how many of these brands want. You to buy it from Amazon first, get reimbursed and then send them content for it. Not even specifically asking for a review or, you You know, some of them aren't even asking for you to post it to your Amazon storefront or to your social profiles. They just want the content back. So it seems very much like a regular brand collaboration, UGC content, but it's still against Amazon's terms and conditions because it artificially inflates the sales for that product on Amazon. Yeah.

Safa Harris:

they, like, it's not easy for them to just, like, be like, hey, warehouse ship this out to this one random person, especially if they're doing some type of drop shipping situation. They have to maybe, you know, Have it go through that structure because they don't have like a workaround which seems really dumb But like that's the only thing I can think of Because I don't understand what would be the benefit for them other than maybe it's like pushing them up in the ranks And they're getting more sales Uh for them to like artificially inflate their sales, like I don't know enough about that back end To say that but that's the only thing I can think of

Ashley Dreager:

That might be how, I wonder if that's how it's like the badges, you know, on Amazon where it's like top choice, popular product, like

Safa Harris:

Yeah.

Ashley Dreager:

would play into those numbers when people aren't.

Safa Harris:

get them being like, Oh yeah, just send us a selfie. So they have content for their feed. Like that's an easy, that's like which service providers hit something like that. We could be like, Hey, yeah, take a of yourself working in ClickUp. So we can post it to our feed,

Ashley Dreager:

Here's 15. Yeah.

Safa Harris:

why is it why are you reimbursing it instead of sending it for free? And yeah, I don't really know, why they're structured like that. And I also wonder if it's like the app itself that people can like grab these tasks off of. This is like the, this is like the upwork for. Influencer and UCG

Ashley Dreager:

It

Safa Harris:

Um,

Ashley Dreager:

many of these apps that like connect you with these brands that are looking for this type of UGC. And I know we've had a lot of conversations about the current economic state and marketplace of UGC content, UGC creators, that kind of thing, because the packages that they. Have shown that they charge. I've never been pitched by a UGC creator. I've never coordinated one to one like that, but it's expensive content for like a 60 second video, like thousands of dollars for one video,

Safa Harris:

And I think part of that is when it's like an influencer deal it's because oh, well I'm bringing you my audience to versus just a piece of content. Well, this is like, oh, here's just a piece of content That would be like any contractor we would hire. That'd be like hey create this you have a pack of five, whatever, and we'll send it to you for you to use on your feed. I think that's kind of the distinction on pricing there. It's like, oh, I've, I've, done a valuation on my audience, and this is how much it is. Pretty much kind of like what we were doing, um, with that client for getting her, the investor, valuation on YouTube views.

Ashley Dreager:

right?

Safa Harris:

I think that's kind of where that pricing is coming from. I still think it's very insane because you don't, like, if you're spending 2, 500 on one Instagram post, chances of on your 10 product getting a return on that immediately is, I just don't see that happening unless it's like Kim Kardashian level audience size. Because people, like, it's still, like, the conversion rate off of like an audience is still pretty low. It's in like the single digit percentages. Like, if not, like. place percentages. So I feel like every single industry that got, overinflated, there's going to be a correction on that pricing. I see why that is more expensive than just like, hey, send me a bunch of content that I can use and post within my socials type of thing. Um, but I feel like I had another point, but now I don't remember,

Ashley Dreager:

I think

Safa Harris:

now.

Ashley Dreager:

there from the two things that I wanted to bring up on this is that I think that there's definitely going to be a market rate correction. I think that this is very much a bubble right now because of how difficult other marketing channels have been for brands to grow on. Algorithms have changed. Buying behavior has changed. It's just, we're just shifting more towards an influencer economy. But I think very much like the freelance VA space. People got very high up in an hourly rate relative to the value that it was bringing to a business. I don't want to say skillset because it's a wide range of skillsets that you could be bringing as a VA, but generally speaking, virtual assisting is very much like admin work. And it's very difficult to value admin work at 50, 60 an hour. For any business. I mean, if you think is it from an employer perspective, like W2 positions, admin jobs regularly are between minimum wage to like 20, 25 an hour, depending on geographical area. Right. And so we're seeing that course correction with freelancing. I mean, it's not just for virtual assisting. It's for any contractor across the board right now. Um,

Safa Harris:

that like a lot of people just call themselves virtual assistant and they might be more specialized in their skill set of what they're delivering. So regardless of the title is, yeah, that might warrant for a higher value level job. Pay rate even though you're calling yourself a virtual assistant, but like for like basic level. This is like what a va is You comment it is mostly pretty much just Admin level work.

Ashley Dreager:

yeah. And so, but like I said, we're seeing that across the board for OBMs, marketing strategists for director of operations, project managers, any tech VAs, web designers, everybody is seeing this pinch of

Safa Harris:

Yeah.

Ashley Dreager:

and businesses is saying, I can't afford these rates. And then everybody else is saying, What am I doing with my rates? Because this is what I've been charging. And it's, uh, it's very interesting to watch play out in real time.

Safa Harris:

Yeah, I think there's like a few different factors in there one like the amount of revenue a business has has definitely increased just because Sales are lower or like the volume is less So Whatever it may be like they just don't have as much Margin to pay the higher rates which they were able to in the past So they're like, oh, well, we can't afford that. So how are we gonna cut costs Um, so yeah, they don't have the margins to keep it all going. Um, so they have to cut costs somewhere. So it's like, either I'm gonna buy less of your services at the rate you're doing, or I'm not gonna buy your services at at all because this is the rate and I can't afford it or the service provider has to Just be like, I guess I'm cutting my rates. So I'm because you're not buying from me at all, or you're buying less. And then like, now we're into a volume game, which this is why I love the agency model. You're able to do volume with smaller margins conversation for another time. But, um, so Cutting rate, cutting costs in that aspect. And then there's definitely been an overinflation of what people are charging in general, where the market was like, you know what, like this value is not aligning with the rates are because you might have someone calling themselves an OBM at a higher OBM rate when they're not actually providing the OBM services. Where it's like, oh, a VA that can do a little bit of management, but it's not really what a business manager offers. Same thing with like a, social media manager being like, Oh, marketing strategist, but they're not really doing full strategy. And they're really just focusing on that one channel. And it's not like an omni channel strategy or anything like that. And they're charging the higher rate where the value of the service is actually supposed to be at this lower, different level. And like, market's getting smarter. People actually know what's going on, what they need, they're getting more educated, and they're able to make that assessment. At the same time, they're also like, we don't have like the flexibility and the money to do things and make more of it work. So we need to do correction. So it's all of those factors coming together at the same time. And, What's happening? Both the consumer and the client, they're both having to cut costs. both having to cut their prices so they can bring in some kind of revenue at a lower level. It may be a higher rate to get things in. So it's both like, okay, well, As the client, I had to cut my prices, so I need to cut costs somewhere, and this is how I can make it up, and then the service provider's like, Okay, well, how do I increase my volume? How do I increase my revenue? It's like, okay, well, let me cut my prices and bring it in. So, yeah, people could say, oh, is this just like a race to the bottom? It's like, well, it's like the cash is not available. Are you just, are you going to let your ego get in the way to be like, I'm not going to reduce my prices and not make sales or be like, I need to adjust to the market and cut my prices and make sales.

Ashley Dreager:

But if you, if you guys heard our episode from probably about two months back, we talked about this on whether social media marketing agencies were dead. That was like the hook that this Tik TOK video. got us with because I was like, Oh, that's interesting. What are you talking about? And it very much is what we're seeing in real time with a lot of contractors and a lot of other areas, um, you know, from, 2020 through 2022, maybe early 2023, anything relating to social media management was hot. It sold so easily because everybody was on social media. Everybody was making money on social media. Social media content is time consuming. There's ways to cut time on how, you know, creating content for social media, but, but we saw that, that inflate. very rapidly and it got very expensive where you could spend a lot of money on social media management for your business. And then brands realized social media is good. It's important, but that's not where all of my money is being made. I need to be off of social media because this is how the consumer is reacting and responding to social media content. So it's shifting. And I think that we're going to see that exact same trend with influencers. We've already started to see some of the layers get peeled back with influencers. There's some pretty big names. I'm not going to call anyone out on here, but there's some pretty big names in the beauty industry on TikTok where people are catching on to her not being truthful. about her product reviews. And they're very much calling her out of you're saying that this is the product that gave you clear skin, that is doing X, Y, and Z. But four videos ago, you said that about a different product. And if anybody knows anything about skincare, you know that it takes Weeks of consistency with a product for it to actually show up on your skin This is not a I wash my face with this cleanser and wow, look at this glowing skin. That's not how this works But people are people are really catching on to this tactic from influencers because they make money With the commissions with tick tock shop with their affiliate links, you know, all of that kind of stuff. So I think that We're kind of seeing this You delay in brands catching up to the influencer bubble because the consumer is a little bit further ahead in like the behavior, is that how we would call it, in reacting to influencer content? So

Safa Harris:

are slower. And if. Business owners are having to adjust their sales process and they're saying, Hey, I can't put this much money into social media to get the return I need. And I need to diversify my marketing channels and reallocate those funds and that money into these other areas and take money away from this one channel. Like that's what they have to do to get sales, to keep their business going. So they're not going to spend as much as they were because. market is different. Their market is different. And their ideal client, their target market is reacting different. And they are not buying like the way they used to. Like you can't make the same amount of sales like you could in social media. And that's why we are always talking about diversify your marketing channels, like omnichannel presence, like it's important, especially now because of the way of buying behavior and brands are seeing that. So one, people don't have money because of economic times to buying behaviors different. They're not buying the same like they used to from social media, from influencers, from all of those things. So it's okay, well, yeah, let's adjust our marketing strategy. We need to take money away from here. And allocate it somewhere else. So that is going to have an impact on the service providers that are providing those specific services, which service providers. Diversify your income streams, adjust your pricing to match what your target market and your ideal client is looking for. Just like what your clients are doing. It's the same. You're both a business.

Ashley Dreager:

I think, I think long term that UGC content and influencer content will probably always have a place. in a marketing strategy, but I don't think that the effective hourly rate for this industry is going to remain in the hundreds of dollars an hour or even north of a hundred dollars an hour for the mass majority of people. So that's one thing. The second thing we're also seeing very large influx of people looking to become influencers. Because of the economic times, because of all of these stories on TikTok, people talking about their TikTok shop affiliate links, etc. So, that market is also going to become very saturated, just the same way that the VA social media management space got very saturated. So it's just something to keep in mind if you are looking to provide this as a service, but to also from, for businesses looking to hire this service, there's a lot to consider if you are going to be bringing that into your marketing strategy, and we can get into that if anybody in our audience is interested in influencer marketing and making that a part of their strategy. But. Yeah, that's my, that's my prediction, at least.

Safa Harris:

Well, yeah, because supply and demand. If there's so much supply and it's, there's so many people, the price is going to go down. It's, it's just like gas prices. When there's more gas being produced, the gas, in theory, like, in theory, we know there's other factors in here, but To simplify this whole situation, there's more gas supply. There's more oil supply. Gas prices go down. There's more influencers. There's more UGC content being supplied. The prices are going to go down. Like there is a very special dance that has to be done between paying people value. And I hate, I hate the term, like charge your worth. Like, this isn't about you as like a human and a person. This is literally about like a commodified. Aspect and I'm like, sorry, but like business but there is a very specific dance between charging and getting paid a livable wage Yeah,

Ashley Dreager:

I think it was in one of the marketing groups, uh, talking about where you were like, Well, people aren't fractions either. Like, fractional CMO is a term for a reason. It's not talking about you as a person. Uh, and I just, it reminded me of that. I thought that was fun. Heh

Safa Harris:

like the context on that in a second and what I meant, but yeah, it's like so this is a commodifiable marketable like Service and product. It's you aren't selling yourself. I hope you're not selling yourself so

Ashley Dreager:

Book a free audit if you feel the need to in business because we have, we can, we can help course correct.

Safa Harris:

Unless that's your business model then like do you girl? Or boy. Men can

Ashley Dreager:

get it. Get the bag.

Safa Harris:

whatever it takes, man. It's hard times. So back, we digress.

Ashley Dreager:

We're not scripted, guys. Welcome to real life.

Safa Harris:

did. Um, so there's like a difference between like pricing your marketable product based on market supply and demand and then creating a, and charging a livable wage. So in this aspect, it's like, okay, well, like I can't live off of 25 an hour okay, well, you need to grow your way out of this. If this is what the market's going to pay, like, what do you need to do in your business to make that work for you? Like, Get away from and find a way to not be charging, dollars for hours. find a way to diversify your income, income stack, like figure out your margins. Like how can you make what the market's willing to pay work? But on the flip side, like people need to understand what the value of a service and the exchange is and things like that. And like how the market, what the market's doing. So it's like, it's a two way street. They like, there needs to be understanding on both sides, but like as a business owner to keep your business going, you need to understand what the market is telling you and adjust and respond to that in terms of your pricing. And Find ways to stack income, create margins, do more to continue to survive and be sustainable as the market changes and be responsive to that.

Ashley Dreager:

So for, from the business owner perspective, right, if they were looking at this and they were saying, you know, I feel the budget getting tighter in my business, I have this team, things were going well, but I don't really know what to do. Next, I don't really know what my next move is. Do I cut my social media manager? Do I completely redo my marketing strategy so that I can afford my monthly expenses easier? You know, there's a number of different options that they would have, but for the business owner in that situation currently, what resources do they have available or what should they, what would their next step be? Heh heh heh.

Safa Harris:

out actually what's not working. So start with one, start with your money, start with your money data, pull your financial statements and see, okay, like how much am I actually bringing in? What was I bringing in to versus what I'm bringing in now? Where is that coming from? So look at your marketing data, look at your sales data and match it up with like your actual sales and your revenue coming in and be like, okay, This is where it's coming from and this is how much it is. This is what it used to be and this is where it used to come from. What can I do with that there? Like, what do I need to adjust in that one aspect there? And then you're looking at your revenue and be like, Okay, even if I ramped up my actions into this, change to my sales process to bring in more revenue. Can I keep things within my business, my cost, my expenses the same? Or do I need to make an adjustment there so there is a bottom line still there? And then from there you're looking at okay what expenses can that are like bottom feeder expenses that you can cut. Like subscriptions. Can you change, if every single one of your team members is a member in ClickUp, do they need to be? Can I reduce that cost? I cancel Loom? I cancel whatever? Like do the, because those might seem small, they might not seem like a big deal, but that's going to save you a ton of money. Can I switch from Loom to Google Meets and use that free version. Or am I already paying for a workspace? Can I just use that instead of paying for Zoom? Like, look at all your expenses and see what your bottom feeder costs cutting expenses. And if that gets you where you need to be, and you've increased your sales because you've looked at your data and seen where you can put more effort, where you're going to get more bang for your buck, great. If not, if you still, if your sales are still lower, Then what they need to be and that doesn't do it. Then you re evaluate, be like, okay, where can I adjust my team structure to save money? Like, can I one allocate someone from something they were doing? That's not making me as much money into a different position where if we put more effort there, I'm going to get more sales. I'm going to get more cash in, or it's going to save me money on XYZ, move them there. And if it comes down to be like, well, I just have to, I have to cut this expense out. It has to be like, that's has to be done. And part of that is, okay, you've looked at your sales data. You've looked at your marketing data. You've seen how it relates to your sales and your income. And you're like, okay, I need to adjust my strategy. What does my team need to look like? Do I need to develop someone I already have into a different position, move, pivot them? Is that going to be a better use of what? Like my investment into them Do I need to cut them and increase someone else somewhere then? your team and things like that and then going From there and just keeping a pulse on that one. So your expenses you can keep them in check you're doing that work and not doing Doing the work that has a return on it in some aspect, because everything has a return, but in different ways. So like marketing might not be one to one to sales, but it's going to be brand awareness that is eventually going to be sales. So if you're, if you're going to have to be really clear on what the ROI is on each thing, and if it's eventually doing something, you want to keep that going and keep that momentum going and just being in tune with that and really checking and seeing the downstream impacts of it all and then adjusting based on that and really working and auditing from there. And if this sounds really intimidating, be like, Oh my gosh, I don't want to pull my financial statements. I don't know what any of this means. This is like really scary. We do have a resource for you though. So you can learn and do all of that and see it. Um, so it is our CFO yourself. course, you can go in, it walks you through what and data you need to be looking at within your business to be able to diagnose these issues and see what opportunities you have and then what you can do about them to be able to do that. So you're able to look at that and be like, okay, this is what's happening. Let me go upstream into my operations, go upstream into my marketing and see how I can correct this. Or, okay, diagnosed all of that. I found what all of these expenses are. I've made these changes and I still need to do something else. Okay, I'm seeing that this is the issue. What are my options to correct this specific thing and then that'll help my bottom line. So that has the resources to be able to do that, and especially even if you already have like a CFO, if you have a CPA, you have a bookkeeper, they will give you the raw data on all of that and put it together, and they will work with you on it, but as a business owner, to be able to make an informed decision on the information they're giving you and the feedback that you're giving you, you need to be able to understand what's going on, Going on and learn that information so you can also still have a informed conversation with them and work together with them to have good decision making. Because at the end of the day, you make the final decision you are the CEO of your business. It is the job of a CFO to give financial background and data and information for the CEO and all the CEO does the same thing for operations. The CMO does all the same thing. And then the CEO's job is to take all of that information, aggregate it and then make a decision. you have to have some kind of baseline knowledge and all of those things as a CEO to be able to understand the business. the specialized information they're giving and make a decision. So this is that financial aspect of the information you're either going to get from your CEO, CFO, your bookkeeper, your CPA, or just like the bookkeeping you're doing then taking that data, understanding it, and All of the other aspects of your business and making an informed decision that's going to help you in the situation you're living in now and what your options are and what you can do and creating your own opportunities.

Ashley Dreager:

That was a ton of knowledge,

Safa Harris:

That was it.

Ashley Dreager:

but no, it's so important for you to have a base understanding of how this works. What are the numbers that you're looking at? Why are you looking at these numbers? What, what is the story that these numbers are telling? Right? Like you can't just go into this completely blind. and unaware, right? Like it's, yes, you may have somebody on your team that is handling this and they may be awesome and they may be super great, but at the end of the day, it's still your responsibility to make sure that this business thrives and

Safa Harris:

And. Yeah, and we everybody knows we love data driven decisions. You can't just go based on vibes for a while It's probably gonna work, especially when you're starting off. There's like a lot of low hanging fruit then you can be like this seems right Let me try it out. And when you have like If your margins are insanely huge, like you can just kind of play around and mess things around. But when things are tight, you have to be very specific and detailed on what you're trying, what you're doing. You can't just be willy nilly about it. And like, that's where data comes in. When things are tight, you need to be more specific and data is going to help you do that. You can't just like, do it based on vibes. Which

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah.

Safa Harris:

early on, that's probably fine. You can do, what, what is it like, oh, take messy action. There's gonna be a point where you're gonna run out of messy action to take

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah.

Safa Harris:

you're gonna have to be, you're gonna have to be strategic about it or you're gonna run out of money from taking all that messy action and. It hit, but it's still not there. You need to refine it more and things like that. And that's where, where data comes in. We are in a time which things are tighter than they used to be. And it's, you have to be very specific with your action. And this is the information and the actions that are going to help you maximize what you're doing because you're being specific.

Ashley Dreager:

So for example, we had a client a while back that was very much hung up on needing more clients, like in their mind, that was the issue for their business. I'm not, I'm not making enough money. I don't, I need to get more clients. We need to sign more of the clients that we're having discovery calls with, like that was the core. And so anybody just like. Initially coming in would be like, okay, well, let's, let's work on marketing. Let's get, let's pump up the volume. But when we looked into this further, this was not a marketing issue at all. this was a budgeting issue. This was a cash management issue. And very easily we could increase. the profit margins by 10 percent simply by managing the cash flow better. Not changing anything to rates, not changing anything to team structure, necessarily like small team structure changes, but it wasn't

Safa Harris:

Yeah.

Ashley Dreager:

needed to cut 50, 000 a month worth of contractor expenses to make the budget work. um,

Safa Harris:

with this? But now I know, I know who it is. Yes. So it was definitely a budget cash flow issue. So if we kept everything the same, Like you said, and just adjusted cash flow and reduced like unnecessary costs that weren't going to keep sales from coming in or client delivery from coming in. We could have literally taken the business from having negative equity into highly profitable. And Yeah, there's like a tax strategy on like negative equity, but like that's not how what was happening here. This was just like negative equity. So yes, we could have adjusted that and then From there, like we could have even, we could have gotten the business solvent, sustainable, but with just that one aspect, but then on top of that, if we take it one more level and increased operational efficiency, increased systems and things like that. So people were able to deliver what they were doing in a quicker fashion that would have increased profit margins on what was coming in and how. how much effort it was taking to deliver something. So that would have even easily done another five percent in um, profit margins just from those aspects and you're not even touching on increasing More marketing or your sales process or anything like that we've said it before one marketing is not always the problem And two marketing is a spend department if you want to ramp up marketing you better be ready to spend But if you are struggling with your finances, there might be other options to open up that cash Get that to a sustainable place have more margins and then you can be like, okay Well now I have the money and I can and things are going really well. I'm not I don't have any money leaks Now let's ramp up the marketing. And this is also why the agency was born.

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah, because I've, I've had clients before the agency that I had a very strong indication that they didn't have a marketing issue at all. They had backend cashflow, cash management operations issues, because I, I mean, this is, this is gonna be very generalized. Like we've, we even looked at every backend of a business to, you know, but if you are making multiple six figures, if you're making seven figures a year and you are going negative every month, the first thing that I would say is to look at your operations and your cashflow management. Not let's figure out a way to put more money into marketing. Because you're just trying to fill a hole that you're digging out the other end at that point. So, so I was gonna say, if you're, if, if you're an early stage business and you're only making, you know, a few thousand a month or, you know, less than a hundred thousand dollars a year, and you feel like money's tight, Money could just very well be you need to increase your sales, right? But if you have moved past that into, like I said, multiple six figures, seven figures, and you have no money left at the end of the month, or you're negative, This is what we're talking about. Mm

Safa Harris:

you're early stage and like money's tight, there could be ways you could do things in your operations to increase your margins by like automating things and stuff like that. So your like effective hourly rate is higher. So it, you would be making more money per service or action or whatever, but it's not going to be like a huge change, especially when you're a solopreneur that like feels like a huge relief. So just like definitely could be something there, but yeah, like you will need to like, it's not going to make a huge difference where you're going to go from being like, I'm contributing to my household to being like, retired my entire family, including my parents, of change,

Ashley Dreager:

hmm.

Safa Harris:

just focusing on that because you are going to need to increase sales. But the, um, leaks thing. You have a leaky bucket and the leaky buckets, your business and you're leaking money out, but you're going to just keep pouring more water in. Money into this leaky bucket, and you're just gonna spend more money pouring more mo water into this leaky bucket, and then it's all just gonna pour out anyways. So you just stay at where you're at instead of, let me fix this leak then be able to retain the money.

Ashley Dreager:

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris:

of the difference here.

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah. And that was, I mean, that happened earlier this year to a past client. They had to close their doors altogether and disclaimer, we did not have access to their financial situation to, we weren't working with them in that capacity, so this wasn't an hour skillset thing. This wasn't our lack of ability.

Safa Harris:

we were purely doing marketing for them and managing.

Ashley Dreager:

Social media. Yeah.

Safa Harris:

presence. Um, they were handling their operations, their finances, all of that. We did not have any access to any of that, but you can, we can usually see the hints. Based on what conversations they're having around their marketing. It's like, Oh, we need to increase this. We need to do all of this and stuff like that. So it was

Ashley Dreager:

Right now.

Safa Harris:

red. Exactly. It was definitely red flag for us, but we were like, okay, well, look, we don't know for sure, but like, we'll keep it going. And we did increase their sales

Ashley Dreager:

Mm hmm

Safa Harris:

from the marketing. We got more feet into the door,

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah

Safa Harris:

that part worked. But we were pouring money into a leaking bucket and it still didn't work out because they didn't fix the leak, even though our marketing efforts. Produce the results they wanted and they thought that was going to solve the problem

Ashley Dreager:

So I don't want to make anyone feel bad about this because I know financials are a very touchy subject and a lot of business Owners just kind of ostrich themselves around it, right? Like they just they hide their head. They pretend like it's not going on But in all seriousness if you are struggling to pay your bills every month in your business Now is the time to or at home. Yeah, if you're, if money is an issue to the point where you're struggling to pay your bills, now is the time to make sure that your foundations are solid, which if the bill management is an issue, there's probably some foundation work that needs to get done, right? So don't put money into marketing to try to solve this problem. Look at the foundations first, look at your cash management first, look at your operations, look at your business model, your pricing. There's all of this stuff that's it. It's all covered in the CFO yourself course, as far as you know, what to look at, how to look at it, et cetera. Um, but of course, if you want us to do it, we can absolutely come in and Do it all for you. Uh, but seriously though, this is, that's the first step because if you can't pay your bills and you try to find a way to pay for more marketing, it's not going to work. I'm going to tell you now, we don't want, we don't want you to hire us if your solution to not being able to pay your bills is just to increase marketing because we've seen it time and time again. That that's what, that's why the, that's why the agency works the way it does. It brings together these two areas because they, you have to have both optimized for long term sustainability in business for profitability in business. I mean, if this is just a side hustle and you don't really care what happens with it, then, I mean, you can, you can do whatever you want, but if you don't want to close your doors and that's a reality that may be something that you have to face. soon, please look at the finances. Please don't ignore them. Please look at what the strategy can be, where you can optimize, where you can fix, patch the leaks in your budget.

Safa Harris:

Yeah For one cfo yourself does have a profitable pricing calculator where you can go in you can put in What your costs are to deliver each one of your products your service, whatever it is And then there's also another calculator that goes along with it to figure out. Okay. So how much percent You know markup do I need on my pricing to make sure I can operate the business and deliver this profitably and what that pricing needs to be. And then kind of making the, uh, and then bringing in the market aspect of it. Okay. Well, I can't charge that cause it's market rate. So what do I need to do as far as like volume, decreasing costs, whatever to make this work. So that is there. And it's like a calculator. You just got to plug and chug. Okay. All right. But what if you're looking at your finances and you're looking at that numbers and those datas it is going to like highlight or call out to you where the issue is and it might be that yes you do need a change in your sales process you do need a change in your marketing you'll be able to be very clear that that is actually the problem instead of being like oh let me just increase my top line revenue you'll be able to know and diagnose okay This is where the issue is. Let me go and adjust my sales process what was working before isn't working before or like it's not working at all. I need to make this adjustment. You'll be able to see where you need to go and look start with your money numbers.

Ashley Dreager:

Just because it worked five years ago doesn't mean that it should still be working today. I mean, Five years ago, 2019, it was a very different economic time, right? Just expenses and cost of goods alone is not apples to apples anymore, right? So just because it worked before doesn't mean you should be able to make it work today in the exact same way.

Safa Harris:

Yep. I definitely saw an ad that said exactly that, but like in the reverse, it said like, a working strategy will always work. No, it won't. Like, nobody wants to like, see evergreen webinars anymore to convert, but you're gonna have to try something else.

Ashley Dreager:

they're so predictable. I see them in the offline space.

Safa Harris:

live.

Ashley Dreager:

Like, uh, Oh yeah. Like, um, there's a, there were a couple, a couple of businesses that I came across on Tik TOK that we're using that same strategy, nothing relating to like online service providers, online business. It was very much like a B2C model, uh, business. But, um, and I was just like, I know exactly where this is going. I know exactly what your funnel's gonna look like.

Safa Harris:

I think it's great where it's the, um, it's like, Oh, sign up for a time and we'll do it. And it's

Ashley Dreager:

Oh my gosh.

Safa Harris:

live, but you know, it's recorded and they're like, Oh, we got questions

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah.

Safa Harris:

chat. It's like the chat's not live.

Ashley Dreager:

I hate those! We're so excited for it to and it'll always be at like 7 p. m. my time and I'm like I can you just let me watch the video right now. I have time right now I know it's recorded. You're not going on live at 7 p. m. Pacific Time tomorrow on a Sunday

Safa Harris:

No,

Ashley Dreager:

Just watch the video

Safa Harris:

always one that's like 30 minutes from when you sign up and

Ashley Dreager:

Yes!

Safa Harris:

like I know you're not hosting it.

Ashley Dreager:

How could be I just happened to come across it right when you were about to start! What a coincidence! Definitely not.

Safa Harris:

Yeah, nope.

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah, I really hate those. Um, because chances are I'm not free then, so.

Safa Harris:

strategies sometimes have to change of what's gonna happen. So just like you have to adjust your pricing to the market, you have to adjust your sales strategy to The market. So use your finances to diagnose what's going on, what your op options are, what your opportunities are, and then go to that type of strategy and make those adjustments and do that.

Ashley Dreager:

So if this is something that is just really piquing your interest, you're like, you know, I've been putting this off for a long time. I don't really feel tuned in with my finances, how to manage my finances, what my bookkeeper is telling me when they're giving me this data, check out the CFO yourself. Profit like it's hot link in the description. Um, regularly it is 97, but because we're so passionate about this, we're offering this at 77. 20 off coupon. Uh, you can use the code CFO20 for 20 off. It'll go for, uh, through the middle of July, have the exact dates in the show notes for you. Um, but it is. So extremely valuable. And we use these exact same principles in our business and our personal business and the agency and our tax strategists, when we did our taxes this year, we were Complimented us on what our numbers look like. So we practice what we preach when it comes to the finances. Um, but seriously, it's, it's an extremely valuable resource. I highly, highly recommend checking it out. I'm not just being biased either. Cause it's, it's on our shop.

Safa Harris:

Well, on a tidbit, it used to not be under this business where like Ashley was getting a cut. It was under my personal business and then like I transferred the IP over and so now she makes a profit. But she did buy it herself

Ashley Dreager:

I did,

Safa Harris:

we were business partners.

Ashley Dreager:

I went through it myself.

Safa Harris:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that wraps up another episode of the business millennials podcast. We hope you found this conversation, thought provoking, inspirational, and helps you make a larger impact with your business. Growth is not just about profits or revenue. It's a journey of personal development, contribution, and bettering ourselves in society.

Ashley Dreager:

Our challenge for you take at least one key lesson from our time together today that you can apply, not just to your business. But your relationships, creative expression, wellbeing, and personal evolution to, we appreciate you tuning in. If you enjoyed this show, we invite you to pay it forward, share it with an entrepreneur, creative student, or community leader who needs an infusion of insight or inspiration right now. And make sure to subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. So you never miss a single episode. And if you like what you heard, leave us a five star review. See you next week.