Episode 229: Creating Your Strategic Financial Roadmap For Your Business – with April Beach and Arnesha Bobo

You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, a probate This week on episode number 229 of the suite life entrepreneur podcast. We are talking with Arnesha Bobo about how to create strategic financial plan for your business. Now, this episode is incredibly important because she actually says it’s 60% of businesses come to her.

Who’ve already been in business for an extended period of time and never have a strategic financial plan. So in this episode, Arnesha breaks down everything that you need to know, and the first three steps to create your strategic financial plan. So the reality is as entrepreneurs, we just kind of get in there and start doing the work, doing the business,

selling the service and miss a lot of foundational steps. But when it’s time to scale your business, or when it’s time to get funding, when it’s time to apply to be a member of, of some sort of a, a board or an organization, people are going to want to see your numbers and you need to see your numbers in order to continue to be profitable.

And then this is the episode where we dive in and help you really start building that out. And so that, you know, the process that you get to go through in order to fully take control of your numbers and your business. So let me give you an indication here of who this amazing woman is. First of all, yes, I met her on clubhouse.

I know don’t laugh at me. We are going to be going live in clubhouse on Wednesday that this show airs again. This is episode number 229, and that is going to be Wednesday, June 2nd, 2021, 12 o’clock Eastern time. Join us in clubhouse because what we’re talking about here, I understand that you might have some questions. So it’s really important that we are then taking this from just a podcast,

this one way conversation and giving you an opportunity to really workshop with our Neesha, to get your questions answered. And so Wednesday, June 2nd, join us at 12 o’clock Eastern. Let me give you an idea of who this amazing woman is. She tells her story. So I’m going to summarize this here, but our niche as a small business CFO in strategic planner,

she works with women, led organizations who are ready to gain visibility in their finances and build a smart growth strategy together with her clients. She focuses on three key areas, capital structure, profitability, and growth planning. She is absolutely amazing. I know that you’re going to love her. And I’m so excited to invite you to tune into this episode. Again,

as we always say, all the show notes can be found by going to Sweetlife co.com. This is episode number 229. So all these links, everything that we’re talking about here are going to be waiting for you on tap. And if you’re a new listener to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, thank you so much for coming. I’m April beach, founder of the suite life company.

And I am absolutely stoked to have an opportunity to welcome you on this show. This show we’ve been named top 50 moms in podcast, but the show isn’t just for moms, all of you are welcome here. And we deliver a business strategies and trainings that other coaches charge thousands for. As a matter of fact, this podcast is part of one of the giving missions of our company.

And we’re pouring into you week after week for four and a half years straight so that you know that you can take the business trainings and strategies that you hear here, here on here, here, here, here on this show, and truly implement them and take them to the bank. So thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for being a subscriber of this show.

And I appreciate you so very much. Now let’s go ahead and dive into today’s episode. All right, friends. We are joined by my new clubhouse friend. Yes. I know another new amazing club friend that I have met. And so grateful for clubhouse are Nisha Bobo. And she is here because of the fact that she has been in clubhouse rooms with me,

literally drilling down on what women need to know about their money. She is absolutely amazing. She’s a CFO for women. I can’t wait for you to meet her. And today on the show, we’re talking about creating a strategic financial roadmap for your business. And our Nisha is going to walk you through the steps in order to do that. So, or Nisha,

thank you so much for coming to the show. Thank you for spending time with me here and all the time that we’ve spent together on clubhouse. And tell us a little bit about you and what you do. Yes, absolutely. I help women become better leaders in their business by improving their decision-making women are the fastest growing demographic of business owner. Yet they are the least paid.

They’re not growing in other industries. And most importantly, they’re not getting access to funding that they need to help either grow their business or expand in other markets. So I help women. We’re all things, money with all things, money. I love that. Okay. So reminds me. I was actually in a meeting a week ago with an author of a book it’s about the new entrepreneurship and he was talking about women and minorities and immigrants as well coming in,

and that they don’t have funding, but this gentleman who funds a lot of regular business was saying, they’re looking at ways to create new programs to do that. So just decide now, but it was very interesting to hear and just triggered me to say that because I do think that the funding hopefully is coming around, but like what we’re going to talk about today,

there’s a lot of things that every business owner needs to do to get their ducks in a row before anybody will even pay attention to fund them. And those are the things you’re going to share with us today, but tell us a little bit about you and you know, really how you got into this, why you started your company and your, your journey about getting yes,

absolutely. I have a 14 year corporate accounting career. So I’ve worked with very large companies. I’ve managed multi-billion dollar portfolios. And when I first started my company, I was at a nine to five or so I was a part-time entrepreneur, like many businesses starting out. So I would, you know, work my full time job, my nine to five.

And then I would go home and work on my business, five to nine, how I became a consultant. I actually work with the procurement department for some corporations. And if you are familiar with the procurement department, that’s the department you go through as a business owner to get corporate contracts. So you have to go through a procurement process, you have to register your company with them.

You have to submit financial information, you have to apply. And then you start bidding on different contracts that they have. So you can do this at a corporate level, government level, city, state, and federal, but I was at the corporate level and I noticed a lot of businesses did not qualify to do business with these corporations because their business head,

no proper foundation. So they were not set up correctly. They didn’t have access to financial information because they only met with their tax accountant once a year. So I found myself a lot of days working with business owners to set their foundation up just so they could do business with that corporation. I am not a gatekeeper. If there’s an opportunity for me to help you come on and come on,

but I want to make sure that everything is done correctly. So that’s how I started my business is helping other small businesses get into these corporations to do business with them. And then it started to grow from there. I later joined a national organization for women. It’s called<inaudible> the national association of women business owners. And I joined to become a better business owner because I had that corporate mindset and everything was structured,

but I wanted to learn how to be a business owner. So I joined this organization, you know, attended some events, was able to do a couple of reasons, patients or answer questions that event. And I caught the eye of the president at no idea that she had watched me or she, you know, I was on her radar. Well,

she asked me to join the board. And as I actually, yeah, I joined the board as a financial secretary. So I was responsible for doing all of the financial reporting for the organization at our chapter level. And I started working with a lot of female owned businesses. So that’s how I, you know, that’s why my core are women because I was able to help them birth.

And I’m a woman. I love women. I love to see women win mommies, aunties, everybody. I want all women to win because I coming from corporate America and just seeing the huge disparities between men and women, the earnings, all of that, I was like, oh no, any opportunity I can help women. I’m going to do that.

So that’s how I kind of got started. And I actually left the organization because relocated to Atlanta. So I’m in Atlanta, Georgia, the home of entrepreneurship. And I actually joined another business organization. It’s called the Atlanta black chambers. It’s a chamber dedicated to helping black businesses grow coffee. I have the executive director of course started. So, you know,

do a lot of great, amazing things. Patients with the chamber got into leadership. So I chaired a couple of committees. I co-chaired another counting the financial services committee at one event. One of my chamber members actually invited me to speak at an event because she was a program manager for a city accelerator. And I was able to get a contract with the city.

So I got my first contract sole source. I didn’t have to go through a bidding process. And that’s one of the longest standing contracts that I have. So now I teach a financial consulting to new and small businesses here. Wow. That is an amazing story. I mean, your story is just amazing. There’s so many things that people can take away from that story alone.

And I think that like, it is remarkable. You are clearly very good at what you do, but I love the part of it where you just did it and people recognized it because you did the work and people recognize you for just like being true, doing your skill, doing the work and connecting important into others. Yes. Thank you. If I was building a personal brand and didn’t know that I was building a personal brand.

Yeah. You had no idea. That is so amazing. That is so cool. Congratulations to you. And I hope our listeners are like, okay, like I can do this. Like there, isn’t always some big, huge, hidden strategy behind it. It’s just leading with what you know, doing good work and pouring into people and you get recognized and you get elevated.

You get brought up. Yes. We could just end the podcast. This is today’s lesson, boys and girls. Oh my gosh. Okay. So you currently teach businesses on a regular basis. How to get their financial Jackson row, how to get their foundation in place. You do it on clubhouse all the time. If you guys are not following our Nishawn clubhouse,

please make sure you do that. Is it our Nisha Bobo? Yes. We’ll make sure that’s in the show notes for you guys as well. Plus of course our Nisha is going to be going live with us in our suite life podcast, clubhouse room though, week this show drops and you get to connect with her even more directly and bring your business questions.

So that’s just a side note, those of our listeners that know that, and can’t wait to have this conversation in a live setting. So you can get a chance to really workshop with our listeners too. So what we’re talking about today is really creating a roadmap for your business. And you have a method, you have a way that you bring businesses through this and it’s so important.

And when you explained it to me, kind of behind the scenes, before we started recording, I was like, oh yeah. Oh yeah, that’s really, really good. So today you’re going to guide us through really the first three steps of that process of that business roadmap. So why don’t you go ahead and get us started here for those of our listeners.

You guys should have a pen and paper, please make sure you’re taking notes or if you’re driving or at the gym or wherever, you know, you can always come back and replay this. So what is the first thing businesses should do in order to really start creating a great foundation? Thank you. Yes. So the very first step is creating a solid foundation.

I work with hundreds of business owners a year and they, most of them just get into it. They just get into business. You just started doing it. There was no business plan. There was no page today. Your business is not registered. You don’t know which state you’re at should pay taxes. And like they’re all over the place. So I’m going to help you right now,

create a foundation, a solid foundation. You need a business plan or some type of strategic plan, right? We’re known in our industry for strategic planning. That’s our jam. We do strategic planning from the top to the bottom of your organization. I have a top down approach. You need a plan. The very first step of creating your foundation, whether you are a new business established business,

you’ve been in business 15 years, every single year, you should have a plan. And that plan should start with your vision. What is your vision for your company for this year short term and long term, right? Where do you want to grow this year? What do you want to accomplish this year? What do you want to improve this year?

What do you want to be this year? What is your vision? Create a vision and stick to it because you are the leader of your organization and your team is going to follow you in your leadership style. They need to understand your vision. They need to understand where you’re trying to go. I had a meeting this morning with my marketing strategies that I just hired.

And I sent her my strategic plan and she was like, oh my God, I’ve never had this happen before. Right. Never had a strategic plan. It lists our goals, our objectives, everything. I want her to have clear direction on what I need her to do for my company. I absolutely love that. Okay. I totally geek out on that whole entire thing.

As you know, like we do strategic planning when it comes to drill out Venus suite of offers. And we were talking about this behind the scenes too, but like the whole financial side of it is so big and there’s so much more of a process that people don’t even talk about. And I’m not an expert in that I don’t, you know, build out their,

their financial plans. And so that’s why, like, I’m just geeking out on the whole strategic plan thing. So let me ask you a question here. And this is, I think a lot of our listeners, we have businesses that are scaling, who are listeners. We have brand new businesses when we are talking about guilt or like, this is a problem.

Like when is it usually with, and sadly, this is the case. Although it shouldn’t be entrepreneurs, aren’t very proactive on the things that, you know, we really just don’t want to do that. Isn’t fun. It doesn’t feel like we’re creating anything. So obviously they need to do this in the very beginning. Every business should be doing this in the very beginning,

but honestly, how many businesses do you guys have coming at you that have been in business for a long time? And they don’t have any of this? I’ll say about 60% because, and the reason why they don’t have it in a place, like I said, when they start off, it just started doing business. There isn’t a roadmap in place.

You just started doing business because you are good at it. Or you don’t really think it through or plan it out. And typically when you start to hurt in business or something goes wrong or not making the money yourselves or not increasing in your conversion rates are low. There’s a problem somewhere. And you need to just pause, pause so we can figure out what’s not working where the issues are and create a plan to fix that issue or implement some type of solution that will fix that issue.

But if we don’t know what the problem, if you don’t have visibility on the problem, and you’re just trying to figure it out, that you’re going to continue to build yourself in a hole. So you need to just stop and figure out what’s going wrong. I’ll use myself as an example. I struggled with creating content because as an accountant, when I first started my business,

I sounded really technical. My language was very technical and my content was not combining. I hired a content strategist. I was like, because look, I have tried Facebook. I’ve tried Pinterest, I’ve tried this. I’ve tried that. And I’m just not seeing the conversions or the view. I’m making the money. That’s not the problem. It’s the view.

And she was like, oh, this is the issue. And this is the issue. But I had to hire an expert to tell me where the issue was. And I was like, oh, okay. So now we have a map in place. Now she’s like this. We start here to create this and you create this. And this builds on that.

And then boom, there’s that content static every over, like over the next, maybe seven days, I saw a drastic improvement on our views. I was like, okay, thank you. I love that. Okay. So you guys are listening. If you haven’t done this yet, like, don’t feel bad. Don’t feel guilty, but it’s probably time to stop.

If you don’t have this financial foundation as our Nisha is saying and place, all right. So after this strategic plan is created, what comes next? What’s step number two, that people should really start diving in to understanding. So step number one is creating the foundation, solidifying your vision. After you create your vision, you also need to create core values and smart goals.

Your core values. You know, this is how your compass is what your company believes in. This is what you support. And this is how you pretty much operate. We have six core values in our company, and I always work with a business to create them when we’re going through the strategic planning process. So step one, creating a foundation, eat a vision,

core values, and smart goals, right? And a lot of times with the goal planning every year, every January, we all get excited. We’re going to create these 15 goals and we want to achieve all these things. You have to structure your goals and organize them, right? You don’t need 10 goals. Maybe you just need three, three short term,

three long term. That’s six that’s enough for the last year, the entire year. So creating those goals is enough, right? So step one, foundation, step two. We’re going to get into business performance. You need to analyze and assess your business. So once we solidify your vision with your company, the next step is I’m going to do a full,

I’m going to analyze your business top to bottom. What’s not working in operations. What’s not working in finance. What’s not working with you. Hiring people. I’m looking for missing processes. Do you have a hiring process in place? Because if you don’t, you’re probably not compliant with the state you’re operating in, right? Do you have a business budget in place?

Do you understand how much money you’re projected to make? How much are predicted to spend and your contribution margins? Do you understand your profit margin? So we get into some KPI reporting. I’m a numbers person. So I’m going straight for processes and then numbers. So making sure you have bird’s eye view and business owners, they typically only want to know how much money they may,

how much is left over and how much they only taxes. There are so many other moving it’s telling me this. I’m fine. Just tell me the rest I’ll be on. I’ll be on a beach somewhere. Yeah. Just give me those three things and we’re good. Oh my gosh. Those three things are, there are still other factors that you need to understand total income,

right? What are your top revenue performing items? If you offer, if you have a full product landscape by April, you work with businesses to build out their product suite. So business owners need to know what are their top performing, you know, products or startups. Don’t just dump everything in sales, right? That you need to see everything listed out expenses.

What are your top expenses, right? How much of your expenses contribute to your labor? What are your labor margins? If you have a team, how much is your team costing you? Right. I know for a fact on a 70, 30, no product that I released is going to cost me more than 30% of their product so that I can remain 70% profitable.

That’s how we build our service landscape. I’m not reducing my total projected income or increasing additional costs. Say that again. That was so powerful. Can you say that again? Cause I want to make sure our listeners did not just pass that up. Okay. So listen to this financial structure for your products. Okay. So what is your, what is your,

when are your numbers right? 70 30. So that means out of a hundred percent, it only costs me 30% to produce my services so that I walk away 70% profitable. That’s a very small conversation around pricing, which that’s a whole different conversation, but you need to understand your profit margins going in. How much is it going to cost you to produce this product or service?

How profitable do you want to walk away be? So I know every time we create something, whether it’s a bootcamp, a group coaching program, authoring a book, whatever it is, we’re going to walk away. So many percent profitable. If I cannot do that, I need to restructure the cost. Amen. Yes. And this is a thing,

and I was actually speaking to a client about this this week. And we talk about it all the time. Like in your clubhouse rooms, I was in there and you were talking about this. The thing is, is that when we’re, most of our listeners obviously are online, businesses are offline going online. And so what I tend to see is that they purchase so much software and they have no idea how much money they’re spending on an ongoing basis as well,

and what they actually need to use to produce that particular offer or a product. And so this whole entire conversation is, is just so helpful. So thank you again for being here, talking my best today on the show. Okay. So know your numbers and like down and dirty, what are the numbers that people need to know? So knowing your total revenue,

knowing your total income, how much money did you make, even if you use a lot of payment gateways, like, Hey, Pao, Stripe, square, collectively, you need to know your total income, right? You need to know number two, your total expenses, how much money are you spending? Like you just mentioned, April people use all of these tools.

We downsized all the time. I have what’s called shared services. So if we are creating digital products or consulting services, I want to utilize the same system. So I can just do a percentage allocation across the board. I’m not going to implement a ton of systems because that affects my profit margin. So total expenses, total income, and your bottom line.

The difference between your total income and total revenue is your bottom line. Are you operating at a net loss or are you operating at a profit? You need to monitor that every single month because that’s going to affect you at tax time or when it’s time to seek capital when it’s time to grow. When it’s time to have the bit management conversation where you want to apply for funding,

you need to understand your bottom line and all the factors that positively or negatively impact your bottom line. Yes. And a lot of businesses right now have also spoken to clients about this. As far as that, the relief loan, like the COVID relief loan. Like if you don’t have these numbers and you don’t know if there’s been a loss or a decrease or whatever,

then you know, they aren’t there. Aren’t qualifying for some of this really powerful cash injection that they can get it. They weren’t in 2020, they can get into their business. So, so important. And then KPIs, can you really like dumb that down? Explain that. So people really understand how to look for this in their own business. Yes.

KPIs are key performance indicators. So these, there are ratios to help you analyze areas of your business. Like your have revenue KPIs, you have labor KPIs, you have production KPIs. So when I say KPIs like they’re in ratio form, so you’re just taking numbers and providing them over to percentages. My favorite is revenue growth. How is your revenue growing period to period when,

I mean, period, every single month is your revenue growing month, month, month, per quarter, or a month to a year. So how is your revenue growing while your a monthly recurring revenue, each department of your business is going to have their own KPIs? So you have financial KPIs, which I monitor. You have operational, you have logistics depending on the nature of your business,

traffic to conversion. So there are different types of numbers. It depends on your operations, you know, marketing, they’re going to look at visits to conversions or visits to sales, to figure out what’s working. What’s not working in this particular marketing strategy or marketing campaign. So just understanding how to analyze your revenue and your income, or all of your numbers for your business in a percentage capacity.

And don’t worry has a guide. We’re going to make sure that you have so that you can really start diving in this and make sure that you guys are taking action. As you know, here in the show, like we’re going to give you the step-by-steps business trainings here, things you can look for, but then, you know, it’s your job to go and implement this.

And so our Neesha has a guide. That’s going to really start walking you through that process. We’ll make sure that you have a link to download after we’re done chatting here. Okay. And then what is this third step that you recommend businesses go through? The third step is creating a long-term plan. So once you have you slip out of your foundation,

you’ve created a operational plan for the year. It’s time to think long-term and long-term in the, the mains of everything, right? Capital are you, do you have the right capital structure? Do you have the right money in place? You have access to excess capital like lines of credit and business credit. Are you able to grow that you have debt in place?

Are you able to properly manage your debt? One of my clients incurred a lot of debt over the last few years. So we put together a very aggressive bit management plan to reduce their bit because it was affecting her bottom line. So you had this heavy umbrella of debt over your business. And if you’re in the rat race every single day. So being able to create opportunities to reduce that debt without hurting,

you know, operations, too much team, your team and operations capacity planning, what is your team doing now? What can I do better in the future? And how long can they do it? Right. We have a lot of technology that’s coming down the pipeline. A lot of AI, what can be automated in your business for us? We actually started out as a bookkeeping firm.

So we started out providing bookkeeping services and we’re quickly able to scale up to CFO services because a lot of bookkeeping services offer automated bookkeeping. So we’re doing the day to day, that can be done automatically. You don’t have to pay a lot of money for that, but the strategy and the planning you’re going to spend money on because a computer can’t tell you that you have to have somebody to sit down and read through the numbers with you and read through your operations and fill in that.

So number three is definitely planning for the loan term. Wow. What a powerful thing. I mean, that must feel so good for businesses to have you go in there now probably virtually and be able to help them unpack what they want and hand them a strategic plan to get that. I mean, just like for a second, you guys listening, like imagine what that would feel like to you to have somebody like our Neesha come in there and unpack all of this for you and what you’d walk away with.

And no, I don’t get like commissioned for making sure. She’s just saying, you know, like imagine how much that would take off your plate of wondering what you’re missing. See, here’s the thing I find that most business owners worry so much about the things they don’t know that they’re missing. They don’t even know specifically what they’re worried about, but they know that they don’t know enough about certain things that they don’t know enough about.

And they know that they’re there in sometimes business owners, even clients of ours, who’ve been in business for years and years. It’s like, they’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. And that is no way to run a business, especially creating a business. That’s going to skill you into the future. So I love everything that you’re saying. And it’s so incredibly important that businesses go through this process.

And after they figure out their long-term plan, you guys are Nisha has a full guide. That’s going to go into detail, but just really, really like top level. What are the next couple steps that people go through in this process? The next step will be assessing your tech deck. So what is what tech interviews is using? You know, do you have outdated processes?

Do you have outdated systems? A lot of times we found that companies that have smaller team, they have a team size. That’s unnecessary because too many people are doing too many manual things. There’s no automation in place. There’s no, there aren’t any sequences set up to trigger this action. When you have poor outdated processes, you have unhappy employees, you have a lot of manual work.

That’s costing you a lot of billable hours for your company. And most importantly, you have people doing a job that could be automated. I was an unhappy employee in one of my corporate dives because the tech was just so old and it was so manual. And I was just, this is, I felt like I wasn’t living up to my potential because I was trying to figure out how to automate this process instead of doing the actual job.

And you don’t want unhappy employees, you want people that are happy to do the work for you to help you in your organization. And they can help take things to the next level. Asset protection is another one, making sure your intellectual property is protected. I just had a meeting with my attorney because we were talking about some programs I want to roll out.

And she was like, make sure you send the prelim over to me so I can look at it to make sure it’s part of our IP deck. So making sure that your IP is protected and then last but not least for my small businesses tax planning, please, please, please free tax plan. That’s why no longer a number is important. You should not wait until tax season to know your numbers,

especially in a year like this. When we had an administration shift, we are in a pandemic there a particular way. Things have to be calculated. Are you ahead of the game? Are you being reactive or are you being proactive? I would prefer for you to be proactive when it comes to the pre-tax planning phase. So those would be the remainder of the steps in the rule.

Wow. Okay. So today we talked about creating a strategic financial roadmap for businesses and you are the founder of CFO for women and everything was so informative today. You’re always just giving so much not, you know, we say that I’m also giving so much value. Well, yes, it was incredible value. But today I just appreciate you so much.

And you do this in clubhouse as well because you really, really dialed it down to the tactics. It’s not just all about idea or strategy or what needs to be done, but it’s going through the tactics. And so I appreciate your time so much on the show today and how can people find you? And we’re going to make sure the links to your download are in the show notes as well.

So if you’re driving, you can’t write this down. No worries guys, but how can people really connect with you more? Absolutely. You can always find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at CFL for women. Those are the handles for those three platforms and I’m on clubhouse ads. Our mission speaks up there every Monday at 3:00 PM. I am also there some Tuesday evenings hanging out with April,

but I’m always there. I’m just slide in my DMS. If you have any questions, I’ll make sure you get access to the right resource. If you are in the city of Atlanta and you are a new or established business, but you need some additional support, you can contact the urban league, the entrepreneurship center and register for one of our free accelerated programs.

This is about $20,000 worth of free training for you and your business. I am one of the coaches for their program. So please come out and receive the assistance. That’s why you can find me. Wow. Yeah. Luckily Blog that goes out every first, Monday of the month, it’s called your bottom line. So you can go to www.cfoforwomen.com and click on blog.

It’ll take you straight to our blog. So we upload a blog every single month to help you get access to resources and strategies for your amazing, amazing, thank you so much for being a guest on the show. And this is Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, episode number 229. So everything that our Nisha just said, and you weren’t able to jot that down will also be found@sweetlifeco.com

click on the podcast. And this is episode two 29, and don’t forget to join us. Live in clubhouse under the sweet left entrepreneur’s club on Wednesday, the week this show drops, I’m looking at my calendar right now. I think we said, that’s going to be June 2nd, Wednesday, June 2nd, at 12 o’clock Eastern time. And Arnesha and I are going to be in there taking this conversation a bit further and strategically there to make sure you guys are getting your questions answered.

So thank you so much for joining us Arnesha. I appreciate your time and expertise. Thank you so much for having me