Boosting Your Financial IQ
Boosting Your Financial IQ
136: How to Start Learning Finance to Avoid Costly Mistakes
Not understanding financial statements can cost your business big time. In this episode of Boosting Your Financial IQ, Steve Coughran shares his personal experience of guessing his way through business finances early on and the costly mistakes he made. Steve discusses why mastering financial literacy is critical for making smarter decisions and running a profitable business. Whether you're just starting out or looking to improve your financial knowledge, this episode will help you understand the numbers that truly matter for long-term success.
Here's how to get started with Boosting Your Financial IQ:
- Step 1: Test your financial IQ for FREE
- Step 2: Download the FREE app
- Step 3: Take the Fundamentals of Finance course
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The biggest mistake I made early on in business was not knowing how to read financial statements, and therefore I was just guessing when it came to running my business.
Speaker 2:This podcast, Boosting your Financial IQ, is about business, financial literacy, strategies for profitability and the principles taught at byfiqcom. My hope is that you will apply the lessons learned and that we can work together soon in my mastery program. Enjoy the show and don't forget to subscribe. Learned and that we could work together soon in my mastery program.
Speaker 1:Enjoy the show and don't forget to subscribe. Are you tired of being broke or are you sick of making financial decisions that are hurting your financial life and that are delaying your financial freedom? Trust me, I've been there before. I've made a lot of terrible mistakes, I've left a lot of money on the table, and I'm here to talk to you about things you could do right now to start learning about finance. And I just had an experience this last week with one of my family members. He came to me. He was asking me questions about what to do with his money and how to retire and all these other things which I don't do personal finance. But this story is going to be really interesting and I'm going to share with you because I think it will help you along your way, both personally and professionally. So stay tuned to that.
Speaker 1:But I was thinking the other day maybe I'm not direct enough with my community about how to get started with finance and learning business finance, and I feel like I have a fiduciary responsibility to help people in business understand the story behind the numbers, because I have spent my life right A big portion of my life in the classroom but, more importantly, in the real world, as a CFO, as a CPA, working in public accounting, turning around businesses, and I've seen what works and what doesn't work, and I've also seen the things that destroy lives from a financial perspective, and it all comes back to not knowing numbers. All right, it all comes back to that. So I'm not saying you have to be a nerd wearing a green shade, doing debits and credits and just you know, getting all into the accounting standards and guidelines. I'm not saying you have to do that, you have to be a nerd, but instead, what I'm inviting you to do is to double down on your financial literacy. So this is me being more direct. Maybe I just screwed around the issue. Look, I don't care about selling courses. That's not what I do. To be completely frank and transparent, through my main business, cultivar, I do just fine, and that's where I work with businesses of all different sizes to help them to grow and turn around. So that's what I do for a living. That's my primary business. Boosting your Financial IQ is a project that I initiated years ago to help financial leaders people running businesses to make better financial decisions.
Speaker 1:I just didn't know that it was gonna blow up and become this big thing with the podcast and with the courses and everything else. So here I am being direct with you, having a one-on-one, like if we were a friend, because a lot of people will reach out to me and they're like Steve, can I get your advice? And I try to respond to as many people as I can and I try to give people advice where I can, where time permits to. But this is just me being direct with you, one-on-one. If we're just sitting together in a room, what would I say to you?
Speaker 1:The biggest mistake I made early on in business was not knowing how to read financial statements and therefore I was just guessing. When it came to running my business, I just relied on sheer grit and ambition and will to make things happen. But when I look back I'm like, oh my gosh, if I would've just pulled this lever here or there, if I would've just raised my prices by 3%, if I would've just changed my offer here, if I would've just improved my cost efficiencies with my labor, if I would've maximized my throughput, whatever it was, I would have made so much more money. Now life isn't all about money and I don't regret anything in my life because it's all about learning and progressing along the way, but when I look back, I'm like if somebody would have taught me these basic things, then I would have avoided a lot of pain, a lot of heartache, a lot of money, a lot of debt, like all these things that I went through. Okay, good for me, it strengthened me no-transcript. Then that will be way better for you. All right. So that's what I'm here to do is help you to fast track your way to financial literacy.
Speaker 1:The other day I had an outside advisor look at my website, byfiqcom, which stands for Boosting your Financial IQ and as she was going through the website, she's like this is great. Like your value propositions are there. Like your descriptions are great, I love the graphics, you have some good videos here. But she's like I don't understand and I don't like really get you like the real Steve coming through the messaging and I was like what do you mean? She's like look at your course, the Fundamentals of Finance. Look at the first video.
Speaker 1:You're all goofy, you're making jokes. Like where is a clip of that on your website? And I was like, okay, well, tell me more. She's like, steve, this isn't your dad's finance program. And I was like, okay, what do you mean by that. And so then I started getting this picture in my head of this like professor in a brown tweed jacket with, like the elbow pads, wearing a yellow shirt, you know, with the comb over. Can you imagine me with a comb over? How great would that look? Anyways, imagine this like old school professor teaching finance, and she's like you are nothing like that. It's not boring, it's interesting. You're kind of like wacky and goofy and you explain it in a very simplistic manner. She's like I want to learn more, like I want to take the course. It's like bingo. Okay, so maybe I need to talk more about that.
Speaker 1:As you tell, if you listen to my podcast, if you consume my content, that I'm not some like accounting nerd, maybe you think I'm a nerd because I talk about finance all the time, but I'm not a numbers nerd. I'm really a practitioner. I'm out there in the real world running my own business, running other businesses, investing in companies, and I'm taking all these experiences, combined with my knowledge in accounting and finance, to help people live better lives, live better financial lives. So you could go to the website and I have nothing to sell you. Like I said, you can take a course for free. You can take the starter course for free, download the app, boost your financial IQ and get started. Just get started. Just start consuming content while you're driving.
Speaker 1:Obviously, don't watch YouTubes while you're driving, but you can listen to YouTubes while you're driving. You can listen to podcasts on the run while you're working out, while you're cooking, whatever it may be, while your significant other is yapping in your ear. I'm just kidding, don't do that, they might get mad at you. But you can learn on the go, and by just learning on the go, and just by incrementally improving your financial literacy, you'll be like so much better off. It's not like I woke up one day. I'm like, okay, now I know how to read an income statement, balance sheet, statement of cash flows. I know capital expenditures. I could do ROIC. I can compute your working capital and figure out your intrinsic value of your firm by building a discounted cashflow model. I wasn't doing all that day one, day two, day three. I mean this is years and years of progression, but the more I learn, the better my decision-making becomes and the more effective I become at business and making money. All right, that's just my advice to you, and maybe, maybe there are other courses out there that fit you better, whatever it is, just just do something. That's what I want to say here.
Speaker 1:So the last thing I'll leave you with is this story from this family member that I was referring to. He's very successful. He's very successful. I love this family member, and he came to me and he said hey, steve, I want to talk to you about just like my financial future. I want to start getting more serious about it and talk to you about like things that I could do. So I recommended some books to him and I said, okay, check out these books and you can do these things. That it up.
Speaker 1:But I don't get into personal finance. I'm not a financial advisor, I don't even go down that path. But really, what struck me was that here's a guy who's very successful, makes a good amount of money, and he has his own business and he's trying to think through what does it look like in the future? And there's so many people out there that are feeling the same thing. Especially when the economy is tight, when inflation's there, when the job market starts turning down, whatever it may be, people are like, oh my gosh, I need to start figuring it out.
Speaker 1:I can tell you that the biggest upside comes from business. Whether you own your own business, whether you have an equity stake in a business, whether you invest in public companies, I believe that's where the biggest upside is. I'm not saying you shouldn't maximize your 401k or your IRA or put cash aside in real estate or invest in stocks or bonds, whatever it is. Those could be great vehicles for some people. Right, I'm not a financial advisor, like I said, but I believe the biggest upside is in business. I mean, where else can you take a thousand dollars and turn it into 10 million or a hundred million dollars? You could do that in business. If you're smart, if you understand the fundamentals of business strategy, how to pull the right levers in business, all these things come together and when you do that, you could build a very successful business and the upside is enormous.
Speaker 1:If you wanna learn more about what I do and how I think about strategy, you could go to my other podcast called Business Strategy and Finance. Look that up. That's for business owners and entrepreneurs. But I just wanted to share these messages with you because that's what's on my heart today and, like I said, maybe I haven't been direct enough about the importance of increasing your financial literacy and how to get started. Like I said, you could go to byfiqcom right now, take the free starter course, download the app, get started for free. There's a free course I put together and if you do nothing else, just start there. If you want to take things to the next level, I have other courses, but there are other courses out there in the world. Just make sure that you're learning the real fundamentals strategy finance together, free cashflow all these things that will help you to be effective in the world. All right, that's all I have. If you found this to be valuable, please share and until next time, take care of yourself. Cheers.
