A Call To Leadership

EP249: Boosting Your Bottom Line with Ahuva Gruen

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Ever wondered why so many businesses struggle with cash flow despite steady sales? In this episode, fractional CFO Ahuva Gruen joins Dr. Nate Salah to unveil the financial blind spots that often make or break a business. With insights on mastering cash flow, establishing resilient pricing strategies, and creating accountability systems, Ahuva offers the tools to boost both stability and profitability. Don’t miss this chance to learn how to future-proof your business and achieve sustainable growth!

 

Key Takeaways To Listen For

  • Why building financial awareness is the first step toward business success. 
  • Tips for creating a structured payment process for your business
  • How and why you need to plan for seasonal variability
  • Profit Margins vs. Revenue Volume: Which one is more important?
  • Reasons you need to continuously reevaluate processes, pricing, and resource allocations in your business

 

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

 

About Ahuva Gruen

Ahuva is a seasoned Fractional CFO with over 20 years of transformative experience in financial leadership. Specializing in turning complex, overwhelming finances into strategic assets, Ahuva empowers businesses to reach new levels of profitability, growth, and scalability.

As a former CFO for a major organization, she spearheaded remarkable growth, scaling revenue from $3 million to $28 million annually, securing $25 million in tax-exempt bond financing, and expanding the organization’s service offerings to increase its impact significantly. Today, Ahuva brings this expertise to her clients, blending her CPA background with a visionary approach that extends beyond mere number-crunching.


Connect With Ahuva
LinkedIn: Ahuva Gruen, CPA

 

Connect With Us
Master your context with real results leadership training!
To learn more, visit our website at www.greatsummit.com.

For tax, bookkeeping, or accounting help, contact Dr. Nate’s team at www.theincometaxcenter.com or send an email to info@theincometaxcenter.com.

 

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[00:00:00] Dr. Nate Salah
If you've been in business long enough, you know that money is so important to your business. We don't talk about a whole lot on the show. However, it is a discussion that needs to be brought to the forefront, how we manage our cashflow, how we plan strategically, how we maximize profitability. What are our blind spots? For leaders to improve these financial management pieces. I've invited an expert, Ahuva Gruen, a fractional CFO who is 20 plus years in the business knows it front and back. We're going to geek out on some practices for financial management effectively. Leading your business bottom line. Can't wait for you to listen in. I'm Dr. Nate Salah. This is A Call to Leadership. Ahuva, thank you for being on the show. 

[00:00:59] Ahuva Gruen
Thank you, Dr. Nate, for having me on the show. I am so excited. 

[00:01:03] Dr. Nate Salah
I'm excited too, because we get to geek out about something that's very near and dear to our world. Plus it's near and dear and important. For business owners and they miss it because it's almost like they have blinders on when it comes to the numbers and you are an expert in this area as a fractional CFO and of course I've spent 30 years in this space so we're gonna have some fun so if you're listening and you're like oh my goodness I'm going to turn off because I don't want to talk about numbers and I have a business. 

[00:01:31] Ahuva Gruen
We’re number one and helping your company. And helping your business and being a leader, awareness comes before action. 

[00:01:41] Dr. Nate Salah
That's right. And there's a lot of lack of awareness, right? Blindness in a lot of work. Do you experience it? I experienced. 

[00:01:46] Ahuva Gruen
I see it all the time. They, you think if you don't talk about it, don't look at it, you'll be fine. But it doesn't work like that in the real world. In order to grow and succeed, you need to have awareness and in order to fix any issue, any battle next. Any leaking money, you need awareness. 

[00:02:05] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. And we don't talk about money a lot on the show. And it's really a treat when we get to, because it is the blood flow. I call it money is the blood flow through your business. And it is the resource provider. And as with many business owners, the only numbers they know are what's in the bank account. Hey, I wake up in the morning. I see what balances. And so if I got money in the account, I'll do this. If I don't, I got to go work harder. That's no way to run a business. 

[00:02:28] Ahuva Gruen
No, no way to run a business. That is really elementary. That is really. Then your stomach will turn over when the morning that you don't have money in the business. It's so important to know what's going on in the business, to know about cash flow, to know what's coming in and what's going out. And once you know about cash flow, you could do so much more. You could look at processes. How long is it taking your clients to pay their bill, their bill, their invoices? How long do I have to pay my vendors? Do I need to negotiate the vendor terms? Not to pay anyone on the spot, but to give yourself 30 days to give you some breathing room. You need to give your clients breathing room 30 days, but not 60 days, not 90 days, not 120 days.

[00:03:19] 
It is so important. A law firm. I have clients at a law firm. For that, it's so important to make sure that the client have money in their trust account because one day, when the case is over, they disappear. You won't be able to get the money. Construction car, construction businesses, when they get the product, Then you have to go running after. Don't give your final product before they pay up. It has to be processed. Processing is so important. Processing is about when you give what to your clients. How long do they have to pay? Do they need to give a deposit? When do they have to give the second installment? When do they have to give the third?

[00:04:01]
When do they have to give the final installment? What's process? If you're letting them pay up slowly, on what terms? Processes is so important in every part of the business. And when I go into a business, one of the things I look at is process. Processes for cash flow. Processes for checks and balances. Processes for every part. It helps your business run smoother. run better, your cash flow, everything you do in your business leads to the bottom line. It is so important. I cannot talk about it enough. 

[00:04:37] Dr. Nate Salah
Oh, yeah. I love it. I love that foundation that you just laid for this conversation as so important. Knowing your numbers is one of the most important aspects, if not the most important aspect of your business. And for me, all my life, I've always thought about the numbers first. So, whatever it is I'm going to do, like let's run the numbers first before I even like think about starting a business or doing any kind of investment. And then, with the numbers flesh out, then it's okay, let's take the next step. There's our market for it. Things like that, right? Can we get the employees and the help, and all the resources necessary to run this business? But the numbers are the most important piece. And you talked about something that's really important. I know that we've got a lot to talk about, but at some point, I do want to talk about. The aspect of cash flow and you. I love how you framed it and setting the right processes for what the expectation is for how I'm going to get paid as a business. We owe that to our business. We owe that to our employees. We owe that even to our clients, our customers, because if we don't have the funds and resources to finish one job, because we're still waiting on money for another one, that's going to end up in a very bad experience, a very poor experience for all of our stakeholders. 

[00:05:45] Ahuva Gruen
A hundred percent. In order to have cash flow, this is such a loaded topic. But number one, you have to know, once you know what your business is, what services is doing well, what services is not doing well, what season, what's your slow season, what's your busy season, put the money aside. In your busy season, don't just, like Dr. Nate, oh there's money in the account. I'm gonna go buy, do my website, or invest in research development, or make a big office party.

[00:06:18] Dr. Nate Salah
Or go, or go, or go buy a big fancy car that you can't afford because you're just spending the company's money. 

[00:06:23] Ahuva Gruen
Yeah. You have to put aside money for taxes, put aside money for your slow month, put aside a reserve for if you lose a big client or the client doesn't pay time even when you have the process. Cash flow is know when money's coming out when money's coming in, when money's coming out, and really plan accordingly. So once you have awareness, you can work on cash flow. Cashflow could be an issue. One of my favorite topics is you're not making enough profit, but we'll could talk about profit margins and all of that, but cash flow is huge. And your whole business, you have to have a mindset. Are your service providers, are your employees are they billing right, are they tracking their hours? If you don't track your hours and they don't go on time. No client just want to get a bill five months later. They're not going to pay it. That's going to hit your cash flow. If you don't keep up your credential, then you'll hit a snag if you can't bill. 

[00:07:30] Dr. Nate Salah
It's so important. I'm glad you brought that point up. Billing four, five, six months out, it's just too late. And people have forgotten about it. They're not going to pay. I love to have clients as far as if different businesses have different ways to do this. However, As much as you can automate, if you can put people on ACH and have auto debit for whatnot for services, reoccurring services, don't go chasing money because chasing money is just more time and investment and accounts receivables. And then you've got the likelihood of getting your money is not always that great as the aging happens for longer receivables. And also, as you said. Deposits. Hey, you know what teleclients have worked on at the house and I had the contractor say I need 50 percent down, and then my second installment I need another 20 percent, and then when we final the last 5 percent, the last 10 percent and guess what I did. I paid it. 

[00:08:20] Ahuva Gruen
Follow through. I followed through. That's what I tell my contractor that my construction-related business. If you put the processes and they know and you do good work, they'll follow through. And about the deposit, the automated, that's great. Also, in 2024, we should not be waiting for checks in the mail. ACH, Zelle, credit card, a hundred percent. No more, oh, I mailed the check. And then you have to wait and then you risk, um, uh, bouncing. ACH, Zelle, credit card, it's worth it to pay the 3 percent to know the head. And if it's automated, then you could set up to charge your credit monthly. 

[00:09:05] Dr. Nate Salah
That I didn't forget it. 

[00:09:06] Ahuva Gruen
So, it's so important. All these little processes, you think, oh, it's nothing. But business owners, It makes a huge difference. It makes a huge difference in your cash flow. It makes a huge difference on your health, how you could sleep at night, how you wake up, are you dreading looking at the bank account in the morning. And if you have money, don't go blow it because you don't know. You have to put aside, let's say, quarterly estimated tax return, slow month, rent, mortgage, insurance, utilities, payroll, payroll.

[00:09:44] Dr. Nate Salah
All of that and that's where the professional relationship comes in because you may not know how to do all this and it's okay. It's okay. This isn't a plug for accounts, but listen, you're not an account. 99 percent of business owners are not accounts, and that's great. 

[00:10:01] Ahuva Gruen
So you do what you're best at, and you delegate the rest, and I will, and we run cash flow, forecast, profit, loss, balance sheet, to help the owner, because no business owner could, you can't be great at everything, do what you're best, and delegate the rest, just like you said you had construction in your house when I did work in my house, I didn't go sit there thinking about the colors, I hired a professional. We worked together. She showed me what colors and I loved it. It was great. I hired a professional to do what I'm not good at. And I used my time to what I'm too good at. And so to business owners, you can't do everything. Delegate what you need, do what you cannot, and delegate the rest. So crucial. 

[00:10:52] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah, I live by that philosophy. And then something else you said was really important as well. And when you're talking to a business owner, and they're already making financial decisions without a professional or someone who is understanding all of those different parts, you're really fighting an uphill battle because you're going to make The kind of mistakes that could actually put you out of business. So many business owners get in trouble to where they see all the money, and then they're not thinking about the seasonality or the taxes. You get to the end of the, the year, you file your tax return, and you have a hundred thousand dollars in net profit and no money to pay taxes because you've used it all.

[00:11:29]
 Gosh, I didn't know I was going to have a tax bill. Now I'm in debt to the government, which you don't want to be in debt to the government and all the other things, impulse control, you may go out and get a new building, and you just didn't know that. Oh my goodness. Now I've got no cash flow, and now I've got all these expenses that go with the building. You need. 

[00:11:48] Ahuva Gruen
Exactly. You don't only buy the software. You have to keep it. You have to have a picture. And like you said, a lot of business owners either they're not good running the financial, or they can't be everywhere. You can't be everywhere, and just looking at your bank account in the morning is not gonna do it. It's not gonna do it. And if you think that it's not worth it to invest financial help, it's much more costly Not true. And if you talked about taxes, if you wait for the end of the year, and when you sit down with your tax accountant, how much money you made and how much your expenses, you lost a whole year of working up with your finances. If you didn't do well, you lost an entire year of you could have been corrected. 

[00:12:38] Dr. Nate Salah
And that's where the relationships come in handy, as accountants are there to help keep you accountable. Hold you accountable. That's what we do. And you might be listening and say, Oh my goodness, that's exactly why I don't want that. Because then you're going to tell me all the things I can't spend my money on. And that's okay, too. Because again, back to what Ahuva was saying earlier, If no one tells you these things, guess what happens? You end up in trouble, and you end up in big trouble. 

[00:13:05] Ahuva Gruen
I love that play on words, and it's great because accountant, we help people accountable, not just for taxes. We hold them accountable. In your business, because every business owner is doing it, yes, out of passion, but also to make money, holding accountable is holding accountable to the owner, to the management, to improve things, to fix bottlenecks, holding accountable to the employees. To make sure they're doing the right work, they're tracking the hours, attorney, they're tracking how many hours they worked on our client, construction businesses, tracking how long a job took so we could see if we made money. We could see if we bill it as timely accountability. It's so important. It's important for the health of the company important for anyone. And there's nothing like accountability. Yes, we celebrate the wins. We strategize what the things that didn't work, but it's accountability. It's so important and action.

[00:14:15] Dr. Nate Salah
Absolutely it reminds me of Steve Jobs when he first came back to Apple back in 1997 as interim CEO and the company was about 90 days from insolvency and so Steve Jobs didn't just take the reins and say I'm going to fix all this the first thing you did you went to the. CFO and said, Hey, look, I need us to work as a team so that we can turn this company around. Let's find all the money we're wasting and stop wasting it. Let's go find ways where we can gather more cashflow. And then the blind spots, where are my blind spots? Where's Apple been going wrong financially? Asking that of the professional so that he could help, and he helped turn Apple around. It wasn't just Steve Jobs all by himself, right?

[00:14:55] Ahuva Gruen
It was a group effort. And it's so important when you hire professional to work with the professional, not just to disappear for 6 months to have communication to work together. For example, if there's an issue in operation, the CFO can't fix it themselves, but we could point out and work together. What process is what has to be changed? What I'm? I look when I'm in, when I go in a company, I look at the four P's, people, your employees, your client, product. Are they happy? What's right? What's going right? What's going wrong? Processing and profit margin. We can't forget about profit margin. You're leaving money on the table. It's not going to help you. It's not going to be good. If you have sales guys, business owners, and you don't have good profit margin, you're just spinning your wheels. You need sales, but every sale needs to have profit margin. I was speaking to a client the other day, and he had tons of clients and tons of sales, but they don't pay their bills and half of them are not good quality.

[00:16:00]
 It's not just quantity and business owners. It's quality. It's so important to have quality workers, employees, have quality clients, have quality. Know where you're making money. Know what services. If it's location, know what location you're making money. Know what location you're not. So you could know where to expand, what to stop, what to correct, what to build on, what to lean magnet, some things. Client they're not making much money on, but at least them into but a client, but they are crying to use them more. You have to look at the whole picture and the CEO or the owner, whatever their title is, business owner, to work together with the finance department, to really. Drive up the business to a greater level.

[00:16:53] Dr. Nate Salah
In fact, that reminds me of I used to teach a business planning class at one of the universities, and it was essentially writing a business plan. And when we got to the financial part where we did the spreadsheet on the course, the balance sheet, the profit loss statement of cash flows, and many of the students that. Oh, my goodness, Professor Nate, this business is going to go bankrupt. I can't make any money at it because they realized that they didn't have enough profit margin. They didn't have all of those things thought of. And then they started asking, can we do the financial part first, maybe in future classes? It's to see whether this business is even viable or maybe there has to be changes. As you suggested, it's been said the riches are in the niches, right? Where is my cash cow? Where's my number one niche that's most profitable for me? And do I need to refocus my efforts on that? Because I may be focusing my efforts on a very low profit or no profit, or actually a loss leader for my company. That's actually having me to lose money. Because, for example, for us, for years. Well, we did bookkeeping, and we're just never charging enough, and I was losing money on the bookkeeping and then out. Yeah, I know it's an accounting firm, right? 

[00:18:02] Ahuva Gruen
So that's why I say it to my clients. And on podcast and whoever I speak to is so important to know your profit margin to know your gross profit margin. Which is sales minus direct cost. No, you're not profit margin. That no, open your eyes, get the expertise, hire people. If you don't know how to do it yourself, because. It's a joke. A guy said, his accountant said you're losing money every step on every item you sell. You're losing 20 cents. He said, don't worry, I'll make it up by quantity. If you're losing money, you're not making it up in quantity. You're losing even more. 

[00:18:41] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah, that's a good one. 

[00:18:43] Ahuva Gruen
And if you're not making much money, if you're breaking even, why are you doing it? Is it a lean magnet? Fine. If it's not a lean magnet, either raise the price. I know, depending on the industry, it's not so simple. So what? Is it, is employees have to be more efficient? Talk about accountability. I had a client that their, their employees were taking too long. We installed it was field workers. And they would go out hammers on the vehicles, and they were told it was they were very straight they were all of a sudden with other processes. It took them shorter to get the job done. And then they also had some surprises where people took breaks. And go to alcoholic liquor shop where a company vehicle not so good for the company, but accountability, know your profit margin, know what went right, know what went wrong, know what's going on.

[00:19:42] Dr. Nate Salah
That's a really good point you make. And there's, you cannot underestimate the value of agreements and monitoring those. It's been said, trust, but verify. And so that's the verification process. Are we working most efficiently, and we're going to hold one another accountable and whether it means that you're doing spot checking or whether or not you have a camera to make sure that. The employees are going to the right locations and being efficient. Those are ways, not necessarily that we are punishing people, but then we're calling them to the highest level by having each other hold one another accountable through those processes. 

[00:20:21] Ahuva Gruen
And when they're accountable, and they do better, they could get raises. When the company does better, employees do better. The clients do better. Everyone does better. It's not just making systems to having the camera. All right. And when I go into my client, we look at the accountability things. There is someone looking at it, not just having the processes, but looking. How long have they taken to do the project? If it's, let's say, a construction, if it's too long, then why? Was it because of weather? Was it because of job site? What went wrong? My lawyer, why, like, with the billing, what happened? But if you didn't have enough hours or something, it was the value based and it took too long. Like what happened? Manufacturing, Amazon, any business is like, you can't just have processes to look at. You have to have. So, I hold people accountable. I hold the owner accountable. I hold the employees accountable, and we look at it. So they, when the cat leaves, the mice run. They know that someone is on top, someone is looking what they do matters. We could celebrate the wins. And see what went wrong, how to improve. 

[00:21:44] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah, we've talked about operational waste on the program before, and this is also a great refresher to that. Because all of it flows to the bottom line. 

[00:21:53] Ahuva Gruen
Everything hits the money, one way or the other. Everything hits the bottom line. Everything hits the dollar. If you even think indirectly, if you don't have good practices and your clients are unhappy, they're not going to use you again. It's going to hit the bottom line. Whatever happens hits the bottom line. We of course, look at profit and losses and balance sheet and forecast, cash flow forecast, and business financial forecast, but we don't just look at the reports. We have to get down to what is driving those numbers. Yeah. What has to change? 

[00:22:31] Dr. Nate Salah
Agreed. A couple of things I want to dive a little deeper on that you brought up. One of them is the pricing. We've seen this many times, more than not is, people undervalue their offering and perhaps our folks on the various, but I just want to touch on that. When I first started many years ago for a 1040 easy return a basic return back when there was a such thing called a 1040 easy. Yeah. I charged 10 bucks a long time ago, and it included a binder, and this is, you know, back in the nineties, of course, many years ago, it was my magnet as you more complicated tax returns were more expensive, but at the same time, I knew I wasn't making any money. Uh, in fact, I was losing money on that particular type of return, but I was getting the basic return filers. Eventually, they became more complicated, and so on and so forth. And to this day, we still have. Many of those clients, 30 years later, however, there came a point where I had to make a decision to increase my prices to market rate because my prices were well below market rate and they were unsustainable at that time.

[00:23:35] Ahuva Gruen
I could see that. Yeah, I'm sustainable today.

[00:23:37] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. Charging 10 bucks. 

[00:23:39] Ahuva Gruen
Yeah, but even like in the 90s, even lead magnets that bring you in more business. It has to be valid. You can't be losing. And if you're losing, you have to have a plan. You have to have a plan to know what's going on. Pricing. How many clients of mine, when I come in, and one client he was using deposit to fund the operation, which is the big amount. And, and he said he has the pricing right. I delved into the company and I analyzed the books and spoke to the staff. You guys, you have to have a system in place how you come up with pricing. Not just out of the hat, because if you don't have a system in place, you don't know what your costs are. Not only your costs but then what profit margin you need, gross and net profit margin. Then you'll be like Dr. Nate, losing money. Because you really have to know what's your direct course, what's the formula. I give like a pricing tool to my client, but I don't just give the pricing tool. We look at it all the time at different projects or different services to make sure that we're making money.

[00:24:50] 
And if we didn't, what went wrong? What went right? Uh, what went wrong? How do we have to change it? And it's about you have to have the direct cost, your gross profit margin, and also look at your net profit margin. How much money you want to take home to your family? How much is your rent? How much is your utility? How much is your overhead? How much is your marketing? Marketing! Over, all your overhead expenses, are, what, are they necessary? Could it be done more efficiently more effectively? Could you lower it? If you have software and system, are your employees using it? Otherwise, use it or get rid of it. If it's not using, it could be great software, but you're losing money. You're not getting return on investment, ROI. You're not getting return on investment if you're not using it, if it's not good. You have to know, have you know your pricing? You don't just want to bring in sales. You have to have a good profit margin. Because if you don't have a good profit margin, you'll keep your staff busy, you'll have to hire more staff, more overhead, more employee salary, more employee taxes and benefit, more headed for you, you want to grow rich, grow more successful, not grow poor.

[00:26:05] Dr. Nate Salah
Yes, indeed. And it's a snare that many of us face, especially early on, because we want to get as many clients as possible. Any client is a good client. If we could just get the sale, of course, as time progresses, the hope is that with the right type of structure, as you had mentioned, the right type of pricing model that you can actually have enough profit to pay for all of the expenses that you just mentioned. Yes, indeed. Plus it's effective leadership, too, because as business owners, it's our responsibility to be good stewards and to properly assess the beginning piece of what I'm going to charge for the service or product. And that has many factors, as you just described. In that process, to put yourself in a position to where, okay, now I have enough money to cover all the expenses of this business and enough money for this to make sense for me, you don't have to necessarily have a business that's going to make it 50 million. Maybe it will, but it has to at least pay enough of expenses for it to make it make sense for you. 

[00:27:07] Ahuva Gruen
And I will add when you have your business, and you have your. You also want to build up your own reserve, your own credit, not to have to go to credit cards if you have a slow month or bad month. Credit card interest is really bad, but you don't want to have to take a line of credit. One of the goals is to build your own credit for a slow month. For if you're one of my clients had a hurricane and his office was closed a week or two, you still need to pay your payroll. Yes. You should have insurance for lost income, but you have to have a reserve. You want to pay your overhead. You want to be able to take home money to your family. And you also need to build your own reserve for a slow month, for a bad month, for emergency. It's so important. I don't believe in paying credit card interest. And if it could be avoided, if you're going to take out a line of credit, you have to know what are you taking out a line of credit for, how you're paying it up, is it worth it, don't just build a business on credit.

[00:28:15] Dr. Nate Salah
Absolutely. Yeah. The credit card interest fees are exorbitant. You're talking 20 plus, sometimes up to 30%, uh, close to it. And that is just an exorbitant rate to pay. 

[00:28:26] Ahuva Gruen
And I'm sure you've seen how fast businesses and, and people personally could build up credit card and it could be a vicious cycle and hard to get out of. So you have to really Make enough money. It's sales, profit margin, not leaking out money in order to really do well and think of the future. Discipline is the choice. I heard a good quote, and I love good quotes. It's between choosing what you want now to what you want most. When you want to know if to buy something, what's really, what do I want now, or what I want most? Like you said, do I want a fancy car, or I want financial security? I want a healthy company. Do I want to have a big, huge barbecue, or I want to milk my business for years to come? 

[00:29:13] Dr. Nate Salah
It's, that's brilliant. It's so good, and it's. This may seem like it's common sense because it is just, the problem is that most people don't practice common sense when it comes to their finances.

[00:29:24] Ahuva Gruen
I heard common sense is not so common. 

[00:29:27] Dr. Nate Salah
That's right. And I've found, and I know you've found it too, that business owners who are intentional and have a sense of not overextending themselves financially, of taking the time to consider their profit margins that have impulse control, as you had mentioned earlier. It's much better. They have much more cohesive, peaceful environments without all of the stress and the pressure of having to rob Peter to pay Paul and live in day-to-day and trying to find money and always asking banks are maxing out credit cards and just in this revolving door of stress. 

[00:30:05] Ahuva Gruen
Calm and a better atmosphere from the top-up will affect the employee. Well, in fact, how they treat employees, a team approach, and then it gets, if your employees aren't happy, it'll leak out to your client, and you're, it's so important to have a good morale. Yes. It's a balance. You, you can't just do everything for your employees and not have accountability. That doesn't work either, but it's a balance. You have to have good morale, a team approach. And if the owner is stressed, then employees are going to be stressed, and then it's going to affect your business, your services, your product, and then it'll affect your bottom line. 

[00:30:46] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah, and knowing those things, whether you know them or you have, again, the professionals, I remember reading an article about Warren Buffett, and he invests in many companies, and he has people who are managing and running those companies, and his philosophy is his manager, whoever is running those companies needs to be able to tell him just how much every ply of toilet paper cost the company to that point. Of course, it's a little anecdotal, but the point is, is that. They're aware, they understand these costs so that they can be savvy and again, making those decisions, whether it be, hey, let's negotiate a better rate on our, on our building. If we're renting a building, is there any way we can get a dollar off for paying on time? Or whether it's going and getting furniture that is a little less expensive than the very finest, whatever it is. And I've found over the years, Uwe, That they don't affect the bottom line in terms of hurting the company by negotiating a better rate, or maybe the furniture isn't the highest quality, but in the long run, we end up with more cash to run our business.

[00:31:52] Ahuva Gruen
It totally affects the bottom line. It affects us to the cash flow. I tell newer business first, get money in first, make money. Don't spend thousands and thousands of dollars on your website. You could always redo your website. But you have to get money in the door and yes, and the furniture, you don't need the fanciest furniture. It's not going to bring you more business. If you have good service, you don't have to. If your client's coming in, you don't need to have a dump. It has to be presentable, but it's valid. Everything is valid. 

[00:32:27] Dr. Nate Salah
It really is. In fact, I'll give you a quick example. Years ago, when we would, we were going to the shopping malls during tax season, and we'd open up a kiosk, we'd have closed, enclosed kiosks where we had these walls, modular walls, and we would bring in folding tables, and we'd have a nice black cloth on the folding table, and it was presentable. It was nice. It was attractive. The total cost was, what, 40 bucks for the table. 15 bucks for the cloth. And you reason, of course, later, once we developed and grew and had offices year round, we got nicer stuff. We could afford it. But the point was, as you said, we didn't have to go out, and it was okay. The money weren't complaining. They want a great service and it was presentable enough. And it worked for everyone. 

[00:33:09] Ahuva Gruen
And another point is I'll say is. You'll see what you think what's really necessary. When I opened my business, I got a whole fancy phone system with the messages. I spent so much time on it, and it was a waste so much time about press one for this, press two for this, press three. There was a setting it up the month. And then I saw for my business, I was getting personal care. I was getting on my cell phone. They want personal care. I didn't need a whole fancy phone system. You think you need something, but you don't. You might not need it. First, start, see what you need. If you need to learn a later or nicer website, if you need a whole phone system, if you need advertising, what kind of advertising, what you need? But if just go during and speaking, yes, you could speak to people and get educated, but really wait to see what you need. Don't just spend and spend. Later on, I had a client, he had a ton of, spending a ton of research development. I'm sold to it, but then, when I needed a simple report, You couldn't give it to me. So what are your thoughts to it? What is all your technology? You love it? Yeah. But is it really giving you what we needed? No. Then why are we spending on it? 

[00:34:36] Dr. Nate Salah
I love how you brought up the idea of ROI. What's my return on investment? Assess it regularly on all of the different services and the functions and the equipment that you have. And then make decisions, whether it be quarterly, Semi-annually, or some of them aren't annually and get rid of things that aren't going, especially, like you said, software programs or make some changes. And that's perfectly acceptable. And it's the best way to clean house on a regular basis. 

[00:35:02] Ahuva Gruen
And when you assessing return on investment on different software, different services, it could change over time. Maybe in the beginning of the business, you needed more. Of Google ads, for example, and more to bring in sales, but then once you have the sales or once you, for example, just giving an example, then you could cut down on it is you can just do it once you have accountability, accounting, accountability. It has. I'm going to use that one all the time now. It has to be like quarterly, semi-annually, to look at different services. Is it still going good for us? Is it not? Do we need to invest more? Do we need to cut down? It's all once and for good. 

[00:35:47] Dr. Nate Salah
Absolutely not. It's a continual process. It's a continual investment. We've got to create the margin in our own day, in our own week, in our own month to make those assessments. And we also have to have the right. Partners on our team who can help us with the blind spots, and I'm so thankful that you're in this space and that you're doing great work for people to help them in this essential area of business. 

[00:36:13] Ahuva Gruen
Thank you. This is my passion, and life is to help businesses grow and succeed and not just spend their wealth.

[00:36:21] Dr. Nate Salah
It's clear that you're passionate about it and extremely knowledgeable, extremely competent in the area. I know we just gave our listener massive amounts of content. Maybe have to listen to it a few more times to really digest it. But this gives a really good overview. Some of the key areas that you and I have found in our time in this space to make sure that we're being aware of and addressing to be successful, to be fruitful, to have a healthy business, and to have an impact on the lives that we are fortunate enough to be a part of. Thanks for being here, Ahuva. 

[00:36:54] Ahuva Gruen
Thanks for having me. This was great. 

[00:36:57] Dr. Nate Salah
Well, my friend, I am so thrilled that you joined me on this episode of A Call to Leadership. And before you go to the next episode, especially if you're binge-listening, take a moment. I would love to get your honest review right here on your screen. Your feedback is so important. It helps the podcast. It encourages me, and it helps me. It helps me to give you more. And more and more value. So, I can't wait to read your review. I can't wait to be with you on the next episode. I'm Dr. Nate Salah. This is A Call to Leadership.

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