Beyond 7 Figures: Building a Profitable and Sustainable Business

In this episode of the Business Millennials podcast, co-hosts Safa Harris and Ashley Dreager share invaluable insights on creating a profitable and sustainable business that thrives beyond the initial six to seven-figure milestone. Drawing from their personal experiences and positive feedback from financial experts, they emphasize the importance of strategic financial management and operational efficiency.

Key Takeaways:
1. Profitability should be a primary focus, rather than solely concentrating on sales and marketing.
2. Effective management of operations, pricing, and service delivery is crucial for long-term success.
3. Being financially in tune with your business and maintaining reserves for growth and emergencies is essential.
4. Mismanagement can have far-reaching consequences, impacting not only your business but also others connected to it.
5. Aligning business strategies with long-term visions is critical for sustainable growth.
6. Growing without sufficient margins can lead to financial instability and stress.
7. Seeking guidance through business audits can help identify areas for improvement and optimize profitability.

Throughout the episode, Safa and Ashley stress the significance of a proactive approach to navigating business challenges and the role of personal development in achieving long-term success. They highlight the pitfalls of prioritizing visionary ideas over practical execution and the domino effect that poor financial management can have on a business and its stakeholders.

The hosts also offer valuable strategies for maintaining financial stability and fostering sustainable growth, such as setting profitability targets, managing expenses, and learning from both challenges and success stories. They emphasize the importance of continuous learning and adaptation in the face of evolving market conditions and business needs.

By sharing their insights and experiences, Safa and Ashley aim to empower listeners to build profitable, sustainable businesses that make a positive impact on their lives and the lives of those around them. They encourage listeners to seek guidance when needed and to approach business growth as a journey of personal development and contribution.

Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome to the Business Millennials Podcast!
00:58 Diving Into Taxes and Financial Management
02:29 The Importance of Profitability and Sustainable Business Practices
03:28 Managing Business Finances: A Deep Dive
07:29 Visionary Ideas vs. Practical Execution
11:38 The Domino Effect of Poor Financial Management
22:39 Strategies for Financial Stability and Growth
26:27 Learning from Business Challenges and Success Stories
30:30 Setting Profitability Targets and Managing

Is your business just not the vibe right now and you can't seem to get it going, even though you feel like you're doing #AllTheThings? Fill out the linked audit form to give us the inside scoop on your current situation, challenges, and goals. That way we can spot your strengths, opportunities, and outline next steps, keeping a sustainable & scalable business in mind.

Free Audit:
https://scaleandthriveco.com/strategy-assessment/

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Transcript

0:00

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, 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. 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. Figures. As well as inspiring interviews with diverse leaders across marketing, product development, sales, and more. 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.

Safa Harris: 0:58

So we did our taxes recently. Well, you and I did our, our taxes

Ashley Dreager: 1:06

Yeah.

Safa: 1:06

like a partnership. And then like, we also did our personal taxes. And, so a little background on like our revenue making our income generating ventures. Like for me personally, I have the business with you. I have my personal brand business and then I have, um, I don't, I don't have any ownership share on it, but we're married. So it's ours. What's his is also mine. Um, Darrell has his business. Um, so we did our taxes, you and me. And when we were on the call with our CPA going over all our finances and everything, um, she said she was very impressed at how we had managed our money and how profitable the business was. Point one. Point two. So Durell's bookkeeper is separate than who we use in our business because he uses one that's industry specific for him. Um, so they also said, Oh, this is something that we haven't really seen of you being so profitable. It's like you're, like, mile and everything you're doing. Like, your profit margins are really great. So you're operating your business well, that's one we don't see a lot, and two it's great. Like keep managing and doing things the way you're doing. So, I think this speaks really well to, uh, Everything we perpetuate and tout about and say, like you, if you want a profitable business, that's sustainable longterm, it is, it is more than just making more sales. It is more than just doing marketing. It is about how you are managing your operations, how you're delivering things and how you're pricing things and doing everything to be profitable. Cause that all plays into it. And we had two different financial. Uh, experts that see lots and lots of lots of businesses backends because they're both operating at volume and for them to say that really confirms that it is very, very important to look at all of that stuff as you're operating to and how it speaks to your bottom line, the sustainability and the profitability of your business.

Ashley: 3:28

Yeah, and it's really important to be looking at your numbers and to be in tune with your numbers. And while neither of us are bookkeepers or accountants, we both have a solid grasp on what it takes to To manage those funds in a way that supports every area of your business, right? We've seen it firsthand when the finances for a business are not managed properly, the funds are misallocated or not balanced. Well, I don't want to say balance because it's not an equal amount going to every department or every area, but Each area needs to be sufficiently funded to be able to continue those operations, right? When you're not managing the money properly, or when your business is not profitable, it just has a domino effect, not just on you and your personal income. Your personal budget, but also your team, your vendors, being able to reinvest those funds back into the business, to be able to grow the business, to be able to pivot and change all of the, the topics that we've been talking about throughout this month, being able to be responsive to the market and what's going on externally to your business, that's going to take money or it's going to take time, but if you're already at capacity. Delivering your product, you're going to need to invest money to be able to properly pivot and adjust. Aspects to keep up with the demand.

Safa: 5:07

Oh, yeah. So you need to be able to one. Maintain your business and the operations and keep it going and you need to have the funds to do that and you. A business can't live paycheck to paycheck because the paycheck fluctuates. Your business is not Right like it you have to be able to like, okay Let me make sure I can sustain My business at this level with what i'm coming in with fluctuations all that that's part one Part two sure you have those reserves For So when your predictability and your projections don't happen, when you get a chargeback, when that paycheck doesn't show up that you're expecting to show up, when you paid out and did stuff, you need to be able to. Save yourself with reserves when cancels a contract and just doesn't follow the contract. That get, you have to do a refund because of whatever reason. You need to be able to say, get yourself out of that rut. And then three is able to have a additional money to be able to grow your business, keep it adaptable. And that doesn't even have to be, Oh, well, I'm okay with where I'm at and where I'm staying. Yeah. That's cool. But the market isn't like, I don't care if you don't want to grow, you're going to have to do growth activities to maintain at some point, because the market is going to change and you're going to need to innovate and change stuff.

Ashley: 6:49

Something as simple as adding a new product or a new service. There's a lot of backend work that needs to happen to make that live, right? I think that's not always top of mind for. Especially online business owners, because of how easy it is to get things to the market, but funnels, automations, workflows, Dubsado, your proposals, the messaging on your website, new social media content. There's a lot that goes into the backend. Before you can bring it to the market and have a good client experience.

Safa Harris: 7:25

Yeah. And that's like a whole conversation on its own. But like, especially entrepreneurs and like founders, like major visionaries. And I think, like, this is something I think we balance really well. Uh, is that, uh, We're major visionaries, especially when we get together. Like it's, you guys don't even know.

Safa: 7:48

The number of businesses that we've started in our WhatsApp chat. this would be great. And this is how we could do it. And da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And then we do that with like offers and products and things like that as well. And some we will. take to market and some we won't just based on whatever reasons. but sometimes for visionaries it stops there and any like OBM, DOO, DOM will be like my visionary client. We had this whole plan and then they came in with this crazy idea. Now we have to like mix our entire 90 day plan or whatever it is. Like we are our own clients, but we also understand what it takes to get these things to market. So that is part of the understanding, like the resources it's going to take to make that happen. You can come up with ideas all day long. But to execute it, it's either gonna take a ton of money and ton of sweat equity, that like, cool, but you gotta be fast. It's gonna take money and paying a team to make it happen., we can do anything you want in the time period you want, but you're gonna have to for it to get it there. Those resources need to be available to give you the ability to execute your visionary vision., and I know that's like a huge thing for entrepreneurs because really at the end of the day, they end up being those visionaries and they don't always have, or you, whoever you are. It doesn't necessarily have that muscle of understanding everything it takes. me and Ashley are like visionairing over here and then we only pull one or two ideas because we understand. One, what resources do we actually have to execute this? Is this something we push down for down the line? Or is it something we we do have because we know we've put money aside? And saved money for emergencies and also to do things with our business to keep it adaptable and grow it because we know we're going to pull need to pull those resources when we come up with an idea and that we're going to want to execute on and be like, let's get it out in two weeks. And we'll try to manage it the best we can. So our team doesn't hate us, but that's just one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is if you are still doing those things and you have to do a refund and you're trying to do the innovate, but then you also have this maintenance side of your business that you are not maintaining at the same times and balancing all three of those little plates. If your maintenance fails. If you do not have your money management the right way and your maintenance fails, that has, this is going to sound really dramatic, but it has catastrophic effects. impacts. If you're smaller and things like that, it may just be like, oh, like your VA lost a client type of thing. Like, sorry, but if you got W 2 employees, or if you have a team of like 60 contractors, whatever it may be, and you can't pay them because you didn't balance those three plates really well, Or, you had the same thing done to you by a client, and now it's a domino effect onto your entire team, and maybe they can't pay their bills, whatever it may be, like, it is all dominoes, and they all fall, it may When those dominoes fall, you don't know the catastrophe it could cause to other businesses aligned with you. So just as an example, we worked with a business that closed. We found this all out after the fact of what was going on. They poorly managed their finances. They honestly shouldn't have signed their contract with us at all., what they contracted us for was not what they needed, and there's no way for us to have a Known that, except for them saying, Hey, this is our problem that we need to solve. And we were like, Oh yeah, we can do that with this, this, and this, but we didn't realize that that problem that they needed to solve and how dire it was, the container we put them into was not there. Cause there was no transparency there. So long story short, closed their business. They had lots and lots of outstanding. Debt and outstanding payments that didn't get made. One of them was our project contract we had with them. It came due in full and we had already put, we had received some funds from them. So it's not like we lost money, but there was work that was done that we essentially had to float for a little bit to figure it out. Like we weren't as profitable off of this contract as we usually would have been if they had paid it in full. Which, fine, because we planned for that. We knew that happened. We had the reserves available. We were able, it was okay. Our,

Ashley: 13:11

didn't, we didn't have to pass that.

Safa Harris: 13:14

threw

Ashley: 13:14

business challenge onto our team and make them pay or experience the consequences of the decisions that we made as a business. Those decisions, the consequences that we make as a business need to stop with us, our team, our, our vendors, our contractors. should not experience the negative impacts of the decisions that we make. Their experience, they should be experiencing.

Safa Harris: 13:47

and own it.

Ashley Dreager: 13:48

Yeah, exactly. We need to be able to make kind of like that. The problem has to stop with us.

Safa: 13:55

Mm hmm.

Ashley: 13:55

The, they'll experience the benefits of the good decisions that we make, because they'll be able to continue the work and, you know, we'll be able to compensate fairly, et cetera, but. As a business, if we take a risk, the team shouldn't take on any liabilities or responsibilities for that risk that we took on.

Safa Harris: 14:16

Correct. Like, we need to have a safeguard. To weather the storm. so this business did not, ended up in a position where they, and I think part of the issue really for them was that there was no transparency and communication with the people they were impacting their, uh, they had W 2 employees that knew nothing about it. It was just like the next day they were like, Hey, yeah, we're closed. Bye. and. There was a point where they might not have paid their last paychecks to their W 2 employees. Eventually, I think that got sorted out, and the W 2 checks did go out. Um, because I remember the social media They're like, oh yeah, my so and so worked there, and like, we don't know if she's gonna get her last check. And, like, it turned out that they did pay at least that. But there were vendors that were waiting for payments. Like, . We were one of those vendors, and the impact that it had, there was one specific contract that they had, um, that it was like a five year contract, and the whole, the way it's structured for this particular contract situation thing, I'm trying to not give a lot of details. Of what it is. It's you sign for five year terms and that are also renewable for additional year terms for like an x amount. It's usually like three Automatic renewals for five year three or five year terms depending on So, they had signed this contract. It was really new. So, all of that comes due when you default. is similar to our contract. Like, if you default, your entire project comes due. Like, the payment plan is out the window. so, Now this person that they did the contract with it's a huge sum of money because it's like five years worth of money so it's like Multiple six figures that came due and now this person's in a position where they were like Yeah, he was smart enough to have enough money to float him in the situation, but having to hustle to replace that contract to replace the money. So it doesn't put him in a position where he's losing his business assets because he only has so much reserve. Like you, you're going to end up in situations like this where your reserves are going to run out, but at least you have those float you a little bit to figure out a solution. The fact that this one business didn't manage, didn't communicate a way to be like, Hey, get prepared. Like all of this is happening. This is what's going to happen. We're going to plan our closure in a way that has the least impact on people. It put this other business that's working with them in a position of being like, am I going to lose my major asset if I can't solve this problem I'm in? Because my solution. is gonna get me that far, but at least I have that breathing room to figure it out. So that, like, I, can you imagine? Being like in a position where you worked really really hard to get this business asset and then you're leveraging it For sale and you've done what you're supposed to do and had your reserves to get you out of a bind but be in a position Of being like I have three months to figure this out because someone didn't meet their obligations and didn't manage their business properly called themselves a business owner. And then now they're impacting my business. That I might have to lose my business asset that I worked really hard for. Like, I cannot. Like, that would be,,

Ashley: 18:11

This is why it's so important for you to be on top of your own numbers, because just like we didn't have any control about that outcome as you, as your business, you don't have control around a lot of other outcomes. You have control about how you manage and allocate funds within your business though. Just like that's a, it's a tried and true principle when it comes to personal budgets, have a rainy day fund, right? Like if you have a mortgage, it's important for you to be able to have enough savings. So that business aside, you lose your job because a W 2 job is no more stable than as a business. It seems more stable, but every W2 employee is disposable to that company for any reason. I mean, I live in a net will employment state. So, I mean,

Safa Harris: 19:02

too.

Ashley Dreager: 19:03

you could just,

Safa: 19:03

never not lived at a non at will state.

Ashley: 19:06

One of my first jobs, I got fired from this job. It, the way that it, this all came about, I mean, Maybe a story for another time. Zero, zero idea that this was coming down the pipeline. And it ended up being that I got fired for something that wasn't my fault. They offered me my job back when they learned what actually happened. But I was, I was on my way up in this company and walked in one morning, They pulled me in an office and said, Hey, you don't have a job anymore. Thank goodness. I was working two jobs at the time. So I had another job that I could immediately fall back on, but there's just, you need to be prepared for the unexpected to happen. And when you are a business owner, it's just so much more vital to long term success to be able to weather storms. The economy right now is a huge factor for a lot of businesses. And if that wasn't something that you were prepared for, you didn't have the savings built up. You didn't have a way to make your operations very lean to cut expenses where you needed to, while still being able to maintain your operations, these are probably pretty tough right now, right? Nobody could have predicted that this is where we would be today in 2024.

Safa: 20:31

And you needed to have managed your finances in a way to get you through it. Like, we've seen so many business owners just be like, oh, well, I'm going back to a job, going back to whatever. And, um, Your impacts are bigger when you're a business owner, when you have, you have more responsibility and like, that's something people need to realize before they go into business. Like, this is a huge thing that comes into it and not, and I, the impact doesn't stop with, Oh, the business needs to be able to pay their bills. we have another example where. The business was kind of scooting along, paying their bills, but they were being very inefficient they did not properly manage their funds. That was in order to save money, they were being inefficient in their processes and how they were managing people and team and things like that, they didn't have the money to do it. a way that would work well, but then that was causing them to be and lose money and be less profitable And it was causing more issues that was just digging them in a deeper and deeper and deeper and bigger hole instead of having properly managed their finances, allowed for that maintenance money to be able to go in and be efficient about things. And manage things properly because the saying that says it takes money to make money This is exactly it like if you want to be profitable you have to spend money to be in a profitable position and if that's not happening and you're just trying to like Scoot along till I get more sales and I have more money and then I can do the more efficiency No, you're losing money on every aspect of that. So you need to have the money to be able to put into that to create This space for more profitability for you to Keep the business going a way that's not just digging you into a deeper hole. So I think there is to be said about bootstrapping a business and DIY ing your way making it huge and doing all of those things. But that means it becomes that much more important to be strategic with your movements. And with your resource allocation, if you're doing it with a small amount of money. And when you start, making, that money and that cash that comes in, managing that strategically to keep going. Because, yeah, it's different when you're like, Oh, I've got like two million dollars to put towards this thing. And then you can just take that, allocate it, do it all well, all of that. But if you're starting with like, I've got a thousand bucks, what can I do with this thousand dollars? You're, you're going to have to be real careful because you're going to have problems. You're going to need to make sure you, even if you're not doing it the right way at some point, but once, once you start scaling and trying to get more cash, being very strategic with that because the margins are going to be slower. So you're going to need to stack it and do it right. If you don't do that right, you're gonna end up in the same place as that other business that had to shutter their business and caused other businesses to lose their assets.

Ashley: 23:59

And this is where being very clear on your business strategy is going to come in, because you have to be thinking five steps ahead. You can't just be thinking, what's my next step? What's my next step? What's my next step? You need to be thinking about how what this next step is going to do for your long term vision and how that's going to impact all of these other areas. You have to be thinking through all of the what ifs. And it's a lot to take on as a business owner, like not trying to discount that or make it seem simpler than it is. But it's important for you to look forward to who it's going to impact, how it's going to impact them, because you can't just be thinking about yourself in this, because your business has an impact and a ripple effect on so many layers. And you can either have that impact and that ripple effect. Be a positive impact or a negative one. And obviously everybody goes into business because they want to make a positive impact. Nobody wants to make a negative impact on people's lives. Right? But if you're just in the place of constantly having to be reactive and putting bandaid fixes on everything, because you feel like things are crumbling really fast, that's a really good time to say, hang on, let me take a step back. Let me look at this from a bigger picture or bring in consulting to help you see that bigger picture instead of saying, let me hire for this. Let me, let me hire for that. Let me solve for this. Let me solve for that. Because the problem that you think you have. May not actually be the problem that you have. You know, we've, we've mentioned this many times before in many episodes, people come to marketing as their sales solution. And oftentimes it's not just lack of marketing or poor marketing. Yes, that could be a factor and that could be a variable, but there's all these other things relative to your business and your operations and how things are being managed that impact your sales. Because it may not even be that you have a sales issue. It may be that you have a profitability issue. You've been making great sales, but if your expenses and your operations are taking up all or more than what the sales are that are bringing in, you can't always, , Oh gosh, what's that phrase that Dave, Dave Ramsey says you can't, um, out earn your spending or something like that. Like you can't just constantly make more and expect that to solve the problem.

Safa: 26:26

Yeah. So I have a case study., and it's not my personal one. It's one that like from the world of business, but like your business cannot be in constant survival mode. You're going to have moments of where it's in survival mode. And that is where those reserves are going to come in to help you get out of survival mode, or you're going to have to find a solution to get out of it. And you need to get out of it as soon as possible because you can Survival for that long, but if you're in survival mode your business is going paycheck to paycheck to paycheck Sale to sale to sale to like kind of survive You that you can't do that. Something needs to happen hot a job shared on her stories the other day about her business she This was I think she was talking about like this 2019, um, she had grown her business. It was huge. They had office space and, um, the financial district in New York, like huge team, they had grown really large and she was the point of looking for investors for her second round of. Investment like for seed money to keep it up and she was in a position Where she was like if we do not get the second round, I don't know how we're gonna pay our bills I don't know how we're gonna pay our team like I could take it to x point And so she like she had gone out for a walk. It was like this whole Thing because she was like stressed out like This seed money has to come through to maintain this business that I've grown to this size. She never made it through that round because COVID hit. COVID hit, everybody got sent home and she was forced to downsize her business now she's flourishing. She didn't need that seed money. just grew her expenses, her business past what it needed to be thinking. That's what she needed to have in her business to be able to get the growth and the sales she wanted. Oh, I need more capacity. I need to be doing X, Y, Z, all of that. She was forced to downsize cause of COVID and it saved her business because she had to reevaluate and recheck it, reduce her expenses. And then maintain everything else and now it's flourishing. And, um, there's an online space case study on this too. Jordan Gill, the system saved me, person. She grew the advice of a coach. And this isn't something that's like hidden. Nobody talks about. She's talked about it publicly. She, on the advice of a coach, she hired beyond what capacity was for her. So she would have extra team members and things like that in anticipation of sales. To have them ready to plug in and go. And there is a balance to do that. Like I, yes, and there's different ways to do that and tactics to do that. We can talk about that a different day, but she overhired to do that. The sales did not come in as anticipated. And then she ended up in a position that these income generating hires that she made were not income generating in the way she thought they would. Because you can't just think hire someone and like, oh, they're going to make money because they're in an income generating role like that. That's not how it works. Um, she hired, had all of this. She had this huge bot of like expenses to maintain, wasn't able to maintain it. She had to cash grabs and a bunch of like random offers to get cash in there to keep everything sustained. But essentially at the end of the day, she had to downsize everything. To keep her business because she grew before she needed the capacity. There's a balance between them to make all of that manage and work.

Ashley: 30:30

What would you say is a good target for a business to have in terms of their profitability? So if this is a goal that a business has in 2024 to look at their numbers, really audit their operations, figure out. Where the state of their business is relative to all this, maybe they've been seeing trends already. Things are on the decline and they're really hoping that maybe after the holidays, things are going to pick back up. They haven't picked back up yet. So they're, this is in their face now. What would you say is their next step or a good target for them to be aiming towards? To be able to ride this wave.

Safa: 31:09

So net profit wise, it's going to differ industry to industry, what it is. But for the online space, if you want to scale your profit margin needs to be no less than 65, 70%.

Ashley: 31:27

That's a lot.

Safa: 31:28

That is a lot. Yeah, so even in like the trucking industry for us per truck We need to be at 45 because because that's overhead like expenses all of that like it needs to If you want to grow, you need to have that extra money just like floating around that's not allocated for anything to be able to push forth the growth. And, , personally, this is our personal choice and decision. We go on, I need to be able to have, to be able to maintain the growth for six to eight months it generating any income.

Ashley: 32:09

That could be a large cash

Safa: 32:11

That's a,

Ashley: 32:11

balance

Safa: 32:13

Yeah,

Ashley Dreager: 32:13

to have saved up.

Safa: 32:15

in the trucking industry, gross on one truck, a month, can be, This is, uh, income, not expenses., is like, right now it's kind of slow. So I would say about like 12 to 15, but it's, had times when it's been like 2030. Um, and then usually, like I said, it's 45%. Usually expenses are like 50% of that. And so you need to be able to be in a position that you are saving up enough. On whatever assets you have right now that are generating income for that 45 percent to save up for what the 50 percent expenses are on. This is a very, I feel like I need a diagram to explain this. This is like a horrible podcast So every like sale needs to have like a 45 percent margin on it. And some of that 45 percent is going to go back into the operating of the business. This is net profit on one sale. it needs to go back into the operating of the business. And then say, you're like, okay, well, I want to double that. I want to add a second sales generating into my business. Okay. To be able to do that, I need to put money into this. And I need to be able to pay for that for X amount of time. Like I said, our personal preference is six to eight months without a paying for itself. So that means from that 45 percent that I am getting, left after my trading, Operations. And that's why if you, it's good to look at your full compassing 45, if you have that 45 percent on your full business net profit, that's, you can take that 45 and save it and save it and save it for like six to eight months. And then you're like, yep, I'm good to make this investment and put it on because I can sustain it without paychecks coming in. Right. So same thing. The numbers are like 65 to 70 , in online business where it's like. You save up to be able to sustain the expense of growth for X amount of time, have that available, and then grow and scale from there, um, to have, have that available for you.

, Ashley: 34:44

I worked with the bookkeeper really early on in my freelance time. And one piece of advice that she gave me was to build up a savings of three to six months so that if there was no income coming in, I could still maintain all operations as is and not have to immediately go into survival mode of, you know,

Safa: 35:05

hmm.

Ashley: 35:05

Everybody needs to get let go. All of my subscriptions need to get cut off because now there's no income coming in, you know, it gives that time to replace whatever income is there. And that was probably the most life changing piece of advice that anybody could have given me in the startup phase of my business, because it completely changed the way that I looked at how much. Services needed to be charged, how much I was taking home, how much needed to be saved, how much you need to be allocated for taxes. And granted, there was still a little bit of a learning curve, uh, shifting from a freelance business to now corporation business with full team, but still, you know, have being able to maintain that and have it pay for itself. is takes a lot of stress off of managing that business when the unexpected happens. So it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when you could go five years and have everything be smooth sailings. But you think anybody predicted COVID?

Safa: 36:10

Yeah. But you can't get comfortable in that. You're like, oh, it's fine. It will continue to be fine. No, it's not. If 20, if COVID taught any businesses that were in business then anything, that's what it taught it. And if 2023 thought, taught anybody that came into business in 2020, It was that. And, um, say this all the time. You cannot take home the 70 percent that you're profiting all of at home for your business. Like, it's not, it's not, that's not how it works. You need to be putting money back into your business, even if it's just you to save all of that. And if you can't live off of that, if you can't put money aside in your business and. sustain yourself personally, you need to look at your business model. You need to figure out a different way to either raise prices, get in more volume of sales, anything like that to be able to do that and figure out what your revenue targets need to be and build your business objectives off of that and work that way because can't just take home all the money. And I think for us specifically in our business model and how we work and everything, we know. the exact number what we need to pay to sustain our operations. We know, like, if we lose all of our clients, what needs to be going into our operations to keep this business alive so then we can get more clients and keep it going,, everybody should know that. And have that saved and allocated and available. And on the point of you can't take 70 percent home. When you start to grow your business and you are adding in more assets that you have to pay into. The big shift from going from freelancer to solopreneur to a growing business. Is that your profit margins on each sale is going to be less. And that is a mindset game that you're going to have to get used to. Be like, Oh, I'm used to doing XYZ work and getting to save or take home 70 percent of it. want to grow my business. I'm going to Add xyz to it and then i'm gonna make the same exact sale and then i'll still be able to make 70 off of it No, you're not you're gonna be making way less Your margins are gonna be less you take home off of that And like this is very much oversimplifying it because you've got like your paycheck and operations and all of that kind of stuff But just like simple terms of like mindset and thinking about it. You make a sale You're gonna be making less money on it But your business will eventually make more money because you're gonna get Volume and those smaller margins are going to add up while if it's just like, Oh, well, I don't want to put that effort in there. I don't want to make that sacrifice on the sale. I can just continue to fulfill it myself and make all of that. Like you're going to cap out. You're going to burn out. You're going to reach capacity. It's not, if you're thinking long game, you're going to have to like, kind of eat it for a minute and be like, I guess I'll just eat it on this margins for a second while I get to volume. And that's a big mindset piece that you have to think about in all of this.

Ashley: 39:42

And just to reiterate the importance of your business strategy, that's why you need to have your vision very clearly mapped out. And be very connected to your why, because it's not easy. It's not an easy mindset shift. It's not an easy adjustment to make. Speaking from personal experience, I mean, we've had many conversations about this over the last year. Um, It, it is a lot to adjust to, but that's why you have to be in this for more than just money. And you have to be very connected to the impact that you're going to be making with your business. And this was not something that we planned, but we do offer free business audits. So if this episode has just gotten you completely overwhelmed, not the intention. So hopefully, hopefully the energy behind all of this is Um, but we can take a look at your situation and give you some very actionable steps to move forward, um, completely at no cost. Uh, it was just a, just a simple form. We'll take a look at everything and we'll send you back our findings, um, and what our recommendations are going to be. So have that linked in the show notes. Uh, if that is something that would be helpful to you.

Safa: 41:02

Yep. And the actual point of the, the podcast was like profitability in a business is really important. You need to be looking at your numbers. It is more the ego is coming back. Like we talk about like, you got to take your ego out of it. It's it's about more than just you and the impact it's having in your life. It's bigger, it's bigger downstream. This is a Big deal. Like if this sounds like we're kind of being a little harsh, yeah, because it is, it is important and people can't lose sight of that and it's important when you're managing your business and it's uncomfortable and it kind of sucks and it's just something you have to do and come to terms with and you can't put your head in the sand over it it's going to, it's going to hurt someone. 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. 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.