[00:00:00] Fiona Johnston
We've made a lot of progress as a society in many of the areas that we needed to in the last few hundred years. But one thing that has not changed enough is money. If we want to be able to tip the scales towards the favour of marginalised people, we need to understand the secret. money in small business.
The more we talk about money and the secrets that usually stay at the golf club, the more likely we are to be able to make money. My mission is to get more money into the hands of good people, specifically good business people like you. This is Money Secrets, the place to learn about the money secrets of successful small business owners.
Because I believe small business can change the world and in order to do that we need to be making lots of money. Let's go.
[00:00:51]
This podcast episode was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation and I'd like to acknowledge them as the Traditional Owners and custodians of this land and water that I live, work and play on. I'd like to pay respects to elders both past and present and note that sovereignty has never been ceded. This always was. And always will be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land.
[00:01:18]
Hi there. I'm Fi Johnston, the host of Money Secrets, a podcast where we talk about the money secrets of successful small business owners. I am a chartered accountant who cares so much about impact and is absolutely obsessed with small business.
I am tired of the financial gatekeeping that has happened in my industry. It's time for small business owners to have more education, more skills, and more tools to help them make and manage more money so that they can make a bigger impact on the world. Welcome to Money Secrets.
[00:02:10]
My mission is to get more money into the hands of good people. And to me, small business owners are some of the best people around. We are so fantastic about making the world a better place. We are great. At taking care of our customers, our team, our suppliers and our community. And we solve so many social problems through our innovative products and services. But if we want to be able to make sustainable change in the world, we need to be making money.
So many small business owners, despite working with their accountants and bookkeepers for many years, do not understand what is happening in their businesses. And I think it's time to change that. On the Money Secrets podcast, I'm going to take you behind the scenes of small business owners. I want to uncover what's going on in the minds and bank accounts of successful small business owners.
[00:03:02]
I believe that the more we talk about money, the more money we can make. You can expect to receive tips, training, and tools, and advice. From me, a chartered accountant with 24 years experience working with small business and new ways of thinking about money that can help you to make and manage your money in your small business with the least amount of stress possible so that you can pay yourself more, grow your business, and grow your impact.
[00:03:28]
In this episode of Money Secrets, what I wanna talk to you about are some of the different terminology and themes. That you can expect to hear about in this podcast. I am a chartered accountant with a huge amount of financial experience and skills, but my clients and members tell me that the way I talk about money is easy for them to understand, and I'm really hoping to be able to do that for you too.
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So the three or money themes that you will hear me talking about on the Money Secrets podcast are money psychology, money making, and money management. And the fourth theme that you will hear me talk about a lot on the show is impact making.
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Let's start with money psychology. So you've probably heard the term money mindset.
And although I do think that term can be helpful in certain instances, I think about money mindset as something much deeper. And I call it money psychology. To me, money psychology describes the thoughts feelings and behaviors that we have around money. And these thoughts, feelings and behaviors are what create our results. So the way that we think about money impacts the way we feel about money. And the way that we feel about money impacts the behaviors that we have around it. I'm really clear after working with small business owners for the last 24 years that the key to us making more money is by uncovering our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours around money. If we can change the way that we think about money, we can also change the way we feel and behave with money. And that is money. That is how we are going to get better financial results in our businesses.
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Second money theme I want to talk about is money making. Now some people might call this revenue, income or sales. What I'm talking about with money making is how do we get money to come into our business. What are the products and services that we sell? How do we price those products and services? And what clients are we trying to work with? One of the best things that we can do is to think really hard about the types of clients that we want to work with.
So the client that values what we do the most is the client that we will be able to charge the highest price to. You are going to hear me talk a lot about pricing on this podcast, because it is something that I am really passionate about. So many small business owners are underpricing, and I can tell you after inspecting the books of thousands of small business owners.
That that is leading to us being less profitable than we should be and not being able to pay ourselves enough.
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The third theme is money management. Some people consider this to be talking about cash flow. You could think about it as how you organise your money. And Profit First is a book that was written by Mike Michalowicz, which took the small business and finance world by storm. It is not just a money management system. It's also a philosophy, a business philosophy around prioritising being profitable over this idea that we need to be scaling at all costs or investing money to make money. Those kinds of narratives can be really damaging for small business owners. So money management in the way that I talk about it and understand it is thinking about your money as something that you can organise and manage in a way that will help you to feel less stressed and calm and confident and clear about where your money is going. And how you are going to have money when you need it. One of the biggest stresses for small business owners is poor cash flow. A lot of small business owners tell me that on the day they need to pay the bass or their tax is incredibly stressful for them. And when [00:07:00] we are able to manage and organise our money in a way that really works for us, we take away so much stress from our lives.
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So those are the three money topics that we will be talking about a lot on this podcast. Money psychology, which is how we think, feel and behave with money. Money making, which is the products and services that we sell, the prices we charge and the clients that we work with. And money management, which is how we organise and spend our money. And we can do that in a way that causes less stress when we have a great system like Profit First.
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The fourth theme that you will hear me talk about a lot is impact. I am absolutely obsessed with impact. With small business and our ability to create positive impact for the world. I believe that almost every social problem in the world can be solved by small business. We are so great at using business as a vehicle for social change. And there are so many fantastic instances of this in the small and medium business world in Australia and elsewhere. I exclusively work with small business owners who are as passionate about making an impact, as they are about making money. And what I hope you'll come to learn while listening to the Money Secrets podcast is that not only can you make profit and impact at the same time, but in my opinion, when you are led by impact, you will be more profitable because the two things can really help each other when you are led by impact and you see your income as a tool to be able to create impact.
It means that growing your business. Growing your team, growing your revenue, all stems back to how can I make a bigger positive impact on the world?
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I hope those explanations were helpful. You're going to hear lots of different terms come up in the podcast episodes, and I never want them to feel like they are words that you don't understand.
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Now, a little while ago, I made this documentary with eight of my female small business owner clients, and I asked them 10 different questions. We turned that into a mini-documentary called Lifting the Curtain, which many of you might have seen on Instagram or via my website. I had so much feedback about that documentary from small business owners, especially female small business owners, who told me that they felt so validated, so seen, and so held by the participants in that documentary and the way that they so candidly and generously shared their thoughts and feelings about money.
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I thought that this would be the perfect place to kick off the Money Secrets podcast. So what we are planning to do is to share the whole interviews with you. So you are going to hear from eight female small business owners. From different industries, with different business sizes, different ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic backgrounds, the women were different ages, different industries, and what they all had in common is that they were my clients.
So, the reason why they were able to be so candid and generous with their answers is because we already had a level of intimacy because we had been working together. I think that that shows up in these conversations and I really hope you enjoy hearing from these incredible eight female founders.
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You might notice when you're listening to these interviews that there isn't a lot of banter between myself and the woman that I am interviewing. And that's because when these interviews were recorded, they were for a documentary. I didn't want any input, judgment, or even an inflection in my voice to mean that any of the participants in that documentary felt that their answers needed to change because of my reaction. So for that reason, you will not hear a lot of my banter in these episodes.
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I really hope you enjoy listening to the episodes which will be dropping in the next few weeks. I cannot wait to hear your feedback. I really hope that you feel seen and heard and validated and held by these answers as well. Perhaps they might change your mind about something that's happening in your business. They might inspire you to start your own business. I really hope that listening to this podcast and these episodes inspires you to do things like putting up your prices, putting yourself out there more, and really inspecting the way that you think about money. Can't wait to hear what you have to say about the episodes.
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If you ever have any questions about the topics that we talk about on the Money Secrets podcast, please send me a DM. You can find me on Instagram at peach.business and I love getting DMs from listeners and small business owners with any kind of question or comments they have about Money Secrets the podcast. Or if there's a topic you'd like me to cover, please send me a DM and I'll see See what I can do. I'm thrilled you're here.
[00:11:51]
Thank you so much for listening right up to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Money Secrets, where we talk about the money secrets of successful small business owners. If you enjoyed the episode, I'd love it if you subscribe to the podcast, but leave us a review or share this episode with one of your friends. I hope you learned something. I hope you got a new perspective and I really hope you enjoyed the listening experience.
