 Hey, good afternoon everybody time Stuart here. I'm a Liz Trotter and our guest today is Megan likes. This is smart business moves Hello, hello, Merry Christmas. Happy holidays Okay, I think we are doing a really good job here y'all of being very festive We're all looking very festive Megan. It looks like you even have on a festive looking shirt. Was that my design? I mean, it's Christmas week. We got to be I don't have my earrings though You you win Liz. I usually have jingle bell earrings or I have a snowman earrings But not today, but you guys had a hat, so I had to go get my hat. I love I like your hat because it's wired I like a wired hat. I don't I don't have earrings, but Well, we're just gonna Win your hat might win though He'd send you that It's here and didn't eat Sent me this hat. She felt it. I wasn't properly attired this time last year So she hooked me up. Wow, didn't eat you're a good friend a good This is this is the more modest one. I've got she sent me a couple of others too But it doesn't show because it's all green So it doesn't show the green screen. I might I might go without green screen On Wednesday I'm visiting my mom and she's literally bringing me my jingle bell earrings And a bracelet I got her last year. Sorry. This is a fashion show and a necklace. I got her. I mean, we like Christmas around here I Have her join us Mom's mom's pretty beat up. She's I'm here playing nurse. So She's but that was good exercise for her. So good job getting her up Yeah, I'm glad you're that she's getting some exercise if she's been having some always so yeah Yeah, she she's yeah, it's been a rough month, but good quality time. Hi Paul Yeah, hi Paul. I know we were just talking about all these hats Paul the didn't eat bought that hat for Tom. I wore my hat that didn't eat not me last week But she she's she actually just bought us. She bought us for every holiday. That's her every holiday Wow, that's pretty impressive. That's awesome All right. Well, what are we talking about today? Hmm? We've got Megan likes. I wonder if we could figure out what we're talking about I have been on a recruiting kick. It's been like my passion this year. It's been very fun and moonlighting as a recruiter Wow, that's interesting. Why you've been doing that Megan? Well, we're all hiring, right? Hey I'm very proud. I like I'm very competitive. We have a bench right now Nice Like that's a good spot to be I have names of people who have passed all my screening that I would love to work for my company and Thanks to QDS I have my red You know my red people. I know they're on their way out and I've got the replacements waiting to get started But we're not here to talk about recruiting, but I've gotten higher who is my new best friend this year Dom Leons Today too What are some of the different platforms so higher who that's a good one? I didn't so if you've if you've got a bench Does that mean you need to be working on your marketing and sales now? I Could I could I'm a little bit. I'm in a weird spot Which we're gonna talk about today and maybe you guys can help me with my weird spot So our numbers Okay, talking numbers our goal for like our business our window cleaning business was to hit 10 technicians and four crews and We hit that last I have been celebrating goals being hit for the last two weeks. I am loving it But this is like our life goal is like Like our like goal in business life like we promised each other. We would never grow beyond that ever Gonna do what are you gonna do then I well, maybe you can figure it out I don't know what reason what reason do you have to get out of bed in the morning, right? I mean so we spent our weekend We were in Washington with our good friend Martha Woodward and then she ditched us She left early and so my husband and I like well, what should we do? And so of course we did our strategic plan for 2022 because what else do you do? It was snowing. We'd gone for a hike. We'd had lots of hot chocolate We bought all the gingerbread and pretzels you could buy in this town So we did our strategic planning and we were like, huh, well now what like our b-hag was met this year Wow, that's amazing Megan. Yeah, so you really are gonna have to figure out Uh, I don't know. What do they call the b-b-hag? The big big hairy There's probably an F in there somewhere, but we don't need to worry about that That's b-hag Well, that's amazing Megan It's amazing. So I feel like we just I think our current plan is to squeeze some work out as she Which is my favorite way to scale, right? So you like you you grow to the next thing and then you keep refining it So it's as efficient as possible Um, and then I think from here, which you guys in cleaning you guys know, you're you know, you're like 10 technicians That's nothing right like because for you you need Significantly more to make the income levels that we're at Um, but what I'm sure you know that we're just learning is it actually gets easier from here Because we have a leadership team and we have supervisors and we have leads and we have infrastructure And we have systems and so it's really tempting to just be like well It's tense That was a piece of cake now. Let's go to what's the next what's the next scale is that 25? Is it basically like the same learning curve to 25 then or 15 maybe? Yeah so So it's kind of exciting you're in that You're in like the beginning stages again where you get to make all the decisions and get the big growth and have all the fun and yeah The animal is way easier once you have your leadership team your management team in place It's like everything's easier that second round, right? Yeah, it's so much easier. Yeah, super cool I think I hope so we'll see but right now. I you know, we were like pulse check. We promised ourselves We would never grow beyond so now what? So did you guys do your annual planning when you were actually in leavenworth? We did because saturday morning it rained it snowed six inches Wow And it kept snowing all day And so we did like a five mile hike in the snow, which was awesome. And then we were like well now what? And we played We played like some fun games and we were like, okay. Well want to get out the computers and we're like, yeah Let's go the computers. So we got out the computers and that was actually really fun for us And we got to do it leisurely and then yesterday we continued it. It took us two days. It took us probably 12 to 14 hours And it was fun. And so I think that that's it was kind of perfect I was also like, well tom and liz will be thrilled because it'll be fresh like I just did it You know, I remember all the feelings of it. Um, and I think everybody does it slightly differently For us we start with the why right and we start with like reviewing that mission statement Reviewing our core values making sure that like those still feel Right and are still like pulling through in all of our decision making And um, and then we revisit our b-hag which is when we're like, oh She well Now what and jeff he was dying because it was like a five-year goal. Uh, and he was like really okay. Well, there you go. So Apparently we're slow. We're slow to grow but we like it that way. I think You reminded me of something here, magan And I'm gonna just share something real quick that that that actually might be useful if I can remember how to do this um We did a series of articles in cleaning business today several years ago with uh with a friend of mine his name's jimma lamping he Does business consulting and he wrote a book on stages of growth of businesses And he's got a model that says every business hits like walls that it can't grow any further and It's about figuring out three things how to how to build a team About getting the technology in place and getting your financial models In order and it's really pretty cool because you start off by yourself And then you hire a few people to work with you and then you hire a supervisor Then you have to hire managers to manage the supervisors and you see it in industry after industry that you know That the team thing you you hit walls and you do the same thing with the technology And you do the same thing with your understanding of the financial side of the business You start off just wanting in the cleaning business Just want to clean something right sell something and it gets to the point where you really Need to understand the costs and what your variable costs are and you're fixed and then at some point You start getting more sophisticated with the whole finance side of it Anyway, I digress, but this could be Drop that in the chat so that I can go reference it with jeff Yeah, because uh Jim's a a good guy and he knows his stuff on that Anyway, well, we all know about these stages of growth, right? And I think we can talk about them from like a financial perspective You can talk about it from a team size. You can talk about it from How mature businesses although I feel like I keep going to these events with like two-year-old businesses that are doing over a million Like I feel like we're hacking the system. We're growing faster now something that takes us 10 years can take somebody else a year Um, but yeah, that's a great reminder And I think it's a good time of year to check in I do the same thing with my accounting practice every year I kind of like pulse check, you know, am I working towards the same goal? Do I like the goal do I want to change the goal? I'm constantly changing the goal. Um I yeah, so I I it's a good it's a good time of year I like it and I like doing it before the new year. I like being really thoughtful about it before the new year Me too. I think once you get into january You start feeling this pressure and so you just start doing Instead of thinking so I also love the planning piece. So meckon talk to us about what else you did I mean, you said 12 to 14 hours, right? Yeah, so were you in were you in prison like leavenworth? That's like a Prisoning, cancels right right it might be so leavenworth Washington is like this magical place than martha woodward said she was going to and I was like great Can I come she was like well, I was going with my kids and I was like, I mean, but can I come I've I've crashed before And so I totally crashed her her family christmas the entire christmas Because that's how I roll don't tell me when you're going to cool place because I will absolutely tag along um And it was awesome. It's a like a bavarian village that a lot of homework Videos are filmed from so this homework christmas movies are filmed in this cute little idyllic town Tucked away about two and a half hours North east ish of seattle or east directly east. I'm bad with direction um And they like I lived in bavaria for almost a year as a nanny I was an au pair mentioned once upon a time in a former life And so I felt like it took me back to my roots although I kept getting annoyed because like my favorite things to eat Weren't necessarily on the menu But I did eat a lot of pretzels and I did drink some glue vine Which is like that mold wine Have they have really good dogs there too Really good dogs It's like sour subject we tried to go dog sledding and all the dogs had died. It was terrible. It was terribly tragic But we did go for a sleigh ride. Was it a disease or like just a bad sleigh accident? What happened a car accident? Yeah Yeah, good reminder of success session planning because if you look up dog sledding in Leavenworth on the website it tells you about this tragic horror that happened and The whole business died with the dogs and the owner So sad. Yeah, it's so sad Yeah, it's been a rough couple of weeks for car accidents. That's for don't sure Not good. Well, the road conditions were kind of intense. Martha was smarter than me as usual She took the train, which is is how I would recommend doing the Leavenworth thing take the train from Seattle. So You definitely want to book that in advance though if you're interested because They they book up as much as some of the hotels will book up a year in advance Yep, yep, yep, but it was neat. It was neat and everything was walkable once we got there and um eight great Like the kids sled in the streets. It's hilarious and adorable It's like a it's like just the most idyllic Christmas town so yeah but we had a very cute hotel with a very cute lobby and There were lots of cute little pubs and coffee shops that you can hang out in and so Jeff and I just kept moving our laptops around And um, and I think with strategic planning. It's not all laptop work Right, like some of it is reflecting back on the year you just had and we did it two years in a rear So we looked at 2020 and we looked at 2021 And we talked about like our hiring and we talked about how many people were laid off And how many people quit and how many people were fired and why were they fired and we went through all those lists of names We talked about um, how many people were promoted and like how did that career ladder actually play out in our company? Um, we talked about our marketing spend we in 2021. We went through a huge rebranding Um, which has felt kind of painful looking at the financials, but feels really hopeful looking into 2022 um We talked about financials a lot about financials, you know, average tickets. We talked about Um recurring customers. We talked about gross receipts. It just was like a bunch of data Uh for parts and then other parts were just about feelings, right? So like how did How did that feel we we did the time audit of Jeff's time in the company, which is very fun I'd like to joke that my husband works five hours a week And uh, we actually did the data on his average for last year and his average was 9.1 And he was very thrilled to tell me that he works more than five hours a week. He actually works nine hours a week. Excuse me Um, he works almost twice as much as you give him credit for right. Isn't that crazy? And this is working twice as hard as you think he is too, again And then I'm the worst because we did the time audit and I was like, well, you could delegate that you could delegate that Look, can you only need to work 48 hours a year? And he was like This is not fun. Like I like working stop taking things away from me um So but that was the time audit was fun. We also Uh from a money perspective, we looked at the personal budget and we looked at like, what are we taking out of the business? What are we saving? How is our we've kind of changed our retirement strategy last year? Uh, so that was kind of fun to look at our retirement strategy. Um We also look at our travel plans. So like I actually keep saying I'm going to count how much we're going this year I think we're going way more than we plan to be Uh, then we looked at next year. How much do we plan to be gone and where do we want to go? What do we want to do? Um, that was kind of fun. Uh, and then from the business in terms of the planning part I think it's very numbers heavy. So and we haven't done all of it. We're not actually done. Um, because it starts with a budget And I think a budget takes a while So for us a budget is like a living document that we use for planning And so we can actually plan and project what we expect our income to be And we can project out all of our expenses. So that's where we're at in our strategic planning phase I'd imagine we probably have another 10 hours to go before we have goals for uh, 2022 But we've got a starting outline I'd say So it sounds like Megan. So we haven't heard this from anybody yet So wait one thing that we have heard came out of your mouth. It's come out of every single person's mouth that we've talked about is Is having the data looking at the data You know reflecting back and then figuring out where we want to go. So past present future Everybody's been doing that and everybody talks about you've got to you got to look at the data It doesn't make sense to just throw a number out there You got to be looking at at where you've been if you don't have data you got to get it That needs to be top of your list this year is figure out how you're going to be collecting that that data So that's one thing that you talked about that everybody has said so you all have heard it from every single person now so Get on that the second thing that you said that nobody really that I've heard talking about is You spent a lot of time a lot of time Talking and talking about feelings. We haven't heard that at all yet, right Tom. Have we heard that at all? No, we heard a little bit about Megan touched upon this too that you kind of just start off reflecting and thinking about what worked and what didn't work We've uh, you know heard that before but not necessarily from a feeling standpoint more of an emotional standpoint I'd like to hear about that because I don't know I don't know if I know how to do that Yeah Well, I say I'm the accountant that talks more about feelings than I do about numbers But I have to find this thing that I did Okay, so we had we were we were like tasked to write our 2021 story um And when I wrote it out My husband started crying Wow Yeah, my husband who's like tatted up to the you know, if you mentioned if he's got tattoos everywhere He's a punk rocker two and two. I swear like if I if I left that man alone for a month and a half He would grow a mohawk and it would be bright green. I just that's the kind of guy he is um, but he started crying out of pride because we took We took some time to like really reflect on Where we went this year and I think that for a lot of us it's been hard like 2020 was hard And 2021 was hard in different ways, right? Like 2021 was hard in a growth way because there's plenty of work. There's plenty of demand um, we had to grow fast as leaders Something that we hadn't had to do so much in our business or in our industry um And it was really fun to reflect back on like if you think about all the things you've done in your business this year if you think about all of the hard decisions you've made and all the sacrifices you've made And all of the things that you've accomplished and you like you just brained off it and we did it together like I kind of made my notes. He made his notes and we shared our notes and that made more notes, right? And then I I tend to be a good writer, which is weird as an accountant But I I wrote it out and and then I set it out loud and we both were like holy cow What a year, right? Like what it was the nine it was the nine hours a week that probably put it over the edge, right? No, that was a separate analysis We we did like a traditional swat analysis of our company. We did um a leadership analysis Like our strengths as leaders our weaknesses as leaders. Um, we did a lot of like, you know thought exercises around this Um, but I'd say that the feelings part is also kind of checking in because we've hit our b-hag Right and we want to stay true to ourselves. Like it's been stressful to get to your b-hag Like I am not going to sit here and say that this was easy or like we followed this path or that it was very linear or that like You know, I I can tell you we've experienced, you know 30% growth every year But all the pain points that come with that growth, right? And so to hit that b-hag was just kind of like well now what like Do we sell? Do we retire? Do we stop? Do we go backwards? Do we go forwards? Like You know, and I think the only way you can answer those questions is by checking in with yourself Like what are we liking? What aren't we liking? What are we willing to do more of? What are we willing to do less of what can we afford to do more of in terms of like We're in a weird position because we travel as much as we want we spend as much as we want Like, you know, the business has served our current needs and so now it's time for us to read Jim's article and to like Figure out what the next needs are right to figure out What why do you get up in the morning, Tom? You know, like what what keeps you going and so for us a big part of that has been Watching our team step up like we didn't have a leadership team until 2021 And that was a huge sense of pride for us because now we're not doing this alone We are not pushing the snowball up the mountain like our team is doing it and they're better at it than we are and that feels good, right like That feels really good. And um, so yeah, there's been a lot of introspection I think because we feel like we're on the cusp of The next thing and we don't know what the next thing's going to be um So it's good because we we we like to say we don't like to plan too far in the future So we pinned it for 2022 right now. It's just going to be optimizing Uh and making this even more efficient with what we have and then We've opened the discussion to what comes next But you're just that's kind of a placeholder while you really figure it out, right? Yeah, but I mean you need to have placeholders sometimes I think sure absolutely Yeah In our marriage we because we do something similar. Uh, so I'm Is getting way more personal and way more about me So I hope the listeners this is helpful to you because I'm being super vulnerable Uh, but I'm 35 and we don't have children and so every year we talk about having children Like is next to the year that we have kids and um, you know If you have kids you probably realize it's a huge commitment, right? Like you need to plan in advance for it it's like a whole thing and so, um Every and we were we would we would kill each other We would we've been happily married for 11 years We would kill each other if we talked about it every single day because I Spoiler we don't agree about having kids or not having kids But we love each other a lot. So we do it once a year. That's what we're very good about pin holders So we'll like come to terms. We'll both agree and then we'll put a pin in it and we'll revisit in a year Um And that seems to work for us and so we do the same in business Like if we can't come to a good conclusion like why keep going round and round why waste hours and hours Why go through the angst? Why not just get to a good place? That you both agree on or that the business agrees on and that you like You can get up for each day, right that you're excited about put a pin in it and revisit it at a different time So that's what we did for 2019 was we're going to just keep making it more efficient And we'll revisit next december and we'll see where we're at and I have a feeling a lot of opportunities will come between now and then and um And there's some there's some fun and leaving it open for organic growth, right Like what if this bench gets so good that we have to do it tom says which is like Well, we do have a wait list like why not just throw another truck in there, right? Well, we do have two guys on the bench Why not just start two more guys out there, you know, like maybe it will just happen on an accident But that's terrible. This is supposed to be a planning which I should not be telling you guys about letting it happen on accident I think that you're pointing out something really really good Megan is that when you get to a certain position, you have some flexibility You have you have the ability to be able to do that and be able to be more flexible in the beginning years early on Not so much, right And dini is what pointing out that it's nice that you're such a good partner on your journey. Absolutely true I feel very lucky. Yeah For those of us that have a partner we are I don't know. I think every single one of us is like Couldn't do it without couldn't do it out. So those doing it without is like What are you there? You you you mentioned that you suspect a lot of really cool opportunities will be coming your way in 2022 and if you know, I love talking about being opportunistic And and in a positive way because some of the best things that have happened to me from a business standpoint Wasn't something that I came up with in december and saying this is what's going to happen next year It was like just Doing my thing day to day and then something kind of falls in your lap But you weren't even expecting but you got to keep your eyes open and say wow I've worked really hard. You know, what is it success is where preparation and opportunity Collide and If you do your homework and work really hard, you know, things will come your way So I like that but you can't necessarily Say okay in march. This is the really cool thing that's going to happen. You just Yeah, kind of need to be there Well, you need to be there, but you also need to create space for it So i'll share like a personal story of what happened to likes accounting this month is um between october 15th Which is like supposed to be the last individual tax deadline of the year Ha, ha That is not been the case, but typically that's how it's supposed to work Do in october 15th in january 1st I like to consider myself a free agent Which means that I have met my tax obligations for my tax clients for the year And we both get to choose if we're going to renew our relationship and our agreement for the next year So it's kind of this time where I leave space for myself to like, you know assess How's it going? How's my staffing? What's my capacity like because I hate to buy it off more than I can chew and I hate to work more than I have to um, so it's just a weird time My my mom who I'm at my mom's house. She was diagnosed with cancer in november and uh Unfortunately had a heart attack about 10 days ago So i'm telling all the personal things but it made me really I was like planning cancer treatments for tax season And I was like this is crazy. Why are you why you hate taxes? Why are you going through all this effort to make space for this thing in your business? That you don't like that you have not delegated successfully that you that's just like it's just a pain It's an absolute pain and so last week I sent out letters of apology to 97 of my tax clients saying that I would not be doing another tax season with them And then I was going to prioritize my mom's health And I will tell you that I got the most sweet responses back. Everybody was completely understanding I thought that they were gonna like tar and feather me and come with their pitchforks because I was their tax person And like they couldn't live without me and it turns out I am absolutely replaceable and they will be fine Um But it's true that everybody is fine and what happened the next day Was I got an opportunity for a grant for a very cool project for 2022 That more than doubled the income of those tax clients Which I have not agreed to because I'm trying to prioritize mom and figure out my life But I also sent out proposals for more than that tax work for bookkeeping work likes accounting does do outsource bookkeeping and I had been not getting back to a bunch of clients because Who wanted to be clients because I was juggling all this tax stuff and juggling this big decision And it's I think when you create space like when you make the decision to either not make a decision Or to not do something anymore or to do something when you actually like all right I've said it to the universe. It's happening. I sent the email It's amazing the opportunity that can come back. And so I read a really good book this year called essentialism It essentialism I read three times because it was so good And it talks about that like how we can create space in our lives and in our businesses to allow room for opportunities And realizing that every yes, we say is a no to something else or sometimes multiple no's and we don't even know what we're saying no to So hopefully that's a testament to somebody sitting out there who's like, I don't like this part of my business It's not working great I will tell you it was a very profitable good income because I was doing all the work So it's kind of hard to let go of but then look at that the next day I'm never there's there's always going to be work like I'm never not going to have something to do And I think that that's true for almost anybody listening to this right now If you want to be working there will be work the work will come The work will come and I think you know life's too short to do things you don't like And so I drank my own medicine and I did the hard thing and it worked out. Oh gosh. Here we go Yeah, essentialism mine looks a little different. I think this is like the cliff notes maybe lines all over it and stuff You're sort of like lines to Megan. Yeah, try um try it again But if you just hit essentialism, yeah, it's like it's white with black light that first one. There you go. Yeah The top one. Yeah, that's it. Yeah the discipline pursuit of less and I guess bonus points is uh Pumpkin plan so like pumpkin planning your business, but I felt like I'd done that over and over again with likes accounting and uh Yeah, so but this was really helpful creating space All right, we're watching tom spying it right now. I love it. It's done. It's done on its way on its way Yeah, and he has no more credit so There's two more actually What it was I was probably looking at your cart then All right, so Megan I feel like something that you talk another thing that you really talked about today um This morning We were talking about in one of our strategic success groups We were talking about how when we get ourselves into a place And we know that we have all the power and we have the control we get to do the thing but We get kind of stuck because we don't want to decide We just don't decide To to do the thing instead. We just remain in Stuck gum, right? We're just like stuck. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I can't decide. I don't know what to do I'm I'm deciding. Yeah, it's a new word come stuck them. I know I saw the face It's like like gum like I'm trying to imagine like bubble gum or something like you can't Well people feel like That there's too many There's there's a lot of different ways that people get stuck but they get stuck and there's too many options I can't choose. This is too many options people get stuck because they want the right Often they want to do the right thing and they don't know what that is or how to get to that answer People get stuck because they know what they need to do but they They just simply don't want to they don't want to sounds hard. It sounds icky. It sounds I just don't want to so people get stuck and that decision Is so important just making the decision. I really liked what you said about You know, you you weren't even really sure but you had this thing your mom and so you just decided you were going to do it And you just did it and then bam Another opportunity pops up just like that and now here you are again. You haven't even taken it Yeah Yeah Because I well first of all because I don't have to and second of all because I want to make sure it's the right one And I think that there's like a lot of things that we need to go through like once you create the space It's also your job to defend the space, right? And um, I I have a good accountability buddy Martha Woodward I feel like she's come up a million times during this call But Martha will tell Martha it was the first one that introduced me to pumpkin plan the last time I got stuck in my business And I was after my less than first year I'd been in business like 10 months and she locked me in a car and made me listen to it And and and it worked really well If I just she cracked the window so you could get air. I mean that sounds barely I'm gonna go get this because it's so inspiring and I just told another group this I will back in two seconds I'm sorry, but you guys will fill the time. It's really worth it the pumpkin plan thing I'll be right back. Okay, pull up pull up the pumpkin plants might be callowites I love it so Uh, yeah, I love the pumpkin plan. It's super So one of the things I love about Mike McKellowits is he just takes ideas that you've heard a lot of times You've heard of them forever And he makes them work. He makes them easy and he makes them like, oh, I know that I can do that It's the same same idea here. Look at that five stars Yeah, go Mike. Go Mike You're not seeing five stars with a thousand and you know, you know, Mike's a hokey He's a what? He's a hokey. I don't know which school of virginia tech Oh Well, come on people Really? I'll have to wear my virginia tech hat after christmas. Yeah Don't I still won't know what that means, but okay. He talks about it in his books His his frat days he he goes back there every once in a while Okay, so if If like if they're a cleaning business owner, let's give them a crash course to pumpkin planning or any other strategy to that Okay, um, do you want to do it? Like Okay, so the idea is you you can work for less people and make more money And we talked about this a lot when we're recruiting right the idea that like you can't even you can't even satisfy the clients That want to pay you money right now So, you know, you need to be really thoughtful about which ones which jobs you're actually going out to You need to think about which ones are the profitable ones which ones make you happy Which ones make your staff happy like what makes your heart sing? So really thinking about the big pumpkins that you want to nurture if you were a pumpkin grower That's the idea and then sometimes in order to nurture a big pumpkin You got to kill the little pumpkins and that sounds terrible and fatalistic, but Here I said it so, um Martha Woodward, I was like in that stuck-down place. Liz was just describing it after 10 months in being business I might have even been nine months and I had created like a giant monster, right? I had grown to a team of 11 in less than 10 months. I had like blown up my accounting practice I had bought a business. I had done all the things that we should not do and she locked me in a car She did crack a window She we actually she we extended our trip and then we chose like an airport far enough away for me to be able Listen to this book. That's how crazy we are and so we listened to the whole book in one sitting And what I like about the book is uh lots of data lots of analysis They gave you the tools to be able to rank how you would pumpkin plan your business How would you even decide who are the good clients who are the bad clients? Like what metrics would you use to evaluate them? I love it So I am in year four of likes accounting and I actually did a retrospective look of what's happened into my business And I want to share it because I think it's inspiring if you are sitting there If you are still recruiting or if you still have a wait list of people that want to give you money This is a really good strategy for you to do and what I find with my clients is everybody's afraid to turn down money Like everybody's afraid to turn away clients. Everybody's afraid to let clients down And I would be absolutely fake if I told you I'm not that way I would absolutely be lying to you if I told you that I didn't have like heart palpitations Or I delayed for two weeks before sending because I should have sent the email when mom was diagnosed and I was like Facing chemo and radiation like I should have just made the call then But I didn't it took me a while it took for having a heart attack to me be like, okay go I'm not doing this like press go. So um year one after Martha locked me in the car I cut 70 percent of my clients And my top plan grew by 74 percent But the interesting thing is my bottom line grew by 1900 percent Wow 1900 percent because I was able to be really thoughtful about what am I good at What is my team good at? Where should I be spending my time and energy? How do I scale this right? Uh year two So I didn't do it aggressively enough. So Megan not just to get perspective you had a dream of Lines with that 1900 you got to hold on a second. Yeah, you had a team of you had a profitable, right? I had negative profit margins and then you had you had a and you had a big team Did you kind of reduce your team as part of it? I did not I did not in year one Wow, okay. Yeah, but I figured out like it's a This is not a cleaning business and I will tell you I've not done this for window cleaning But I have helped cleaning business owners do this because because you have recurring It's actually easier for you like we could do a spreadsheet of all your clients We could do a spreadsheet of what your man hours is we could figure out Like if you wanted to throw data at your client list, it's actually easier for cleaning business owners And it is for a window cleaning company that's 7 000 clients like that just feels daunting It's possible, but it feels daunting and stay tuned because Jeff and our strategic planning, you know how I said we were going to optimize Like we absolutely are looking at to do that next year Like can we service with our team of 10 in our be had goal? I I think we can see 40 growth on our top line still next year Wow, which which will be fun and cool. Okay. So year two I got more aggressive because it works so well in year one and I cut 80 percent of my clients Okay I saw two Is that any percent of the ones that were left over at the end of year one? No, I started again. I just That's another year She had more after a year Okay, and I saw 200 growth in my top line. I saw 118 growth in my bottom line. Wow Okay, and and what happened was I chose which services I would offer right and I made I made a smarter decision in year two I stopped taking tax clients because I knew taxes were not profitable for me. It was not I I'm sure there are businesses out there that are much smarter than me, but I could never figure out how to scale it It just gets messy too fast. It requires too high of skills and reviews are hard. There's a lot of risk I just I couldn't figure it out and I was never going to be like each in our block. That wasn't that wasn't the business And I hated it Nobody does If anybody was gonna like them, I thought you would because you're always loving all the numbers and I love I love accounting I love bookkeeping. I love financial coaching. I hate taxes So I just took a while to figure it out, you know, and I went through the Start with why by Simon Sinek and then I went through the find your why by Simon Sinek. I did all the soul searching So year three Covid hit and I decided I can't Fire anybody like I've I fired 70% than I fired 80% So I I just raised my prices 40% I did the chicken route And I only saw 5% attrition So I raised my prices 40%. This is your this is your um meat You're leading for you if you're afraid to raise your prices Yeah, just do it inflation. We could talk about that for now. Yeah, it's actually percent to only lose 5% I'm like that's 5% and my top line grew 52% Dang Yep, dang. All right. Yep. So and then my bottom line my bottom line stayed flat though I want the moral that story is my bottom line stayed flat because I don't think I was proactive in it So now in year four, I have let go of 97% of my tax only business Which is now a smaller percentage because the bookkeeping has really grown Um, and stay tuned. We'll see what happens, but it's kind of exciting Couple of things for people that are on here So for those of you guys that um are so Megan clarify for people What's top line and what's bottom line? Yeah, very good question. So top line is total sales So that is money in the bank total deposits from all sources of income and revenue So if you're a cleaning business center, that's your one-time cleans That's your weekly your bi-weekly your monthly Anytime somebody is paying you those total dollars are part of your top line revenue Bottom line revenue for me means net income And I learned at the ISSA convention that there's a lot of discrepancies over what is net income So I'm going to clarify what I determined net income is for me net income is net of what you're paying yourself as the owner For the work you're putting into your business. So that is your top line revenue Minus any cost of goods sold or variable expenses. Sorry for nerding out But that's basically how much you're paying your technicians and the gas and the credit card processing fees all that then minus any of your Operating expenses or your fixed expenses, right? And we get down to our net income and then the point of clarification that I never thought of clarifying before But so we could compare apples to apples is I think your net income should be After you've paid yourself as the owner for the work you're putting into the business Absolutely Yeah, well if you're a proprietor Like that's a little gray, right if you're so proprietary like that never shows up on your p&l And so I I actually help people set up their books to put it in the p&l So that they can see it after they've paid themselves a salary because you want to know like am I profitable or am I not? Right. Yeah, absolutely And the salary would be commensurate of what you would pay someone to do that job So And if you can't if you can't make at least that you should go get a job working for somebody else Yeah, yeah or fix your job like don't give up this was your this is a four-year journey And I still don't know if I'm happy with likes accounting But I feel like I'm not afraid to continue to iterate right like this is the moral of story is if you're not happy with your business right now That's on you. You need to fix it Otherwise go get a job right and so and it's scary and it's Yeah, it's terrible, but you're right. You're right though. Don't get a job fix fix the one you have Well, I feel like I'd be a better boss. I feel like I have more patience for myself as a boss I don't know. I feel like even when I hate my business sometimes I still love my boss, you know Like I love myself Right, and um, and I like having that control and power over fixing it Yeah, I like that I know I just never really thought of myself as being my boss and that's a scary thought I got a ponder on that a little bit I love that idea though, right? That's awesome because you should love your boss too If you don't love what you're doing and how you're running things Maybe you need to fix that You should fix it and now right now these next 11 days are the perfect time to start really making those hard choices Because like Liz said, I feel like once we hit january once that calendar turns Like we just start going through the motions again And there's just something really like special about the magic at this time of year like The options are endless the possibilities are endless like absolutely And we have an open door policy. So I need a schedule meeting with my boss and tell him what I think Hey, uh, you know, we call those in my meeting in my company. We call those come to jesus meetings So time you're gonna have to have a ctj with yourself And we are lost when you're thinking and when I had bosses, which I don't know if you guys know this But this is a very fun fact about me. I have had 75 different employers for 60 different jobs What? Yeah, I never heard that before. Oh my gosh 75 different employers And they hated ctjs with me they hated them And so I've learned like in my company how to be a leader where we have quarterly one-on-one meetings And I try to avoid any megan ctgs because they're not fun not fun at all Okay, so wait, you gotta you gotta fill us in. What what were you doing? I've done that many jobs. I have done so many random things in my life Like lots and lots and lots of random things So you were the worst possible employee to hire because we'd hire you and you'd be there for three months you'd be gone Well, I was always very transparent about it. Like I'd be like, yeah, I'd be happy to do that for you But I'm leaving for Greece Yeah, you know Did you have multiple jobs? Do you have multiple jobs at the same time? Yeah, the the most I had was five and I remember I was trying to pick up a sixth And the guy wouldn't hire me because he said I couldn't handle it and I remember being so pissed at him And it's sunny because I've lived in the same community for uh 17 going on 18 years And I this guy and I became like business like acquaintances and I remember being like man, I hated your guts for not hiring me But you were right. I did not need another job and as an employer now, I wouldn't have hired me either It's funny. Yeah, six jobs is a lot, but I don't know the fifth job. I heard you Yeah, I sound like you're doing a good job. Yeah. Well and the expression, you know, if you want something done, right Ask a busy person. Yeah Yeah, if you think about it, you've got several jobs now that you're balancing. Yeah, five businesses. I juggle things haven't changed True You're lucky number there, Megan. Don't don't be starting another business there five somebody somebody did a podcast the other day And they're like Megan can only have as many as fits in one hand and I was like That's a good rule Yeah, this sounds like it is really good for you All right. I have another question Megan. Um, yeah, you are doing your planning You brought up about business and how you do that, but you also talked about your You know your personal planning. Do you always tend to do them at the same time or combine them? Do you feel like they play together? Can you talk to us a little bit about that? I do. Um, because I think we're being naive Well, I don't know. Maybe we're not being I don't know exactly who your target audience is But I feel like it's often my target audience And I feel like you probably still need the money that comes from your business in your family I feel like that's most people now. Maybe you are the exception and you're listening to this But most of us like we our family finances are completely dependent on our business finances Yeah, so I think it's irresponsible to do business planning without doing family planning, right? So we do our family budget. We determine what our salaries are from the businesses We determine what our distributions are from the businesses We determine what all of our expenses are for our personal life, right? And uh, we do we do that kind of Not first and not second we do a kind of in conjunction with the business stuff. And so, um We gave ourselves pretty significant raises in 2020 because We worked our tails off anybody else like I felt like I was gonna shut it down if I was I just Had it's funny. I feel like money doesn't fix everything But I really felt strongly that we had to make more because of the heck we went through I'm trying not to curse But we had to make more because of what we were going through in 2020 Um, and so when we were doing our 2021 I didn't feel like we needed significant raises But I also like I don't know. We just did Christmas bonuses this week and we don't give ourselves bonuses, right? We don't do any of that and I'm like, well, I'm giving all these talks about inflation Like we need to keep up with inflation at least so we did give ourselves raises like consistent with inflation And then from a personal standpoint I said we were getting in we're having a lot of fun with retirement planning Because like we're finally at a place in our lives where we can like stock away serious amounts of money We don't we don't need it for a personal life, right? And so, um That was like the next pin we put in it was okay So we don't really need to give ourselves raises We don't need to take any more distributions out like we're feeling really good from a personal standpoint We feel good from a charitable giving standpoint. That's the other thing We like to set our charitable giving in December for the next year. We choose the organizations We choose the amount like we like to be very intentional and thoughtful about that Um, and so I was like, but you know, we do have this opportunity if the business If we feel like we can justify it in the business We could give ourselves a raise to fill this extra gap in retirement planning And uh, and like I said, we're not done So I don't know if we're going to do that or not But I felt like that was really helpful to do them Together at the same time and and I I realize this is like us playing with fire because I do not know what your personal finances are If you're listening to this or what your business finances are and I really want you to avoid the temptation of like Dipping into the cookie jar, right? We don't want to suck our business dry or take too much out of the business You need to keep the business viable and financially healthy. So Um, when I say we do our personal budget, I say we live on a very tight budget as a family. Um, very intentionally We we really are really thoughtful about that personal budget because um, I think that's important I think that's important. Uh, we know that payday is coming someday with the businesses You know, we know every year it seems to get better and I I never want I'd much rather get a bonus from the business because we just did a great job And we don't want to do with all that cash Then have sucked it drier taken too much out So I encourage you to do the personal budget, but don't be extravagant like live lean live tight I didn't have a car for five years. Uh, when I started likes accounting company. Um, we we live a very very lean life. Um From personal standpoint for the for delayed gratification when you're starting your your business for sure Even even when your business is mature like like like Jeff likes coming This is a very mature business that we we make very healthy Living's off of but I I like to be thoughtful about it And and we like to budget like I really want to have an ops manager I don't have an ops manager yet So I I'm willing to not take big breezes so that that is set aside for that ops manager when we find the right person I want we're ready to pull that Um position so yeah, well, you're bringing up a question that we get a lot Megan and that is well, how do I decide when I can afford that? How do I know when I can afford an ops manager? The budget will tell you That which is why I mean you just you put the budget you put it in the budget and If it all mass Then then you know and then it's like the best thing like my husband He cracks up like he bought his first laptop last year And it was because we put it in the budget and I don't know he'd never bought a laptop before I think we budgeted like three grand for this laptop And you know, we're just like oh he needs a laptop, you know, and uh, and then he went to the apple store and like $3,000 will buy you a lot of the apple store I mean he felt really good like wow I could get any of these And it feels so much better because this is where we're telling our money where to go We're not wondering where it went. We budgeted for we planned for it We bought four new vehicles last year. We budgeted for those that made it really fun for those negotiations that they call it car dealership Um, we grew, you know, we had three new positions in our company last year We budgeted for those so the budget season is a fun season because you get to like plan ahead and think big picture But you also um kind of get to tell you get to be the boss you get to tell your money where you want it to go And then watch as it plays out That's a really good statement too. You get to tell your money where you want it to go Instead of tom, how many times have we dealt with somebody that's like, I don't know where my money went Right, if your money is just leaving on its own, this is not a good thing It is not a good thing. Not a good thing. Yeah, you need to tell it where it happens a lot. It happens a lot Way more than we would like well Not surprisingly we are like and we just an hour just blew by we're we're kind of at the top of the hour Megan, is there any last things you'd like first to share? What's going on in your world? What what you you know, what what are you doing that everybody needs to know about? Well, I do have my next four weeks to better bookkeeping class coming up Uh, so I think that that would be fun to share Um, I guess I'm gonna drop it in the private chat. Um, it is starting. Let's see If you put it in private, yeah, it's in private chat there. Yep We're starting january 4th. So I feel like this is the time of year where I'm You know, I'm fielding all of these calls Look, I need to even update the year. So 2022 is your year not 2021 Um, I'm building all of these calls where people are like I need a new bookkeeper or I need to figure out my money or I need to figure out my bookkeeping system They're everybody's like thinking about that. And so january tends to be our best class of the year We run this class every other month. I run it live. I teach it personally Liz has taken it It is a one hour a week for four weeks And I tell you that I will teach you how to get a handle on your money And that's the whole point of the class. So I'm excited january 4th It's going to start we meet Tuesdays at 2 p.m. Pacific and now realizing that totally conflicts with the smart business moves I'm sorry We think it's worth it. Yeah, do this. This is good stuff And you better sign up now because you just don't know when one day may gonna wake up and decide Decide to fire all you guys. Yeah, I'll be like, I don't I don't want to teach this class anymore It's not fun for me anymore. No, it gets really fun. I love that. It's a cohort We get like, you know, usually classes are between eight and 30 students And you really get to know other people who have fear around money and around bookkeeping and are going through the same pains and struggles So um and because I love tom and liz I threw in a hundred dollar coupon So a hundred dollars off if you use this link if you just go to the website, you will not get the hundred dollars off Um, and I think it's a good investment for setting 2022 up for success Uh criteria condition. I make you start from scratch. So if you're signing up for this class I'm going to assume something's wrong with your books and I'm going to make you start over because we I can't I can't teach in a group setting if I don't know what's wrong or broken So I need you to do it my way. I'm a control freak if you haven't figured that out And so I teach you how to start it all over from scratch, which january is the perfect time to do that Yeah, so that that's what's coming up for me in in the group setting is that and um Merry christmas everybody with that hundred bucks Yeah, they're kidding. Thank you. That's awesome. Welcome. Yeah, I haven't gone through the course. I can give a quick testimonial that This is the way you can get over the scariness of money You see how megan talks here on smart business moves. She's just chatting and she's friendly and she's got all this energy That's exactly how she is in her course Exactly how she is. She's like, oh, this is easy. Just do this and this and it's gonna be so easy to do this And you know what she makes it easy She makes it. Yeah, she can do it in four hours. You guys she can make you feel like Okay, I can handle this I feel very I feel very merry poppins ish Uh, because I'm like sneaking it in with a spoonful of sugar, right? I'm sneaking in all these things that you guys hate or are afraid of we're gonna make it easier Tom, I cannot believe how big your puppy has gotten I feel like I've not been on the show for a long time because she was not that big last time And she has an internal clock and she's telling me it's dinnertime This is this is us getting the hook Liz. This is It's time. We're over time. We are we are over but megan as always. This was awesome. Thank you so much Thank you. Merry christmas and happy holidays. Happy holidays We will be back Wednesday five o'clock eastern last one before christmas, right? That's right Okay, bye guys