riverside_audio_danielle hayden_radical_massage the

9:43PM Oct 17, 2024

Speakers:

Krista Dicks

Keywords:

radical massage

financial success

female entrepreneurs

financial analysis

bookkeeping support

business growth

financial statements

tax preparation

business spending

professional development

business separation

financial confidence

business responsibility

financial education

business sustainability

Radical massage therapist and welcome to another episode of the radical massage therapist podcast. I'm your host, Krista, registered massage therapist and clinic owner in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Lucky for you, I am not the radical massage therapist, but you are. Thank you so much for tuning in, wanting to learn more about the benefits of a massage career, such as freedom, flexibility, financial success and fun. I hope these episodes will inspire you to create a really awesome life around a sustainable massage career. My guest today is Danielle Hayden. Danielle is the co founder and CEO of kickstart accounting Inc, a bookkeeping and accounting firm that is on a mission to coach six figure and beyond, female entrepreneurs so they can better understand their numbers through bookkeeping, financial analysis and support, so they can grow profitable, sustainable and enjoyable businesses. With over 15 years experience in the world of finance, Danielle has worked her way from accounting firm intern to the co founder of kickstart accounting. She understands how complex business finances can be, and she knows that entrepreneurs need more than just a bookkeeper. They need real financial analysis and support in order to get the confidence required to create the sustainable wealth they deserve. Danielle brings a unique perspective when it comes to providing business owners with the total package as it relates to their finances. She has been a guest on multiple top rated shows, including the entree MD podcast, private practice workshop and practice of the practice. She is also the host of the business by the books podcast, when Danielle isn't in her money mindset work, you can find her hiking or spending time with her family. I hope you enjoy this episode with Danielle.

Danielle, welcome to the radical massage therapist Podcast. I'm really excited to have you here today. Thank

you so much for having me. Danielle.

What is it about female entrepreneurs that you really want to focus on and get so excited about and you want to help them succeed in their business. So

especially for women, I believe that we need access to financial information in order for us to have healthy, sustainable, long term businesses. So in my career as a chief financial officer, I found myself working with a lot of men in the boardrooms, the investor relationships, the CEOs. And I said, as I went into entrepreneurship, I said, every single business owner needs this, and women especially have a hard time raising their hand and asking for help, and to put aside the shame to say, I actually don't understand this, and I want every woman to have access to that information. I'll never forget my first year in business, although I'm a CPA, I said I wanted to have another tax cut and do my my taxes for me. And I went to go see Joe. He was a family friend who did my parents taxes growing up, and I was it was summer, and I was on my way to Joe's office, and I remember thinking, God, this was a rough year. I didn't do enough. I didn't grow enough. I didn't pay myself enough like I already felt enough shame for myself. And I walked into Joe's office. Mind you, his office had not been decorated. That carpet was still there, the old wood paneling. And I walk into Joe's office, and he shook his head at me and called it my little business and all the things I didn't do right. And I said, No Woman, no business owner, should ever have to feel that way, right? That's so

true. I love that you sought out an accountant, even though you can do your own taxes. I love that you described Chief Financial Officer. For those that might not understand what that term might mean to me, it it sounds, you know, so corporate, but you're bringing it right down to the small the small business level, the potential to grow. Can you explain what that yeah,

Chief Financial Officer is so corporate. It definitely is. And you know what's funny is I had no idea that there were so many different names and terms for all the different Money Team players that you could have on your team. And so what I've done is I took everything that I learned from corporate, because there's a lot to learn. I didn't run away from corporate thinking, I hate this. I walked away from corporate saying, I learned a lot from you guys, like, thank you for this gift. I'm gonna go now follow my passion and bring this gift into small business. So for small business owners, we need something a little bit different. And on our money team, we need a bookkeeper, and the bookkeeper is the person who you as a business owner. And when I say business owner, I don't care how small you are. The minute you file your LLC paperwork, you are a business owner. You are the CEO of your business. So I always use those terms. As a business owner, you're out making money and spending money, and your bookkeeper is the person who is. I like to think of it as a puzzle, right? Like all those transactions, there are a million different. Puzzle pieces. And I actually hate puzzles, but I love accounting. All those transactions are million puzzle pieces, and your bookkeeper is the puzzle wizard who puts it all together for you to present you your financial statements. And the financial statements is a tool in your toolbox to look backwards at what happened in your business. Where did I make money? How much did I make? Where did I spend money? What worked? What didn't work? Do I have to pay taxes on this at the end of the year? Right? So your bookkeeper really helps you step into your own role as your own Chief Financial Officer of your business. And then you'll have your tax your tax team, your financial advisor and a business coach. But all starts with that, that that bookkeeper, so Chief Financial Officer, super corporate. But all that means is that we're taking all that those lessons learned and saying, here's how we bring this to every small business owner. Because every small business owner has to be their own Chief Financial Officer of their own personal wealth. Okay?

And so I love that you have those four individuals that make you know that are essential to your business, the bookkeeper being the main one for me personally, like, I've done my own bookkeeping for a while, but then I just started having somebody do it for me, and it's been super helpful. But one thing that I think lets like use, that I admire about what you do, and helps you stand out, is that I feel like, like you said, it's a you're looking back on your business. I don't feel like that's common with when, when that individual is going to look back for like, help you look back and see where, like, where your profits were. Maybe analyze your expenses a little bit better. Is that something that you can bring to your clients as well? Yes,

of course. So I always say not all bookkeepers are created equal. So if you're doing your own bookkeeping, you're often the transaction processor, and you're not able to look at it strategically. You might have your brother, mom, aunt, sister, husband, doing some form of terrible bookkeeping for you that you're like, Okay, well, I can kind of file my taxes at the end of the year, but that those individuals, and even official bookkeepers, like I know of a lot of bookkeeping firms and bookkeepers who don't send you the financial statements, I think the most important thing, and this really honestly, goes against my entire industry. Like, when I go to accounting conferences, I'm like, God, what we do is so cool when we look at our financials, right? Like we want every single business owner, I don't care how small you are, 50,000 $100,000 a year, the minute you start filing that LLC paperwork, that's when you have the responsibility. It's no longer an option. Responsibility to look at your financial statements and look at them in a way that says, I can grow from this, like I can grow mentally. I can learn from my my financial statements, and I could be better prepared for taxes. I can be more confident. I can hire people. I can pay myself more. And all that, in my opinion, should come from your bookkeeper. So when we work with our clients, yes, we're doing the bookkeeping. So we're processing all those transactions in QuickBooks, but then we send out all of our clients their financial statements each month with what we call the snapshot. And the snapshots is easy to read. It's easy to read kind of presentation of your numbers, because I get it like, you're probably sitting here listening to me thinking like, well, I don't really like numbers. I'm not good with numbers like I do what I do, and I don't want to have to look at that when you have something that's digestible and easy to read, and a team who you can book a call with monthly to say, Hey, I'm a little confused. I don't understand what this means. We create a space for our clients that are that's like, non judgmental, like you can come here and ask whatever you want. My team is a group of women who are here to serve and help, and they do really, really care about our clients.

I feel like the the energy that you're bringing, I feel like if, like a female did call in with questions, I feel like you would almost be excited for them to be asking the question, like, yes, thank you. And just the just giving that empowerment to them as well with the answer that, like, I really feel like it just be a really proud moment for you to be like, yes. My client came to me with like, a question,

oh my gosh, thank you for saying that. I It's so true. Like, when we have team meetings, my team was like, Why? Why are they not calling? Why are they not they get a call, book a call, and when somebody books a call. We're like, yes, we've been wanting to celebrate with you. Do you see your revenue? Like, we're so proud of you for growing, or you're finally able to pay yourself. You're finally hitting your goals or, or like, hey, things aren't going so well this year. Do you need a hug? I mean, virtually. But like, are you okay? Like, is there anything we can do to help you having that part? Because, I mean as a business owner, like, there's not very many people that you can go to and be like, hey, guess what? This is my highest month ever. Like, you're not calling your friends and saying that you're not calling your mom. I mean, maybe your husband gets it, or your partner gets it, maybe, but they don't get it in the same way. Or, like, I haven't been able to pay myself. I don't know how to pay myself. So it's that space that, like. We really want to help our clients figure all that out, because we're not meant to do it alone.

No. And when did you start? Because, like, like you said, you kind of see things differently. You go to the conferences and you're really excited about what you do, but still there's, there seems to be some disconnect, like you said, these four key individuals for your business. But when did you start to see that those, those were the key for or what was missing? When did you start to see the disconnect? It's

so funny. Year one in my business, so I started the business almost 10 years ago, and in year one, I thought I was going to be helping business owners create budgets and business plans, growth strategies, and people will come to me with all these ideas, and I'm like, well, let's see what you did to see where we can go. And they would be like, Well, I don't have anything to show you. I'm like, What do you mean? You don't have anything to show me? Or they were doing their own bookkeeping. I'm like, Well, this is wrong. Like your balance sheets not right. You're You're duplicating sales. I can't use this information. And so the first year I started kickstart, I said, Hold on, we need to start with bookkeeping. Like the bookkeeping has to be right in order for all the other players to do their job. So we do bookkeeping first, right? So we don't prepare somebody's taxes without the bookkeeping, because how do you prepare a tax return with bookkeeping? That's wrong, right? Like you can't. We had a client who recently came to us, this poor woman, she was, she had a point of sale system, so her record like how she was collecting payments from her customers, and then she had QuickBooks, and she had created a sink from the point of sale system into QuickBooks, and she was doing her own bookkeeping, and she kept on saying to me in onboarding, she kept on going, I know I've been doing a really good job. I'm just I'm growing to the point where I can't do it myself anymore. So I'm hiring you guys. I'm like, Awesome. Well, when we got in there, we're like, we can't file last year's tax return until we redo your books, because all of your sales are duplicated. And if we report your income this way, you're going to pay double the amount in taxes, right? Like, that's scary. So everything starts with bookkeeping, then from there, once I have bookkeeping in place, we all have to file our taxes. My mom always said two things in life, we know for sure we're going to pay taxes and die. And here I am filing taxes, mom. So we we need a tax preparer, because every single one of us as business owners have to file our taxes, and again, once we file that LLC paperwork. You heard me year one, even as a CPA, I had somebody else filing my taxes. There needs to be a separation between church and state. I need somebody else to have eyes on what I'm doing, because I'm too close to it, I'm too emotional. I'm I'm gonna say, Well, that wasn't really a deduction or right, like I probably won't overtake. I'm probably gonna undertake if I do my own taxes, and that's not right either. So we have to have that tax prepare as that person to to make sure that we're filing our taxes correctly, and we take what we deserve, then our financial advisor, because all of us should be creating wealth in the future. So planning for retirement, planning for the wealth of our family, personally, and then a CFO or a business coach, because ultimately, as we grow, we want to be able to look to the future of our business. We want to be able to set budgets. We want to be able to use those forward looking tools to be able to grow as business owners, does kickstart

like provide all four of those elements? Or do you have one or two particular focuses? Three out of four? Okay,

four. We do the bookkeeping, we do tax preparation, and we do CFO services. I one day, one day, we'll have a financial advisor in house, but that's the only one that we we do have a few partners with, but we are able to do three of those. I think

it's such a nice reminder to have you on the podcast to to mention this, because we've had you know these individuals on separately. But I think just the reminder that these are, like your four pillars of a foundation for your business. And it's never too early to bring these people on board. Like you said from day one year, when you had a bookkeeper, you didn't want to do your own bookkeeping, taxes, accounting. I love that, and it is a nice reminder again, no matter how small your first year in massage, like we have, we have so much other things to worry about that this is not, doesn't need to be one of them. And I completely agree about the, you know, is this a deduction? Is it not? Well, yeah, like, maybe that coffee run on the way to the clinic. Can can count, you know, those kinds of things. So it is just nice to have that those that individual that can solidly say, like, yes or no, and then just support you along that journey as well. You also mentioned that it's emotional when you get that close as well. And what, what is that like? Experience like as as somebody on the other side of it, working with, you know, predominantly females like business, can be emotional. Can you give it a little bit of a. Uh, you know, share what that experience might be like working with you, or share some some stories of of how you sort of navigated rough waters with some of your clients. Yeah,

I call it the report card effect. So we're all used to getting report cards every quarter, and then we become business owners, and you get these financial statements, hopefully, you know, most business owners are only doing it at tax time, which feels like an annual report card and and we're kind of expecting it to say, pass or fail, right? Like, see, you were never good enough, you were never good enough. You should have never started this business. And we use the information in our heads to validate our negative thinking, and when we work with our clients, that's one of the things that we help them with, is to see this is a tool. Like, if you lost money this month, you get to opportunity to ask why, and do things differently. Business is this infinite game, right? Like, it's not like, I'm gonna go to my son's football game on Friday and they're gonna either win or lose. The game ends. Business doesn't end. And as long as you keep playing, you can keep going. And so those, those financial statements, are the tools in your toolbox that you can use to play, to improve your game, to improve the way that you play at it. I mean, we have so many stories like a client of ours, she wanted to be able to pay herself for her, she she needed to make $75,000 to be able to just sustain her family like that's what she needed to contribute to her family life, so her family could hit their personal goals in buying their home and living the lifestyle that they wanted to live with their two kids. And she couldn't get there at first, she was really struggling. She's been a client for three years, and every year she said, Thank you for showing me right like even when, when the information wasn't positive. Thank you for being willing to have that difficult conversation with me to say, here's where you're making money, here's where you're spending money, here's some of the opportunities. And we asked coaching questions along the way to help you get there. And and this client leaned into us, so we leaned into her right. She booked the calls. She allowed us to be there for her, and we sent her flowers when she was finally able to pay herself for this annual salary this year. And it was so exciting that she was able to do that, to do that, no overnight success, right? Like it's three years later, it happened slowly over time. And look, we didn't teach her how to grow her business. That's not what we do, but we we showed her and held her accountable to looking at the numbers on a regular basis so that she can bring awareness and make changes to her own business.

It's really a really inspiring like, story to share about her and and again. Like, it just shows just working with somebody can make a bigger difference. That she needed to know what the goal was as well. Like, let's get to this amount so that we can have a sustainable lifestyle. Now let's work backwards with with assistance in order to to make that happen. So that's really encouraging. What are some of the top reasons you hear that people feel like they they can't work with you, or don't need to work with you, or they don't need an accountant, they don't need a bookkeeper. What? What are some of the key excuses that you might hear? I'm not

a numbers person. I need to get organized first. I I'm not. I'm not an organized person. Actually going to be embarrassed to let you see where I'm spending money. It's embarrassing. I'm going to do my own bookkeeping. Those are the most common things. I'm not big enough. That's a huge one. I'm not enough, and I call BS on all of them, right? Because I'm not enough is that you don't have faith and confidence in yourself. I have so much confidence in you that if you're listening to this podcast on a regular basis, I have confidence in you that you are going to grow as an individual and as a business owner like you. That's going to happen. And as you grow, you need partners. You shouldn't be doing it on on your own. So that's I'm not big enough. We have to set if, if you it's like the morning routine thing, right? Like, if you want to be somebody who is the type of person who hit six figures, let's just use that one. Then we need to do the things that a six figure business owner would do. And six figure business owners, they don't do their own bookkeeping. They have a bookkeeping team who presents the financial statements with them, who partners with them to review the numbers, and they have a tax account, right? If so, if we want to be a six figure business owner, that's who we have. The things that we have to do, I'm going to do it myself. So women, it's really hard for us to ask for help. I don't. I don't know why I don't get it, but it's I feel a need to do it myself. I feel in control, like I want to control everything, and if I do it myself, I can control it, but I can't do what you do. Like, seriously, I cannot like, I am not skilled in what you do, and so how like, I can't do what you do. Like you can't do what we do. And we have to trust other people to say I know that you have a strength that I don't have help me and. It's okay to ask for help. You don't have to do everything yourself, like hang up the superhero cape and step into kind of your power, your your greatness. So those are the most common ones that that we hear most often.

I feel like being female business as well. I think that would encourage more women to get that help when, it's predominantly like, like a male accountants or financial advisors and all of that, I feel like that discomfort would would always sort of be there and then, but, but having you sort of give that runway for women really seems like a positive aspect to your business as well.

It so is. I mean, I don't know, it really just takes down a shield and armor, because you have a group of women that are here just to say, like, Hey, it's okay. It's okay. You don't get it. Like, like, just ask me. Like, I'm here to serve you. I'm here to help you. This is, this is calm. I'm not going to shame you that you're not big enough. I'm not going to shame you that you should know the answers that I'm not a numbers person like, it's okay that you're not the numbers person like, let me, let me help you. Let me guide you. And then a little bit of like, tough love. I think we forget that again. As soon as you become a business owner, like, if you are collecting payments from customers and you are in vendor contract relationships, you have a responsibility to know your numbers. So, like, the IRS doesn't care if you're a numbers person. Like, it's hard, but like, the IRS doesn't care and, and, and. And we need to educate ourselves and participate and and, and, like, put our big girl pants on and say, Okay, I don't know how to do it, but I'm gonna do it anyway. It's like going into the gym. I like to say it's like drinking my water. I don't want to drink anymore today, but like, I'm gonna do these things that I know are really good for me, and we need to do the same thing in our in our business. Yeah,

absolutely. One of the one of the words that you used as one of the excuses is that you're they're embarrassed to for you to see those, those key numbers, they're embarrassed about how they spend their money, that they might not know where that money is going. Can you give a little bit more explanation about, like, what does healthy business spending or look like in in a person's business?

Yeah, it's really interesting. So one of the most common things that happen clients will get on calls with us and they'll say, they're like, brace themselves. Like, okay, tell me where I should cut back. And I'm like, cut back. What do you what do you mean? Cut back. Like, we need to increase spending. So if you are telling me that my that your goal is to grow revenue, so your goal is to increase sales, increase clients, but you are not spending any money on marketing and advertising. Let's just say, Okay, so at the time of this recording, it's, you know, September ish, so if, if it's September and we haven't hit our goals, I would look at your financial statement and ask you questions, like, if our goal was to grow revenue, what did you do to grow revenue this year? Because we can't have a goal and not spend with intentionality. If your goal was to learn a new skill, to get training, to hire a mentor or a coach, we would want to see your cost and your spending and professional development. If your goal for this year was to increase your space so that you can take on either a team member or just additional clients be able to sell, sell retail, if that's your goal, your financial statements need to reflect on that. We have a healthy percentages worksheet that I can I can give the audience. But for instance, we want about eight to 10% of your sales to be invested in advertising and marketing. We want about 10% of our sales to go to facility costs, so we have to have a facility in order to perform services. We want between 30 and 50% of our sales to go towards payroll, paying yourself any support team members. We want 5% of our revenue to go back into training as a business owner, how cool is it that training yourself is a business deduction like you get to write that off on your taxes. That is really cool. So take advantage of that and go get educated. Educate your your team members, reinvest back into these areas of your of your business. All profit isn't created equal. If you are really profitable, but not investing in yourself, not investing in paying yourself, not investing in in having a support, a support team that might just look like a VA and an accountant, accountant, some outside services. I don't mean like you have to have a huge team, just support people to help you live a healthy, balanced lifestyle so that you can be in this and for the long game,

I think that that worksheet would be super helpful. And I love that you do have defined percentages for a business, because I think sometimes we just need that that template to to run with and then make, you know, adjustments along the way. But I think that that that would be really, really helpful. Do you find that there is a. Friends, let's say, like the listeners, are predominantly body workers, massage therapists. There's only when we're looking at revenue. Course, we all want to reach six figures. And I will believe there is that we can't. We can, and we do. There's lots of examples that create six figures in this business, but at the end of the day, because of what we do, there's only so many clients that we can see, is there a different approach to a business like that when, when we're looking at revenue and growth,

absolutely not. So you are trading time for money, like so many of our other clients, and that's that's perfect. That's great. We need to know what your goal is, right? So what is your intention as a individual, for your your family, what do you need to take home, and how many clients do you need to see per month, per day, per quarter, so that you are filling your your book of business, so that you're bringing home that revenue. And we, I think, when you, when you're in a business like this industry, you forget about the expenses. So you have to price your services based on your expenses. So you need to know how much it costs you to pay yourself to get support staff to, you know, maybe buy inventory, right? Like any of those things that are going to support your business, because, again, you're in this for the long haul, healthy, sustainable, profitable businesses. And so if you're in it for the long haul, you can't be doing your social media too. You can't be doing your social media, manager, bookkeeper, accountant. You're wearing all the hats. And if you're wearing all those hats, who's seeing the clients, who's servicing the customers. And so we need to know, what are all the operating expenses of that business, of your business, and then how many clients can you see and will you see at what price point to break even? So, no, I think no matter what, that's why. When we started kickstart, we said, again, this is totally not industry standards for the accounting industry, that we would have packages that fit everybody where they're at. So we have packages that fit business owners, just like you guys in this industry, you're not going to be paying the same amount as a half a million dollar business because that's not where you're at, and you don't have the transaction volume or the support need for that. And so we try to meet you where you're at, because you need support too. Otherwise, how are you supposed to be in this in the long game?

Yeah, great, great explanation and motivation.

You caught me early in the morning and

coffee? Well, this is good. Yes, where did the business name kickstart come from? So

funny. My daughter was young at the time. I mean, this was almost 10 years ago when we were sitting at the dining room table, and my daughter was throwing out all these numbers. And she kept on, she kept on saying kickstart. Like, she's like, Ma, if, if they need, if they need to start, they they need to start knowing their numbers, then you have to kickstart the numbers. She kept on saying it, and it kept on growing on me. And I saw it's kick start accounting. You have to kick start the numbers. I love it.

And, um, where did, where did your interest in, in, like, accounting. Okay,

so here's a really funny story. I actually started off as a hair stylist. I started off as a hairstylist, and I was working at the salon, and my passion side project, I guess while I was there, there's down times, and so I'd be sitting with other girls. They know how to read their paycheck, and they didn't understand. So we had all these incentives that if we sold X amount of prop or retail, that we would get a higher percent if we hit these sales goals, and we'd hit a higher percent of commission, and I was the only one doing it. So I was the only one hitting these high, higher commissions, because I knew the numbers, and I would just like if I could get one more haircut in on Sunday instead of Monday, like I knew that I would I would make so much more money by putting that haircut in on Sunday than on Monday. So anyway, I started educating the other girls in the studio about how to use the numbers to hit our goals, and how to read their paychecks and read their numbers. I fell in love with accounting because I actually just taking a class. I wanted to go back to school because I was going to open up my own hair salon, and I took salon, and I took this class, and I was like, wow, it is, like, really quiet in here. You don't have to talk to anybody in accounting. It's very black and white. There's rules. And I was like, This is fabulous. So funny that I talk all day long now. So I went into corporate where I was helping the CEO, the Board of Directors, the management team use numbers to make business decisions, to hit our goals. And I was like, There's something onto this. I'm like, we, we, I can do this for so many businesses. And I got really excited to be able to make such an impact. Like, how cool is it that that if somebody who's listening, they're gonna go grow the economy and their community and their empowerment and their confidence. So great.

Thank you. So Danielle, before we wrap up, is there anything else that you'd love to touch on make sure that the audience learns about you, about kickstart, about, about anything they need to know about, about their business before we. Eve. So

if you need one piece of homework, I want you to go and separate your business and personal finances right away. Your business is not your personal checking account. It's not your personal piggy bank. Separate your business and your personal accounts right away. It'll make it easier to organize for taxes. It'll make it easier to organize for your bookkeeping. So separate those business and personal. Step up like straighten your spine. You are a business owner. You are the CEO of your business. You have control, you have options, and you don't have to do it all. You know, even if it's not my firm, there are people out there who who want to help you, and I believe in you. Thank

you so much, Danielle, I really appreciated you being here today. Really great information, and I hope that you enjoy the rest of your day.

Thank you. Oh, the healthy percentages. Go to Kickstarter county inc.com/healthy, you can download the healthy percentages worksheet. Okay,

perfect. We'll also put a link with with it there in the show notes as well. Awesome. Thank you.