Money, Mindset, and Saying No

We share three blunt lessons from 13 years of entrepreneurship: hire financial pros early, stop assuming every prospect is a yes, and set boundaries on volunteering so your time fuels growth. Expect candid stories, hard numbers, and practical steps you can use now.

• hiring a CPA and bookkeeper to fix messy books and guide tax strategy
• moving from DIY finances to quarterly reviews and profit focus
• treating every prospect as earned, not assumed
• asking “why no?” to gather pricing, timing, and fit feedback
• refining offers, proof, and energy to improve close rates
• auditing time to expose the cost of over-volunteering
• choosing causes with aligned impact and clear boundaries
• protecting calendar blocks for selling, delivery, and rest

If you need any recommendations, I will definitely send you my guy's number. Both of them, my CPA and my bookkeeper

Chapters

• 0:53 Welcome and Purpose
• 2:14 Why These Three Mistakes Matter
• 3:54 Hire Pros: CPA and Bookkeeper
• 10:20 From DIY Books to a Finance Team
• 13:21 Don’t Assume You’ll Win Every Client

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:27

Hey y'all, what's up? Welcome back to the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. I am Shelby McFarland, the CEO of The Marketing Broker. I love that you are tuning in again to listen to another episode. I love doing this podcast as I say every episode because it gives me something to look forward to every week when I'm recording for you guys, as well as it makes me dig a little deeper on what I know, what I want to share, and how I can help you with your marketing efforts for your business or even just your entrepreneurship journey. That's what I'm gonna be talking about today. I'm talking about business. We're not gonna really talk about a lot about marketing. I want to talk about my business and how I um three mistakes that I have made, and trust me, the number is much larger than three that I have made over the last 13 years as a business owner, and things that you can learn from me rather than you going through these mistakes on your own, because that's no fun. Um, I wish I would have known this from somebody else or learned it from somebody else, but as a young entrepreneur, I was a little stubborn, and you may be in that little boat too, but it's okay. Sometimes we gotta be a little stubborn. That's what entrepreneurs are, and that's how we get through, and that's how we hustle, and that's how we become successful. Um, but if you can take that little bit um away today, you can actually learn something about what I have over the last 13 years. Let's talk about the first thing. I just had a conversation with my CPA yesterday, and I have been through several CPAs, by the way. Um, but I told him, I said, Man, I wish that people would hire a professional CPA and bookkeeper at the beginning of their business. Like that is something that I regret about being a business owner is thinking that I can literally do all the things and that I know how to do it, and that no one's gonna take it from me. Um, and that I'm quote unquote saving money because I'm doing it myself, and that is not the case. Let me tell you that my books were screwed up from day one. The first business I had, um, I would do taxes like like freehand, as in like writing it down, and I was going through like all of my bank account statements, and oh, I just remember it like it was yesterday, sitting at the kitchen counter with like seven different highlighter colors, trying to go through, putting it all in a ledger. It was awful. But that was before I mean QuickBooks was around, but it wasn't like super popular back then. Um, but then when I have my when I started my business now, I'm like, oh well, I've been doing this myself for you know four years. I can do this going forward, and then I started making more money and making more money and making more money, and I was like, oh gosh, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. And so then I had someone advise me to um just someone that helped me file taxes, not someone that prepared the taxes. Um, she told me, Oh, we need to change to an S Corp. And I'm like, Okay, well then she didn't really tell me, Oh, well, you also have to do your taxes differently, and you gotta figure this out and that out. So then I screwed that up, and then I tried to find a CPA, and my first two CPAs screwed me over. Um, they didn't do it correctly, and then the CPA before I have now was um just somebody that was not very he was knowledgeable, but he was not super professional, and I didn't really like that. Um, but the CPA that I have now is young and he is all about like let's follow the rules, but also I want you to save as much money as you can. Um, but then at the same time, I want to make sure that we're not getting audited and all of that. And then on top of that, I also have a bookkeeper now, something that I thought like, oh, I'll just plug and play into QuickBooks. I've got all this taken care of. I've had him now for about a year, a little over a year, and it's completely changed the trajectory of my business. So this is year nine of this business, and it's the first year that I have not had to actually think about like, guy, I gotta go and like I don't even know what it's called. Whatever, you balance the books or something like that. Like, I gotta do that. Well, I don't have to do that anymore. I have a meeting with him once a quarter. He tells me this is what you're making money in. I've been able to focus on those areas, I've been able to grow those areas and become like more of the leader and salesperson in my business rather than having to work in the admin on the back of my business. So, as I was saying, the first thing is hire professionals from the very beginning. I'm not talking about hire me for your marketing, like that's something you can probably handle as a business owner unless you just don't want to. But when it comes to important things like your freaking money, I would hire a professional. If you need any recommendations, I will definitely send you my guy's number. Um, both of them, my CPA and my bookkeeper. They're absolutely fantastic. They work as a team, they um communicate about my stuff, especially um when I'm recording this, we're going into the end of the year, the last quarter, and they're gonna be talking about like, okay, what does Shelby need to spend to make sure our taxes are up? Does she need to give mortar for a one 401k? Like that kind of stuff. So that way we know I'm going into January when I'm filing again that it's all prepared and ready to go. So find you a good CPA, find you a good big bookkeeper, let them do their job, do not micromanage them, just give it to them and they will do it for you, and you can focus on growing your business, um, especially if you get the right person because my team is fantastic. I call them part of my team because they literally are part of my team. Like, I would not be able to do it without them. Um, and I regret not doing that from the beginning because you know, stuck in that mindset of like, oh, I can do everything, I know how to do everything, I'm smart enough, I can do that. Um, okay, next thing. This one's a little bit harsher, especially for me as an Enneagram eight. I assumed that everyone was gonna hire me. And you're like, wait, that was a mistake you made. Like, yeah, not everyone's gonna hire you. And also assuming that you're just gonna get the business all the time and not have to work for it is not a great mindset to have. I was so successful in my first business that we took over the market. I knew people were gonna use us. Um, and then I opened this business and I'm like, okay, well, I'll just take that and I'll just come into this business with it. And like I know people are like people know me, I know that they trust me, but they like getting into different markets and expanding my business, I've had to prove myself along the way. And it's even more so hard now. And you would think, like, oh, you know, 10 years into this, like, how would you like why is it harder? Well, it's harder because there's more people that do what I do. I just lost a bid yesterday. I hate losing, by the way. Like, that is the worst feeling in the entire world. But I have to accept that it's just my energy needs to open up and that something else is gonna come in and I'll attract it, but I'm not always gonna get the business, and you're not always gonna get the business, and it's okay. But the thing that I learned that when someone tells me no, I now ask why. Back in the day, I used to be like, Well, screw you, I don't want to work with you anyways. You know, like I would have like such an attitude about it, like a little brat. But now I'm like, okay, so you told me no. Can you please tell me why you told me no? And some of the answers that I've gotten are like, well, this person already does my website, so we're just gonna go ahead and let them do our digital marketing too. Okay, that makes sense. Or, hey, this person was like more in our budget, but we really appreciate the opportunity to like talk to you and learn more about you. All right, got it. Um, I also have people that have said, oh, well, actually, I've given this duty over to an admin, but instead of hiring you full-time, we'll just hire you as a consultant. So it's one of those things where I go into like a consultation and yes, I want to manifest working for them. I want to um make sure I'm selling myself correctly. I do want to earn their business, but when I don't, I want to know why. Because on the other side of that, I can grow from it as a business owner and as a person. I mean, it may have been a day that I was sick and like on Zoom and like not feeling good, or it could have been a day I was just like not really in the mood to sell anything, and maybe I just kind of came across wrong. And I want people to tell me that because I have to make sure that moving forward in other consultations that I'm not doing the same thing because then it's gonna inhibit my business from growing, and I'm never gonna grow as a leader or as a person or a salesperson. So don't assume that people are gonna hire you. Go in and earn every client or customer that you get every single time. Earn it because then you're gonna be like, okay, I got this. You're gonna do a better job for them. And again, if they tell you no, it's okay. That no is gonna be a yes in the future, but that no is also a time for you to grow as a business owner, as a salesperson, and as a leader. Again, you don't ever know. We're not all in a great mood all the time, okay? I have had people try to sell me on things, and I'm like, dang girl, like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. It's too early for that kind of attitude, you know. Um, and I've been that person more times than I wish that I would have. So there you go. Don't assume people are gonna hire you. And the last thing, this one is um a little bit close to home, but I the big mistake, biggest mistake, I think this is the biggest mistake I made as a young entrepreneur in this current business that I'm in was that I volunteered way too much. And my business coach Mike Harbour told me this, and he like kind of put it into perspective um in a harsh way. So I'm gonna tell you guys how he told me. He said, Okay, for the next month, I want you to write down everything that you do, as in every hour of your day. I want you to write down what you're doing, how you're spending your time. And I'm like, gosh dang, okay. Back then I was running around, I worked about 40 to 50 hours a week. Um, I didn't have a kid, so I think I was pretty sure I was married, yeah, I was married at the time. Um, so we have like not really a lot of personal time, um, but I did have that to put in there, and it was very important for me to make sure that I was honest with myself and not giving um myself any grace, right? I'm like, okay, let's sit down and write it out. At the end of the month, it was October at the time, at the end of the month, I added up that 40 hours of that month was spent doing volunteer work. And that was back then rotary, I was on boards, I was doing chamber stuff, I was like ambassador, I was going to networking events, all the things. But at the networking events, I wasn't networking, I was actually volunteering at the networking events, so that's a difference. So then he goes, Okay, so how much per hour do you charge? So, like if someone's gonna call you and consult with you, how much is how much is it? And back then, um, it was$150 an hour. So he said, Okay, well multiply 40 times$150, and what is that number? And I I don't do math, so I don't know what that number is now. It was a really big number. He was okay, well, that's how much money you lost in the month of October. I was like, Holy shit, that is a lot of freaking money. I'm like, okay, well, I've lost that much money in October. Think about all the other months. I've been doing I've been running rampant like this for two or three years now. Like, I've lost all this money. So then that put a really big reality check on me to where I'm like, okay, let's like narrow down where I'm volunteering. I immediately quit boards. I immediately quit volunteering with the chamber. I stayed on with Rotary because that was something I was passionate about. I really dug deep inside of me and was like, okay, what am I passionate about? What do I want to stay? Like, where do I want to stay? What do I want to spend my time at? How am I okay with spending my time? And so that's what I did. I stayed with Rotary, I dropped everything else. I still have it on my resume, which is great. But now in like today's world, I actually am very conscious of like where I volunteer my time, where I spend my time. Um, especially now that I'm juggling being a mom too. I just want to make sure that it's all equal and I'm actually making money. Um, volunteering is great, don't get me wrong. Volunteering is awesome, but find something you're passionate about and spend time on that and not like spending hours and hours and hours of driving here and driving there and doing this and doing that, and it's not coming back. We want to make sure that if we are volunteering for like a business reason, that is actually gonna be like a return of our investment. You know what I'm saying? So the three things is I didn't hire a professional, so go hire professional CPA and bookkeeper, they will help you. Do not assume people are going to hire you. You need to earn every single sell that you make. And the last thing is don't volunteer for everything, don't say yes to everything. Learn to say no, learn to be okay with that. Your time is precious and important to you, and you need to put it to good use in building your business. All right, guys, I'll catch you on the next one.