Here’s what we’ll cover
In this episode I’m talking about financial freedom. In particular how we can use our business to accelerate our financial freedom.
But first we consider what financial freedom means to us. For me it’s about having the freedom of choice. To choose what we want to do in our lives and our lifestyle without financial constraints.
I’m talking about having the financial freedom to choose to do the things that matter to you and your family. Whatever financial freedom looks like for you there are 7 key elements that you really need to have sorted in your business if you’re ever going to get there.
Those 7 key elements include building an elegant business, having a profit-focused strategy, knowing your numbers, having the right systems and processes, having strong financial foundations, controlling your cashflow and finally, accelerating your financial freedom with external accountability.
Links and Resources
- Checkout the Simply Smarter Numbers website HERE
- Checkout the Podcast HERE
- Checkout the Instagram page HERE
- Listen to my Episode on Six Silent Casflow Killers HERE
Keep Listening!
Here’s the shownotes
Financial freedom. Sounds good. Who doesn’t want that? But what is financial freedom really?
For me it’s about having the freedom of choice. To choose what we want to do in our lives and our lifestyle without financial constraints. I’m not talking about us all becoming mega rich billionaires and being able to splash money like Beyonce.
I’m talking about having the financial freedom to choose to do the things that matter to you and your family.
Take time off for regular holidays, weekenders or just cause you feel like it
Take an extra day off each week.
Upgrade the car or buy your kids their first car.
Starting scrolling the internet for your dream family home.
Send the kids to that fancy private school.
Book a table at the best restaurant and stay 5 star.
Whatever financial freedom looks like for you there are 7 key elements that you really need to have sorted in your business if you’re ever going to get there.
I’ll lay them out for you here broadly then dive a little deeper into each one of these.
Elegant business model
Profit-focussed strategy
Knowing your numbers
Systems and processes
Strong financial foundations
Control your cashflow
Finally, these 6 are all underpinned by;
External Accountability.
If you’re a visual learner like me and love good diagram you’ll find these 7 elements over on my website www.simplysmarternumbers.com
Number 1. Elegant Business Model.
Honestly, this one is my personal favorite. I love nothing more than digging into a business and finding a better way – a more elegant way to do business.
This is about looking at how you’re doing business now and how can we make it easier for you to make more money without working more hours than you want to. OR make the same money but working less hours?
You can have a ‘sustainable’ business model and be making money. But there’s nothing ‘elegant’ about a business that makes a lot of money but requires you to work 50 plus hours a week!
For you at home, if you want to check-in on the level of elegance in your business model, here’s a quick place to start.
First. Write down how many hours a week you’d work – in an ideal world if your business was elegantly designed and operated. What is it? School hours? 4 days a week? 3 days on 2 days off? 5 hours a day? Think about it and translate it to rough hours per week.
I always ask my clients this question and the answer ranges depending on where they are in their life but generally it comes out at an average of 24 hours a week.
So we will say the number of hours in the ideal working week is 24 hours.
Now write down how many hours a week you are actually spending at work. Now this one ranges – a lot! For the sake of this exercise let’s say you’re working 40 hours.
So we have you currently working 40 hours a week and our job is to squeeze that down to 24 hours without sacrificing profit.
Or on the flip side – if you’re already working your ideal hours but you want to make more money during those hours we look at how to build elegance into your business model by maintaining those hours but increasing profit.
This brings us to Number 2 – Profit-focussed strategy.
Hopefully we all have some sort of strategy behind how we intend to grow and sustain our businesses. But is that strategy truly a profit-focused strategy?
But the trick is marrying up your strategy with your elegant business goals and plans.
So if your elegant business goal is to reduce your hours of work from 40 hours to 24 hours then selling more stuff may not be the strategy for you.
Or is it ‘selling more stuff’ but selling more of service offer X and less of service offer Y
The question for you is this; ‘Is your strategy profit-focussed and working to help or hinder your elegant business plans?’
This leads into Number 3. Know Your Numbers.
This is about finding, measuring and tracking the specific, simple numbers that will show you whether you are on track to reach your elegant business goals.
Keeping in line with the theme of the discussion we’ve already had – the numbers this business owner may need to track could be;
The number of hours they are working each week.
The number of hours it takes to produce and deliver service offer X or service offer Y
The return on time of these same services
The number of days it takes to deliver service X or service Y.
Recapping –
Discover what your most elegant business looks like
Ensure your profit-focussed strategy helps not hinders your elegant business model goals
Know and track the specific but simple numbers that will keep you on track to reaching those elegant business goals.
Next in line if Number 4 – Systems and processes.
You know as well as I do that systems and processes (though boring) can seriously reduce the time we have to spend in our businesses doing the do. And time is money..
Systems and processes is where we start to take care of the HOW.
How can I improve those important numbers?
How can I reduce the time I’m spending doing the do in my business?
Your job is to firstly identify what you simply don’t need to be doing then identify the most important things you absolutely can’t do without.
If you can’t do without it and it’s something that you or someone in your team does more than once – make a system for it.
Next comes Number 5 – Strong financial foundations
Typically the longer you’ve been in business the more priority we give to this key element.
This is about reviewing your business for its ability to withstand a crisis – kinda relevant these days! And it’s different for everyone. But might include reviewing debt levels, liquidity, assets and investments and areas of risk including structures. We look for profit leakages. Each business is different.
Number 6 – Control your cashflow.
For more on this important key element take a listen to podcast number 10 – Six Silent Cashflow Killers.
Businesses that succeed understand that without visibility into their cashflow they risk steering their business off track. I’ve worked with countless business owners over the years and I constantly see people ignoring their cashflow until it’s almost too late.
Here’s a big heads up for you – You can be a highly profitable, multi million dollar business and still have cashflow issues that can take you down. Making a profit doesn’t always mean you have cash.
Finally Number 7 – External Accountability.
So out of these 7 key elements – the first – your elegant business model forms the basis for everything you should be doing in your business. BUT this last one external accountability underpins everything else.
External accountability is ultimately the thing that drives faster results.
That external accountability can take the form of paid or unpaid. I’ve always had a variety of accountability patterns. From my husband who is unpaid but is also a great business person to a business friend to business coaches and consultants that we’ve paid big monthly fees to.
The biggest benefit of having an accountability partner – getting stuff done! But not just stuff – the right stuff.
Recap
Elegant business model
Profit-focussed strategy
Knowing your numbers
Systems and processes
Strong financial foundations
Control your cashflow
Finally, these 6 are all underpinned by;
External Accountability.
