Learning How to Read Your Financial Dashboard – A Look Under The Hood

Audio Transcription

Are you in a secure spot with your business and personal finances? In this episode of A Look Under The hood Tulsa’s best CPA, Paul Hood, will go over the details of reading your financial dashboard and being proactive with your numbers.   

Segment 1 –

1. Reading your financial dashboard = being proactive with your accounting (automating your saving)
   1. MYSTIC STATISTIC – About Half of U.S. Families Would Have a Tough Time With a Surprise $400 Expense
   2. http://fortune.com/2016/05/26/400-dollar-expense-study/
2. NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “We need to re-create boundaries. When you carry a digital gadget that creates a virtual link to the office, you need to create a virtual boundary that didn’t exist before.” Daniel Goleman
3. Step 1 – Schedule specific time and place to review your numbers
   1. Know the following before you review your numbers
      1. Where
      2. When
      3. What
      4. Who
   2. Clay’s needs
      1. 3 computer screens
      2. Enough time
      3. Silence
      4. Accountability

Segment 2 –

1. Know yourself. Give yourself enough time and space to review your numbers calmly, accurately and without anxiety.
   1. DEFINITION MAGICIAN – Anxiety –  Apprehensive uneasiness or nervousness usually over an impending or anticipated ill: a tate of being anxious.
2. Where should you go to analyze a budget
   1. Home office
   2. Starbucks
   3. At work (early)
   4. MYSTIC STATISTIC – How Much Do We Love TV? Let Us Count the Ways
      1. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/business/media/nielsen-survey-media-viewing.html
3. ACTION STEP – Start saving NOW to change your paradigm and begin to wanting to save.
4. NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Stay focused, work hard, know your numbers, and be disciplined. If you do those things and take care of your people, the likelihood of being successful is very, very high.” – Marcus Lemonis (Host of the popular television show The Profit. And self-made millionaire.)

My name is clay clark I’m a writer for forbes and the former ussba entrepreneur of the year of father-of-five, incredible kids, and I have the best business coach team out there and I want to say good morning to you. I also want to say good morning to to paul hood paul. How are you my friend i, am amazing, plays a gorgeous morning, I’m excited about what we do and how we help people and just great to be here with you about learning how to read your financial dashboard, but before we do that, I want to I want to get into this concept. We have a rare opportunity, have charles cola on the show with us. He actually is an owner of a multimillion-dollar business called colaw fitness that has three locations. They service a bartlesville to listen to bartlesville area I’m in courage you to the checkout colaw fitness there, also in joplin, missouri and topeka and I before we get into learning how to read your financial dashboard I want to make sure we’re clear find what that even meansbeing proactive. You drive a car you’re looking down when you’re driving is a dashboard you’re still focused on the road right. You got to focus on both see which any best business coach would tell you. If you got to still stay proactive, you still got a new life. Is your business, but you always look at dashboard, because when that, when the, when the gas gauge the way I understand it on the gas gauge goes down to that reaction there and you see a light, go you’re good. You know you just keep working on this now.

The f means, when your fault now again I’m just I’m, trying to make sure on the same page. You see you’re driving your car, and you know your figuratively you’re driving your car of life, you’re going through life and most americans are at a t financial, let you know so. It says like if you look at the federal reserve will put that on the show the federal reserve does the average american right now, according to their research, thousands of people they’re serving thousands of people, the average american could not have the cash to do.. They. Do not have the bank in the money in the bank right now, regardless of incomedoesn’t. Have the money in the bank right now to cover even won $500 emergency, so the average american has a net worth of less than $500, so you’re running around there and eat right, and so what you do. Is you go to the gas station? You pull up. We could just enough gas to make it 10 miles per mile, and you just keep doing that. You just put in two bucks. You got 20 miles to bucks prime out. You keep doing that and I are 60. Keep doing that when you, when you pass away you passed away. Funeral is, like you know, typical funeral twenty thousand bucks, ten thousand bucks, because you actually have passed away-and you don’t have word-are safe to know your family has to have all the cash they have to pay for that funeral. That’s where most people it. Here’s the thing that’s most people know paul hood, if your paul hood best business coach client and I say if you’re up all hood compliant client, what you do is you just set aside a a little bit of money? Okay, you just set aside a little bit of money at 3% of all your income.

You set aside 3%, you just set it aside and you just keep working now. You don’t even think about you just set aside 3% and then one day youlook up at that at the dashboard. You look at that dashboard to go holy, crap, mabel, wear on your fault, and you say what:why would you say that to mabel I don’t know I just figured that that’s a good thing, but the point is you eventually look down at me, realize your fault, but you’ve been driving the whole time so that I did you want to automate your you’re saving someone else charles coladas charles, when you started colaw fitness? How long did it take you before you reached the million-dollar business status before the business itself was grossing roughly a million-dollar who started the business out of a house if I’m getting it right, that’s worth $115,000, / hous. How long does it take you to build a million dollar bills, I would say probably about 5 or 6 years. I actually paid myself the first year and I remind you. I start my first client at 4, a.M.And I work till 11 p.M. At 4256. Just keep going right and four in the afternoon, I quit working and I worked out for 2 hours, so you would be in shape, so I would be in the template. For an example of that, and then you you did that for 6 years and then I paid myself with a family of four first with a baby on the way so that it was a family of 5 $32,000 would have made myself that’s less than in each other and know that many hours a week if you’re, making $320 or $800 a week, your price I pay myself as the best business coach. You know so I’m doing that much training. Of course, you’re clearing, 20000 plus a month and I’m, putting it all back into the business. And so did you look down and realize I have a lot of money in therewell. Of course, I would go to the bank first ask for money and they say no, because you have to have money before they’ll.

Do anything to take me about 6 years. To probably do that in the first thing, I do is pay off the debts and so on. So so, how long did it take you to where you’ve got to a place where you said, I now feel about hitting your goals, and where did you feel financially secure? How many years of just being diligent about saving to take you before you felt financially secure? What I think for me, I’ve always kind of not always 100% secure, but I know that when I’m 6 months and if I have to have bills come in for 6 months and I have zero revenue coming in and I can still pay all of my bills and all my dad and then I have a strong, healthy companyso. Let’s say let’s say you have bills that come in on it on a monthly basis. That’s that you can’t really adjusted just fixed set bills and get to pay, and you know that you have enough money saved up that if he had zero revenue coming in that you could still hold up to all of those for at least 6 months. So that means you need to have in your hand. That’s my this is my take that I kind of created in my mind that if I can pick have enough cash in accounts, that I can always spice all my debtors or any type of deal that I’m in for at least 6 months with zero dollars to be a healthy company and healthy, strong this, is my philosophy united I want to get paul’s football it to take on this, because that’s not normal. Your story and I want all the drivers to get to seven entreprenuer. Hopefully you guys will process this to be like this, but worst thing ever, but I grew up as a kid. You know, stuttering a lot got picked on a lot in my entire goal from the beginning was to get enough money in the bank where i could fire any client or any employee, or tell anybody where to go at any time and not ever have to worry about it? And so to me that happened was it 26, and so since that time, I don’t care. If I have a client likes, what I do awesome, if you don’t so, our business is elephant in the room or epic photography, your dj connection or whatever the company was a best business coach branding company that I’ve always at once. I got to the point where I thought you know this customer cantankerous i, don’t need it. If this employees cantankerous i, don’t need it. That was for me. Might my thing:you know it cuz we to get to those levels to get to these goals.

Whatever those goals are you kind of schedule, a specific time and place to review your numbers every weeks on page 45 of your best business coach book and look under the hood, you instruct us that we need to schedule a specific time and place each week to review our numbers where the clients get that wrong help the listeners. Where should we be doing shoot in the treatments in a truck at coffee shop in the house, the office where, where, when how should we do this original to be specific and they’re in you wanted to be a place to where you can concentrate? You get your mind in the end in a certain level cuz, you know we play if you go into a sporting event. You know your your mind and your body, you know, reacts if you, if you’re sitting in front of the tv and and vegetating your mind and body you, you train your your mind and body to do things, and so, if you have a specific place and you are all prepared, you have all your information, your checkbook, your your quickbooks. If you use quickbooks whatever it is pencil paper just be prepared counting, but while I watch the superbowl or the other games either the winter olympics I mean i, really I’m going to watch a movie of shows I got two or three screens going as a kid walking around at jimmy. That’s the most! That’s the best way for me to make my financial, well, it’s probably not true, but that works in great. Do that. But I like people need to have concentration, and you know if, if you, if it’s important to you, it’s just like this okay, so I’m on a very specialclient right now and if I don’t prepare my food the night before and a lot of times, I’m preparing my food for a week in advance. If I don’t do that, then I’m going to burger, king and and because I bought it because I prepared every cuz, I plan and I know what I’m going to eat when I’m going to eat. How you know everything, then, then it’s easy to do if I’m, just flying by the seat of my pants, it doesn’t get done. The same thing happens in life:it, whether it’s, your marriage or it’s, your fitness or your your finances. You’ve got to be prepared and you got to think ahead and you got to have these things laid out there to work your plan to be proactive to be deliberate and getting ready. Just like automatic savings and best business coach. You’ve got to set it up and then you’ve got to you. Don’t have to have be motivated. You just have to create the environment. To create action talking about planning out your food, you know what do you need when you, so when you’re talking about schedule a specific time, are you going to do thisput it on your calendar? When are you going to do this? Third is:what do you need to have with you? Do you have all the paperwork? You have your calculator to need a laptop, make sure you have what you need with you and then make sure.

The last thing here is:who is there somebody else that you need there with you? You need to be doing this way, I’m going to get leroy and herman town, and we’re going to colonel sanders quit something we’re actually getting all of those you’re, never too drunk to do your taxes or eat chicken or chicken. And then, if that happens, you just want to just pass out and roll over roll over after a couple hours and get back up and wait it out. Get out of that grass people though I sigh I mean this. I, see a lot of people that I’m, not exaggerating i, know i, know a lot of my very, very close friends. I went to oral roberts university with who do their accounting in the living room, while their kids are doing something else and they’re like i. Just can’t reconcile my checkbook, so I give up on it I’m going. It would be so weird if the eagles versus the patriots it looks like nick foles is going to throw a pass, so you can guys I got it. I got a real, quick like a real, quick I got it I got to take this phone call golf to somebody who receives inbound phone calls out the worst. It’s the worst stop doing that man, who does a thing as i, see a lot of people that you’re just not mentally present when doing the their accounting, so I’m going to tell you what I have to have present to do my sit-down accounting. Might my financial planningi have to have three computer screens? I have a lot of meats okay computer screen, I can’t do one I want have quickbooks on one screen and the other screen I want to have my budget. Okay. Second thing:i need I need time. I really struggle with math is stressful. For me, just bead the word math I’m always get the hives, but I have to do it. So if I think it’s like a 30 minute thing, I want to schedule, usually 3 to 4 hours so put in my calendar for like 8 a.M. To noon on a saturday, because I know that it might only take a half hour, but that time pressure for me having a time pressure, creates a level of anxiety there and i. Don’t want that anxiety to be present when I’m doing financial planning. Here’s also I need I need. Silence like I need. I need, no one to be around me right. I need that next thing. I need i, need some accountability and that’s what my wife and I have together and I know. That’s what paul you offer your client is that accountability so, if you got a hood cbs.Com right now and you schedule a one-on-one consultation with paul hood cpa to great things are going to happen for you, one you’re going to get a copy of the book snowball by warren buffett, it’s warren buffett’s only authorized biography only one. He said yes to it’s called snowball, it is a powerful book and you get a one-hour consultation with paul hood.

Now after after that meeting or not going to leave that meeting feeling like you’re full of one two holes, you’re going to leave feeling whole he’s going to have a plan for you, a very specific step, 1 step 2. This is what we going to do to get you where you want to go and we come back from the break. We can talk about super move number to from his book a look under the hood with paul hood. It says no yourself give yourself enough time and space to review your numbers calmly, accurately and without anxiety. I told you. That said the thing for me, but I really want to get into that. But I think a lot of people are setting up an artificial, artificial, the falseif. You can’t do your accounting in 30 minutes before you go to work,. You got a block out enough time and I just want to hear how much time paul hood would recommend that you set aside for your accounting win specifically I should do what the best time you done with your clients, where specific I really want to get into his w city. That’s where a lot of people missed the mark. They have good intentions, but they don’t have a specific plan. We’re going to be back in about 3 minutes. So you have just enough time to go to hood cpas. Com to get that that that snowball booking request the book schedule a consultation and will be back after the commercial break lance who won that’s the business coach stay tunedhave. You ever found yourself running out of money before the end of the month. Are you saving enough for retirement? Are you getting ahead financially? Tulsa? If you need it, look under your financial hood! You come to the right place. It’s a look under the hood with tulsa’s number one cpa and every way how many former us sba entrepreneur of the year I consider myself to be the coffee that tulsa needs to wake up on a saturday and I am so fired up about a topic that, for some reason people don’t care about iii. It seems like that the majority of americans based.. Based upon what they say but based upon what they do. I mean the majority of americans. According to the federal reservehave, less than $400 saved some people say all I’m, I’m so into financial planning. Don’t you know people talk about her? The christmas party just eat all the time. People say so this is a conversation, would be oh yeah, so how’s it going it’s going. Good I got a new raise. Oh yeah I got a tax return. Don’t you know so how’s the job going all I’m going to go up, north and start working for love, tonka be up there and we’re going to be.

You know going up north and working up there with it. It’s always north, not north. I’ll go up north. There will probably going to go into town. You know you know any, but no one ever talks about the elephant in the room. Is he in enough money to get to work, because you were just perpetuating the cycle of of consumer debt, so wage war on the debt? You have to give yourself a specific time and place to review your numbers every week. It’s the money coming in every week. Look at the money coming in look at the money coming out. It’s just two columns on a spreadsheet. You don’t need to over-complicate that you don’t need to have a super, intense software programs that money I just every week every single week, my wife just did it on friday and my wife said:hey based on which coffee would go through. If we switch to imperial, we can save about $120 a week as opposed to the keurig cups will equal about you know, but she’s. Every week she looks at it and now she’s got john, involve two to three competitive, so john’s, like i, have found a way. So we’re going to be switching over to this and this and this one. It’s always a fish in sea, but talk to you about setting up a specific time. My wife and I go out with my wife and john. Why we meet at the office on fridays and that’s pretty much. All we do friday afternoon is cut expenses. Where do you advise the listeners would do if they don’t have their own office right? Where do you recommend listeners would actually go specifically to sit down and analyze that budget? Well, you know it’s an individual decision in and really it’s a place that you can concentrate you’re not going to have i, don’t know where to go tonight. If you got an office at your home, if you die, do we go to his toys? Are there? Well, then you close the door, you clean them out and and no kids allowed to have a note I struggled to do it at home, cuz my wife there until kind of talk to me about thing. Okay, then you, maybe you go to starbucks starbucks. Maybe you do at do it at work. You can go to work early when you’re, not on the bosses best business coach time. You’re. On your time. You know why I can’t go to work early. Why can’t you go to work? Cuz I got to be on facebook because it’s been 2 hours a day on social media and I also have 5 hours of tea, but I have an obligation to keep the national average of the average national average.

According to the new yorker, this was published by nielsen shuffle. Put the show notes on on the on the hood. Cps.Com you’ll see the americas watching 5.2 hours of tv a day since i. Don’t have real friends, i, typically to talk about the fake friends. I have on facebook right, so I got to get that tv going to get that going and then the tv is going. Then I hop on the facebook and I tonight to say things:i just picked the kernels of corn, out of my life, vomit and i, talked about the great little highlights of my life. I want to make sure my life looks good on facebook specific things, you’re a busy man, but you know I think a lot of that, though, is zombie-ism. You know you get in a routine and and go to work. Did you go to go to church? Go home from work, go to church, go home, go to work, go to church and I will send you just in that drove so I guess not even no change that if I tell you that if you come and talk to me and we set up a program you’re going to get excited to do your kim, eventually, not at first, the first you’re going to like it just like a workout program at first it sucks. But if you start seeing results, you get excited 2! Oh my gosh, it’s it’s! You know I work on my accounting on friday morning, so I can’t wait till friday, because you’re going to see the progress on the success and you’re going to start seeing that snowball create so, but we got to take the small steps first and we got to change you from being a zombie and just walking around and doing what everybody else is doing to doing something different so that you can have different. You can live differently than than most people as we go out in den. We wrap up today. Show I’m going to play come and talk to me by jodeci. Is here outro song, because you just got my mind fired up about that classic r&b song. It was it from 1991 that song come and talk to me. I, don’t know what I do a lot of accounting and financial planning, but your r&b knowledge is a terrible i. Need you to help me educate me. Charles cole I want to get your take on this. What is your best business coach mindset and approach when you sit down? Look at your numbers, what’s going through your mind? Well, first thing is:is you can have to want to save more than spend I think your core values of who you are the person. You have to run to retrain your brain, so you have to say:okay, I know, i, don’t really want to look at my numbers. I know:i, don’t I know that if it’s completely out of control right now, but when you start to actually really kind of look at him and go through them and you have somebody who’s kind of the financial, you know guru paul, he can sit down with you help.

You understand what you’re spending your stuff on, how to cut it cut that here’s the thing now why people are sitting down with some who’s, not a cpa somebody who’s, a hack, somebody who’s, a triple diamond dove, a downline of a multi-level brand who sit down going to make a lot of money. Charles you got to spend big to make big. You got, invest in yourself. You gotta buy that new car you going to buy that new and there’s people telling you like. You won’t be taken seriously. If you don’t buy a rolex you’ll be taken seriously and I should have the most expensive shoes. Societies always pray pressuring. You got to be careful you’re, getting your counsel from right, i, agree and when you, what you want to do is cuddle. Look at the person that you’re working with and say are they in a better financial spot than me and if they are-and they know that you can say this guy’s prove and he’s helped. Thousands of businesses he’s a very successful. He is making very good money. He is saving money and he’s been very well. He can be kind of like my financial business, coach or financial, personal, financial, specialty and topeka. We have been together for 13 years. It was like that I think. So you still talk to each other and hold hands. We still 1170, listen to this, how many more than 12 less than 40 years. What that me and I know people a lot of people out of my clients. I worked with at work with thousands of business coach clients at thrivetime, show.Com help them grow, big companies and i. Don’t know people i, don’t know i, guess, I know very few people to take less than 2%. 3 %. I have accepted, tally marker, but I would say it is the outlier. It is rare that anybody likes their accountant at all. Furthermore, it’s almost never that their account eric jeff, has sat down with him to help them actually proactively financially plan on me. Now, how rare is it for you, as a business coach, just sit down with a client and they say yeah, you know finances, we got it covered the automator savings baby. It’s all good, it’s all good! Unless they’re already working with paul we’ve never had it happen. I don’t want to have a look under the hood, no because it’s all good baby, nobody, nobody that I know and that’s one of those things that if you don’t have somebody holding you accountable, if you don’t have a proactive person in your life or in your business, helping you go through this stuff, it’s really easy to drift. It’s really really easy.

Concentrate on the problems at hand or something new and I saw this a lot with the concrete company cuz. My mother, rent-all should all the books. You know all the books, financial library, but the point is we went on forever. He did nothing for them, they switched. He did nothing for them. Now, they’re working with one 1 price hood. Do right now they’ve been painting with bob ross? Is there so I feel like they’re actually working with us? Instead of just charging me money all the time and that’s the biggest difference? This sounds so good. It’s like fat, free, bacon, i! Don’t like you fall down. You got to be desired to save more than spend more, but you know you don’t have that you don’t have to have that desire to start. You start and you start and you take small steps and then what happens is overtime. Your paradigm changes, your desire, changed i, would take an action before your emotions line up with it and once you start taking those actions will say wow and now saving $500 a month, wow I’m, making $10,000 more than this year and I have my savings. Account. Because you took action, then you start liking to say that just like, like it hurts race, were two people are running a race and they start to lose in the person. Acts like they have a pulled, a best business coach muscle and they get a loser. What, when you, the person that says when you start running the shovel in the head on the opposite, you start to see hey I’m, passing people. Now you start getting courage, so sometimes you have to take the action to kind of get ahead. What’s your getting ahead and get excited now. Somebody out, there says you know what I can’t the advice given from multimillion-dollar business owners that doesn’t that doesn’t work for me. I need a celebrity that I’m at marcus lemonis, the guy who started the gander mountain and the guy who has little t88 reality. Tv show called the prophet. He says:stay focused, work, hard, know your numbers and be disciplined. Do those things take care of your people and likelihood of being successful is very, very high.. Paul hood can’t help you. He cannot help you. If you don’t go and talk to him, all you need to do is go and talk to paul hut. So how do you start that conversation go to hood cpas,, you go to hood cpas, go their schedule. A one-hour consultation is going to give you a free copy of a look under the hood. His book, it will look at work, but his workshop will take you to your good as one of his workshop he’s going to give you some snowball the warren buffett book snowball. That conversation starts by going to hood cpas. Com next week, more financial, practical planning tips, hood-that is, our business coach, will see you next week