237 Choose To Amplify

Danielle Brooks joins me on this episode to share how we can choose to amplify our freedom in life and business. Check out Danielle's Amplify Your Income Resource Guide. Get your copy of Profit & Proof.   Show Notes: Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Welcome everyone. This is Dr. Saundra and you're listening to I Choose My Best Life. Today we're chatting with Danielle Brooks, who's going to help us be able to choose to amplify our freedom and get to a place in our life and our businesses where it does not feel so stressful. So Danielle, I want to thank you for joining us and welcome you to the show. Let me have you begin by sharing a little bit about yourself and the type of work that you do. Danielle Brooks: Hello, Dr. Saundra. Thank you so much for inviting me and allowing me to be on your platform. So, a little about myself. I am a mom of four kiddos who are under seven years old, and I've been married for nine years to my college sweetheart. And I've been a virtual CFO for the past 11 years. So, we help small business owners with their accounting, bookkeeping, and payroll all across the country. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Excellent. And that's perfect for this time of the year with everybody thinking about getting all their taxes and all their stuff together. So, I would love to go a little bit deeper into how you tend to work with small business owners. Now, for you, I know this has been a journey of learning how to create freedom and flexibility in your life. What inspired you to start sharing that with other business owners? Danielle Brooks: What inspired me to create freedom and flexibility for small business owners was truly my mom. She had been in business for seven years. Before I started helping her grow her business, and she had not had a vacation, she was working a whole lot more than I felt like she should at that point in her life. And I honestly just wanted to help her. And so she asked me to help her with sales because I came from a sales background. I used to work for ExxonMobil in a sales territory role. When I asked her for her financials, because all my sales meetings started with the finances, she ultimately didn't have clean financials to present to me. She didn't have a profit and loss statement. She didn't have a balance. She didn't know what her numbers were. And so I ended up creating her financials from just basically creating all her accounting and bookkeeping system. Then, there is a time tracking for her staff. Ultimately I was able to help save her over 40 hours per month. Within a year of working with me, she and my dad took two weeks off, and they went to Italy and Rome. they really just wanted more freedom for their own life at that stage in life. And she didn't really know how to do that because she had grown this business beyond where she had planned and was literally going week to week payroll to payroll and was just truly, I feel held hostage by her business and staff that she created for herself. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: This is such an important topic for those who are business owners and entrepreneurs, and getting in when you first start off with the business, you're so motivated to see the business succeed. But I think sometimes it's easy to get to a point where you don't realize that you have become hostage to your business, that you've gotten into a place where you can't take time off, and you can't move with freedom within your company and have that flexibility in your life. And I know that you, as a business owner, have dealt with this as well, wanting to find that level of, I don't like to say, balance. I oftentimes say harmony. And one of the ways you found that to be possible is by hiring the right people. Can you elaborate on the importance of hiring the right people and how it improves business operations and can lead us to a place of freedom as an entrepreneur? Danielle Brooks: Yes, I feel like so many people that start their business journey by themselves, the solopreneur, they've done everything in the business from what took place on the back end to the sales on the front end, and they're so used to know about all by themselves that once the business continues to grow, they don't honestly think about how to remove themselves from the business process. And so I, I encourage small business owners to, from the very beginning, start putting processes in place, document how you do what you do. Before you even hire the first person, eventually, you can start letting some of those things go. And so I honestly encourage people to make a list of all the things they do. You'll start without even knowing it, building out a job description, and then truly look at where it's taking the most time and effort for you to basically do whatever is taking the most time and effort from your business and your life, that's usually where I start to encourage people to look to hire. And so for me, when I first started my business and it's taking care of the accounting and bookkeeping for small business owners, the bookkeeping portion took a lot of my time and energy. At that time, my business had grown with my family, but as a business started to pick up beyond helping my mom, I had two kids, and I'm over here trying to take care of like at least three things. At that time, I had three clients where I was in their accounting bookkeeping at night while taking care of the kids throughout the day. My husband worked full-time. And so I looked at where all my time was going, and there really was the bookkeeping. So my first hire was the accountant to start releasing some of the bookkeeping responsibilities so I could focus on the strategy and consulting. I needed clean financials, but I didn't have to produce those myself in order to provide a strategy for my clients. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Yeah, I think that's a hard one. I feel for a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners because when you may know that you need to hire someone, I think oftentimes the thought process is I don't have enough revenue to be able to bring in teams, or they're afraid of the responsibility of having these people that are on payroll. What are some strategies or insights that you would share with them on how they can identify new revenue streams or even leverage existing ones to be able to have the freedom to do this and to get those right people on the team? Danielle Brooks: So one thing I like to always encourage you when they are, of course, hesitant to hire, it's just like when you're as far as managing other financials, that there's always the investment comes before the return, you're going to have to invest money into the stock market before you see your return. And I feel like you have to invest time and energy in your team before you ultimately see your return and the freedom they're going to provide for you. And so where I first start is having, once again, a clean bookkeeping system to determine how much money you're making and how much money you're spending. So we can, before you hire someone, make sure that you actually have the income to bring someone on, that you can actually afford to pay for somebody. But then there may be a point where, hey, at the very beginning, you may be paying out more than what you're bringing in initially, but they're freeing up the time for you to now go out and sell and be the face of the business. So I would look at what, that's where I'm saying what's usually taking the most time from you and then focus on handing those things off to give you more time and energy to now grow the business, whether it's the sales side, producing the product that you're selling, but where I usually encourage people to have a clean bookkeeping system first to figure out. How much it's costing you to run the business and then how much money you're making to ultimately determine how much you can afford to pay somebody.  Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: The other thing about that is,  oftentimes trying to make sure that you have time for some of the things that you want to do. I feel like that's a big part of the flexibility that we're looking for. And the freedom we're looking for is proclaiming our time so that we're able to go to our child's soccer game or dance recital or whatever it may be, having some time freedom to be able to do those things. What are some practical strategies that you've incorporated within your own life to be able to build in some rest routines? Danielle Brooks: So as the family has continued to grow, I honestly, I lean on my calendar a lot in order to block out the certain time that I'm going to spend with family, a certain time I'm going to be working. And I would also like to encourage, of course, a small business owner, usually, hey, when you first get started. You're looking to just make money from anywhere. And you might be taking on more work than you should because you have this income goal. But a lot of times, when you just stay focused on and get really great at delivering a certain service, then the income can grow a lot faster than when you focus on one area versus having your focus spread out across a lot of different areas. When I first started my business, I was speaking from experience. So, I didn't start out only doing accounting bookkeeping. I have always loved photography. I've been creative. I used to do graphic design. I did all these different things, but my income did not truly grow until I niched down to truly focus on one type of service. And I did that also because, like I said, it was the freedom I was looking for in my life. I recognize being a photographer. That for the different people I was helping out they want me to be a photographer on the weekends. I want to spend time with my family on the weekends. And so that time blocking, when I looked ahead at my schedule and what I wanted for my life, I had to then focus on what was going to fit inside of the ideal life I wanted. I wanted to be at home with my family on the weekends. I wanted to also have a general, like normal, work day so I could be with the kids when they get off from school. So I really had to determine what type of business was going to fit into the lifestyle that I wanted.  Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: That's so important. I think that basically comes back to defining what success looks like for you. Because it's easy to look at someone else's story and be like, Oh, they're so successful. But if their success is keeping them out of the house all the time, and they're on the road all the time, and they're not able to do some of these things that are important to you, you really have to define success for yourself and look at your own priorities. Look at the things that move your heart in that really are the reason why you work and the reason why you want to have a business and have revenue and income and all those things coming in. So I'd love for you to share a little bit about maybe a success story that you've seen within your own work, where someone was able to amplify their freedom through applying some of these things that you've talked about. Danielle Brooks: Yes. So I have a client of mine who's been applying for a few years now that came because they wanted additional assistance on really increasing their profit in their business. So we are also a profit-first certified firm. When he first came to me, he was paying a bonus for his team off of the top line. Basically, it is the amount of money that came in. His team had a certain amount of money he was paying out, but it didn't take into account the amount of expenses the company had. Therefore, he was paying out money before he actually accounted for how much it cost him to run the business. So I helped him put a profit strategy in place for his business that allowed him truly to have more freedom. Also, when he came to us, he took care of the bookkeeping on his own. So, hiring us gave him an entire day back that he was spending in the office, and he was now able to take care of more clients. He's an eye doctor, and the amount that he pays us in one month, he's able to make back in a day. And so that's where I've been able to provide the freedom for him to continue growing his business, but also increasing the bottom line. So now his team has a profit in a bonus structure that didn't wasn't there initially. And now the team is actually making more money on a bonus. The company is making more money in profit, and he has more time and energy to spend working when he wants and also taking time off as needed. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I think that's what every business owner wants, that ability to scale and to grow on that level without the stress, really, because that's what it boils down to, the stress of growth. It sometimes, I feel, keeps us from actually being able to expand to the level of what our business is and whatever. Whatever area and talent God's given us to be able to stretch it, to be able to grow without fear. So with yourself, one of the things that you have done and you've been able to do is to really invest in your team at a high level. I oftentimes brag that you were one of the few employers who brought staff with them to our rest retreats, and so I'd love to hear a little bit more about why you feel like it's important to not only yourself be taken care of and nurtured and well rested, but also for your team to be taken care of and nurtured and be well rested. Danielle Brooks: I love that you asked me that question. And honestly, it just makes sense to me to do as much as I can. I want to create a safe, happy, healthy environment for my team as well. And I feel like most employers want you just to deliver the products. And then you have your life separate, but I truly feel as if you're talking about that harmony. I don't know about the whole work-life balance, but there, I feel like there's a need for harmony between your work and your life. And if things are not well at work, then it typically bleeds over into not being well at home. And so I honestly would love to, as much as I can, create a safe, happy, rested environment at work so that my team is happy, healthy, and rested at home. And so that was, I feel, one of the main reasons why I wanted to bring them to the rest retreat. One, I saw that was the second retreat I had been to, and I saw how rested I was when I first left for the first time. And I felt like that would be, honestly, just a blessing, a gift that I could give my team. I feel like if you are able to show up while at home, you can continue showing up while at work as well. We can ultimately produce a better service and end product for our clients when we are happy and healthy whole people. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Yeah, and I think it really just showed great leadership because, one of the things that I find that, that is really the catalyst that people don't. I appreciate personal leadership in growing a business. There's a level of personal leadership where we, as leaders, if you're the owner of the company, you are the leader. You have to take responsibility for not only the revenue but also for the culture of your company. You're taking ownership of how your relationships are within the company and being able to determine that there's a certain culture that you want within your organization and then following whatever the next steps are. Same as you would follow a financial plan, following those next steps to make sure that the culture rises to a higher level, even as your revenue rises to a higher level. I know right now that a lot of people are fighting to get all of their tax stuff aligned for their bookkeeper or accountant and all of those things. Share a little bit for the person who may not even know the difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant. How do we even know who we need in the process of getting our finances and our business in Danielle Brooks: order? I'm so glad you asked that question. Yes, most people come to our company wanting us to help them with taxes, and we actually don't do taxes, but we do everything that you need to have an order for tax time. So it's seamless for your tax accountant. So, the difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant, I like to explain that the bookkeeper really is just they're just the reporter. Their job is to document everything that happened in your bank, making sure it matches what happens in your bookkeeping system. The accountant typically will provide additional insight and strategy based on what those financials are. And it's possible to have your accountant do the bookkeeping, but it's not usual that the bookkeeper is also providing the strategy and accounting. So there are also tax accountants that provide that accounting view strategy, and they also do your taxes. But our company, as a CFO, is providing the strategy and the analysis based on those financials, Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Based on your expertise, where do you see the biggest opportunity to empower small business owners to achieve their own definition of success in their businesses? Danielle Brooks: I think the biggest opportunity is one taking a step back and defining, as you said previously, what success looks like for you. And it's going to be different for everybody. Be okay with looking within yourself. Then, own what success looks like for you. And one thing is you mentioned, as far as bringing my team to the rest of the street, one thing that I didn't realize as it comes to growing a business that, Oh, I now am going to be a leader when it comes to growing a team. That wasn't something that just made sense to me initially. I was just like, Oh, I've got a bunch of work that I can't handle. I need help. And I didn't realize that I was going to also be a leader in the midst of growing a team. And so with that. I still continue to hone and change. I feel like a little bit about what success looks like for me. So be okay with whatever it looks like for you. It's maybe different than the next person who may not have kids, or even if you do have kids and you want to travel and bring your kids with you, or you want to be at home. I just encourage people and all my clients. When they first start working with us, I ask them what their goals are for the next one, three, or five years. So that we're all moving in the same direction, I want to help them. Get to wherever it is. They see they're supposed to go wherever God is leading them. We are a team here, but be okay with defining success for yourself and then making the right next step to get there. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Danielle, how can people get in touch with you to learn more about you and your services? Danielle Brooks: The easiest way is to go to our website: pearlbc.com. You can go to our contact page if you would like help with our services; I also have a book coming out a little bit later this year that provides more insights and examples of how we've helped other clients amplify their freedom. And there are also additional resources to help people really still continue to amplify their freedom, but you'll find all that on our website. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: And you have a free resource. Is that correct? Danielle Brooks:  Yes. So they're a free resource. If they go to our website, it'll be at the top there. And it's really; I feel what's a tool, a resource guide to help the small business owner that is starting out potentially by yourself, but how to continue to just take the one step in order to release some of the things that are taking up your time and energy on a day to day basis to provide that freedom for you. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Excellent. Then y'all, I want to thank you so much for joining us and helping us understand how we can choose to amplify our freedom within our businesses. Until next time, everyone live fully, love boldly, and rest intentionally. ​ I Choose My Best Life Podcast is one of the  Top 20 Christian Women Podcasts I Choose My Best Life Books: Colorful Connections, Sacred Rest, Come Empty, Set Free to Live Free Connect with Saundra: Twitter: @DrDaltonSmith Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/drdaltonsmith Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrSaundraDaltonSmith