Lessons

Lesson Info

Shift Your Money Mindset

Hello everyone so say we are on lesson eleven shift your money mindset and that actually moves us into session to generate revenue quickly it means we're gonna make some money right who's excited for that right let's make some money all right so first I want to recap a little bit of what we did in session one so in session one we set the foundation for your sustainable business and we did this by defining your big goals and setting your male number which is your make a living numbers that was the number that you have to hit in your revenue to make a living selling what you make right for a few view was a little scary okay? We're going to start working towards that now we also set your prices that they were profitable and perfect for your ideal customer we analyze your brand figured out where needed work so we can support those new higher prices and we chose the best market for you based on your personal and products, strengths and weaknesses so as we learned in session one we cannot ju...

st try enter every market at once right it's a recipe for stress disaster stall it just doesn't work right so now that we've pinpointed the right market for us to tackle first it's time to start making some money right and that's what session two is all about we're going to focus on generating revenue quickly now, as you've heard me mention a couple of times, you can't be more than a couple times you can't make a living selling what you make if you aren't making something people want to buy even if you love it even if you're friends love it if there's not a market for it, if there are people who want to buy it, you can't make a living selling what you make, so what we're going to dio is we want to test out your ideas in the marketplace wait, we want to get out there we want to find the products that people are responding teo and we want to do more of that in a previous lesson lesson, I shared this quote from eric reese, author of the lean startup, and he says I was accustomed to measuring progress by making sure our work proceeded according to plan was high quality and cost about what we had projected. I started to worry about measuring progress in this way, right? What if we found ourselves building something nobody wanted and it's the same case for you guys? We can run all the numbers you can get your brand in place, you can make your products at a reasonable price, but if you're making something that no one wants to buy or not enough people want to buy to sustain your business it's not gonna work right so by focusing on generating revenue quickly, you can actually do a couple of things first you're going to find out if you're selling a product that people actually want to buy or at least if you're on the right track right by focusing and prioritising on getting ourselves into the market place quickly and connecting with customers, we're going to find out if those customers are interested in buying our product. Second, it gives us really valuable feedback on what isn't isn't working in your product line right when you start your line you know you're making the things that you love you might be in the ballpark, but there's always room to evolve your product line to better suit the needs of your customers and the on ly way to know how to do that is to get your products out in front of people so you can get that super valuable feedback right? And the third one which is always good is that you can bring in cash that you can use to fuel the growth of your business. So when you put revenue generation first that's going to bring in money and it makes it so much easier to take those opportunities to take those next steps because now you're funding the business with revenue from the business rather than always having to put in your personal money right and that's what takes us from it being a hobby two of being a business right when the business is sustaining itself. So I actually started my business in this way, though, I cannot say that I did it strategically. It happened, but it worked really well. So when I first started my business, I was doing a lot of outdoor retail craft shows. And this was in the early days when kind of the things like renegade and crafty bastards and all those were just sort of starting out. So I was actually doing a lot of the outdoor arts festivals. You know, I was doing these shows and lovely suburban town around the northeast, right? What I was doing was a I was getting my product out there usually was doing one or two a month, so I was getting my product out. I was getting feedback from customers. I was learning what sould I was also just seeing how people reacted to my booth, right? And then I was making money. It's never a ton of money. Let's face it, that's a hard grind to do that retail crash. Oh, circuit forever, right? But it was a really good start because I was always bringing home cash, right, so every week it was like, look, my business made money. Most of the time it made more money in my boot fee we all just like everybody I've had those occasional flop shows it happens right? But I was bringing in some cash I was getting feedback I was learning but I was learning while I was making money right? And as I was doing that I was also evolving my product line so I think this was actually my very first retail craft show um if I look back at this there is not a single piece in that booth that is still in my production line today none if I look at this I think I counted like five pieces from there because by doing these things I saw what worked I took those five pieces that sold well not only sold well but we're the kind of the best production pieces for me, right? I could make them I could make a profit they consoled consistently and then I started expanding the line from there. So by doing this I was able to make that money quickly but also learned what worked in my product line and really accelerate my business and that's what I want for you guys now your path may not look like this and as we head into session to we're going to figure out what your best way to kind of test the market isthe right? So the goal of session too is to enter the market with a bang right in order to test product ideas, make changes and generate revenue quickly. I don't want you guys to drip products into the marketplace and then wait for months or years to maybe find out that you're sort of on the right track or maybe you're not. I don't want that for you, right? I want you to dive in and make a splash with your product line wherever it is at this moment, so you can learn something, hopefully make a little money and move on and evolve rights that's really what we're doing here in session too, but before we dive into that money making peace, I want to make sure we're all adopting the right mind set when it comes to money, because I have found working with makers and working with creative entrepreneurs for as long as I can, but people have a lot of hang ups about money, right? I see a couple smile, some of you may have to have your own money issues. I know I've had mine as well, and so we want to make sure that everybody is on the right track and so that's we're going to do today in less than eleven, we're gonna shift your money mindset a little bit. So we're going to talk about some of the things that hold you back we're going to adjust some of those numbers that we set in lesson too because as we change the goals for our business and as we acknowledge what market places we need to be in some of those numbers we ran in the very beginning of this boot camp may not actually hold true anymore we may need to do some adjustments and we're also going to talk just a little bit about how you feel about things like debt and risk because you have to know where you stand on those in order to move forward with your business I'm not telling you you have to go into debt to move forward on your business I'm just telling you you have to know your own personal relationship with that right so we are in session to generate revenue quickly and we're starting right off of the beginning of session too and this is gonna be such a great session I cannot wait so in the last lesson we determined the number one market where you should be selling your products now we found that first place for you to dive into the market and really focus your energy but our goal for today is to let go of some of those money barriers that might hold beholding your business back right so I want to talk about a myth that is one of my serious pet peeves probably one of my biggest in all the years that I've been coaching and working with other creative business owners this one makes me crazy and the myth is that the internet is a golden ticket that lets you build a successful business for free right who's thought that at one point like I'm running an online business, I don't really have to spend money right? Even if you're not thinking that so broadly you've probably thought it in a smaller area, right? I don't have to pay for marketing because all those social media platforms are free right? Who thought that I feel I see some nods in our audience, right? I don't have to you know, I should have to pay for that, right? We all get a new hide one suddenly service we've been using changes their pricing model, right? You're like, well, that used to be free because we've got this myth that it's just easy tio papa business up out of nowhere and then the world is going to come to us right? And we think they're going to come to us not only without spending any money but like without any work right here it is I'm here and the world was going to find me this is not an if you build it they will come scenario right? But the internet tends to perpetuate that men and then I think it also creates this really unrealistic expectation of what it costs to build a successful business, and it also limits us from taking advantage of maybe some of our best fit markets because we see people growing successful businesses on the internet, and we think we should too, even if that's not your strength, it's, not your skill set. You know, we talked about a couple of people in this group who are really better off getting out there in person, you know, lisa, you who mentioned that you cannot get that online connection thing, right? It doesn't work for you, and he doesn't have to work for you, there's still a great big world out there outside the internet and there's a lot of opportunity for people who are willing to take advantage of that. We even talked about that with you or shell, you know, we kind of I have been talking about the different ways you could sell a line and suddenly said, but I want to connect with people in person and so for you, that might be the stumbling block in your business is you've been so focused on trying to build it online, and that might not be the right method right now I'm not saying that you can ignore the internet, you can't write. But that doesn't mean that it has to be the whole piece of your business, and it also doesn't mean that you compelled your business for free. I don't care if your business is all online, you're not building it for free, so here's the thing you can build a successful business by bootstrapping bootstrapping means you don't take on debt. You don't borrow money, you use the business to fund the business. It is possible to build a successful business by bootstrapping. You can't build a successful business by never investing in the things that help you grow, you have to be willing to invest in the things that grow your business in order to get where you want to go. And investing in those things may look different for everyone. You may decide that you want a slow growth model that you want to just bootstrap, that you want to just earn the revenue and move forward, but sometimes you might also encounter an opportunity that requires you to not boots draft right that requires you to take on a little debt. Teo get some outside funding and that's okay, too, and what I want to do over the next couple of lessons is get comfortable with all of these ideas and then talk about those financing options because if your goal is to grow quickly. I don't want a lack of capital to be the thing that stands in your way if you want to do three trade shows this year, I want to talk about how we need that happen, right? So that's, what we're going to talk about here the other reality is that this is rarely ah high profit margin business we talked about this in a previous lesson, right? Depending on what you make, depending on what your materials costs, what your labour is, some of us are going to a higher profit margins than others but it's not one of those things where you can just kind of create a million dollars out of thin air without spending a decent amount of capital to get there and so you have to get comfortable with that to this idea that the number that you want to get teo may require spending a lot more money then you've previously been comfortable with right? And this is hard for a lot of people, a lot of people who come into maker businesses. I have that kind of d I y mind set and you don't want to spend tons of money and I'm not telling you you have to spend tons of money, but what I'm telling you is that you may have to spend more than you initially realized because a lot of people underestimate me they're business expenses, especially in the early stages and especially if you have a big jump from your current revenue to your revenue goal right? So if you want one hundred thousand dollars in sales you may have to spend and this is anya if you want one hundred thousand dollars in sales annually you may have to spend fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty k to get there depending on how your business is set up so if you want a hundred k and profit or even if you want to be able to pay yourself ah hundred k for the year you may have to make two, three, four, five hundred thousand dollars a year or more to get you there. I know we're starting to talk about some pretty big numbers right? And your members don't have to look like this you have may have very different goals and they are all super valid but you're all here to make a living selling what you make right? And so even if your goal is to only pay yourself twenty, thirty, forty k a year, you may have to get pretty close to that six figure sales mark to make that happen right totally doable what everyone know it's totally doable I run started look a little nervous right it's totally doable but we have to prepare for it right? We have to pray for it we have to plan for it we have to be ready for that so our exercise in this lesson is that I want you to reassess your business expenses right and lesson too we came in some of you were good and had been tracking your expensive some of you were kind of ball parking it but now what we want to dio is go back and see if our business expenses that we talked about and lesson to actually reflect the amount that you need to spend to hit your revenue goals we want to know if your business expenses need to change to reflect your ideal marketplace I think when we did rochelle's we didn't budget for you doing any shows did we write so now if you're talking about that that maybe your ideal marketplace to somehow get out connect the customers we have to put that in and that starts to change that number right? And then we have to figure out how your projected business expenses compare what you're currently spending on your business so what I want to do now is have a little hot seat and talk about how these numbers change all right? So now we want to do a couple of hot seats and look at how your business expenses may have changed based on some of the goals that we said we were going to start with you you knew I was going you knew that was coming in you all right? Come on up here and hopefully you kind of remember some of the numbers will turn out all right we'll just make up because I also think you our case is well where the numbers we talked about originally we don't actually reflect your ultimate goal because when we ran your numbers you said well, okay my husband works don't have to make that much right, right? But then in the different conversation you told me that your real dream was for your husband to quit his I don't use the word soul sucking whatever horrible, horrible job, right? So that's a very different number in and of itself, right? But what I also want to talk about now is just how this number might change based on maybe some of your new marketing strategies thinking about doing some other things. So have you given any thought tio how much you're gonna have to add into expenses than you had before? You remember kind of where we were at before with your numbers? No, I'm sorry that's okay? So let's just kind of break it down. Do you rember what you were stunning annually materials or what you're currently spending about? Um that's fairly low was yeah, it was pretty low let's guess five hundred okay, you're spending five hundred now when we're reassessing your numbers, one of the things we have to look at is how much this number changes based on the sales goals that you're setting so when you're standing about five hundred dollars materials how many pieces are you making annually in there? Let's say a hundred a hundred okay and what was your average selling? Yeah, what was your average selling price? Um it was probably like ninety ish yeah let's go with that so that five hundred dollars materials wasn't adding you approximately nine k in sales what was your making living number? Remember we're out that approximately here annual income where you really want to be revenue wise e sorry give us a ballpark I think here's was maybe should we say sixty seventy and seem about right to say some seventy ok, right, so if we're doing an average selling price and we just upped your price is right. So if we're doing seventy k and we have an average selling price of knowledge put it at one fifty you're gonna have to sell four hundred sixty six pieces in the air right in our material costs so one hundred pieces right about your five hundred dollars so you're looking at about twenty cents apiece that's an awesome material costs by the way good job anytime you'd be a little higher than that closer to like fifty cents okay alright cool fifty cent piece so that means you're looking at so this is telling me that you would actually only have to spend two hundred thirty three dollars material, so somehow we're running into a little weird calculation here if it's fifty cents apiece so I think it might be a couple of bucks apiece if you're spending is actually five bucks apiece, right? If you're making hundreds cost five hundred so five bucks apiece okay, I'm not very good at we're gonna get the math right? I swear it's all it's all good we'll figure it out yes so this is actually our number okay thoroughly, right? All right, so this is going to be your new material cost, right? So that immediately brings you make a living number up, right? So that seventy k you know, now we're at least at seventy two, right? And then we could do the same thing where we're looking at your marketing so you had a pretty low marketing cost. Yeah, you were like I'm only sent a couple hundred bucks and web hosting and that's it right, but you may decide that you want to target some arts festivals and I would say for you, you know, we're talking a lot about this after you weren't even here for this conversation we're talking about you on and you know you're probably not going to succeed at something like a renegade or kind of those shows where it's a lower price point but if you can find some arts festivals or things like that where people are coming to spend a little bit more money that may put you closer to your customers and as we talked about before, not all of those air going about sales, some of them might be about lee generation email capture all of those things, so you may not always generate revenue and all of them, but it's also, I think, a really strong marketing technique to get yourself out there that place your strength, right? So you're not just sitting on the internet, you're going to get people we barely know you want to be around people that's, why you're here, creative live all the time, right? You want that energy? Yeah, and I think some of those better arts festivals, they're going to get you there. Okay? So that means that you're going to have to figure out how many you think you want to do a year, or at least in kind of a time period. Would you want to try one a month? Would you want to try maybe one every two months? How about, like, ten, a year? Ten year perfect, okay, so you're gonna do ten shows a year, and I would say based on the kind of shows that you're talking about even though these might be outdoor shows where you baste again video, you can find a ton and a nice thing for you is you could probably find a ton of good ones year round without having to go too far you kind of stay in the southern california area and I think you'd find some great ones, but the kind of shows we're talking about, I would say you're probably looking at a booth be anywhere between five hundred and fifteen hundred show, oh, yeah, yeah there because that's going to get you into the audience that you right? Right? So just to kind of make that estimate, then we'll just say, you know, somewhere in that range, if we figure and just hung out, you may not be in from these higher and one so let's just say your first year, you're looking at an average with seven hundred fifty dollars times those ten a year, so that as another seventy, five hundred just on that kind of marketing piece, so now we're at now are basically close to eighty, right? So this is what I want you guys to start to dio is work backwards from you, make a living number and figure out if your material costs your production costs, your labor costs have to go up and then if you're marketing costs have to go up and then you're going to keep adjusting out. So now now you make a living members gotten a little higher means you have to sell a few more pieces. Years isn't a huge material shift because you're not spending a ton per piece, but there's some other people who might be spending mohr who that's really going to change. So that makes sense. Yes, off. Okay, you thank you least I want to ring up here too. Since we did your numbers last time. Hey, alright. This's. A giant marker. Okay. All right. So do you remember what you are make? A living number was when we did your calculations. Um I do. The final make a living number was two hundred sixty six. Okay, so two hundred sixty six k means that that marker it's an easier see alright, which is really huge, iss but you also have a pretty high average selling price, right? So what do your bags retail for? Seven. Fifty seven fifty. So if you were selling on ly retail, which we know you're not well, we're going to do that really quickly. So if you were only selling retail, you would have to sell three hundred fifty four bags. That's doable it seems much less scary right a lot of times when we take your make living number and we divide it out by your piece that seems a little better now here's the thing they're not all bags bags but any time you can stick with selling more of the higher piece that's better right eighty s a t s is average dollars per sale I live and die by that number because the higher you can get your a d s in any selling situation the less pieces you have to sell and the less people you have to convert right it's a really important number but the other thing to keep in mind is that you're not going to be selling all these bags at retail right? You're selling them at wholesale price so what's your wholesale price or you're just doing it straight half I did teo yeah yeah about half the half okay, so so you're wholesale prices three seventy five so if we I think it's I think I did three thirty I think I did a little bit you unless you want stores to be able to mark it'll have a bigger market because it's another accessory right? Okay, perfect. So so that means that you're actually gonna have to sell eight hundred six bags and chances are pretty good that you're going to have a little bit of a mixed model so you might sell some retail right? Well you want some eggs retail and sell some wholesale so you may only have to get to say seven hundred bags is something that it'll it'll change a little but it's good to know that like if you sold if all of your revenue came from wholesale and came from the bags this's how many bags which is so manageable that's what I like to hear right? Perfect perfect so now I want to talk about how this changes you make a living number right? So you're at this number what was your material cost? You remember? Yes, I dio it wass we added an additional so uh eight in additional four thousand on top of three so it was like seventy seven thousand so you were already sort of projecting for this number right? Because what's your material cost per bag a problem I'm sure it varies it does very I would say between forty and sixty dollars okay you're between forty and sixty so we'll just say city so what? I'm sorry it's a hundred sorry that's for the smaller bags. That one is between eighty eighty five and a hundred because that's a small bags because even if you are just at fifty dollars material costs you need to protect forty thousand this is actually your annual material cost right? So that jumps this number huh by another thirty you know? So now we're looking at three hundred k, right? So it looks like you were pre severely, even without extra buffer, underestimating your material costs to get you to that number. Now, one of the things that you can d'oh when you know you're getting closer, this projected number, and I would not do this until you're starting to generate some more sales, but the more things that you're selling, the better chance you have to make some purchases of bulk. So can you find some options just to take this price down a little? Because even if it's at eighty and you can get it down to fifty with eight hundred bags that's a huge thing, you're talking about twenty, thirty grand savings in your business over the course of a year. That's a big deal, right? I think that's another thing that I want to just pause on that point, that out for our online audience, because a lot of people who start out right, you're buying your materials at retail price, right? That will kill your business once you know that there's a demand for your products, look for the opportunity to get that wholesale pricing. Now don't go crazy, and I want you to go out tomorrow and buy enough leather to make a hundred bags, because that's going to kill you, too, because materials sitting in your studio is actually money sitting in your studio just like inventory sitting in your studio is my I get really stressed out when I have a lot of inventory in my studio because I don't look at that and see inventory I look at that and see cash right now don't you start to think like that too materials are really cash inventory is really cash and so we wantto buy efficiently but we want to buy efficiently, make that product and get out as quickly as we can right? Because that's going to help with cash flow that begins a big deal is your business gross right that so we're gonna have to bump this number up significantly. We got to bump any other numbers up for you eight hundred six bags are you still making everything are you taking on an employee or two? Uh we talked about taking on a guy I would definitely didn't factor that into your original costume. All right. The other one I would guess for you that we talked about that I think you kind of underestimated was that trade show number he's right? What did you ask me that our well originally I said three trade shows but I meant like a one big seasonal trade show like spring summer and then teo like, you know, pop up bigger pop okay, I got right like I just can't find the right market for that yet, right? And so I would say for you, you may you're probably not to do at least two of those big trade shows a year, and I also think the conversation that we had when we were looking at your market, that you may be looking at men's trade shows, right? You know, I don't know enough about it to definitively send you there, but off the top of my head, I know that capsule is a good one, that may be an option for you to look into, and I believe they're both fee is usually around twenty five hundred show, and they run it twice a year, so I would say for you, what did we estimate that number before? Twenty, five hundred? Yes, I would say you should be at least five thousand, and the reality is that this is just booth fee, right? So for something like capsule or any other show where it's in a major city and in capsule men's is in new york, you're looking at flight, you're looking at hotel food, right? So I would say a pre safe bet would actually be to double that number. I think that, and if you're serious about wholesale, and you're committed to, that is the way to gori business, which based when all of your strength it's so the best way to go this is a really small investment, especially if you can use this to catapult you to this right? And if you want to grow even more quickly, I might increase this budget a little more right? So maybe you're still going to keep it to just those two trade shows and a couple more little events. But maybe you also say, you know what? I want to put an extra twenty, five hundred in there to do a really beautiful lookbook that shows how this is a great men's accessory, how fifth and attack get that printed than that just deal photography, printing stores, doctor twenty, five hundred, depending on who you're hiring, you may even budget a little bit more for that. So start to think about those expenses and what we wanted d'oh, when we're looking at these expenses and adjusting your number is we want to prioritise the spending on the stuff that's going to connect you to customers, right? So obviously the material costs have to come up, they have to because you need to make that more product, but, you know, trade show that makes sense is an expenditure because it puts you in touch with customers, you know, talking about the arts festivals for shell puts you in touch with customers. A look book is a great expense if you follow it through to the end and mail it to stores right that's, the thing was spending on any promotional material, so if you're going to make a postcard, if you're going to make a brochure is going to make a catalogue, whatever it is, that is a great expense on ly if you take the final step and you send it to customers, right, that's the same thing, even if you're investing in a web site, right? Investing in a web site doesn't get you anywhere unless you spend the money to then put that website in front of people, which probably means paid advertising, paid marketing, whatever that is right, so when we're adding to this number, we want to prioritise the things that are revenue generating, right? So now we're we're starting to kick this up, so we're going to be a, you know, probably through fifteen, three, twenty something like that, and then we can divide out again, but it's still, I think when you start to look at it in terms of number of bags it's doable, right, doable and then you throw in some both and months ago, right? Exactly, and you throw in those things that kind of make it a little, you know that are a little faster to make, but then you know, give you a good margin, right? It's very doable but you want to make sure you're adjusting your numbers in being really true this business expenses yeah, thank you. Thank you. All right, you guys get the idea and when it starts to get scary, come back to this not how many dollars is it? But how many pieces is it? And sometimes you can even break that down in a different way. You know, if you are, say, selling wholesale when I said a revenue goal, I don't do but how many pieces they do it by how many stores? How many orders I after, right? Right, I know what my average dollar per sale is. I know, you know, an average opening order might be seven fifty for me if I have certain revenue goal it's that many stores, right? So make those numbers feel manageable to you, right? But make sure that you're being really true on those business expenses. So the other question, then you have to ask yourself, is will you need to invest more to grow your business than your current cash at hand, right? Yeah, s so what? So what is your question about that? Go ahead, I guess where you invent where do you invent the extra cash if you're just like starting out in your going from ground zero? Okay, perfect. Yeah, and I think that's a big thing for a lot of people, so of course, one of the options is always personal financing, but what we're going to talk about, and we're actually gonna go into detail in this in the next two lessons. So we're going to talk about different financing methods. But what I wanted to just in this lesson is talk about how comfortable you are with this idea of debt, right? Because the reality is, if you don't have the cash in hand, you're probably gonna have to take on some debt or you're gonna have to do something super creative, right? Whether it's boring from friends and family, whether that's, daniella port, always persons, were daniel porter quote up, she tells the story of someone who wanted to come to one of her workshops, and they sold their couch, and that was how she made the money to come to the workshop. Right? So it's, you know, what do you do? I also really love the story. Susan peterson who's, the founder of freshly picked the baby mox. You may have seen her tell the story because she was on shark tank when she first started out, she made a couple of baby box for her son on dh she wanted teo start to sell them so her brother was doing something in this house she went, she pulled all the aluminum stuff off that he was going to get throwaway anyway took it to the scrapyard, got two hundred bucks, bought a leather hide, started her business so there's a lot of creative options but sometimes it's better just to take like that's a lot of work right to strip aluminum just easier to maybe take on a little bit of debt or a little bit of financing in some way or another. And so I want to talk about this idea of debt for a minute, and I really like this daniella port quote where she says debt is neither good or bad it's how you feel about it that matters right? So there is nothing wrong with taking on debt to strategically grow your business key there is strategically right it's also okay to do things for your business that you might not do personally personally, I don't have credit cards, right? I don't have credit cards that I use to make personal expenditures because as we all know, I really like shoes right and I go to a lot of stores they're always like do you want the store credit card? Absolutely not right? I do not want that I do not care what it saves me I cannot trust myself with that I have two different american express cards for my business because I spent a lot of money on my business and I want those rewards points, right? I want the hotel, I want the area miles, but also sometimes I need to float a little extra cash that I don't have a hand. So just because you're not comfortable, something in your personal financial situation maybe doesn't mean that you should rule it out if it helps you grow the business. So I want you to think about how comfortable are you with debt and risk with you, holly? Because you asked that question, is that something you come to? Whether doesn't make you feel a little uneasy? I I would like you said I would do it for business, but I won't do it for me ever again. That's a really good thing to know, and the other good thing to know is how much debt you're comfortable taking on right in the beginning, you may only be comfortable taking on a couple hundred dollars or a couple of grand for your business, right? And you can control yourself. We're going to talk about these financing methods in our next lesson, but let's, just say that you don't trust yourself. To take on more than one thousand dollars of debt a time for your business when you call on apply for that credit card whatever the limit they tell you no, I wanted to be a thousand dollars that's it that's all I want you to give me right? Because then you can't get yourself into trouble and you can learn to be responsible with your business, right? So think about how comfortable you are with debt and figure out how much you're willing to invest for me. I am incredibly comfortable with debt and risk. I grew up with a dad who owned a business now remember times right mom would say I have to go into the bank today to co sign a half a million dollar loan with your father because my dad ran runs a big machine in company and sometimes in order to take on those new jobs to take on more work, the only way to do it is to buy half a million dollars. Right now I would not be comfortable spending that much money like business, but I run a very different kind of business right? But when I did not my first trade show but I moved to a different section in new york gift and my booth fea jumped dramatically. I went from paying a couple of grand to both feed that was ten thousand dollars right and I actually called my dad said, I need ten thousand dollars. I was really hoping he was gonna loan me the money. I was like, what do I dio? He was like, you call the bank and you get alone. Oh, okay, but I knew that it was the right opportunity for me, so I did it. And the good news is we're going to talk about analyzing those opportunities. We're going to talk about how you know if and when you should make that ten thousand dollars trade show move or even at two thousand dollar trade to move monica three full circle did it end up working out? Not at first. Interestingly enough, I did that in two thousand nine, at the height of the recession, you could have gone bowling in the aisles at that show, but I also knew that it was where I needed to be to move my business forward. And so I wrote it out, and eventually it did pay itself off. It just didn't pay itself off as early as I would've liked, right? But eventually it did, and my business would not be where it is today. If I had not taken that risk, I would not have the business that I have, so it's a success story in the long run, but it was not that short term and it's scary, right? It's scary when you take on how much debt and then you realize that you can't pay it off immediately like you thought you were going to. But I had also financed the debt with a really smart low interest rate, and we'll talk about that in our next lesson, so it made it a little bit better, right? I wasn't I hadn't put that ten thousand dollars on a credit card and was stuck paying eighteen percent on it, right? So that's, the other thing we want to factor in, but I want to ask you guys to think about now what opportunities could you take advantage of if you had more money to spend on your business? What an opportunity you take advantage of monica. I'd buy our material in much larger ball and that really help you with caution or profit margin could really help you in a big way. What else? Purchase equipment that makes production is here? Yes, that's a big one. Purchasing equipment that really makes the job done. And then I also remember thinking about what can you do that gets you closer to revenue generation, right, maybe it's the the bigger trade show. Maybe it's you on your case, holly I think you're looking at connecting with interiors, maybe it's producing that great brochure, that great piece that you can then send out to them, right? Because we're again, we want to connect to people it's, not about the marketing piece that's about the connection behind it. So I want you guys to think about one big opportunity you could take advantage of in your business and how much you think that might cost you, because then in the next couple of lessons, we're going to explore all of the options when it comes to finding your business. If you guys have an opportunity that makes sense and you can't do it because you don't have the money in the next couple of lessons, I want to find you the money that's our goal where you going, jerry maguire? Here, show me the money, right, that's what we're doing, but we're also going to learn howto analyze those opportunities, determine when and how much you should invest in your business because I don't want you to invest crazy money that you're not going to get back, right? And so in our next lesson, we're actually to be joined by a very special guest to many crary. Who is going to talk to us about all of those financing options? So I can give you that anecdotal evidence about taking out the ten grand or getting the business credit card, but mindy is actually a financial expert, she's going to join us in the next lesson to talk about all of those options and what they mean for you both personally and as a business in terms your finances. But before we do that let's, look at your lesson eleven homework. So I want you to make adjustments to your make a living number based on your newly calculated business expenses. His chances are we've did this exercise the first time around. You underestimated them, right? Start with your make a living number, figure out how many pieces that is, work backwards from there, adjust for material costs and your new marketing strategies, and then I want you to identify one opportunity you could take advantage of if you had more money to spend on your business just one and figure out how much that costs right, and then your extra credit is I want you to share on instagram. If I had more money to invest in my business, I would blank and then use our hashtag make himself and that's it, and I will see you guys in the next lesson.