In Part 2 of this two-part Coaching Corner episode with Ashley Lopez, we talk about the importance of improving the structure of your business and setting financial goals that will keep you motivated.

Missed Part 1? Check it out HERE

Talking with an accountant is a great place to start to understand the financials, I think it’s also going to work better for you to start to look at your business as a BUSINESS and get yourself on payroll and get structure in your business. If you’re only paying yourself when you want something, that  also comes with the downside of the opposite-when you want something and you can’t pay yourself, because you didn’t have the structure of the business in place. 

I ask Ashley: “What if your business did $150,000 in sales this year or even $300,000. What would that kind of money do for you? Personally?”

“I would invest it back in the business.”

“Why? Why can’t you pay yourself?”

“I have issues. I don’t know.”

That’s what I’m trying to uncover here. Sometimes there’s a belief or something in there that either you’re not worthy and deserving of money or you have this narrative in your head that money is bad or that being rich is bad. That belief is usually implanted in us sometime during childhood and it’s probably something that mom or dad said. We took it as fact from childhood, and that is not serving you as an adult. 

Setting Lifestyle Goals Vs Money Goals 

You need to have a goal that scares you, but also motivates you, so that you really connect with it-because it may be that the things that you think the money can get you right now, just aren’t all that EXCITING. So you’d rather put the money back into the business, as opposed to really working towards this exact financial goal, because it’s going to get you this lifestyle, this result-that’s really highly motivating to you.

Let’s say your job or your husband’s job is super stressful, and you would just love for him to not have to be at that job anymore. So your goal could be to reach a financial goal where he doesn’t have to be at that job anymore. That can be the motivating factor, right? So you just have to figure out what that is for you and your family. Your goal might be for your children’s college to be paid for, or you want to move to this neighborhood, or you want to pay off the house or travel more.  What excites you about life that money can afford you? Because money is not everything. 

It can afford you more experiences in life or more stability or more comfort, where we’re not having to come from a place of scarcity, or I can’t pay the bills or, where everything has to go back into the business. 

“So is there something that’s coming up for you that like, money is the tool to get you to a dream, a vision, a goal? Or result?”

Ashley says: “My husband and I do want to buy a property and build our own house”

So if that’s the dream and the goal, then what if the money that you pay yourself starts to go into a fund, maybe maybe $500 of that goes into a fund that starts working towards chipping away at the cost of buying that property and building that home.

Because then you actually have a plan of working to get to that point, you could be actively contributing 10% of your income into that, rather than just thinking “wouldn’t it be nice someday”? Then you start to look at your business and realize you’re never going to not pay yourself because your goal is this and if you don’t pay yourself then not only are you risking your current house, but you don’t have your dream house that we’re working towards. 

Yes, there should be some money going back into the business. That’s where we need to get a handle on the finances of how much we can reinvest in the growth of the business versus making sure that the owner is taken care of. 

So if we take the goal of:  ‘I want to have enough money to be able to go buy this property and build our dream home, and it’s going to cost this amount to do it. I don’t want to work more than 30 hours in a week or 20 hours a week.’  Then we start to look at options that are going to get us there. So we need to look at scalable business models. Does that mean I want the team? Or does that mean I want the lash artist education? Pick the best option and shift your focus on getting that to completion and being set up rather than splitting your focus and feeling like you’ve got so many things going on that neither one of them is getting you any closer to your goal. 

Everything is a step by step process and a journey that you’re on. Being an entrepreneur,  the biggest piece of advice I would give anybody who’s really struggling, is there’s more reward in the journey of who you’re becoming than when you get to where you want to be. Try to avoid focusing solely on the end destination. If you can fall in love with the journey of entrepreneurship and what growth you’re going through-that will continue to serve you. Even when business is tough, you can still love the journey, you can still look back and reflect on how far you’ve grown. 

So you fall in love with the journey, rather than “when I get XYZ dollars, then I will feel worthy and deserving and like all of this was worth it-because that feeling will be temporary. It’s like once you get married and after the wedding, you kind of have this letdown of: “I did all this planning for this one event, now the day is over and I have nothing to look forward to. Now I just have to be married”. This is where the real work begins. 

 So you might as well fall in love with the journey of it. 

If building out a team is something that you really want to do we have our momentum mastermind applications opening up again at the end of May. That is a six month group coaching program for those that want to build out teams legally and profitably and we’re gonna have a whole lot more conversation around what that is in the coming weeks. You can get on the waitlist for it by going to www.thelashpreneur.com/mastermind and that way you’ll be notified when we open up applications.