Boss Your Business - The Podcast

[00:00:00] Yvonne Heimann: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Boss Your Business. And today we are diving a little bit into finance. So if you were not just listening and watching the podcast, but also paying attention to my YouTube channel, you might already have an idea of what's coming up. Today I have as a guest, Craig Dacy, Craig Dacy.

[00:00:21] Tongue twister people, I swear sometimes the English language just does not like my tongue. Your business owner, online personality, and content creator located in Austin, Texas, which is still on my travel list, and your company helps business owners and individuals take the stress out of their money so they can spend more time doing what they love you speaking my language, you're speaking my language because let's be honest, I'm still working on some money blogs where it's like just old stories from my family, but we'll, we'll see if we're going to go down this road today people.

[00:00:57] What Craig is [00:01:00] really working with is literally your finances. And if you watch my YouTube channel, you might have heard about profit first before, if not after this episode, link is in the description so that you can dive even deeper into this. Before we dive into for anybody that doesn't know what profit first is and dive deeper into what that is, why it matters.

[00:01:26] Craig, how did you, how did you get here? How did you find your way, first of all, into financial literacy, discovering profit first and having the passion for it?

[00:01:39] Craig Dacy: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, what's funny is my background is in education. I, I was an elementary school teacher for, for seven years and I thought I was going to do that forever.

[00:01:49] But Something about teaching, as you know, they don't get paid super well. That that's one thing.

[00:01:56] Yvonne Heimann: We could do a whole show on that one. I'm like, you are educating our [00:02:00] kids and you are getting paid squirreldoodle. Yeah,

[00:02:03] Craig Dacy: Right. 100%. So like most teachers, I was working side jobs, side hustles to make some money.

[00:02:09] My wife and I were trying to get out of debt and just get ourselves stabilized with finances. And while we were doing that, I fell in love with financial literacy on the personal finance side. And I'm going, Hey, you know, I'm teaching fourth graders. Why don't I take this love for teaching and start something of my own where I can teach adults how to manage their money started with personal finance.

[00:02:30] But along that path, I mean, I've always been an entrepreneur in some aspect. I've had the side businesses here and there, but I really fell in love with the idea of running a business. And I started seeing business owners who their personal finances were a mess because the business was a mess, which made their person.

[00:02:46] It was just this back and forth tangled web. And so that's what led me into profit first for my own business. Cause I knew I didn't want to go back to teaching and I saying, you know what? I want to help these other business owners because they're [00:03:00] great at what they do, but just because you can make a great cake doesn't mean you know how to run a bakery.

[00:03:04] And that's what we want to help people do.

[00:03:07] Yvonne Heimann: Yeah, I feel that. I feel that. Yeah, I don't even, yeah, I feel that. I feel that deeply with like, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm totally assuming here. A lot of us follow a passion. We see a need somewhere we start doing the thing and we are not even paying attention to finances.

[00:03:29] Money comes in, bills need to be paid and that's it.

[00:03:33] Craig Dacy: Yes, correct. Yeah. We call that, just being reactive and that's just our natural places reacting. When money's good, we spend, when money's tight, we hunker down and we stress and we get anxiety. And so, we're just about being proactive with money.

[00:03:48] Yvonne Heimann: When do you see, because you've been working with your clients a while too, I know you have multiple coaches in the company. Is there a [00:04:00] timeframe when business owners are finally ready to go from reactive to proactive? Because I see it with systems and processes. I'm wondering if, if there is a similar pattern in finances too.

[00:04:14] Craig Dacy: Yeah. It's so usually, I mean, they're, they've been in business for a couple of years and they're at that point of just growth where their plate is super full or maybe they're trying to hire somebody and they're realizing I'm not paying myself hardly anything. They're working long hours.

[00:04:29] They're burnt out and they just hit this wall of well, now I'm going to go hire someone that's just going to raise my expenses. When am I actually going to get money out of this business?

[00:04:39] Yvonne Heimann: Yep. Yeah, pretty, pretty much the same timeframe with processes and when it's like, okay, it's time to stop being reactive.

[00:04:48] We tested a whole bunch of stuff out. We know what works and what doesn't work, time to outsource. And I have to admit, I'm like between my books and finances, as well as video [00:05:00] editing. Those were the two first I outsourced. I'm like, yes, we're not going into the whole texting and everything much today, but it's like, that was the first thing where I'm like, I know somebody I trust.

[00:05:12] You go, you go deal with it. I know enough. I learned bookkeeping in school. I know enough to check what's happening, but it's like, no, I'm not dealing with that.

[00:05:21] So how, how does business and life look like? Nowadays, what what do you do? How do you work with clients? How does your present life look like to you?

[00:05:32] Craig Dacy: Yeah. So, I mean, we work with clients in a sense of we are very much in getting about getting to know their business, what their goals are, what their frustrations are, maybe where the bottlenecks are, understanding why they started a business in the first place. We are firm believers that the business should support the business owner. No one starts a business to work long hours and make no money. You don't quit your nine to five to do that. You quit because you're going, I want freedom of time and control over my [00:06:00] income. So we guide them through profit first, a system that helps them easily manage their finances.

[00:06:06] They don't need a. An accounting degree to understand how to run the business finances so that they can afford to hire out and outsource the jobs and the tasks that they don't want to do. And so they can afford to take those family vacations or pay off their debt or whatever their financial goals are.

[00:06:23] We like to guide them hand in hand in doing that. So that's how we serve our clientele. We also serve people in their personal finances. So non business owners as well, but our bread and butter is business owners.

[00:06:34] Yvonne Heimann: I'm like, I want profit first, literally on my personal accounts as well as my business accounts.

[00:06:39] Now for everybody, that's, that's new potentially to my channel, to the show, do me a favor and explain to them what the hell is profit first?

[00:06:49] Craig Dacy: Yeah, absolutely. It is the, a simple cash management system. So really it's taking what we do, which is our behavior and applying that to our finances. So [00:07:00] most people are.

[00:07:01] They might have a QuickBooks or some kind of bookkeeping software where they can go pull P and L's and cashflow statements and all these accounting documents. Truthfully, nobody's really doing that. What we're doing is we're looking at our phone to look at our bank accounts to see how we're doing financially.

[00:07:18] Yep. We, I ask people all the time, like when's the last time you looked at those documents and they're like, well, maybe six months ago, when's the last time you looked at your bank accounts? Oh, every day I looked at it this morning. Yeah, exactly. So we want to leverage that behavior. So profit first is,

[00:07:33] literally taking bank accounts and we break it into at least five accounts that have names and have a specific, specific job to do. So when money comes in, there's an income account that we call the serving tray. That's where all the money goes and sits. And then you move some of it, a certain percentage in a profit, a certain percentage into owner's pay, that's your salary.

[00:07:53] Certain percentage of the taxes and then a certain percentage into operating expenses.

[00:07:58] Yvonne Heimann: And that's, that's the [00:08:00] simple setup. I think I have by now like five or six different accounts because it makes it so easy. And I'm like, guys, if, if you have a little bit of trouble right now with a visual on that, what I always say is like, just think of your grandma.

[00:08:14] Grandma got her paycheck in the past. She went to go cash it out and then she put 20 bucks into the grocery envelope, a hundred bucks into the rent envelope. And that's pretty much the same thing. And what, what makes it really nice for me is exactly what you said. I'm like, I look at my bank account every single day to make sure everything is working, how I want it to work.

[00:08:35] Especially when, when you were still in that scaling phase where you don't have, three months of, of money ready in your bank account to pay your bills. You want to double check. You want to make sure there is not a charge coming out that you totally forgot about, right? And being able to just go look at my expense account again, I'm [00:09:00] running a personal private, so it's completely interchangeable and be able to say.

[00:09:04] Yeah, it, it might be Amazon prime day, but I do not have anything in my expense account to actually buy that wide screen monitor. I can make that decision literally within five seconds because the money is distributed and it's either way there or it's not there.

[00:09:21] Craig Dacy: Correct. And if you only have one account, like most business owners do, they have that one checking account.

[00:09:26] You might look on Amazon prime day and see, Oh, I have enough money to order it. And then next week, when you try and cut yourself a paycheck, there's not enough money to pay you and that's why you're sacrificing your paycheck or when taxes come up, you don't have enough to pay your tax bill because it's all lumped together and so being able to look just at operating expenses and see it's going to naturally just.

[00:09:48] It naturally reigns in some of your spending because you feel like you have less to spend because you do. It's all the other dollars are allocated to other very important things. And so, yep, it's all right there for you to [00:10:00] see.

[00:10:00] Yvonne Heimann: Now, there might be a question coming up with the audience. Now, again, I'm already working with Profit First.

[00:10:05] My own bookkeeper is Profit First. I know you are a full on Profit First professional. So I probably know the answer. If not, maybe we have two different answers. A lot of the, the audience that might not have implemented profit first or is with a bank like Wells Fargo. Let's be honest. I left them years ago for various reasons.

[00:10:24] Having a multitude of bank accounts in my case, I don't even know. I think I have like between my personal and my business ones, like. 10 or 14 different bank accounts. And we are in the States where you often have to actually pay to have a damn bank account. Do you have a recommendations for that issue?

[00:10:46] I'm like, okay. Cool, we are doing profit first. I'll start figuring this out. But where do I actually take my money? Do you have a recommendation for that?

[00:10:54] Craig Dacy: Yeah, so there's there's two things I recommend. The first one is credit unions just in general [00:11:00] So if you want a physical bank that you can visit in town. Most credit unions that offer business checking accounts don't charge.

[00:11:08] Most of them are free. Most people are worried that it's the online interface is not going to be good. They're, they're usually pretty good. Yeah. You can always ask them to see their online interface before you sign up. But credit unions is the, is what I've used traditionally. Now there is an online bank called relay financial who just earlier this year partnered with profit first, so it works incredibly well with.

[00:11:31] What we're doing, yeah, you can automate your, your transfers. There's a lot you can do in there. And what I like about relay is it's, you don't have to go into a branch and sign a bunch of paperwork. You can literally open your accounts today. You can go on there and have as many accounts as you want opened.

[00:11:48] And if you need to add one, it's, it's easy to do.

[00:11:51] Yvonne Heimann: We, we did the switch and believe me, I think. I was before [00:12:00] with, MBKC in Kansas again, it's like, I haven't been in a banking branch and I don't know how long. So to me, it's like, I don't, I don't need a personal teller. I need to be able to get ahold of you guys and I need to be able to, to run my banking fairly simply considering guys.

[00:12:15] Sorry, but banking in Germany is so much easier than in the States.

[00:12:20] Craig Dacy: We don't take it personally.

[00:12:21] Yvonne Heimann: That's a whole, that's a whole nother show. I will not go on my soapbox today.

[00:12:25] Craig Dacy: Yeah. There's a lot of states don't do very well. So yeah, I'm with you.

[00:12:29] Yvonne Heimann: Yeah. Which is why, which is why I double, triple and quadruple check before I switch banks.

[00:12:36] Yeah. And for me, always paying attention to streamlining and automating things. The move to relay has been amazing for us. First of all, I really don't need a branch. You have ATMs all over the country. If you need to go pull cash somehow, you always can buy your groceries and get a, get a cash out too. So that's never an issue.

[00:12:59] I had a [00:13:00] couple of things that went wonky on the signup, just because I didn't have my second coffee when I was signing up, had nothing to do with Relay. And I messaged them and we literally had this resolved within 24 hours. So no problem whatsoever. I'm running my personal as well as my business accounts through it.

[00:13:16] And what Craig was referring to is Relay Bank literally automates your stuff. So with profit first, I do 1025. I don't know if your clients do the standard 1025 allocations or you choose different dates. And I literally have relay set up of, okay, these are my percentages. This is how much percentage goes in each account.

[00:13:37] And at once it runs on the 10th and it runs on the 25th. I don't even have to think about it. The time it has spent me for manually moving the money.

[00:13:48] Craig Dacy: Much easier. Yep. 100%. And I like, you can change it. Yeah. So, I mean, you 10th and 25th is what the book says, for me personally, and it's just. Probably because I've always manually done it [00:14:00] since relay has started this, but I've always done weekly on Fridays.

[00:14:03] Cause I would, I caught myself forgetting to do it on the 10th of the 25th. So just having every Friday morning with my coffee, moving the money. So, but if you're, if somebody out there is in a business where they're like, no, I kind of want money being distributed more regularly. Yeah. Once a week is great.

[00:14:18] 10th and 25th, but yeah, to be able to automate it does make it a lot easier. As long as you're still checking that account, but which we are, that's what we're naturally doing anywhere. Always looking at it.

[00:14:29] Yvonne Heimann: And I think the, the decision on when to do your allocations and you're moving also closely relates again to how are you running your business?

[00:14:37] How do you want to run your business? If you are still in the early stages of scaling, chances are you haven't moved into a, a bi weekly schedule yet where I look at my calendar and I know what invoices are coming up and I'm, I'm ahead of time on my invoices. So the 10 25 works great for me because I am with [00:15:00] everything in my business and that bi weekly schedule.

[00:15:03] However, a few years back I was on the same schedule where it was weekly, where I'm like, okay, simply because I cannot keep money in my income account for two weeks. We do it weekly on a schedule or again, it's like, why have it sitting there? I want to have a, a picture of where I'm at right now. So again, just moving it weekly and just adjusting how, how everybody does that.

[00:15:31] Now question, one of my biggest struggles with profit first in the beginning when I didn't have my bookkeeper yet when when I read the book and just tried the stuff by myself, one of the biggest issues for me seriously was figuring out my percentages. That's that's the only

[00:15:50] Craig Dacy: one with that. No, everybody.

[00:15:53] Struggles with that, because it's really hard to figure out. There's a couple of reasons, and this is, this is the biggest deliverable we [00:16:00] do for a client when we start working with them is we look at their numbers and we say, here is the best starting point. So for those who aren't familiar in the book, there's these, what we call target percentages or taps allocation percentages.

[00:16:12] So it's, here's what we think for this size business, how much they should be putting into profit, how much they should be putting into operating expenses and so on. So just because that's the target though, we don't want to jump right into those numbers. It's like trying to lose 30 pounds overnight. It's not good for you to take your operating expenses and drop them from 80 percent to 30 and think that you're all of a sudden going to be doing great.

[00:16:34] Usually that's where frustration kicks in because you're not putting enough into an account. Based on what you were spending last week. And then you're going, oh, this system doesn't work. My account's overdrafting. So it's all about figuring out where you are today, looking at your numbers and being realistic with it.

[00:16:51] I always say, start with what you need to pay yourself. What have you been paying yourself? And what do you need to, to cover your, your bills? Let's make sure that that amount [00:17:00] is getting put into owner's pay, looking at your current operating expenses and. If it's really high, let's start you high.

[00:17:07] And then over time, every month, every quarter, we'll just slowly shift it less into operating expenses, more into profit, more into owner's pay and the other accounts, but finding that starting point is really difficult. Yeah. The other part too, that can cause a hang up there at the beginning is you're changing systems, and so you're going from the way you've always done it.

[00:17:29] Mm-Hmm. to all of a sudden having these bank accounts. So let's just say the first week you're doing it, you move money and then, but that week happens to be you put a thousand dollars in operating expenses, but then you have to go run payroll for 3000. You're going, well, this doesn't work. You know, I don't have enough in there.

[00:17:43] It's, there's what we call growing pain. So it's, we gotta kind of do the old system, mix it with this system for four to six weeks until this thing finally has legs and is doing it itself.

[00:17:55] Yvonne Heimann: And I'm like, I still have moments where it's like, damn it. We did a, [00:18:00] we did a push on something. So suddenly I do have higher team expenses.

[00:18:04] So in my case, I actually do have a team account where paying my team doesn't come out of the regular operation expenses that comes out of a team account. And when, when we do a big push, when I need additional hours from them and it just steps out of the standard, it's entirely possible that I still, and I've been running profit first, but I don't know how long that we run into where I'm like, okay, I got to pull a little bit from, from my regular business expenses and got to pull it into the team account.

[00:18:35] It's happens.

[00:18:40] So at the beginning, figuring out the numbers, if somebody wants to try their luck by themselves, how far would you go back at looking at your expenses? Do you recommend like six months, 12 months, two years? I don't know.

[00:18:56] Craig Dacy: Yeah. So when we do it, we usually like to go back a couple [00:19:00] of years, but that said, sometimes we'll throw, we won't use a year.

[00:19:04] So for example, you know, when we were running reports in 2021, we'll look at 2020 and Either it's, it's inflated because whatever industry they're in or it's deflated. So like, that's not going to help us figure out. So I would say if nothing else, just take this year, take 2023 or the current year that you're in and just.

[00:19:23] Use those numbers and look at it and just say, okay, how much have I spent? Divide that by how much you brought in. And that's going to give you your percentage for your operating expenses. And then how much did I pay myself divided by how much did I bring in? There's your owner's pay percentage and start there.

[00:19:40] Yvonne Heimann: Once they're running profit first and they're in, how often would you recommend to look at your percentages and potentially adjust?

[00:19:51] Craig Dacy: So the first few months I say, just leave it where it is to make sure that that your starting point is good, unless you need to adjust it because it's. It's [00:20:00] just not accurate.

[00:20:01] Maybe you're realizing, Oh, not enough is going into owner's pay, but too much is going into operating spend. You can, you can adjust it then. Once you kind of have legs, you're used to, you got the behavior in you're moving the money. Then I, I usually say set quarterly goals, but you can tweak it 1%, 2% per month if you want to, or you could tweak it 3 - 5% at the end of the quarter.

[00:20:24] Usually with our clients, it's, we try to do one to 2 percent every month because they just don't notice it. You don't feel it, you know, 64 percent and 63 percent in most businesses are going to, you're not even going to notice the difference. And the other beauty of doing it that slowly is you're hustling that business.

[00:20:41] So the revenue is going up. So naturally percentages are going to decrease cause you're not spending. You're not increasing your spending in relation to your revenue. So it's going to help bring that percentage down as well. But answer your question. Usually I like to do monthly one or 2 percent adjustments.

[00:20:59] Yvonne Heimann: Sweet.[00:21:00] I just lost my question. There you go. He has, he has a great freebie for you guys. We will get to that. And I had a really good question and I lost it. There we go. Happens.

[00:21:13] Craig Dacy: That's what happens when I run my mouth. I talk too long and lose your question. No, no.

[00:21:17] Yvonne Heimann: I was just completely enthralled with everything.

[00:21:19] And I, ah, that's the thing. Here we go. The actual, the most important thing. And one of the things that Craig, just as much as I preach. Left and right profit. Yep. When we start our business, we talked about being reactive. We talked about money comes in, money goes out, just like with our systems. We start reactive.

[00:21:43] At one point we hit a wall and we are finally starting to be proactive. Yes. Now, chances are, if somebody hasn't run profit first before, they've never pulled a profit. They, chances are, the money came in, you barely made, maybe pulled, paid, paid your bills, [00:22:00] maybe pulled, have a little bit owner pay, holy moly, there's a lot of peace in that.

[00:22:05] But chances are, They've actually never made profit. And that's like the one reason why we do want to run profit first. So let's dive quickly into this, this aspect of people start grabbing some profit from your business.

[00:22:23] Craig Dacy: Absolutely. That's why we call it profit first. We want to set that aside. You know in the book he talks about turning accounting upside down So, you know if you look at a pnl or just accounting is sales minus expenses is profit That's the bottom line.

[00:22:37] You've heard about focus on the bottom line. It's literally what's left over

[00:22:42] Yvonne Heimann: I didn't start a business to just get the leftover.

[00:22:44] Craig Dacy: Correct Yeah, we don't want the scraps of the business because as we discover, rarely is there anything even left over. So, and, and truthfully, if something's important to you, it's not like you go to the hospital and the doctor says you need to change your health habits or you're going to [00:23:00] die, you don't walk out and say.

[00:23:01] That's it starting tomorrow. I'm putting my health last it's I'm putting it first. It's a, you're making it a priority. So we're flipping that around. It's sales minus profit. We're setting it aside. We're running the business on the rest equals expenses. We set that aside into that account. It's earmarked it's there.

[00:23:19] And then my favorite part of it is at the end of the quarter, just like any corporation would do. If you owned a equity stake in any major company, they're going to cut you a check at the end of the quarter, a percentage of their profitability. We want your company to do the same thing for you. And so at the end of the quarter, you're going to take a chunk of cash that's sitting in there, and it's literally a bonus to you as the business owner, as a congratulations on a profitable quarter, it's a reward for taking this risk because it.

[00:23:47] Running a business is a risk. It is, it's scary. It takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of emotion. It robs us of our sleep. So this is your financial reward for saying good job. Keep it up. [00:24:00] And I love it. It gives me something to look forward to every quarter. I usually kind of know in our mind, this quarter, we're going to invest in this.

[00:24:05] We're going to get some new furniture, whatever it is.

[00:24:08] Yvonne Heimann: And it's the, the mental impact of it from I'm just getting the leftover and let's be honest, they never is a leftover. It's like time you're going to use what you have. So putting that profit aside with, with my coaching clients, what I often realize is this.

[00:24:30] I get to spend it without feeling bad about it. I don't have to put it back into the business just because you can, it's your choice, what you want to do with the profit. If you say you want to take it and put it back into some education for you or into a new employee to get them started, whatever it is, you totally can.

[00:24:48] But what I realized with my clients is once they have their first couple of profit payments, it's like, I get to spend it on me. I get to do a girl's weekend and not [00:25:00] feel bad about it because that's literally what that money is allocated for.

[00:25:05] Craig Dacy: Absolutely. Yep. It's supposed to be for you. You're right. You can, you can put it back in the business if there's something that you're really trying to do, or maybe you're trying to pay off debt and you're going, you know, I want to.

[00:25:17] Use this money to get rid of business debt so that we can free up some cash. But really we encourage people, even if it's a little bit to take a small percentage, always for yourself, even if you're just going to go buy some street tacos, go get, you enjoy those street tacos cause they represent a profitable quarter, but that's what we want.

[00:25:36] But the beauty of it too, during the COVID pandemic, we had a lot of people keeping money in their profit account and just. Every quarter, just we would look and say, are we feeling comfortable enough or not? And it became a cash reserve that they could use if they needed to. It was backup money to help them avoid laying off employees if it had to come to that.

[00:25:56] And then when the dust cleared and everything was good, then they could [00:26:00] take a larger bonus. Cause there's a lot of cash built up in there and paid out to themselves.

[00:26:07] Yvonne Heimann: Welcome to profit first guys. Craig, you have a quiz for the audience to make their life a little bit easier. Tell them about it.

[00:26:14] Craig Dacy: Yep.

[00:26:14] That's right. So we have a quiz. It's literally eight questions that you fill in and what it's going to do is it's going to send you a customized report based on your business, your industry, what percentages we recommend you use, As far as what you're aiming for. And so, and then it even comes with a video walkthrough of how to set it up so that you can get yourself to those percentages, but again, eight questions and we'll get a few tidbits on your business and your industry, and that report will be sent right to you.

[00:26:42] Yvonne Heimann: Look at that. He made it really easy. And as always guys, All the links are in the description. Craig, before we say goodbye, tell the audience where to best connect with you.

[00:26:53] Craig Dacy: Yeah, we are mostly active on YouTube, so you can just search us on YouTube. youtube/craigdacy is our personal [00:27:00] finance channel.

[00:27:00] And then we also have a profit coaching channel. And then our website is just craigdacy.com. So find us on there. Tiktok, Instagram everywhere. So,

[00:27:09] Yvonne Heimann: And with that, thanks for joining me and thanks everybody for listening. Make sure you hit that follow and like button and go ahead on over to Craig's YouTube and my YouTube to go learn more about profit first and get your finances in order, please.

[00:27:25] Bye everybody.