I'm Val! Coach for creatives
like you who are ready to be healthier, happier and more empowered women who love the business you run, the people you serve and the life you live!
009: Minimizing Expenses with Jade Boyd
Have you hear of business minimalism? It’s a great approach to running your business so that it doesn’t run you. In today’s episode, Jade Boyd joins us to share what it looks like to approach your finances in business with a minimalist approach so that you’re minimizing expenses and generating more profit!
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Jade is a business + productivity coach who helps burnt out service providers simplify and scale their business so they can earn their dream income while working part-time hours. As a “Business Minimalist”, Jade believes that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. She helps her clients build custom strategies and systems that save them time while increasing their profit. Jade lives in Iowa City with her husband and daughter (due June 2024!). She spends her free time obsessing over her plants, reading 50+ books/year and doing DIY home renovation projects. Learn more about Jade at www.jadeboyd.co.
We often think of minimalism as not having much and not enjoying life. At least that’s the negative connotation so many believe it is. Minimalism expert and author Josh Becker says it best,
“Minimalism is not that you should own nothing, but that nothing should own you.”
When you apply minimalism to business ownership, consider business minimalists as lifestyle entrepreneurs. You own your business—it doesn’t own you—meaning you have the freedom you want in your life and business.
As Jade began exploring minimalism in her own business, she started to look at her expenses versus what she paid herself. She realized that she needed to be the highest paid person in her business if she was going to operate it well. In order to do that, she began to minimize expenses and prioritizing paying herself.
Through this process, she began to understand that she was making investments out of fear rather than necessity. “What if I don’t hire this coach?” “What if I don’t invest in a new lens?”
This ultimately took a big mindset shift and recognizing the why behind her investments. To trust this change, she had to pursue it with the mindset of, when I see it I’ll believe it. This meant not having a business coach for a season but still finding success in business.
When you don’t have a goal or plan in place, it’s easy to get pulled into multiple directions and waste money. Clarity is key in your business, money, and life.
When you look at your goals and what’s important to you, you’ll be able to understand what the best use is for you.
When Jade first got started with Profit First, she was utilizing the services of a bookkeeper who’s schedule provided her with a report 2-3 weeks after the month ended. This meant that she didn’t have up to date reports, which made it hard to understand where her money was going and make decisions in a timely manner.
What she decided to do was to make the switch to Xero and manage her own bookkeeping so that she always has up to date information. If she could go back in time, she would pivot earlier into the system she has set up now. This helps her make better and faster decisions.
The beauty in being a business owner is that you can decide how you want to run and manage the details of your business.
There are three characteristics of business minimalists: they have clarity, they aren’t hustling for more, and they’re marketing minimalists.
Business minimalists have clarity on what’s important and what isn’t in their business and life. The two key factors that will make the biggest difference in your life are time and profit. So what are your actual goals and are your financial decisions contributing to your business and life?
When you are building a business, it’s easy to want to hustle for more constantly. A good business minimalist will know how much is enough. You need to define what that means for you.
Lastly, business minimalists are also marketing minimalists. This eliminates the exhaustion of being everywhere and high budgets for so many different tools.
When you’re focused on profit and cutting unnecessary spending, you need to know your numbers.
One of my favorite parts of this podcast is talking transparent numbers with our guests. As a Profit First business, Jade has broken her percentages in business down as follows:
She began with a goal of $2000/month minimum to pay herself. Over time it has changed as has grown in business, plans for vacations, and plans for maternity leave. She also uses her profit for monthly bonuses if she has the money there.
Although we’ve highlighted the benefits of minimizing expenses, there are still expenses that exist in business. For Jase, her biggest investments include her contractors, including her editor, business coach, and virtual assistant totally $1,200 per month. This is where she’s found the benefit of spending time over money in outsourcing.
Her second highest expense each month is software at about $200/month.
Her profit payouts tend to go toward renovating her home or new furniture.
One of the biggest takeaways from this conversation was don’t just take everything at face value. Get curious and ask the right questions about everything you’re doing in your business. Whether it’s investing in softwares, working with coaches, etc., how is it impacting your bottom line.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Connect with Jade
The Business Minimalist Podcast
jadeboyd.co/doubleyourprofitmasterclass
Connect with Val
Instagram: @val_marlene_creative
Val: Guys, I am so excited to introduce you to Jade. She is just such a business brain and so good at so many things, organization and systems and workflows. And she also does Profit First. And so, you know, I had to bring her on. So Jade, say hi, tell us just a real quick overview of kind of what your services are.
Jade: Hi, thanks so much for having me. My name’s Jade Boyd. I am a business and productivity coach for service providers. I live in Iowa city. I’ve been here for over a decade now, so it kind of feels like my hometown and I focus on helping service providers scale their business. So working with, business owners who’ve kind of already mastered their niche, whether that’s graphic design or podcast management or bookkeeping, and At the capacity where it’s like, I can’t take on any more clients without doing something differently.
And I help, I help them strategize how to scale their business so that they can earn more profit while working less hours.
Val: Nice. And. Yeah, I, I love even like just some of the stuff in your podcast, by the way, everyone will link to her podcast, ton of gold there. I love how everything kind of ties together in just the approach that you take. Like you have this step by step that’s very clear and, and everything ties back to that.
So I’m excited to. Dig into some of the, the minimalist things. So can you tell us really quick, you call yourself a business minimalist. Give us just a quick overview of what that means. Ooh.
Jade: So I think when we think about minimalism, our minds automatically go to just like, get rid of everything. It’s decluttering and you just own nothing and life is horrible. And that’s definitely not the type of minimalism that I preach when it comes to business or life. Really. That’s, Not the definition I like to think of.
One of my favorite authors in the minimalist space is Josh Becker. And he has this quote that says, minimalism is not that you should own nothing, but that nothing should own you. And that’s really the mentality that I like when it comes to minimalism and especially applying that to business ownership.
I think of business minimalists more of. lifestyle entrepreneurs. So running a business in a way that the business is not owning you, you are owning your business. It’s not limiting your freedom or like tying you down in any way, but providing more freedom than you would have otherwise, which not many business owners do.
It’s so easy to build a business. And I’ve done it myself where you do feel trapped and it’s not providing freedom. It is holding you down. So, um, I would think of business minimalism as a very brief definition of building a business that provides freedom and where your life comes first.
Val: Hmm. All about that. All about the life first. So, tell us about your story with Profit First. How did you hear about it? Were you skeptical at first? How did implementation go? All the things.
Jade: Yes, definitely a skeptic for sure. I don’t remember who first told me about it. I feel like it’s a book. That business owners all know about, or it’s, you know, it’s a buzzword that everybody talks about, even if they don’t really know exactly what profit first is. I did buy the book. I did not read it cover to cover, but I skimmed through the chapters, looked at the percentages and read like blog posts about it to get the summary of what the idea is to start.
And so, yeah. So, starting implementing it, I definitely didn’t dive right in and do everything the correct way right away. I more so adopted the mentality first and gradually made decisions to like think about finances and with a profit first mentality and gradually make changes. And at the time, there was that I was introduced to it.
I started my business as a photographer. So I was doing brand photography at the time. And I feel like it’s so, I mean, you know, this as a photographer, it’s so easy to fall into the trap of, Oh, well, this photographer has this lens, or this photographer is going to this retreat. And it was very easy for me to fall into that trap, especially in my first couple of years of business thinking that like, Oh, well, this is how you build a photography business.
Cause this person is doing it. And I eventually reached the point where I was just like, I cannot pay a business coach or anyone else in my business more than I’m paying myself. It just does not make sense. Something has to change.
Val: Mm hmm.
Jade: I think the first thing that I started realizing it was that I needed to be the highest paid employee in my business.
And so I started there and minimizing my expenses and prioritizing paying myself and that happened gradually over time in the midst of that. I was also pivoting out of brand photography and into business coaching. So. It was a very gradual process, but initially it was just recognizing that I was investing in things almost out of fear.
Like,
Val: Yeah.
Jade: what if I don’t hire the coach? Then what’s going to happen? Or what if I don’t invest in a new lens? Like, is that going to make me a bad photographer? You know, not necessarily with the mentality of how is this going to contribute to my business, but the fear of, well, if I don’t do this, Then there’s going to be consequences, which is a very unhealthy mindset to be in.
So I think that was the first step, just working on my mindset and recognizing why I was investing in things and prioritizing paying myself more than anybody else.
Val: Yeah. Man, that is really interesting. Just the idea of making a purchase out of fear as opposed to what it can do for your business. And I think that’s, I don’t, I don’t know that I’ve really heard very many people talk about that. And so I, I kind of want to dig into that a little bit. How, how have you changed that?
Like, do you have questions that you ask yourself or was it just kind of a gradual, I know mindset stuff. It takes time to really change our natural inclination, but yeah, tell me a little bit more about that.
Jade: Yeah, I’m very much a I’ll believe it when I see it type of person. And so for me, it did really take making the decisions first before I was sure and then seeing that nothing bad happened. So business coaching, for example, not having a business coach for a season and realizing that it was okay. That didn’t make me a bad business owner.
It didn’t mean that I wasn’t growing. It didn’t mean that I didn’t care about my personal development.
Val: Mm hmm.
Jade: that my business was going to crash and burn. And so making the decision, then seeing on the back end that nothing bad really happened. I think that naturally addresses the fear and like helps me believe that I can make different decisions as a business owner and invest my money differently than maybe the people at the top of my industry might be investing money and it’s going to be okay.
It’s okay to do things differently.
Val: Yeah, and I feel like that also comes back to the Life first mentality, the order in which we grow different areas of our business or the time we can spend on growing and scaling certain parts of our business. It’s going to be different than other people. And that’s okay. And that’s a part of the life being more important than the business growth.
Like we have to almost let go a little bit of just other people’s stories and maybe what we. The timeline we hoped would happen or, you know, even what specific types of growth happen. We just can’t, you know, like everything in life, we can’t control it all.
Jade: Yeah, for sure. And a big thing that I preach to is starting with clarity, that productivity starts with clarity. And then if you don’t really know what your ultimate goal is, it’s very easy to get pulled in a million different directions and see what other people are doing and be like, Oh, you know what?
That would be a great thing for me to do. But then when you come back to your own goals and what’s most important to you, realizing that like, yeah, that would be a good thing, but that’s not the best use of my time right now, or the best use of. My expense account right now, whatever that might be. And so part of that was getting really clear with myself.
I’m like, okay, what are my actual goals for this business? Where am I going? And how do I make decisions based on that? Versus is this a good thing or not? Because most things are good investments, right? At some level, but it’s not necessarily the best investment based on limited, limited budgets, limited time, whatever
Val: Mm hmm. Oh yeah, totally. Even, even limited focus. I feel like one of your podcast episodes talked about, like when we’re spreading our efforts across all these different places, then we’re just like, So I think that that also totally relates to finances when we’re putting this money in all these different places.
We may not see great growth because it’s spread out so much.
Jade: Yeah. 100%.
Val: So tell us a little bit more about like the early days of implementing profit first, where there. Any things you wish you would have known early on, or maybe mistakes that you made that you would have done differently.
Jade: I think I, bookkeeping has been a whole thing and we’ve talked about this, but I had a bookkeeper doing my books in QuickBooks it was delayed, right? So I didn’t get it until like the 15th or 20th of each month. And so I didn’t have up to date information and it wasn’t updated during the month. It was updated once a month.
And that made it very hard to make decisions. financial decisions in like a timely manner. And it made it really hard for me to understand. Where my money was going, because it wasn’t necessarily set up in the same way that I was projecting my revenue. I’ve always projected my revenue in a spreadsheet.
So been very aware of like, okay, all the software subscriptions I have for this year, which ones are paid annually, which ones are paid monthly and having a list of everything that’s coming out. I’ve always done that. But then what’s QuickBooks was much harder for me to To compare and contrast. So I feel like I was almost doing both.
And if I were to go back and change something earlier, I think it would have been addressing that issue in my business, because the way that I’m doing bookkeeping now gives me a lot more visibility and consistency between what I’m projecting and what’s actually happening and makes it a lot easier for me, like week by week as decisions are being made and like revenue is changing.
That I can make better decisions based on what’s actually happening in my business. And that’s not necessarily a profit first thing, but it does make it a lot easier to implement profit first. And because of how great things are now, I just wish I would have done that three years ago.
Val: Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I feel like there are a lot of things even that are like tangential to profit first. But just like once you have committed in some sense to profit first, you just start thinking about everything more seriously, you start thinking about your expenses and the, the cashflow and things that you’ve probably barely thought about before,
Jade: yep, for sure. Yeah, especially when you’re forced to do it on a month by month basis and break it down.
Val: totally. So then tell me, are you doing your own books or do you just have a different type of bookkeeper? What does that look like now?
Jade: Yeah, so I switched to Xero. So a big issue with QuickBooks was that it was not integrating with anything the way that it should have. And I have a wonderful bookkeeper. I had, she’s phenomenal. I would recommend her to absolutely anybody, but I just could not stand QuickBooks and she did not do anything other than QuickBooks.
So I moved to Xero, X E R O. And. Madison Dearley, who we both know, who’s been on your podcast before. She taught me how to do bookkeeping in zero. And so I’ve been doing that for all of 2024 and now it takes me less than 30 minutes a month to do, which is crazy considering how much I was paying a bookkeeper and for even a QuickBooks subscription before.
So not only do I feel like I’m spending the same amount of time that I was with the bookkeeper, I’m saving like 500 a month.
Val: Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing. Wow. Yeah. And I think there’s There’s especially zero for sure is just a better way to go. It’s simpler, more user user friendly. And, and you are starting to see more bookkeepers using that, which is really nice. But even for, so like for me, I know that I could do my own bookkeeping.
I still use a bookkeeper because it’s like a mental load for me
Jade: Um,
Val: that is worth it. And. I’ve been able to, to know what’s going on with my money and to be like forward thinking enough that I’m, I’m not totally going off the rails by not knowing, you know, the exact profit and loss statement until. The next month.
And so I think that’s just a really good example of how I think personality and the way that you run your business, like you can do it different ways. You can have a bookkeeper and do profit first. You can do it yourself. Like you, you get to figure that out.
Jade: And I would say that it would have been a lot harder for me to learn how to do my bookkeeping. Like, it would not only take me 30 minutes a month, and I wouldn’t have learned to do it so quickly had I not already had a really deep understanding of finances going into it. Like, I started my business after getting two degrees in business.
Undergrad in entrepreneurship and a master’s in marketing. So I’ve taken accounting classes. I’ve taken finance classes. And so understanding how things are categorized and how to build a P and L is not something that’s new to me. The only thing I needed to learn was the software part of it. And like, what buttons do I click to make the numbers go at the right places?
And so that learning curve was a lot easier. rather than for somebody who has never used a bookkeeping platform and no, not knows nothing about finances, they probably won’t save as much time. So I’m glad that you did point that out. It’s not the same for everybody.
Val: Oh, yeah. Totally. Yeah. And I think even when thinking about software and outsourcing, there’s, there’s just like the, the cost and benefit analysis, right? Like, is this, like, what is this going to give me and is that worth the dollar amount? And for me, for some reason, there’s something about menial tasks like that where my brain is like, you should not be doing this. And I just, just can’t,
Jade: In Madison’s course, she talks about being an Enneagram one, like huge plug for Madison and her bookkeeping membership. It’s amazing. And she talks about how satisfying it is. And I really, really enjoy it. I’m also an Enneagram one. So zero to me is extremely satisfying to like, Click and have it auto select the right categories and then everything is reconciled.
It gives me joy. It does not feel tedious to me.
Val: that’s so funny. Cause I’m an Enneagram one, but like, I think in this maybe season in my business, anything that I know somebody else could do
Jade: Yup.
Val: is like irritating.
Jade: Fair. Yup.
Val: Anyway, let’s move on to more of taking the minimalist perspective and how you apply that to finances. So give us just. Kind of connect the dots for us, how your minimalist perspective really influences what you do with your money.
Jade: Yeah. 100%. So when I was thinking about this, I’m thinking about some of like the key characteristics of a business minimalist that apply to different areas of business. But. Obviously they all apply to finance as well. And so the first one is that business minimalists have clarity on what’s important and what isn’t in their business and life.
So like I said, they’re more lifestyle entrepreneurs and care more about the life side of things and freedom in their business rather than looking a certain way or having the like vanity metrics or, you know, showing up in a way that’s not authentic to them. And it isn’t actually Driving any real impact in their life.
And I think it’s really easy to run your business like that. If you get caught up in the keeping up with the Joneses, like I should be going to conferences, I should have the newest equipment, I should have a bookkeeper, whatever that might be that you think that you should have instead of basing your decisions on what your actual goals are.
And so when it comes to goal setting, I always preach focusing on two things, time and profit as being the two bottom line. Results that are going to make the biggest difference. If you care about your life more than your business and like your results that you’re, that you’re getting in your personal life from your business, time and money are going to make the biggest difference.
So focusing on like, okay, what are my actual goals? And from a financial perspective, does this investment or a financial decision contribute to the amount of time that I have or contribute to the amount of profit I have, or is it just costing me?
Val: Yeah.
Jade: making decisions with those two filters, I found has been like the most important thing and probably the most important part of my mindset shift in managing finances as a business owner as well.
Val: Yeah. So, tell me a little bit more about, So we’ve talked a little bit, like we’ve hinted around how, how you make decisions with which expenses to prioritize, or even I get this question a lot, like, how am I supposed to know what is most important? So tell me a little bit more about reducing expenses and getting really intentional with expenses without feeling like.
Like you said before the misconception that you can’t spend anything and in connection with profit first to like, just, yeah, speak to the expense side.
Jade: Yeah. So I mentioned the first characteristic, but I have three other ones that will kind of touch on this as well. So the second one is that business minimalists aren’t constantly hustling for more, but they And I want to, like, underline more. And they know how much is enough. And when I say that, I feel like people get this almost scarcity feeling, like, man, that’s just the bare minimum, right?
But you define how much enough is, and enough is not too little. It’s enough. And if you don’t define what that looks like for you, it will be really difficult for you to avoid just falling into the hustling mentality and thinking like more and more and more, I have to make more every year. I have to have more clients.
I have to have more followers, but how much is actually enough and defining that for you, because again, every investment that you can make in your business is probably good. There’s very few. bad investments where like this will do absolutely nothing and it’s a complete waste of time and money. But it doesn’t mean that it’s the best use based on what your goals are.
And it doesn’t mean that even if you can invest that much, that much that you can afford it, that you should, because are you just doing it to have more or do you already have enough? And have you ever heard of the hedonic treadmill?
Val: No.
Jade: so I really like this visual, but it’s just this principle that we naturally acclimate our levels of happiness, acclimate when we get more.
And I like to think of the example, whenever I think of this, I think of my first apartment building that had a washer and dryer. In the apartment instead of like a shared one. And once I got that, I was never going back. Right? Like I was never going to be satisfied taking my laundry out of my apartment and paying with quarters to do my laundry.
And that became like my baseline requirement to be happy. Right? This is my baseline standard of living now. It’s very hard to go backwards, but it’s also very easy to acclimate and just be equally as happy. Once you do get the bigger house or the higher revenue or the higher profit, whatever. your research shows that your baseline happiness kind of just returns to the same level.
So the hedonic treadmill is just that concept that you can be constantly be in motion and even making progress, but not necessarily be any happier in life. So again, clarifying, like how much is enough, business minimalists should be able to define that.
Val: wow,
Jade: So that’s the second one.
Val: yeah, man, that is so, it’s so important, and I think, like you said, it, we see, we see all of these different options, and what other people are doing, and it’s so easy to get caught up in thinking of should. as opposed to, okay, what do I want my life to look like? And then I think what I really love about profit first is that you can take what you want your life to look like, figure out what that’s going to cost.
And then because you have percentages, it’s so very easy to calculate. Okay. If These are my price points. Then you just, you know, play with the quantities. And this is what I do with people in my annual estimator spreadsheet. You list out all of your offerings, you change the quantities and you see then how much goes into each percentage category.
And I think the, the simplicity of that is what I love because you can define enough and then you can figure out, okay, then what is my revenue enough? Like how much revenue do I need? In order to fill all of the, those buckets to where they need to be. So, yeah,
Jade: Yeah, I go through a similar exercise with my clients that starts with how much they want to pay themselves and then backwards plan like, okay, then factoring everything else into consideration. What is the revenue goal? Not just let’s hit 100k because that’s what I should do or that should be the next milestone.
But how much do you actually need to make in revenue to hit your owner’s pay goal and hit your other metrics too?
Val: mm hmm, okay, so tell us what’s the third one?
Jade: Yup. The third one is business minimalists are also marketing minimalists. So they focus on less, but better marketing, which can also be a very easy way to cloud up your expenses. If you’re trying to be the best on every single channel, and it can also be very exhausting to try and do your best and hit the like success standard on every single marketing channel and burn yourself out, but it can also get really expensive in terms of software.
Like I. You have to get the Instagram automation software and pay for that. And then you have to pay for the podcast platform and you have to pay for the blogging website and you have to pay for the VA to do your reels. And the more channels you’re on, the easier that can get really expensive, but you don’t have to be on every channel to be super successful.
So I like to focus on less but better and repurposing when you can, but just being really clear on like, where am I, where’s my audience at? Where do I like showing up? What am I already good at that I can use my marketing? So it actually feels good, which means I’ll actually show up and do it consistently.
I won’t make a plan that I just. Forget about every month. Um, so third one is just focusing on doing less, but better in marketing.
Val: yeah,
Jade: then the last one is kind of a summary of all of this when we’re talking about expenses, but business minimalist again, focused on profit and cutting unnecessary spending.
Cause again, going back to how you’re calculating what your revenue goal Would be, it has to cover your expenses. You have to know what your annual expenses are to in order to know what your revenue goal is. And so if you’re adding to your expenses without planning for that every single month, then you’re also adding to your revenue goal and making yourself work a lot harder to reach the same profitability that you could have reached if you just, you know, minimize your expenses a little bit.
So that is the fourth one that I thought of when thinking about like how being a business minimalist affects how I make decisions in terms of finances and expenses.
Val: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s, it’s really interesting to me how often people don’t have a list anywhere of what their expenses are. And so I feel like that’s a super simple, easy step one. What are you spending money on? Like let’s just get, like you said, clarity around. even what is current because until you know what you’re currently doing, it’s kind of hard to, you know, get intentional with it.
So that’s a really good like ground level.
Jade: and I, I can’t blame business owners because I feel like nobody really talks about it. I don’t see a lot of people talking about projecting your income. And even from a software perspective, none of the bookkeeping softwares that I have tried have any easy way to do that. I’m still doing it in an Excel spreadsheet that I built because there’s, there’s no like standard solution or, you know, Yeah, so it’s not something that’s very common for business owners to do, and I get that, but it is just so, so important.
Val: is. Man. I remember that even with CRMs, I’ve been frustrated with like the finance piece of them and I used to use 17 hats and the only thing that has like made me really upset about moving to Dubsado is that I can’t click like one button and see my projected income based on my invoices. Like I have to actually go sort
Jade: that are coming in.
Val: yes, things that are already booked.
So we’re not like, you know, estimating, no, this is what’s actually on the books. So I feel like there’s such a, A hole in our market for like financial, not even reporting necessarily, but more of the projecting, like figuring out like what to look at. And so many business owners, especially beginners are, they’re getting something like honey book or.
Dubsado because that’s what everyone tells them they need. And it has some sort of financial thing to it. And they think that’s all they need to know. And there’s, and like you said, we can’t fault them. Like you just don’t know what you don’t know.
Jade: Yep.
Val: it just makes me, it’s kind of like a mama bear thing.
Like, I’m just like mad that there’s not more out there.
Jade: I don’t use Dubsado anymore. I did when I was a photographer, and many of my clients still use Dubsado. And I think of the options, I like Debsado, but I have many issues with it. I remember when I was a photographer on the dashboard, it says like the total amount of income that is future income, but it’s very misleading.
And at one point I was like, Oh, I have like 30, 000 booked for this year. And then I went into it and I was like, Oh, some of these are proposals. Like, why are these being counted when they haven’t actually accepted it? So it’s like, even that was not a good metric to be looking at.
Val: Yeah. And I think kind of like the word for everyone listening, like as a result of just our, maybe our rant a little bit is, is that. Don’t just take everything at face value. Like we have to ask questions and, um, not just assume and really get curious. I think is a good phrase. I get curious about like, what is this this app that you’re using?
What is it doing? What’s it telling you? And how can you apply that? Are there missing pieces? And just ask people, you know, like, that’s part of what this podcast is for trying to like, kind of open everybody’s eyes to all of the things that, that we just have never been taught. So tell us a little bit more about your.
So like when, I mean, because you, you know, went to business school and I feel like these things may become a little more naturally to you. Did you have to cut back a lot on spending or what has that journey been like for you?
Jade: Within my business,
Val: Yeah.
Jade: I had to cut back on spending? I think my mentality has changed a lot. Like I said, since transitioning from being a photographer into business coaching, naturally, my expenses are just a lot lower. Um, overall, I don’t have, I mean, I meet virtually, and And so I don’t have a lot of expenses.
It’s really my choice. If I want to spend on things like contractors and stuff like that, it’s almost like a preference rather than a have to have, whereas in photography, there are certain things that you do just have to buy. Like you do have to pay for light room. You do have to pay for some sort of equipment.
You do have to clean your camera. I feel like there’s just a lot more overhead in that type of business. So I think naturally pivoting from. Photography into business coaching. I’m just in a different industry. And so I think it’s a good thing to be aware of what the percentages are for profit first in your industry as well, because it can vary a lot depending on what type of business you have, especially between like service businesses and product businesses, for sure, depending on what your margin is.
So I think that’s something that has helped me minimize my expenses without necessarily having to try to just switching industries and being in a. In a more profitable industry overall, or an industry where it’s easier to focus on profit. But then overall, I feel like, again, being really aware of how increasing my expenses means increasing the amount of revenue that I need to bring in to pay myself consistently.
And so, like I mentioned, I have a spreadsheet that, I use for myself, but I also give to my clients so that they can be really clear month by month, what their projected expenses are and also what their projected revenue is based on their capacity. Like if you want to work two days a week, how many clients can you actually take on and let’s project that situation and see if it works out.
And if not, let’s tweak the numbers and figure out how you can hit your time goal while also hitting your financial goal. And so for me, Going through that exercise and being aware of what’s actually happening every single month has been really Helpful because it’s like, Oh, do I want to book another client or do I want to take time off and like cut an expense to me?
It’s an easy answer for a lot of business owners. They might be torn between certain things and I totally get that. But I think another thing that has been helpful is following people who I admire, who manage money in a way that I aspire to manage money, or even run their business in a way that is different than the norm.
And that has been really helpful because you can get away with not spending money on a lot of things that people say. You have to have, as a photographer. I wrote down two things. One, there is a certain, big name in the photography education space. He said, if you want to shoot weddings, you have to have a 200 millimeter zoom lens.
And I was like, that’s like a 4, 000 lens. I was shooting on Sony. And so I felt, man, I’m not a real wedding photographer because I don’t have that lens. And then I found a photographer who shoots entire weddings with 35 millimeter prime lens. Like, that’s the only lens in her bag. And she’s a phenomenal photographer.
And so following people who are doing things differently, like, you don’t have to have everything that people might be telling you. You have to have in order to be really good at your job. Another photographer I followed at the time was Sean Tucker, who calls himself a minimalist photographer. And he has a YouTube channel that talks about like all of his minimalist kits and very like world renowned travel photographer, super small airport bag.
Like, yes, I want to learn from those people who are doing things differently. Not the people who have vans of gear that they’re taking to every event. Right. So I feel like that’s helped too. Filtering my decisions and what I’m spending money on. I was like, is this a have to have or could I get away with not doing this?
Val: yep. I keep thinking, like that whole time as you were talking, I kept thinking about how similar this is to parenthood
Jade: Oh,
Val: and how, like, there are so many things that people tell you you need, like wipe warmers. Or like a diaper pail, like there’s so much stuff that you could have, and maybe it might make things a little bit easier, maybe, but there’s even a trade off with those, like, like the diaper pail, I didn’t want to have, like, This place where it was all culminating and super smelly.
Yes. It, you know, they say that they contain the smell, but I was like, I’m actually just going to go back upstairs and put it in the trash, like the actual trash. And, and we made a different decision to, to get, we got doggy bags and poopy diapers went in doggy bags so that we didn’t have to, you know, take the trash out right away, little things like some people that’s like too much work for them.
For us. That worked like, it’s just, there’s such a wide range of, like, we’ve been saying ways to do things, but like, just to question the status quo, I think is, it’s just smart to ask that question. Do I need this? Like, is this actually doing what I need it to do and pushing me toward the revenue and the life and all of those things.
Jade: Yeah. But it’s really counter cultural to think like that because most of our culture does not think about that. We automatically go like the solution has to be something new. Like I can just buy the solution on Amazon, right? That’s how this works. But, and like, why don’t we think, what if I got rid of stuff or did less?
And what if that was the solution? Our minds do not naturally. And so following a bunch of different minimalists in business and in other areas of life has been really helpful because it is, it starts with your mindset and the questions that you’re asking yourself.
Val: hmm. Yeah. Okay. So let’s transition a little bit to a little bit more of the transparency section of the podcast. So, anyone who’s listened before, you all know that a high value of. My podcast is transparency, and I just want to show people what real businesses are doing and what their actual numbers look like.
So let’s start with your percentages. Can you tell us what they are now and how has that evolved, over time?
Jade: Yep. So right now, month to month, I’m doing 20 percent profit, 25 percent owner’s compensation, 15 percent taxes, and 40 percent operating expenses. And that has definitely changed over time. When I started paying myself, I made the goal of I’m going to pay myself 2, 000 a month minimum. So it wasn’t necessarily percentage based, but that was my goal that I wanted to get to.
every single month. And that’s what I worked on first, like making sure based on my projections that I was having enough. revenue and minimizing my expenses to the point where I could afford to cover everything and pay myself 2, 000 a month. And I’m not sure initially what percentage that looked like, but it’s definitely changed over time gradually in the right direction.
And we’ll probably change a little bit in the future as well. This year I’m taking 12 weeks off. I’m due in June, so I’m taking a maternity leave, but also taking vacations throughout the year, uh, before and after maternity leave. And so knowing that I’m hitting these percentages. and also making enough.
Again, I’ve defined enough for me. Feels really good at this point. In the future, it might change, but I’m trying not to, uh, as hard as it is for me as an Enneagram One not to plan, I’m trying not to make any plans for how I’m gonna feel after maternity leave about business, so it’s gonna stay here for now.
Val: Right. Right. Okay. So tell me what made you decide to do a higher profit percentage. So the, the like recommendation or starting point in profit first is like five to 10%. So yeah. Tell me how you came to that conclusion.
Jade: Yeah, for this year specifically, I wanted to make sure there was enough in my account for me. To cover everything while I was on maternity leave and not have to worry about things that are on auto pay or anything like that. And so it’s felt better for me to know that that money is in my account while I’m gone and things are automatically happening without me monitoring it every single month.
And so for this year. that’s why I made that specific decision.
Val: Mm hmm. So it, it, did you increase it this year then? Was
Jade: Yeah, last year it was a little bit lower.
Val: Okay. Okay. And then do you, do you do the quarterly profit payouts then for that?
Jade: I do more monthly. So this is how I do things a little bit differently. I transferred the percentage for owner’s comp into the salary count every month. But again, every month my standard for paying myself is still 2, 000 at minimum. That’s what is enough. based on how much I’m working. At this point, I’m working three days a week.
After maternity leave, it’ll move down to two days a week. And for me, those two to three days a week are worth, like, it has to be at least 2, 000 a month for it to be worth it for me. But then every month, if I can pay myself more, I will.
Val: Okay.
Jade: So it’s more of a monthly bonus than a quarterly bonus.
Val: Okay. Okay. So then, let’s talk, so you said 2, 000, so tell us a little bit more about your paycheck. What you pay yourself now, and is that monthly, and then where did you start, did you ever pay yourself less than 2, 000, what does that look like?
Jade: Yeah, for sure. So in my first year when I was transitioning from photography To coaching, my revenue was highly fluctuating and I wasn’t fully implementing profit first at that point. So again, I was still just focused on like, how do I build a sustainable business where I do have recurring revenue and I can pay myself consistently every single month.
And at that point, the goal is to get to 2000. So I did that in the first year of coaching. This is my third year of coaching. And so I’m able to hit that every single month and give myself a bonus depending on the month and how much I’m transferring into the salary. Account. And so I didn’t calculate like an average of how much I’m paying myself, but typically it’s more than 2, 000 every single month.
Some months it is just 2, 000 depending on, what’s happening. A lot of my clients paid in full in December for this year. And so that created kind of a weird, Like fluctuation and how much was transferred into my salary account. So again, wanting to pay myself while I’m on maternity leave, I’m keeping it closer to the 2000 dollars and not going much above that at this point, just to make sure it’s sustainable for the rest of the year without booking clients for 3 months.
But it’s definitely changed over time and I wasn’t always able to hit that number consistently, especially when I first started. And even now, I don’t know what my hesitation is to put it on autopay like I do expenses. It just feels Really? Yeah, it feels hard for me to put that on auto pay and that’s a whole money mindset issue that I should probably be working through, but it’s so much easier to put bills on auto pay rather than paying myself on auto pay, which I totally could if I was doing the quarterly bonuses instead of monthly.
Val: Mm
Jade: making those decisions. But for me, it feels really good to do, at this point at least, to do my books every single month and then reward myself by paying myself every month.
Val: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Okay. So tell us about what you’re spending money on. Like, what are some of the specific things that you have found to be a priority and worth the money? Sure.
Jade: Yes. So my biggest expenses at this point right now over the past few months, I did some calculating and like on average, I’m spending about 1, 900 on expenses. So, Again, pretty low monthly expenses, I would say. And the majority of that is contractors. So my podcast editor, my business coach, my virtual assistant, Roughly 1, 200 a month, sometimes more depending on the workload and what’s happening in my business.
But that is whatever 1, 200 divided by 1, 900 is a big proportion of my ongoing monthly expenses. And that’s a priority for me at this point because I really value my time, and that’s become more and more important to me as you know, it’s always time or money, right? If you want to invest in your business, you either got to put time into it, or you have to pay somebody to do it, and I’m gradually leaning more towards not putting time in and putting time in.
Money in to pay other people to do things instead. And so that’s become a bigger proportion of my expenses for sure. And then the second biggest budget category for me right now is software. And that’s about 200 a month. It really depends because like I said, some, some software subscriptions are paid annually.
And so it fluctuates throughout the year, but roughly 200 a month. Other than that, it’s very miscellaneous.
Val: Yeah. So I, I did the calculation quick. So the contractors at 1200 out of 1900, so that’s 63%. So, and is that all of your contractors?
Jade: At this point, yes.
Val: Okay. Okay. Cool. Just, I just think it’s helpful for people to kind of like, you know, put that into perspective and that’s, and that’s really interesting too, because I think there’s, there’s just such different stages of business and when you can get to a point where a larger percentage of your expenses is contractors, I feel like that’s, that’s like a, it’s, it’s a checkpoint.
You know, like for that to be more what you’re spending money on, it means you’re getting to do more of what you’re really good at letting those other things go to someone else. And sometimes it means yeah, whittling down the other expenses to allow you to do that. And not everyone will be there and ready for that yet, but it’s, I think it’s helpful to have that number even
Jade: I would say even from a contractor perspective, 1200 is pretty low
Val: Yeah,
Jade: and I’ve been very intentional in who I hire and what types of things they do for me at this point, at least. Again, I’m not making any decisions before I come back from maternity leave, but after I know that I would need to invest a lot more than that in order to do everything that’s currently being done in my business and also move down to working two days a week instead of The three that I’m working now, like those eight hours, either I’m going to have to stop doing a lot of stuff or I’m going to have to hire more people.
So I know that where I’m at right now is not going to be sustainable after a huge life change. But again, I’ve been, it’s a low investment. I’ve been very intentional with who I’ve hired and what they’re doing
Val: Yeah, and that’s great and it’s I think it’s helpful Even it’s fun. I think for people to hear all those different contractors are fitting within that 1200 and I mean, yes, you could, you could pay a coach 1200 a month,
Jade: for sure.
Val: loan. And so it just goes to show that like really doing your research and continuing to look, try to find people.
I’m sure you can email Jade and she’ll give you recommendations. Like it doesn’t always have to be the most expensive. That’s not always necessarily the best fit for you. Mm
Jade: Yeah, if you’re willing to train somebody and, you know, hire somebody who’s maybe at the beginning of their business, I think there’s a trade off with expectations. You can’t expect them to do everything perfectly. And it definitely hasn’t always been like that for me either. But you can afford more help than you probably think that you can, but there is a trade off again, time or money.
You’re probably going to have to do a little bit of handholding and extra trading.
Val: hmm. Yeah. Okay, so last question about money. What is, and it’s just a fun one, what is the favorite thing that you have used a profit payout for?
Jade: So there’s not any one thing, but generally it goes towards house stuff. So I’m really into interior design and we’ve been renovating our house for four years. So generally my profit payouts either go to a, more expensive piece of furniture that I want to invest in, or it goes directly into our savings account for a new house for our next house.
Our goal is to buy our next house and then keep our current house as a rental property. So we’re saving for a down payment. And we have, a separate, like, savings account set up within SoFi is what we use for our personal banking. It’s an online bank, but you can set up sub accounts. So it’s specifically labeled new house.
And it’s just so satisfying to me to see that number go up. So, it’s not, I mean, saving, you know, Is kind of a lame thing to be excited about, but it does, it’s very satisfying to see that number go up.
Val: but a new house is not lame. Like culturally, saving is maybe not sexy, but the new house is.
Jade: Yes, absolutely. Especially when we’re living in a two bedroom house and about to have a child and both work from home. So, it’s even that much more exciting.
Val: Oh yeah. For sure. Yep. Okay. So give us just a quick summary of where we can find you and if somebody wants to learn more about, you know, being a minimalist, how they can work with you.
Jade: The best way to stay connected is probably through going to the podcast, the Business Minimalist Podcast. And if you want to dive deeper into what it means to be a business minimalist, that is the best one stop shop to go to get all of my best content. And then anything else, you can find me at www.
jadeboyd. co. And you can learn more about the business edit, which is my coaching program that helps you to clutter your business from top to bottom. So again, you can focus on profit and time and anything else that’s happening. In my business is on my website.
Val: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being transparent and just telling us what you’ve done and sharing all of your minimalist wisdom. It was great.
Jade: Thanks for having me.
I'm Val! Coach for creatives
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