Ep. 18 How to Level Up Your Business – The road to $1 Million

How to Level Up Your Business – The road to $1 Million

Are ready to get your business to the next level? Do you want to know how to stand out from the competition? If you want to be more professional, more organized, more productive, and a whole lot more profitable then you have to watch this!  Torie Mathis and her cohost Sean go over simple changes in both your mindset and processes that will get your business to break thru to the next level. Here’s to YOUR $1M+ journey!!!

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION –

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SAF 18

[00:00:00] Torie: Like, there’s no way I could have got to this point, you know, and for a long time it was just me and an assistant. There’s no way I could’ve got there. If I wouldn’t have taken these steps.

Hey, welcome to Smart AF I’m your host, Torie Mathis. We have got a great show for you today. So let’s get started, you know, it’s super cool. What’s it. I’m super proud of this. So we switched over to FreshBooks, which I really liked to do our invoicing because I used to invoice through quick cause a long time ago and I had to do it all by hand, like every month on the first, all of my reoccurring invoices.

And so I know, right. So I think it was about six years ago. I switched over to FreshBooks and what’s awesome. Is that at the bottom of the invoices page, it says how much I’ve invoiced and we are at a million dollars in the next awesome. The reason I switched over was to automate some of this and to be able to take credit cards all the time because before we did this, we were like so many businesses that I see out there.

And like I always say drives me crazy. I didn’t take credit cards. Why? Because either there was fees attached to it, or I had to have an ugly service, or I didn’t want to lose that 3% and so many things, and I hear it all the time, but I never said I was going to charge my clients extra because I think that that is crappy business decision.

So in the last six years, 3% on a million dollars, you could look at that and say, I spent $30,000, right. In credit card fees. And you might think, well, I would rather pocket that. 

[00:02:06] Sean: But.

[00:02:08] Torie: Have that money. Well, assuming that you right, because it is so much easier for clients to just be built, like make it easy for your clients, make it easy for them to give you money.

The harder you make it, the harder. Like it really, really is. I think that that was almost like a pivotal time in how our business was going and how it grew that you’d like, let go of that little shit and stop worrying about little stuff and taking all this important time to do these little things that you think you, you are the one that has to do.

Like, I literally thought, like I am the one that has to do these invoices. And there was no recurring on QuickBooks at the time. And so I would redo the invoice and I would email it out every single time. So by taking credit cards by you’re leveling up my business and being able to, you know, we spend a lot on, on FreshBooks too, but the amount of time it saved me, we were. To break a million dollars. 

[00:03:12] Sean: But you gotta hunt the payment right before that it was, it was it’s invoicing by hand is one thing, but then actually collecting the money. That’s a whole nother kettle of worms or whatever that phrase is.

[00:03:26] Torie: You got to wait for the check. And then like, did they write the check? Like if somebody can just click a button and pay again, you’ve made it easy for them. If you mean that. Oh, I have to wait for whoever writes the check, who does that every other Friday and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s stifling the cash flow in your business. And I see a lot of businesses and I’m so surprised sometimes retail type businesses, right? Or professional services, businesses that charge extra, or don’t take a credit card. Like these services are part of doing business.

[00:04:01] Sean: Your customers. 

[00:04:01] Torie: Off, you charging them extra saying that you don’t take a credit card. 

[00:04:07] Sean: Well what century, do you live in it? Like whether you like it or not, like that’s, that’s what most people use.

[00:04:16] Torie: And you might think, well, 3% that’s so much, well, you know what? You can do this. Like, they’re not going to leave your clients. Love you. Like you’re doing a great job. They’re not going to care about this percentage or you like bundle another product with your product. So every customer is worth a little bit more. There’s all these different things that you can do so that you can just, up-level your business.

This and make a huge difference in your business. Like if there’s no way I could have got to this point, you know, and, and for a long time, it was just me and an assistant. There’s no way I could have got there. If I wouldn’t have taken these steps to be more professional about the things that I was doing and put in some systems because systems and processes that save time.

And one of those is invoicing. One of those is taking credit cards. Makes a huge difference in how your business runs. And so many entrepreneurs, so many business owners want to like grab that control and, and think that they have it. That control makes them feel more important or feel more in control of their business. Like you gotta let some of these things go and you have to pay the 3%. You’re not going to like run a business with no lights on because it costs money. 

[00:05:35] Sean: Like it is a part of the business expense in 21st century, that’s just, that’s part of the deal. Nobody likes it. It’s like insurance, you know, you don’t want to pay for it, but you gotta have it. And then if, if anything happens, you’re, you’re glad you do have it. And it’s the same thing with the credit card rate. You’re getting charged for it, but. People are giving you their cards. That’s a good thing. And I always, I always mentioned you going in and going to a restaurant, getting a burger and fries and a dream, right.

I order a full meal, right? Whether it’s fast food or at a sit-down restaurant, what do I want with ranch? 

[00:06:23] Torie: Pisses Sean off more than anything. 

[00:06:26] Sean: I want some damn ranch on my, both my burger and my fries. It seems like half the time lately. They want to charge me for that ranch, a little tiny cup of range, 50 cents, 25 cents. It’s usually 50 cents, which doesn’t seem like much. Right. But all it does is make me think that they are ripping me off for 50 cents. They could literally charge me a dollar more for the entire meal. And give me ranch and I would, I wouldn’t be any of the wiser. So, you know, for any of your business, whatever business you’re in, absorb the charge somewhere else. Like it’s not that much of a deal or a big deal. And then don’t even, don’t even worry about it. Like you’re, you’re able to. Do more because of that, you don’t need to, you don’t need to itemize that stuff because all they’re going to do is see that you’re charging them to use their credit card, convenience fee, which is asinine.

Like I would be so upset. I go, I go to the antique shop, right. And want to buy something and I don’t carry cash on me. Like the only option I have is to pay for a card. So now that $10 item is $10 plus tax plus 3%. Get out of here, man. Listen. No, where could I just asked a little bit more and I pay my tax, like every other good citizen and I don’t know the wiser, like it’s, it’s only in your head that you’re thinking you need to charge that extra for it.

Maybe you just need to raise your price a little bit, which then in turn means you’re going to make more because you’ve raised your price. Plus you’re probably sell more because now it’s easier. And then, you know, going back to the customer satisfaction, it’s going to be higher because you’ve made their life easier.

[00:08:17] Torie: I know for us, it really did make it easier for our customers to, rather than them having to wait to pay us. If you make things easier on your customers, on your clients, they are going to be happy about that. 

[00:08:33] Sean: The residual or not residual D a. Recurring and holy shit, the recurring invoicing. It’s awesome to look at. Like, you can look at it way in advance that we just see like, that money is going to get invoiced automatically. And then money’s going to roll in automatically. We’re not lifting a finger. Like why would you not want? 

[00:08:55] Torie: So just a little bit of systems and a little bit of software and not saying go waste a whole bunch of money on software that you don’t need, because that is super easy to do.

But things like invoicing software, things like being able to take a credit card at any time, being able to have your customers pay you easily and not nickel and diming them for convenience, charges, and ranch for their French fries. It makes it.

[00:09:22] Sean: So go to Toriemathis.com/resources and see what is going to help your business.