Speaker 1: Hey, hey, hey, oh I forgot that's the Navis and Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Oh it's time for the b a q a A
Speaker 1: to b a q a, which you say the b
Speaker 1: a q eight with tiffin a the b a q
Speaker 1: a no men day, but the b a q a nonetheless.
Speaker 1: So today is a snow day. It's get you if
Speaker 1: you will, and so cous it's a snow day. Men.
Speaker 1: They got the babies, and you know the babies will
Speaker 1: not let you tape nobody's podcast. So you just have me, child,
Speaker 1: because although it is a snow day for me as well,
Speaker 1: it's just me, So I figure i'll do a We're
Speaker 1: gonna answer two questions, one about business because y'all love that,
Speaker 1: and one about personal finance because y'all love that as well.
Speaker 1: If you're new to the stew the studio for short,
Speaker 1: we answer questions here, but we answer questions on career,
Speaker 1: on business, personal finance, your money, and life in general.
Speaker 1: But Mandy and I are not your attorney. We're not
Speaker 1: your financial advisor. We're not your doctor, we're not your engineer. Shoot,
Speaker 1: we're not even a poc in g Man. Okay. We
Speaker 1: are just two smart brown girls that have a thing
Speaker 1: or two to say, and we will give you our
Speaker 1: best to give you some advice that you take with
Speaker 1: the smallest grain of salt, and then you consult with
Speaker 1: the people you pay to take the advice to the king. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, So if you got questions, we have answers.
Speaker 1: You can always slide into our DMS on IG that's
Speaker 1: our preferred place. That is Brown Ambition Podcast on IG.
Speaker 1: Or you can always go to Brown Ambition Podcast and
Speaker 1: there's like a contact us button dot com on our
Speaker 1: website and there's a contact us button so you can
Speaker 1: hit us there too, but IG is our favorite place
Speaker 1: sliding them DMS. Honey, all right, So I am taking
Speaker 1: these questions I'm answering today just in general from what
Speaker 1: the people have been asking and people say budgetiestae question.
Speaker 1: So I have these financial resolutions and it's not looking good, queen,
Speaker 1: even though we're in week two. How do I stay
Speaker 1: on track for the year? Who has that question? Raise
Speaker 1: your hand? Raise your hand, right? I know I have
Speaker 1: that question sometimes and so I have found a system,
Speaker 1: if you will, that allows me to stay on relative
Speaker 1: financial track for the year. Want to hear it? Hear it?
Speaker 1: Go first things first, you do have to kind of identify.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily do resolutions, but I do try to
Speaker 1: identify what goals financial goals I'd like to meet by
Speaker 1: the end of the year. But this is what I
Speaker 1: ask myself. I say, Tiffany, January one, Tiffany, what would
Speaker 1: you like January thirty one Tiffany to look like? Where
Speaker 1: would you like for her to say? Ooh cha, I
Speaker 1: went on these trips? What would you like her to
Speaker 1: be wearing? You know, I was just looking at a
Speaker 1: pair of Jordan's today, these Jordan Ones. I love the
Speaker 1: Jordan Ones. They were raid and black and white. I
Speaker 1: want her to be wearing those, right? What you know?
Speaker 1: What is she a last girl? Because you see, I
Speaker 1: got me a little last one right now? Does she
Speaker 1: still have those? Okay? Has she finally moved into her
Speaker 1: condo she's been renovating forever. Has she eaten at certain
Speaker 1: restaurants la la? Has she spent time with people she
Speaker 1: wanted to spend time with? What does January thirty one
Speaker 1: Tiffany look like? And then infuse financially what does that
Speaker 1: mean for her or him? Right? Or they? Then? Right?
Speaker 1: What does that mean? Because this is more powerful than
Speaker 1: a resolution because of the resolution is like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: fix my credit. That's great. What does that actually mean.
Speaker 1: I'm literally envisioning myself December thirty first, you know, not
Speaker 1: outside because Child is ghetto on New Year's Eve and
Speaker 1: dangerous the December thirty first, reflecting on my year that's passed,
Speaker 1: and I I'm gonna actually because if you know me,
Speaker 1: you know I'm always cutting my locks, and I've cut
Speaker 1: them to the chin, I've cut them short. But for
Speaker 1: one thing, I'm like Child, I'm actually gonna let my
Speaker 1: locks grow. So I imagine it's already like at Brawlink and
Speaker 1: so I imagine they'll be like mid back and your
Speaker 1: girl's gonna be a mermaid. I also think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: keep the lashes up. I will have traveled. I know
Speaker 1: for a fact, I'm going to Africa. I'm going to
Speaker 1: go to Johannesburg and a few surrounding countries. Literally tomorrow
Speaker 1: I leave for Puerto Rico with my sister am. I
Speaker 1: just got back from South Carolina. Y'all never told me
Speaker 1: about the sea islands Gullah Gulla. It was so freaking beautiful.
Speaker 1: I was right on the Atlantic Ocean. It was moving
Speaker 1: right so that's happening. My sisters just started taking pilates classes.
Speaker 1: It's forty dollars a class. I'm considering it. But do
Speaker 1: you see, like as I imagine January December thirty one, Tiffany,
Speaker 1: like I'm looking at her holistically and then I'm attaching
Speaker 1: the financial goals to that holistic life. Does that make sense? Right? Like?
Speaker 1: What do I want for her? I want to have travel,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't necessarily want to lose weight, but
Speaker 1: certainly I would like my body to be tighter, a
Speaker 1: little more snatched to the wakes. Okay, because I'm bringing
Speaker 1: in forty five, I want to be given forty five
Speaker 1: grown woman energy, but the body of thirty maybe not
Speaker 1: thirty because thirty I was too skinny. Thirty five thirty seven, No,
Speaker 1: just tighter than what I am now. I still give
Speaker 1: it key though, R. But I literally am asking myself,
Speaker 1: how do I want to show up on the last
Speaker 1: day of the year, and what does that look like?
Speaker 1: What I have to do now? And how does that
Speaker 1: tie into my financial life? Is there money that I
Speaker 1: have to save? Are there trips that I have to book?
Speaker 1: Maybe I need to lean in, Like literally, I'm going
Speaker 1: to Dubai in February. Your girls outside outside here go
Speaker 1: catch this city. My trips in the month of January
Speaker 1: and South Carolina. I started off with their doing Karen Hunter.
Speaker 1: She's got this awesome podcast. She had this Healthy, Wealthy
Speaker 1: Wise conference, which was inpecably done. I started there. I
Speaker 1: go to Puerto Rico. I just got back on Sunday.
Speaker 1: I go to Puerto Rico tomorrow to celebrate my sister's
Speaker 1: fortieth Hey, Hairyl, that's rooming a Milia's mama Inenda because
Speaker 1: my friend Rachel Rogers is having her ROI conference that
Speaker 1: she has every year in Puerto Rico, So we're gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to the conference but also enjoy pr
Speaker 1: Okay and Dean. The week after that, I have to
Speaker 1: go to Boston because I'm taping this huge podcast. Y'all
Speaker 1: heard of mel Robbins. You know you have Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: taping her podcast. It's in Boston, so I'll be flying
Speaker 1: out to do that and Dean. I got booked to
Speaker 1: do this gig in la a week after that, and
Speaker 1: so I might We'll see how long I stay because
Speaker 1: I have some friends in La hey Evon and my
Speaker 1: cousin Chris. So maybe I'll stay a couple of days
Speaker 1: to hang out with them, and then two weeks. Then
Speaker 1: the week after that I'm going to be going to
Speaker 1: DC to see my friend. And so that's happened in DC.
Speaker 1: And then the week after that I go to Dubai
Speaker 1: for this Mastermind, and during this Mastermind, my friend Terry
Speaker 1: is going to be there. She said, I've always wanted
Speaker 1: to go to Singapore. I said, okay, girl, so we
Speaker 1: are going to go to Singapore the Mastermind for Dubai.
Speaker 1: It's just two days. But who goes all the way
Speaker 1: to Dubai just to stay for two days? Not me.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna be in a way for about ten days.
Speaker 1: And so we're gonna spend time in Dubai and then
Speaker 1: spend time in Singapore and then bring myself on home.
Speaker 1: That's just January and February. Your girl is what outside?
Speaker 1: So as I think of December thirty one, Tiffany, she
Speaker 1: has been well traveled, right, I didn't even talk about
Speaker 1: May when I go to Africa, when I go to
Speaker 1: Johannesburg and the surrounding countries, right, I even book all
Speaker 1: the other things I plan on doing. Okay, But in
Speaker 1: order to do that, I am currently looking at one
Speaker 1: my finances two points. I'm literally like, I was watching
Speaker 1: YouTube videos today about the best way to medeem points
Speaker 1: because I got a lot of ANX points, a lot
Speaker 1: of United Airline points, some Chase Venture Card points, and
Speaker 1: so but do you see that? Like, I don't want
Speaker 1: you to think of your December thirty first self just
Speaker 1: from a financial place. I want you to think of like,
Speaker 1: how will you show up holistically and then match your
Speaker 1: money to that. That's how you stick to the quote
Speaker 1: unquote resolutions. Because resolutions are dry, honey and ashy. But
Speaker 1: if you make them about your holistic, wonderful life, then
Speaker 1: you say, hey, money, catch up. I need you to
Speaker 1: do this, honey. I need you to give this. We
Speaker 1: need to give savings, we need to give pay down
Speaker 1: this credit card debt, we need to give maximize these points.
Speaker 1: Do you see? Do you see? Do you see? We
Speaker 1: need to give strong credit score? And so that's what
Speaker 1: I do first and foremost in order to stick to
Speaker 1: my quote unquote resolutions is that I make it about
Speaker 1: a bigger life, not just about the money, and then
Speaker 1: I match the money to the life. I don't try
Speaker 1: to match my life to the money. That's one. Then two.
Speaker 1: One of the things I do is I look for help.
Speaker 1: I look to you. Is that windy I look not Whitney, right,
Speaker 1: I look to you when I don't even know the song.
Speaker 1: But it's a cute song. I just don't have a
Speaker 1: great voice anyway, right. So one of the things I
Speaker 1: have learned in my almost forty five years of life.
Speaker 1: When I'm gonna say almost forty five because my birthday's
Speaker 1: not in October, so we're gonna live this cute forty four.
Speaker 1: I mean some of y'all be hung up on about age,
Speaker 1: not me, girl, because you see the skin botox and
Speaker 1: feeler free, still looking like what I'm giving. I feel
Speaker 1: like I look in my forties, which is great, But
Speaker 1: I feel like I look like in a cute in
Speaker 1: my forties. Okay. The body is still body, and the
Speaker 1: face is still facing and the skin is still skinning. Guy. Okay,
Speaker 1: So so I'm always looking for help. So in my
Speaker 1: years of living, I have learned the fastest way to
Speaker 1: get from where you are to where you want to
Speaker 1: be is typically through someone else. Because, girl, why we
Speaker 1: learn a new lessons when the lessons have been learned
Speaker 1: and written about and podcast about and blogged about. Okay,
Speaker 1: So for example, I'm like, Hey, I've never flown Emirates
Speaker 1: or Qatar, and I've heard they're really beautiful, and I
Speaker 1: want to fly like to when I go to Dubai.
Speaker 1: I want to have that luxury experience business or first class,
Speaker 1: that luxury experience. I mean, I've flowed obviously first class
Speaker 1: and this is before, but those are supposed to be
Speaker 1: very high upscale airlines. So I'm currently like in these
Speaker 1: ANX groups learning through people, how do I maximize the
Speaker 1: points that I have in order to like not have
Speaker 1: to pay for that girl because Baye, So through someone
Speaker 1: else you get to maximize the lessons that you want
Speaker 1: to learn. Why should you learn from scratch? That's why
Speaker 1: you're here listening to about ambition. If you want to
Speaker 1: do anything that has anything to do with financial wholeness,
Speaker 1: that's budgeting, savings, debt, credit, income, investing for both retirement
Speaker 1: and wealth, your net worth, insurance, your financial team, and
Speaker 1: estate planning, any of those ten things. Child, That's why
Speaker 1: I wrote the book Made Whole. It's the workbook version
Speaker 1: of good with Money, right, and so looking for guidance
Speaker 1: do not do it alone. Money is a team sport.
Speaker 1: So finding people, tools and resources to help you get
Speaker 1: to the goal, the financial goal that you need to
Speaker 1: live the life that your January thirty first self is
Speaker 1: like I did that? I did that? Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: So one identify your January thirty first self what they
Speaker 1: fin to say about how the year went? Cute. Two,
Speaker 1: get yourself a guide. While you're out here by yourself,
Speaker 1: it's getto out here, go ahead. Get you a partner.
Speaker 1: When I used to teach free school, we would always
Speaker 1: tell the kids hold your partner's hand. Right, you would
Speaker 1: have to hold your partner's hand because if you was missing,
Speaker 1: one of these kids is gonna be like, my partner's missing,
Speaker 1: And I could be like Joahim, where are you, sir?
Speaker 1: Why are you always behind? Right? So get yourself a partner.
Speaker 1: I love an accountability partner. So that's like a little friend.
Speaker 1: Friend that's going to walk you through well, that will
Speaker 1: walk with you on your journey. They don't have to
Speaker 1: know personal finance, but they're there to cheer you on
Speaker 1: and hold you accountable and support you and share their
Speaker 1: goals too. Right. But then you find somebody that's done
Speaker 1: the thing you're wanting to do. Like, I don't know everything.
Speaker 1: I lean into my financial advisor Angelie for certain things.
Speaker 1: I lean into my my peers. You hear me talk
Speaker 1: about Cabrella a lot. He's one of my business peers
Speaker 1: that I bounce things off of. My friend Brandess of HFR,
Speaker 1: I bounce things off of her. I lean into my
Speaker 1: mentors Lynett, Cole, Boddy Cox, Sondra Davis of what is
Speaker 1: it Stage Financial Right, and so like, these are my mentors.
Speaker 1: And so I am quick to raise my hand and
Speaker 1: say I need help. Let's get good at that. I
Speaker 1: need help. I don't know, And it's okay finding those
Speaker 1: people that are doing the thing you're wanting to do
Speaker 1: and then following their lead. Some people you'll know personally
Speaker 1: and some people just follow digitally. That's fine, okay. So
Speaker 1: if you want the book, honey, go ahead and made
Speaker 1: whole workbook can certainly help me with the financial part.
Speaker 1: So that's the second part and the third part of
Speaker 1: keeping these financial resolutions is building a community around you.
Speaker 1: We work best in community. So when I said, like
Speaker 1: looking for guidance, that's typically a person or a number
Speaker 1: of people that have achieved the thing but the community
Speaker 1: around you are like your family, your friends, your work friends,
Speaker 1: your work husband whoever, your partner, your children, building this
Speaker 1: community around you and sharing the things you're wanting to do,
Speaker 1: you know. So for example, I was telling my sisters
Speaker 1: I want us to go on a sister lunch date
Speaker 1: once a month. So one, that's still a financial choice.
Speaker 1: How much does that cost? How do we set that side?
Speaker 1: Maybe we have like a sister account where, like you know,
Speaker 1: the money goes there so that when when we pay,
Speaker 1: we're just paying with one bill, but we've all contributed
Speaker 1: to say like fifty bucks a month. I don't know,
Speaker 1: child right, I was just thinking that. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I want by December thirty. First that Tiffany says, like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I had, Like I mean, I hang
Speaker 1: out my sisters all the time, but I intentionally had
Speaker 1: at least twelve sister lunch dates with my sisters this year.
Speaker 1: My friend Cabrell, who's one of my besties. Cabrel is
Speaker 1: definitely my fancy friend, and he has a list of
Speaker 1: places that he like. Cabrel's a foody, so he has
Speaker 1: this list called Tiffany Eats. So we will go and
Speaker 1: like to this really nice restaurant and eat good, honey,
Speaker 1: because leave it up to me. Your girl doesn't have
Speaker 1: a sophisticated pallet, at least not at first. But Cabrell
Speaker 1: be like, girl, we're not eating there. Get yourself together,
Speaker 1: like and so we have these amazing places that Cabrell,
Speaker 1: I'm like, how did you find this place? So I
Speaker 1: told Cabrell, Yo, I wanted on the calendar once a month,
Speaker 1: on the calendar, like every third Thursday of the month
Speaker 1: that we go out to dinner, or we choose a
Speaker 1: place off the Tiffany Eats list because you are liabily
Speaker 1: to get you are liable to get in the car
Speaker 1: with Cabrel end up in Delaware and we live in
Speaker 1: New Jersey. Hate don't mind driving. You're like, well, where
Speaker 1: we going to eat today? I was taking Rhode Island.
Speaker 1: You're like, what. But it's always fabulous, it's always fun,
Speaker 1: it's always a time, honey. But that's also a financial
Speaker 1: choice because how much does that cost? What does that
Speaker 1: look like? Because we take it, we take turns treating
Speaker 1: each other like I pay for one dinner, he picks
Speaker 1: for the next dinner. So what does that look like?
Speaker 1: You know? And so, but creating a community around you
Speaker 1: to share. I want to do this thing. I have
Speaker 1: something called Sunday Supper that I try to do. We
Speaker 1: used to do a monthly, but now I'm trying to
Speaker 1: do at least every other month. These are my family,
Speaker 1: my friends, my neighbors. I invite them to the house.
Speaker 1: I hire this amazing cook, chef Nishe that used to
Speaker 1: cook for Jirella and I when he was here, and
Speaker 1: Nisha will make food for Sunday Supper. And it's just
Speaker 1: literally like a mini Thanksgiving every other month. But that cost?
Speaker 1: What does that look like? You know? So these are
Speaker 1: the things like you know, but as I have a
Speaker 1: Sunday Supper group chat and we'll talk through it. Because
Speaker 1: building community around your hopes, goals and dreams hold you
Speaker 1: more accountable. So those are three things that will really
Speaker 1: help you to make your financial resolution stick. Is that
Speaker 1: you have to make it bigger than the resolution. One right,
Speaker 1: just for recap, because you know, I'm a teacher. Plan
Speaker 1: do review one right, identify your December thirty first self
Speaker 1: and what they want holistically and match the money to that. Two,
Speaker 1: get you some help, a guide whether it's made whole.
Speaker 1: My new book whether it's this podcast someone or a
Speaker 1: collection of someone that have accomplished the thing you want
Speaker 1: to accomplish, Let them help you through it, whether it's
Speaker 1: digitally or in person or whatever. And then three builds
Speaker 1: community around that life you want to live, that goal
Speaker 1: you want, and so they can hold you accountable and
Speaker 1: you can keep them updated on your progress. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: hopefully that's a helpful child, because when we check in
Speaker 1: December thirty, first, honey, I want to be like I
Speaker 1: went here, I did this, I did Oh child to
Speaker 1: be a time I can already tell. My sister Tracy
Speaker 1: has already coined it. She said, twenty twenty four is
Speaker 1: gonna be a banner year. A banner year meaning an
Speaker 1: excellent year. My business is already cooking with grease, the
Speaker 1: budget stas making coin already. We started the month of
Speaker 1: January off strong. My personal life is looking cute, kai like,
Speaker 1: my family and my friends super connected. And yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: exploring the possibility of love again, don't ask me questions.
Speaker 1: I just said it because he'd be listening, hey anyway.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I just think twenty twenty four is gonna
Speaker 1: be a banner year, and it can be for you too,
Speaker 1: but it's intentional. These things happen intentionally, especially when you're grown.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break, and I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: a business question, honey, because y'all be asking me in
Speaker 1: the corments and I we'll see you back in a
Speaker 1: moment of as we pay some of these bills. I'm
Speaker 1: back and blacker than ever. First of all, if you're
Speaker 1: watching on YouTube, I'm not gonna lie. I'm loving this lip.
Speaker 1: This is a combo. The problem with me is this
Speaker 1: is my toxic trait. I will put together a lip
Speaker 1: with like a mix of like you know, like I
Speaker 1: use like a macliner. I couldn't tell you the name
Speaker 1: I use. It was a lip bar, which is a
Speaker 1: black on brand Hay Melissa Butler black on bland lip.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what they call. Not that it's
Speaker 1: not a lip gloss. It's not a lipstick child whatever
Speaker 1: you know, lip color. And then I added some like
Speaker 1: I don't know an N y X like in the middle.
Speaker 1: I'm loving this color. But asked me to recreate it.
Speaker 1: I can't because I forgot which ones I use. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So get into the lip color, come feeling myself. So
Speaker 1: we're back, right, for ba QA, and we're gonna do
Speaker 1: a business question for the second half. How do you
Speaker 1: plan to have a cause y'all know that one I mentor,
Speaker 1: the girl is in business, and some of the guys,
Speaker 1: Guy Lese. I've got about four thousand mentors over at
Speaker 1: my men Tour Tiffany dot com. It's like twenty bucks
Speaker 1: a month. We have a live session every month and
Speaker 1: you do a live session with just the mentees, and
Speaker 1: then we're also gonna be doing a live working session
Speaker 1: once a month, so you get three live sessions a month,
Speaker 1: and then all these tools and resources. Every Thursday, I
Speaker 1: share a tool or resource that has helped my business
Speaker 1: explode or at least stay alive. It's always awesome, sauce.
Speaker 1: It's my mentor Tiffany dot com, and we use this
Speaker 1: platform called Patreon. So there's a question that has come
Speaker 1: up because twenty twenty three was hard for so many businesses,
Speaker 1: so so many businesses, including my own. I had a
Speaker 1: rough year, you know, like I probably made like one
Speaker 1: third of what we used to make, Like and even
Speaker 1: the budgeonista like this is how bad the year was.
Speaker 1: Today I'm taking on Tuesday. Today is taxes Day, Like
Speaker 1: if you have a big enough business, you're supposed to
Speaker 1: pay taxes quarterly. So today is the quarterly tax payment
Speaker 1: that's due for the end of the year, the end
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, even though it's twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: you pay it in January. So I hit up my CFO.
Speaker 1: I was a girl because usually she will send me
Speaker 1: the tax money because I have an LLC as corp,
Speaker 1: which means that the it's a pass through business. When
Speaker 1: you have an LLC, that means that although you have
Speaker 1: a business, the tax passes through to the individual, which
Speaker 1: I am the individual, which means when taxes are due,
Speaker 1: Tiffany has to pay taxes. So but I get my
Speaker 1: tax money from my business. So if I owe thirty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars this quarter, the business will give me the
Speaker 1: thirty and I give it to the government, the state
Speaker 1: and the federal government. So I was like, well, dang,
Speaker 1: this is odd because George, my CFO, is usually on it.
Speaker 1: So I messaged her, like, girl, you didn't give me
Speaker 1: my tax money for the budgetista girl? The girl said,
Speaker 1: what we made is what we spent. Girl, we ain't
Speaker 1: make no money. I'll say, say, what, ah right. So
Speaker 1: normally you pay taxes in a business on what's left over.
Speaker 1: So let's just say you made a million dollars now,
Speaker 1: but she spent a million. Ooh, you really supposed to
Speaker 1: pay tax on what's left over. There's nothing left over,
Speaker 1: so you don't pay taxes. If you made a million
Speaker 1: and you spend five hundred thousand, then you're going to
Speaker 1: pay taxes on the five hundred thousand. What we made
Speaker 1: is basically what we spent, because I did pay taxes
Speaker 1: throughout the year quarterly, but she basically like girl, we
Speaker 1: was like net net even aka, we didn't really make
Speaker 1: no money, you know, like I mean, of course, we
Speaker 1: made enough to pay bills and pay my salary and
Speaker 1: pay the salaries of other employees and things like that.
Speaker 1: But usually this excess and I usually get a big
Speaker 1: old tax bill, even quarterly. Typically my tax bill quarterly.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's supports of six figures for the quarter. I said, damn,
Speaker 1: it was a beatty honey, so much so that we
Speaker 1: started off with six months worth of emergency savings, and
Speaker 1: by December we were down to one month because we
Speaker 1: lived off our savings. So I'm just sharing this candidly
Speaker 1: because every year and cute but you live to see
Speaker 1: another day if you smart. So how do you maximize
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four if you do have a business, okay,
Speaker 1: gather around children. One that if you do have a
Speaker 1: banner year in twenty twenty four, which I'm claiming it,
Speaker 1: because we already started off strong, like the Bunjanista has
Speaker 1: already made like it's the money it needs for six months,
Speaker 1: which is great. But I know this, and so I
Speaker 1: inherently trying to refill our emergency savings because for the
Speaker 1: first time we leaned on it so heavily. We've never
Speaker 1: done that before. But during twenty twenty, when the pandemic
Speaker 1: was making all the businesses all juicy and good, I said, girl,
Speaker 1: you made ten million dollars this year. That's cute. But
Speaker 1: guess what, I suspect that this is going to be
Speaker 1: a great year, which means a not so great year
Speaker 1: might be coming. Twenty twenty best year ever, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: worst year ever. Thankfully, I understood that twenty twenty twenties
Speaker 1: earnings were supposed to also pay for when the worst
Speaker 1: year came. So I had the six months of emergency
Speaker 1: savings of operating expenses and operating expenses, meaning payroll, like
Speaker 1: any kind of like you know, like any kind of bills,
Speaker 1: like you know you have Facebook ads, you know, we
Speaker 1: have like website, platforms, domain, all the stuff it costs,
Speaker 1: it costs to run of business. And so we had
Speaker 1: six months of that saved. So if you happen to
Speaker 1: have a good year, I say, you want to have
Speaker 1: ideally about six months saved or more in business. You know,
Speaker 1: I only knew to do that because about God's great.
Speaker 1: So during the pandemic, we had that, like I said,
Speaker 1: our banner year where we made over ten million dollars
Speaker 1: or about ten million dollars in business, right, yeah, ten million, right,
Speaker 1: And it was like, you know, we had a lot
Speaker 1: of profit. It wasn't like we made ten We spent ten.
Speaker 1: And I remember reading in that year that Microsoft had
Speaker 1: one year's worth of operating expenses saved. And I said, huh.
Speaker 1: Because your girl likes to read, here's the thing about
Speaker 1: business and just life and growth. You need to take
Speaker 1: a look. It's in a book. It's reading rainboo. Go
Speaker 1: ahead on and get your read on. You know, even
Speaker 1: if it's audible, I don't care what it is. Read.
Speaker 1: The information is there. So I'd read this article and
Speaker 1: it said, hey, you know, although, like you know, business
Speaker 1: is booming for so many people, Microsoft has decided to
Speaker 1: save one year's worth of operating expenses just to see
Speaker 1: because they weren't sure how the pandemic was going to
Speaker 1: play out. And I said, well, then, if Microsoft is
Speaker 1: saving a year, how much do we have saved? I
Speaker 1: had never really checked, and I knew we had emergency savings,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't a priority because things was good. So
Speaker 1: I reached out to my CFO, Shanta at the time.
Speaker 1: I said, girl, how much do we have saved? She
Speaker 1: said like two and a half months. I said that
Speaker 1: feels light, and she was like yeah, because we had
Speaker 1: never really needed, like in fifteen years. By then it
Speaker 1: was like thirteen years. We had never really need to
Speaker 1: dip into emergency savings maybe like a month and then
Speaker 1: put it right back. And I said, I feel like
Speaker 1: I want to get to a year, and she said okay,
Speaker 1: and so we aggressively started saving when things were really good,
Speaker 1: and we got to six months and I felt like, actually,
Speaker 1: six months feels good because a year feels a little excessive.
Speaker 1: Thank good because three years later, a guess who was
Speaker 1: living off that lamb okay, And so I just say
Speaker 1: all that to say that in twenty twenty four, if
Speaker 1: you do have a good year and you have a
Speaker 1: business set aside, like ask yourself or your bookkeeper or
Speaker 1: your accounting or whoever's managing your finances, how much does
Speaker 1: my company cost me to run monthly and make it
Speaker 1: your business to work toward getting to at least six
Speaker 1: months of emergency savings. Okay, you might not need it
Speaker 1: in a year, two years, four years, but one day
Speaker 1: you're gonna need it. And I know so many of
Speaker 1: my friends small businesses closed down in twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: because they did not have the backup. You know, thank
Speaker 1: god we had the backup. Or I had friends that literally,
Speaker 1: Like I had a friend I was talking to the
Speaker 1: other day. She took the money from her personal account,
Speaker 1: from her retirement account to save the business, you know,
Speaker 1: because she didn't have the backup. I would have done
Speaker 1: that too. Like, let's just say the Budgeaniessa had such
Speaker 1: a bad year, we had no savings. Tiffany has money,
Speaker 1: and Tiffany could have let the budgeaniese to money. But
Speaker 1: who want to do that? Because if I take money
Speaker 1: out of my investment accounts. Meanwhile, the market rallied the
Speaker 1: last quarter of the year, so I would have missed
Speaker 1: out on that earning, but I didn't because your girl
Speaker 1: was what ready? Okay, So one that you know, if
Speaker 1: you have a bandoned year, you want to see yourself
Speaker 1: through for twenty twenty four. In business, make sure that
Speaker 1: you set aside money for emergencies. Okay, that's one. Two.
Speaker 1: I believe that there is a shift happening that people
Speaker 1: are wanting to engage in person. So if you have
Speaker 1: a business, ask yourself, how can you create a more
Speaker 1: hybrid approach? Because everyone has been digital, digital, social, social, social,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yeah, But the thing is social is passive engagement. Right,
Speaker 1: So if I tell you on social media sign up
Speaker 1: for a thing, let's just say one or two percent
Speaker 1: might sign up. But if you are in person with me,
Speaker 1: sitting in a room, and I say, everybody, whip out
Speaker 1: your phones, who are all gonna sign up for this thing? Now,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you increase to sixty seventy percent.
Speaker 1: And I have just been really contemplating on this because
Speaker 1: I'm seeing that less and less the engagement is yielding
Speaker 1: less and less results. Like digital engagement, and that if
Speaker 1: you're not integrating some sort of interpersonal, in person component
Speaker 1: to your business in your community, if you're building community
Speaker 1: in business, which you ought to, then you might miss
Speaker 1: out because there is this pendulum swing and people are
Speaker 1: exhausted and lonely by digital only. I'm gonna say that
Speaker 1: again because I was a bar. People are exhausted and
Speaker 1: lonely by digital only, and so just consider that, Like,
Speaker 1: that's why I started to do wealth walks. If you're
Speaker 1: one of my Patreon members for my mentor Tiffany dot
Speaker 1: com where I mentor, I said, we have about four
Speaker 1: thousand mentees right there right started last year, we did
Speaker 1: about seven mente dinners where if I had a speaking engagement,
Speaker 1: I would say, hey, I'm going to be in Dallas
Speaker 1: or DC or atlant or whatever, and I would invite.
Speaker 1: I would have an open invitation and I'd say we
Speaker 1: can max out about twenty people because that's what the
Speaker 1: restaurant would allow without trying to charge it some sort
Speaker 1: of like event fee. So we would meet up and
Speaker 1: it made it really powerful because I noticed that the
Speaker 1: churn rate for the mentees. Just business speak, churn is
Speaker 1: the amount of people that you lose monthly if you
Speaker 1: have a subscription. Right. Sometimes people leave because they don't
Speaker 1: like the service. Sometimes people leave because they're not using it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people leave because their credit card just got declined. Whatever. Right,
Speaker 1: so churn, So I'll give you an example. Like last
Speaker 1: time I check, I think it was Spotify had a
Speaker 1: churn rate about nine ten percent, meaning that every month
Speaker 1: about ten percent of people leave, right, And so my
Speaker 1: churn rate at Patreon was so low it was like
Speaker 1: under three percent, meaning people were coming and staying, and
Speaker 1: three percent was more or less people whose credit cards
Speaker 1: just got declined and we could just tap them on
Speaker 1: the shoulder. Why were people staying and saying? I love
Speaker 1: being Tiffany's mentee because I think in large part because
Speaker 1: there was this connection in person. I did about seven meetups,
Speaker 1: so seven times twenty people. Don't give me the line?
Speaker 1: What is that? One hundred and forty people? Eh, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm over here trying to take out my calculator. Child, ooh,
Speaker 1: my Ramin is here, child, We're about to wrap up.
Speaker 1: Seven times twenty people. One hundred and forty people, yes,
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty people, right plus right, But so
Speaker 1: it's not just that because the people the energy that
Speaker 1: you build when people are in person. They then go
Speaker 1: back to the group and say, because we have like
Speaker 1: I said, we have a monthly meetup where you guys
Speaker 1: can see each other for that's part of being my mentee,
Speaker 1: and the mentees kind of like network every month together.
Speaker 1: And then we have a monthly lesson with me that
Speaker 1: I teach a live and then you guys are going
Speaker 1: to start to have a working session every month too.
Speaker 1: So anyway, now the girls in those sessions be like chih,
Speaker 1: I met Tiffy last week. It was amazing, and you
Speaker 1: know what I learned. You now have these like amazing
Speaker 1: cheerleaders who are like they advocate for you, like, no,
Speaker 1: not my tify, don't talk about my budgetista, you know.
Speaker 1: And so I am exploring that more about because I've
Speaker 1: gotten really good at building community, but I want to
Speaker 1: make sure that I'm providing enough in person interaction for community.
Speaker 1: So I suggest you do the same ease and then, last,
Speaker 1: but not least, this is something that I'm going to
Speaker 1: be exploring more and more for twenty twenty four. Is
Speaker 1: so I went to I told you, I went to
Speaker 1: the conference in South Carolina, the Healthy Wealthy Wives Conference
Speaker 1: by Karen Hunter, who's amazing. She's got this amazing podcast,
Speaker 1: the Karen Hunter Show that I'm on every month, and
Speaker 1: so it was my first time going to that conference.
Speaker 1: It was in South Carolina on Kiewaka something island, which
Speaker 1: is a sea island. So South Carolina has all these
Speaker 1: islands like outside of it, and it was one of
Speaker 1: those islands. And it was dropped at gorgeous. I ain't
Speaker 1: never seen it. When I say gorgeous, I was like Mexico,
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico gorgeous. And the resort, the Kiahwaka or whatever
Speaker 1: it was called resort, was absolutely studying. I had three
Speaker 1: balconies in my room. It was a sitting room that
Speaker 1: was as big as like a New York City apartment,
Speaker 1: and then a bedroom and two full baths, and the
Speaker 1: master bath was so big that you opened it with
Speaker 1: two doors. Child your girl was living living. It was amazing.
Speaker 1: So I went there and I thought to myself, you
Speaker 1: might be like, who's Karen Hunter, but I get Let
Speaker 1: me tell you who knows who Karen Hunter is her audience.
Speaker 1: I took away this amazing lesson when I was looking
Speaker 1: around and the ticket to go and I could say
Speaker 1: this because I mean, if you go online, try to
Speaker 1: buy it. The ticket to go to Healthy Wealthy Wives
Speaker 1: was about twenty one hundred dollars. Right. That doesn't include
Speaker 1: your flight because she can't pay for your flight, So
Speaker 1: twenty one hundred dollars right time, she had about like
Speaker 1: two hundred and twenty people there. I'm sorry, Karen, I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to clock your peg, but you know, right,
Speaker 1: so twenty one hundred dollars two one hundred times two
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty two people give her take, that's four
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty two thousand dollars. Hello, hello, somebody? Right,
Speaker 1: So that's almost half a million dollars. I'm gonna let
Speaker 1: that sink in. That's almost half a million dollars. And
Speaker 1: you might be saying, who is Karen Hunter? Right? You
Speaker 1: might not know her. A lot of people do, but
Speaker 1: you might not know her. You know. The lessons that
Speaker 1: I learned is car plus. When I went there, Karen
Speaker 1: has t shirts and sweatshirts, and I saw the shirt
Speaker 1: so much that I literally was like, did I miss
Speaker 1: it during registration? Where's my shirt? Where's my registration shirt?
Speaker 1: So I asked, I said, I didn't get a regetration shirt.
Speaker 1: She's like, girl, that's not a registration shirt. I did
Speaker 1: a drop. I do a number of drops through the
Speaker 1: year where I sell like merch. Her audience was so
Speaker 1: engaged that they brought the merch with them that they
Speaker 1: bought throughout the year and war at the conference, I
Speaker 1: sell a hold on, hold On, hold on, hold on.
Speaker 1: So I'm just watching in awe and amazement at how
Speaker 1: engaged like her people. They half of them had my
Speaker 1: book because I'm on Karen Hunter once a month. Everybody
Speaker 1: knew me. Hey, girl, loved your last segment. I got
Speaker 1: you your book? Can I signed it? Can you sign
Speaker 1: it for me? Meanwhile, I was not even speaking at
Speaker 1: her conference. You know, they knew I was coming because
Speaker 1: I was a special guest just to attend. But I
Speaker 1: wasn't even speaking. And a light bulb went on that
Speaker 1: Karen has done this excellent job of not trying to
Speaker 1: get more congregation members. Instead she has turned around and
Speaker 1: she preaches to the choir. I'm gonna let that so again.
Speaker 1: Sometimes in business, we are so busy trying to get
Speaker 1: new customers that we are not taking amazing care of
Speaker 1: our current existing customers. And I am guilty of this,
Speaker 1: always out trying to get new, new, new, new new
Speaker 1: sis you have ten fifteen, one hundred, one thousand, one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand, whatever it is people already in your audience.
Speaker 1: Are you loving on them so good and treating them
Speaker 1: so good and making sure they have all the tools
Speaker 1: and resources and access and da da da that when
Speaker 1: it's time for you to drop a tool or resource
Speaker 1: that they're like, girl, here is my money. I bet
Speaker 1: you're not, because I know I'm not. So for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, I'm gonna be loving the hell out of y'all. Okay,
Speaker 1: that I already have enough people in my audience that
Speaker 1: I already treat y'all good. But I'm not as intentional
Speaker 1: as I ought to be. I would say I was
Speaker 1: doing fifty percent new people, fifty percent y'all. I'm doing
Speaker 1: thirty percent new people and seventy percent what y'all need,
Speaker 1: What y'all want? How can I help? What do you want?
Speaker 1: Da da da da. You do that, and you don't
Speaker 1: have to work nearly as hard if you take care
Speaker 1: of the people who are already here. You already have
Speaker 1: people in your audience, if you've taken the time to
Speaker 1: build community in business. And if you do that, child, geez, like,
Speaker 1: your business is gonna be popping for twenty twenty four. Okay,
Speaker 1: so what do we learn about how to make the
Speaker 1: most out of twenty twenty four? One get your savings
Speaker 1: up right. Two I forgot the second with that, that's it, child,
Speaker 1: my memories. Oh. Two, integrate some in person things. Okay,
Speaker 1: the girls want to touch on people and love on
Speaker 1: people and love on people and see you in person.
Speaker 1: And then three focus on your current community right, speak
Speaker 1: to the choir, not so much new congregation members. You
Speaker 1: do that for twenty twenty four, I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 1: Watch how twenty twenty four. I'm already started to do
Speaker 1: it just a little bit. When I tell you, January
Speaker 1: of last year, I don't remember what we made. It
Speaker 1: was like next to nothing, cause January be slow sometimes.
Speaker 1: This year already we've already made, like within the first
Speaker 1: two weeks multiple six figures and not like with no ads,
Speaker 1: run with no new stuff, really just focusing our current
Speaker 1: audience and saying you want this thing that I've been
Speaker 1: at and just letting you know what even existed. Multiple
Speaker 1: six figures already. I'm like, gosh, start it who chall
Speaker 1: So I hope that was a lesson for you. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to ask any business question, career question, financial question,
Speaker 1: or otherwise, slide into our dmsr ID at Branna Vision Podcast.
Speaker 1: And also you can go to brownivisionpodcast dot com. Please
Speaker 1: please please leave us a review if you find what
Speaker 1: we're sharing so great. Like I said, if you want
Speaker 1: to be my mentee, you can go to my mentor
Speaker 1: Tiffany dot com. We'll put the link in the description
Speaker 1: of the show notes for you. Also, my book Made Whole,
Speaker 1: we'll do that too, Maid Whole Workbook dot com if
Speaker 1: you want to get on financial track. But yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: see you next week. Well, I'm gonna be here. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, I'm coming back from Puerto Rico on Sunday,
Speaker 1: so it's cute, So I'll be here all right. Bye,