Clearing Obstacles - Blissful Amition

Episode 3 - Your Financial Dashboard

“We need to be able to make informed decisions on a regular basis, so you need to have a high level familiarity with everything going on in your finances without doing a deep dive anytime you just need some simple information,” explains Dan Kent, host and owner of Best Self Coaching. Today, Dan shares best practices for creating your own financial dashboard, so that you can make better informed decisions about your business finances.
A financial dashboard is a customizable way to easily see all of your financial indicators at a glance. It works similarly to a dashboard on a car, you’ll be able to see just the data you actually need rather than getting overwhelmed by extraneous information. Dan provides a free downloadable template to get you started that requires nothing more than a basic knowledge of Excel. Once you populate the information for the spreadsheet, you will just need to review it monthly for accuracy.
 
Next Actions:
Being able to easily access your financial indicators will allow you to make better informed and more strategic decisions. The complexity of finances can be a difficult obstacle to navigate, but when you have a dashboard at your fingertips there is less potential for overwhelm. 
• Download the free template from the Google Drive link below.
• Fill in your revenue as the first data point.
• Next, add your cost of goods sold and your gross profit (revenue minus cost of goods sold).
• Add total expenses and then net profit
• Calculate the net profit margin (net profit divided by gross revenue)
• Consider including indicators like payroll to revenue ratio, accounts receivable, and accounts payable
 
To go deeper into this episode’s “Next Actions”, take a listen to the episode where we explore it even further.
 
Quotes
• “If you don't have a reliable mechanism and a consistent system to make informed and strategic decisions related to your finances, then you're going to find yourself stuck.” (2:59-3:10 | Dan)
• “Consider a financial dashboard not unlike the dashboard on your car.” (4:20-4:23 | Dan) 
• “The very first thing that almost every business owner is going to be looking at is their revenue.” (8:52-8:56 | Dan)
• “We need to be able to make informed decisions on a regular basis, so you need to have a kind of high level familiarity with everything going on in your financials without doing a deep dive anytime you just need some simple information.” (22:04-22:21 | Dan)
Connect with Dan Kent:
Website: clearingobstacles.com
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/117J2FIQ6AFIYQXw73lLqeL25HmTGJe7o?usp=share_link (Assets discussed in the episode) 
Best Self Coaching: bestself.coach
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Episode 2 - Andrew Kinkler

“We're not clear on our future. We don't have that goal, and we're just doing the busy work. It just goes back to a very basic but powerful concept of, ‘you’ve got to keep your vision in mind’,” shares Andrew Kinkler, owner and CEO of Apex Property Care. Apex provides all the backend management for properties including cleaning, landscaping, snow removal, maintenance, subcontractor management, and private home management. Today, Andrew joins hosts Dan and Matt to talk about the importance of following a time budget and not getting so caught up putting out fires.
 
Putting out fires is not a strategy. Andrew realized he was frequently being pulled away from important tasks to put out fires. This caused him to expend resources on the wrong tasks and ultimately fall behind. As Matt explains in his skiing analogy, it is important to not just look down at your feet, but instead to look five to seven moguls ahead. In his coaching with Dan and Matt, Andrew recognized the importance of being clear on his goal for the future. By having a clear goal and staying focused on his values, he is able to create and stick to a time budget rather than just bouncing from fire to fire. 
 
Next Actions:
Establish your Vision and higher purpose for your life, and always keep it in front of you. The small but significant actions you can take in your business will lead to direct results that will help it serve your life - as it should.
• Vision clarifies the Goals. 
• Goals clarify the Plans. 
• Plans clarify the next Actions. 
• Get moving on those next actions, and you’ll see the difference in the short-term and the long-term.
• Create a time-budget if you find yourself in a consistent time deficit.
 
To go deeper into this episode’s “Next Actions”, take a listen to the episode where we do a break-down, and explore it even further.
Quotes
• “If I don't put out this fire, there's going to be short-term pain that could lead to long-term pain.” (50:01-50:06 | Andrew)
• “You're looking down at your skis. Look five to seven moguls ahead of you.” (58:56-59:00 | Matt)
• “Whether it's time and attention or money, if you don't have that visibility of what's coming up, you're going to blow through your budget.” (1:00:56-1:01:04 | Matt) 
• “If you're not precise with the problem, you're going to start solving the problem and it's going to be the wrong one. And now you're actually two steps behind, because you expended those resources solving the wrong sh*t and that’s not useful.” (1:03:43-1:03:51 | Dan)
• “We're not clear on our future. We don't have that goal, and we're just doing the busy work. It just goes back to a very basic but powerful concept of, ‘you’ve got to keep your vision in mind’.” (1:14:05-1:14:22 | Andrew)
 
Connect with Andrew Kinkler:
https://www.apexsteamboat.com/
 
Other resources from Episode 2:Podcast Resources - www.clearingobstacles.com
Coach Dan Kent - https://bestself.coach/
Coach Matt Pierce - IG: @the_owners_coach, matt@ownerscoach.biz
Book: Willpower Doesn’t Work by Ben Hardy
Link to the Expanded “Next Actions”: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ICbZP0tYWBHceoyDIQ1cQzUDspkmddwR?usp=share_link
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Episode 1 – Chelsea Overmeyer

“A lot of times I don’t feel that I am the right person for the job. Like I’m not qualified to do these things I’m trying to do sometimes,” shares Chelsea Overmeyer, COO of Going Electric, an electrical contracting company in Ontario, Canada. Going Electric is a small family business that is doing a great job in terms of providing quality service, but struggles when it comes to generating profit, establishing clear communications with customers, and scaling. Today, Chelsea joins host Dan Kent to discuss where her business is succeeding and struggling in order to identify ways to improve in real time.
 
Chelsea’s goal is to systemize the business and write an operations manual so that she can begin to scale, delegate tasks, and create enough value to be able to sell in 5 years if she should desire to. Currently, Chelsea wears all of the hats at once and knowledge gaps prevent her from feeling comfortable with delegating tasks like invoicing and collections. Going Electric frequently does not generate a profit and to really sort out why, it is important to look at all available financial indicators and to have some sort of system in place for tracking and targeting. While speaking with Dan, Chelsea realized that hiring out is actually an investment rather than just another expense, especially if she hires someone who can complete the tasks more efficiently than she can. 
 
In order to clear obstacles and help your business thrive, you must have some kind of system in place for tracking and easily viewing your finances. It also is helpful to have your systems and processes in writing so that you can delegate tasks to others without risk of knowledge gaps.
 
Quotes
• “My long-term vision, as I imagine most business owners' visions are, is systemizing the business and writing down the processes that we have that are just verbal at the moment, but also creating more processes to be more in tune with our customers and to provide them more value.” (9:24-9:50 | Chelsea)
• “If I'm not as efficient in doing that task, then it makes way more sense for me to hire someone who is more efficient.” (58:00-58:08 | Chelsea) 
• “A lot of times I don’t feel that I am the right person for the job. Like I’m not qualified to do these things I’m trying to do sometimes.” (58:34-58:42 | Chelsea)
 
Next Action Items - Abbreviated, with a more comprehensive “prescription” attached at clearingobstacles.com
• Create a dashboard for your finances 
• Interview 2-3 accountants ideally from referrals 
• Nail the written estimates with room for adjustments as needed
• Set up job costing
• Follow up on collections
• Begin delegating 
• Triage your task list
 
Links
Connect with Chelsea Overmeyer:
Going Electric Website: https://goingelectric.ca
Going Electric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goingelectric.ca
Clearing Obstacles Website: clearingobstacles.com
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Welcome to Clearing Obstacles

Welcome to Clearing Obstacles – The podcast for Leaders, and those that want to be. It can be a lonely journey when you find yourself confronted by challenges in business.
Taking the lessons he's learned along the way in his combined 50-plus years of experience, your host Dan is ready to unpack common business challenges, from real-life situations in a way that’s both relatable and actionable for you.
Dan will introduce you to other professionals like yourself who share in your struggles along that path to a healthy business and a healthy team. But then he'll also share the way out of those struggles, by clearing the obstacles at their origins, and helping you Get There, From Here.