Ep 118 Transcript: How to Stop Letting Money Stress Control Your Pricing and Boundaries

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.

Shauna Lynn Simon (01:49.89)

Hey there and welcome to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and I got a question for you. Do you think about money? Like I think about money. Do you think about money? I think about it a lot. and I don't just mean though in the how do I make more money? Where's my money going to come from? How do I get money? Although all that, of course, matters, but I want to talk about the way that money affects our decisions, our confidence, our boundaries, our pricing.

And even just the way that we show up in our businesses. So something that I've noticed over the years, and especially more and more recently, I'm having so many conversations with entrepreneurs about this. And that is that money itself isn't always necessarily the actual problem. The bigger issue is generally the pressure that we're feeling from the money, around the money. So we don't have enough money. We need more money. You know.

money isn't coming in the way that we want it to or in the amounts that we want it to, all these different things cause this pressure around money. And what that does is it starts that pressure starts making decisions for us, decisions that we might not make without that pressure. And the problem is that a lot of us don't realize that pressure even exists. So today I want to talk about a couple of things, but one of them is a really big question that I want us to think of before making a money related decision.

I want us to start looking at money from a different standpoint. And this isn't about just about money mindset or affirmations or doing a mantra or anything like that. And don't get me wrong, I wholeheartedly support all of that. And in fact, I've been known to do it myself. So I'm not discouraging any of that, but I want us to reframe how we're thinking about money in the first place. So the next time you need to make a money-related decision, money-related decision is, you know, pricing something out for a new client potentially or

Deciding whether or not to bill for something, deciding whether or not something is within a boundary, saying yes to something that's outside of your standard process or scope or whatever. It's all money related. If it is asking you to spend your time doing something, exert your expertise doing something, whatever that looks like, that is a money-related thing. Even if it's a matter of every task that you have on your to-do list.

Shauna Lynn Simon (04:07.98)

Every task on your to-do list takes you away from doing something else. So is this the right task to do? That is a money-related decision. So here's the question. You ready for this? Here's the question that I want you to ask yourself the next time you are making a money-related decision. In fact, every time you're making a money-related decision. And that is, how would I approach this if, get this, If I didn't need the money? how would I approach this decision if I didn't need the money?

And I'll tell you, this changes things in so many ways. For starters, let's say you've got a client who hasn't paid their bill. They are overdue for their bill. And one of the reasons why we often get stressed about this is like, oh oh my gosh, I had budgeted for having this money coming in. I've already earmarked that money for certain expenses that I have or whatever that looks like. And so the stress of the client not paying tends to lead to these questions: is the client never going to pay? How am I going to collect this money? What if they don't pay me?

And all this stress, it's sending you into a bit of a panic, right? Now, let's say we took a step back from this. and it might also have us like thinking, the client's trying to screw me over, the client's out to get me, the client may never pay. It has all these negative thoughts running through this. Now, if we went, took a step back and said, What if I didn't need the money? How might I approach this? Sure, the client still owes you the money, but you might take a different perspective and say, I wonder why the client hasn't paid the invoice. Is it possible they didn't see it? Is it possible they're

Struggling with their own cash flow challenges right now, how might you approach it instead of going into panic mode and demanding payment from them? How might you approach it with them if you felt like it's okay if that money doesn't show up tomorrow? Again, you still need the money. I'm not saying that you're not entitled to the money, but if it wasn't, if you weren't feeling that pressure, how might you approach the situation? When we start approaching things from the position of, what if I didn't need the money?

We stop making decisions from a place of panic because those decisions can often get really, really expensive. And so I want to be really clear from the start. This is not about pretending that money doesn't matter. Of course, it matters. Your business needs revenue, you need cash flow, you need to pay yourself. you you need to pay your bills, you need to make profit. But when you make these decisions from panic, those decisions, like I said, they get pretty expensive. And we'll talk about exactly what that looks like.

Shauna Lynn Simon (06:31.942)

in just a little bit, but you've heard the phrase probably when it comes to negotiation. Let's say you decide you want to buy a new car and you offer the guy a certain amount of money for the car. I was gonna throw a number out of like 15,000. Then I was like, I don't know what car I can buy for $15,000 anymore. But let's say, you know, you offer the guy $15,000, sticker price is like $25,000. You offer $15,000. You have to be prepared to walk away from it, right? Like they always say, like it when you enter into negotiation, you have to know where your line is and be prepared to walk away.

What if you treated every money conversation like I'm prepared to walk away? If this doesn't go in the direction that I want it to, if they're not willing to pay my fees, I'm willing to walk away. Okay, before you have a panic attack, stay with me on this one. I really think you're going to appreciate where we take this conversation. So trust me when I say that I know how hard it can be sometimes to think of not getting a particular project. Like you get that perfect client that comes along, you're like, oh oh my gosh, I really want to work with this client, I really want this project.

For whatever reason, and you really don't want to walk away from it. And I get that. But what if you didn't care if you got it? How might you approach things differently? This is the lens I want you to start to see things through. So when money feels urgent, it becomes really easy to justify things that we would not otherwise agree to. So for example, you might discount your services just to get that job. You might accept a client who's already been showing you some signs that they do not respect your processes. You know, there's some red flags that are popping up.

You might say yes before you've even clarified the full scope. and that's where, you know, scope creep might come in. You that scope creep might come in, but you don't want to push too hard on certain questions. you know, maybe you didn't bother asking them what their budget was and you're just, you know, crossing your fingers and hoping that they say yes. You're gonna quote it low enough that that that's not really gonna matter that you didn't ask what their budget was. maybe you take on a project that doesn't actually fit well into your business model. I've talked about this.

On previous episodes, where like just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something. So you might think, well, this kind of sort of relates to the type of things that I'm doing. And they're paying some money, but that money isn't necessarily money that's going to contribute towards the future of your company, the growth of your company. It's just kind of now money. And now money is not a bad thing, but we might want to focus more on some future money. So maybe you're agreeing to a timeline that's unrealistic. Someone has a rush.

Shauna Lynn Simon (08:50.904)

Job and you're saying, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I could do that. And now you're absolutely scrambling and sacrificing your time with your family, you know, time for other projects and other clients, and time for business growth and development and other things because you've agreed to this unrealistic timeline. Maybe you include extras that were never part of the original agreement, but you just decided to like throw in all these extras just to get the job. Or perhaps when you're coming from this mindset.

You're actually avoiding following up on a payment or even like not even sending the invoice in the first place. Like maybe you're just so terrified to send that invoice out. You know, maybe you're undercharging because you're just afraid that the client's going to say no if you charge what you really think the project is worth. And especially if you didn't ask about the budget, right? So the tricky part is that in the moment, some of these choices, we can justify them. Like I am really good at justifying my decisions. I can have full out debates with myself and come to the conclusion that I was

right the whole time with whatever decision it was that I made. And the reality is that like in the moment, the choices do feel they feel responsible. They feel like, yeah, yeah, this is the right direction to go. My gut is telling me, even though like your gut's also screaming at you, but you bury down that part of the gut, right? It's amazing how our mind can convince us that these are the right choices to make, especially when inside that mind of yours, there is a little voice that's saying, you know, just take anything that you can get. We really need the money. And when we're listening to that voice,

We can get a little stressed out. Again, that's where this pressure is coming from, right? So you tell yourself, like, well, at least money's coming in, but not all revenue is good revenue. I once worked for back in my corporate days. Part of my job was a big part of my job, the main part of my job was actually identifying what it would cost to produce something and , identifying what we could sell it for. So depending on the volume. So let's just say I was quoting widgets, doesn't matter what I was actually quoting, but there was pretty small widgets. And

We were, you know, we had to purchase the actual materials for the widgets and then we had to do some assembly to them. So I had to account for the labor cost for it, the actual product material itself and all the different our overhead, all these different things that would be factored into the pricing. And then we'd need to make some money. And our margins were getting would get smaller and smaller the larger the order was. So when someone comes in, they want a million widgets, and we're normally selling those widgets for like a buck. There's only so much wiggle room on how low I can go on that. Like I we still have very real cost to this, but sure I can bring the price down.

Shauna Lynn Simon (11:13.88)

So I can't remember exactly what the pricing was that I said we could sell this widget for. But based on getting a million of them, I think I said we could sell it for like 74 cents. And my boss says to me, Well, we need to sell it for 60 cents. Like, well, we can't sell it for 60 cents. Like that's actually less than our cost. Like we can't sell it for less than cost because we need to cover our expenses for this. So, you know, like if you want to sell it at cost, even even that number would be higher. No, no, we have to sell it for 60 cents. And again, I can't remember what these actual numbers were.

Bear with me. Nonetheless, I go back, I crunch the numbers again. I'm like, okay, we might be to be a little bit more efficient here. I can probably get our supplier to come down on pricing because of the quantity on this a little bit further here. So I'm anticipating like a 10% dip here or whatever that looked like. So I think I went back and like, okay, we can do it for like 69 cents. He's like, no, it's got to be 60 cents. I'm like, like we can't. Like we're like, so at this point now, like, you know, I've managed to give us a little bit more margin, bring the price down. Like we need to make some money on this. Ultimately, you can probably see where the story is going. He took the job.

He he overrode me and he was like, no, we need to take the job. And I said to him, like, I don't understand why you would do that. And he's like, because it's cash flow. I'm like, I don't know if you understand what cash flow actually is. He's like, no, but like we need money coming in. So this will give us money to come in. I'm like, but it's negative cash flow. Like we have all these expenses that we're gonna have to pay for at some point. So like this is negative cash flow. He's like, yeah, but it's cash flow. We need money right now. And you know what? There are times where negative cash flow might actually make sense because you do just need to get over a hump.

But you have to have a plan to compensate for that down the road. And so if you're constantly playing this negative cash flow game, you're never going to be able to actually keep up with it. So that's why I say not all revenue is actually good revenue. Some revenue costs you, in that case, like it's literally like a margin was just too low on it. But sometimes it just costs you your capacity. Other times it costs you your confidence. Sometimes it's costing you that margin. Other times it's just your time, that time that could be better spent somewhere else.

And it's your ability to be able to serve the right clients really well. And this is especially important for service-based businesses because so much of what we sell is tied to our time, our energy, our expertise, our creativity, our ability to be creative and our attention. So if you say yes to something that doesn't leave room for profit or that drains you completely, this is not just a bad project. It's going to affect everything else in the business because now you might start resenting that client. You might rush through other work.

Shauna Lynn Simon (13:34.092)

You might delay marketing because you're buried in the delivery on this. You might avoid selling to someone else because you're just exhausted and the thought of adding one more thing to your plate is just overwhelming. You might even start questioning whether the business is even working. Really, the issue is that you said yes to the wrong thing because you were under pressure. And don't go wrong, there's nothing wrong with wanting the sale. Of course, you should want the sale. There's nothing wrong with caring about the revenue.

There's nothing wrong with having financial goals. That's not what I'm telling you when you're when I'm saying what if you didn't need the money? I don't want you to think of it as though, like, I don't really need the money. It's fine. The problem is the need for the money becomes the driving force. It becomes that loudest voice in the room. We want to be viewing money from a strategic standpoint. So wanting revenue can be strategic. Needing revenue can be very reactive. When you want revenue, you can still evaluate, you know, is this client a fit?

Is the price profitable? Is the is the timeline realistic? Am I solving the right problem here? Does this align with where I want to take my business? Is this a short-term opportunity or is this a long-term distraction? When you feel desperate for revenue, the questions change. Instead of asking, is this right for the business? You ask, how do I make sure they say yes? Right. So when we're desperate for that revenue, all we care about is how do we get to yes? And we don't stop to think, is this actually the right direction to go in?

And again, I'm not saying this from some unrealistic realistic place of like, just don't worry about the money. It's totally fine. Because I've been in business a really long time. And I know there are some seasons where cash flow is tight. Like I said, sometimes that negative cash flow plan does actually make sense when you have an actual plan to make up that negative balance, that negative margin. And I know that there's going to be moments where an unexpected expense hits, your stomach drops. And I know what it feels like to look at the numbers and think, oh my gosh, we just really need revenue right now. But those are the exact moments that we still need better questions.

not a faster panic. And I'm gonna cover a little bit about those unexpected expenses in just a little bit. But before I do that, we're gonna take this short break and I'll be right back.

Alright, welcome back to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. And we're talking about viewing money and revenue from a different lens as though, like, what if I didn't need it? And so over the years, I've worked with clients in many different financial situations. For those, if you're new here, let me tell you a little bit about my financial situation. And that is that me, myself, and I are who pays the bills in this household because

I am all that, I mean, other than three freeloading cats that I've got wandering around here that you see occasionally on my podcast, who really like I think they think they're helping the podcast by walking across the screen. So if you're not watching this on YouTube, you probably should. Very entertaining. But I'm not sure that that's really driving up our listener count that much that they can really say that they're contributing to the bottom line here. But nonetheless, I am single, have been this since the day that I became an entrepreneur.

I have my own house. I pay for my own cars. I've also like been a caregiver for my parents. I helped to not necessarily financially support them, but to support them, you know, until my dad passed away a couple of years ago. My mom is still around, of course. And so I support her. So like I've got responsibilities still. But ultimately, I'm the one who's responsible for bringing in the money in my household. So I know what this pressure feels like. But like I said, I've worked with a variety of different clients and some are relying on their business.

To fully support their household, like me. Some are contributing to the household income, but they're not necessarily carrying the whole financial load. Some of them will say, like, my money pays for the extras in the house, the vacations we want to take, or the little perks we want to have. And some just honestly, like, they don't technically need to work at all. Here's the interesting thing about this. I want to tell you why I'm bringing this up because there's something interesting that happens for the clients who don't technically need the money. They are so much clearer.

Shauna Lynn Simon (18:08.648)

On what their time, their energy, their expertise, what all of that is worth. Not always, but most of the time, I find that these are the clients they're asking different questions in their head because they don't feel that financial pressure. And you might say, I mean, it's lucky to be them, you know, so fortunate, must be nice. But you can take that pressure away as well if we just reframe how we look at things in our head. So these are the clients who are less likely to chase every opportunity or

discount just to win the work. They're not trying to validate themselves with this by, you know, getting that latest job because they they know what really validates them is doing good work and getting paid fair pay for it. So they are more likely to say, if I'm going to do this, it needs to be worthwhile. So think of it like what is it, what makes it worthwhile for you to leave the house, for example? What really is the amount of money that makes that worthwhile? That's exactly what these clients are thinking. That's the shift. It's not

I need money, so I should take whatever I can possibly get. But instead, if I'm gonna give this my time, my energy, my expertise, my attention, the return on it needs to make sense. Here's the thing: because there are other things that they understand, taking the time to service this client is going to take away from other parts of their life. So if they're not worried about the money,

They're still paying in a currency of some sort. And that currency could be their time, their energy, or whatever that looks like. Because money is kind of that essential that we can't put food on the table, we can't pay the mortgage and keep a roof over our heads. Like all of those things change things. We feel a different pressure for that money. But if we took that pressure away and we we came at this from a different perspective of like, what if I didn't need the money? It's a different lens. And so it doesn't mean that you need to be independently wealthy.

To make good business decisions, because you can borrow this lens, right? You can pause and ask if money were not making me anxious right now, what would I know to be true about this opportunity? So would I still take this client? Would I still offer this discount? Would I agree to this deadline? And even again, in the same way that we communicate with our clients, would I be chasing this client for money and demanding that they pay me right away, or would I approach it from a place of more compassion?

Shauna Lynn Simon (20:22.424)

Like what if someone lot just lost a loved one and that's why they're behind on the bills? Like you don't know what's happening in someone else's life. So maybe it would allow us to give a bit more the benefit of the doubt before rushing to an assumption because we don't have that pressure. So what are some of the things that you would view about this opportunity if you were viewing it from the lens of if money were not making me anxious, if money were not an issue right now? And again, it's not about pretending that you don't have any financial needs. It's about, you know, creating just enough distancing from that urgency, that pressure.

To make a better decision. So money panic often shows up in our pricing before anything else. And here, let me tell you what it sounds like. Here's what it sounds like. And this is that voice in your head. You know exactly who I'm talking about here. What if they say no? What if this is too expensive for them? What if someone else is charging less? I got a whole other podcast episode coming all about like what to do with your competitors because I am so tired of.

All of y'all looking too much at what everybody else is doing, but that's a whole other episode. Okay. So stay tuned for that one. But what if someone else charges less? What if I'm not worth charging this much yet? What if the client thinks that I'm being unreasonable? What if I lose the job? And because those questions feel so loud, many business owners start pricing from fear instead of, I don't know, math, value, sustainability.

This is what strong businesses are built on. I had a recent call with one of my coaching clients where she said to me, I said, you know, how are things going? She's like, Well, I think they're going pretty good. We're starting to get some no's. So we must be doing something right. Okay. So she sent out some proposals and some people said no. And we were celebrating this. That's right. We were celebrating that she had lost some jobs because you know why? Everyone had said yes to her up until that point.

And this is a huge red flag in your business. If all you hear is yes, you are not charging enough. I don't care. If you're like, but I'm the best salesperson in the world and I have the special technique and there's a reason why everyone hires me. Trust me when I say that if everyone is saying yes, you're not charging enough. And if you really think that it's because you're that good of a salesperson, then why can't you charge more? If you can sell it at $2,000, can you sell it at $3,000 the same way? Same value? Maybe you have to up.

Shauna Lynn Simon (22:44.382)

you know, change your spiel just a little bit. But if you are that good of a salesperson that they're that that's why everyone's saying yes, then you definitely can raise your price. Am I right? When I see people that are pricing from fear, they base the price on what they think the client can tolerate rather than what the business actually needs. So they'll say like, well I know that like they don't that money's really tight for them. I really want to help them out. Have you had these conversations with yourself? I really want to help them up. They just can't afford it right now. Listen, let me tell you,

There are plenty of people who come to me who would love to do coaching with me. And ultimately they just don't have the budget for right now. And I struggle with this too because I look at them like, but if I could help you, I could help you make the budget. Like if I could help you for free, then you would make enough money to be able to pay for my services. So theoretically, could I just take them on for free and then they don't have to pay me for like three months or six months? But that's not a sustainable business model. And not to mention, I'm not going to feel comfortable knowing that I'm giving them all this time and this energy.

How do I know they're going to put the work? Because I know that if I coach them for free and they actually do the work, they can get results. But if I don't charge them, they're less likely to do the work, right? So trust me when I say that I I've been in that same situation. And this is I've talked about this on a previous episode. Check out our people pleasing episode where I talk about yes opportunities because there are ways that you can help someone who just doesn't have the budget to work with you in the way that you need to be worked with or that you want to be worked with or that you have that you're able to take on clients right now.

There's always opportunities to potentially help them in a way that doesn't take so much of your time, energy, expertise, and devalue you. But the problem is that sometimes we're pricing things based on this. Well, I don't think the client can really handle it. So I just won't charge them for the admin time or the prep time or some of the follow-up time or the revisions or the communication or overhead machine costs or software, rent, insurance. You know, overhead doesn't really matter. I'm not on a project this small, right? I don't really need to worry about insurance this month. It's it's fine.

You know, you don't think about the emotional labor now that's going to take to manage that relationship. And most importantly, what we forget when we get too caught up in what we think the clients need from us and what we think that they can afford is that we forget what delivering our service actually costs us in direct costs and expenses, as well as, you know, the mental load that you're going to carry and the opportunity of what you're going to miss out on because you filled your calendar with this stuff that's not paying you what you're worth.

Shauna Lynn Simon (25:04.694)

This is one of the reasons that I talk about pricing so often because it's not just about confidence and having confidence in your price. I think that's definitely like don't that's a big thing. Don't get me wrong. And confidence helps. But confidence without clarity gets really shaky. So you need to know your numbers. You need to know your costs. You need to know your margins. Cause when someone starts challenging your pricing, if you just pull that number out of nowhere, you're like, maybe I should be less. I think maybe my competitors are charging less, right? But when you know your costs and your margins and your your real numbers.

You know exactly what each type of project actually requires from you. And when you don't have that clarity, we fill in those gaps with a little bit of fear. And fear is not the best pricing strategist to rely on. So for example, let's say you reduce your price by 10% because you really want a client to say yes. On the surface, this might seem like not that big of a deal, right? But if your profit margin was already tight, that 10%, it's not just gonna come out of this magical extra money you got sitting around somewhere, right? It's coming directly out of your profit.

So now doing the same amount of work with the same level of responsibility for less return. And also, let me tell you, I have also been guilty of this one. Maybe you're like, I just maybe they don't need the full process. I can change the way that I normally do things, cut a few corners, and then I can reduce the cost because I'm gonna spend a little less time on it. But we both know what's gonna happen. In your effort to cut corners and cut costs, you're going to actually end up spending.

more time trying to work outside of your standard systems and your standard processes because things aren't flowing the same way. Like there's a reason why the processes we have in place are there because they work, right? So this is what I mean when I say urgency gets expensive because when we have that pressure, that urgency for the money, we end up forgetting about all the extra emails that this project's going to take or you know, we set unclear expectations and the scope creeps. And all of this is going to add up. And when you're

Constantly stressed about money, it has a domino effect or a snowball effect. It's very hard to do the kind of thinking that actually grows your business in a meaningful way because you're constantly chasing that next buck, right? And so you may be physically working all day, but mentally you're in survival mode. And survival mode is not the same as strategy. Survival mode is exactly how it sounds. When your brain is busy putting out fires, you can't see the big picture, you can't make the clear decisions.

Shauna Lynn Simon (27:26.124)

Like you see right in front of you. If a lion is chasing you, are you looking into the forest or beyond the forest or whatever? Like, no, you're you're just looking like directly in front of you. And how do I get away from this lion? So you're not looking the big picture. You're not making those decisions and from a clear perspective, you're not really evaluating opportunities objectively. You might be thinking, like, that sounds like a lot of work, even though if you looked at it objectively, you might be like, well, that is a lot more work, but man.

The ROI, that return on the investment of my time and my energy, man, that's gonna be huge. You're not able to evaluate the offers that you have, the packages that you have, and really see if they're serving your ideal client. You're not going to do follow-ups with your clients from confidence. This one's huge. When you're feeling money pressure, you actually don't tend to do follow ups because you you're having this narrative in your head that you are already priced too high. Whereas if you're confident in what you're offering, you're following up because, like, yeah.

I'm gonna sell you what I've got here. I know you need it. So I'm gonna follow up because I'm assuming that you just haven't had chance to read my proposal. Because if you had, I know you'd be moving forward with it. Alright. You're you're following up with that confidence. And you can't lead your team well or build the systems and the sustainability into that business that's going to support long-term growth. And this is where business owners can get stuck in a really frustrating loop, right? They're stressed out about money. So they feel like they need to work harder. But because they're so stressed.

Work on whatever feels most immediate, most familiar, most controllable. So, you know, maybe it looks like tweaking the website again or reorganizing your files, or I gotta rework this logo. Maybe I need to just consume more information or more content. Maybe I just need to make a new spreadsheet. I'm guilty. Like, let me just make a spreadsheet for this. Like, and there's nothing inherently wrong with any of this. It sometimes these tasks are necessary and they land on our to-do list and we just don't have someone else that can do them. So, like, yeah, they gotta get done.

But when money's tight, we need to be brutally honest about what is actually going to bring in revenue into the business right now. Like, are you working on one or two tasks every day that would actually bring money in? And I mean real money and something that's actually gonna bring real money in. So what actually brings revenue into your business right now? I want you to ask yourself this question. What is actually bringing revenue into my business right now? And this question can be a little uncomfortable because, of course, it points us toward the tasks.

Shauna Lynn Simon (29:47.586)

That we've often been avoiding. So revenue might come from following up with some warm leads. I already talked about this one. Like follow ups can be tricky if we if we're not feeling confident and we're feeling that pressure. so revenue might come from reaching out to some past clients and seeing if they've got anything that they need that you can might be able to support with. Could just be like sending an email, making the offer, booking the sales conversation. Could even just be the way that you have those sales conversations. Maybe you've got a call on the calendar booked and you're like, I gotta be.

Perfect on this. And I'm gonna, you know, listen to this podcast episode about how to do a sales call. And meanwhile, if you had just allowed yourself to trust your gut and be yourself and sell the way you always sell, they would have been more likely to purchase from you, right? Where else might revenue come from? It might come from promoting something you already have, but you you mentioned it once a few months ago. It was a really good idea, but then you forgot to ever mention it again. Maybe you've got invoices that are due to go out that you've been nervous to send out. Maybe you're collecting on some overdue invoices.

Maybe it's a matter of finishing up that proposal and sending it out. What is it that you can be doing right now to bring in more revenue? So the answer is rarely, you know, I'm gonna spend three hours adjusting the font and moving things around on this PDF that I've got here. And listen, like I say this with love because I'm a bit of a Canada geek sometimes and I love getting lost in a good Canva document and adjusting that font for three hours straight. But at some point we have to ask Am I doing this because it's the highest value use of my time?

Or because it just feels a little safer than the thing that might actually create revenue. So I mentioned earlier about unexpected expenses. And I think this is a good lead-in to some of those unexpected expenses. Cause when we start thinking from a more positive place of how can I bring in revenue right now, it helps us in the times where we really do have that financial pressure. So unexpected expenses can feel absolutely derailing when you're building momentum, especially, right? And you feel like you're finally getting some footing, you're finally getting things going.

Only to have something come up. So maybe it's like an unexpected annual expense that you just forgot was coming due, or an error that you or one of your team members made that's going to cost you some money to make it up to the client. Maybe it was a vehicle breakdown. That was me. My car recently needed a new clutch. If for anyone who drives anything with a manual transmission, which yes is the best way to drive, it's also incredibly expensive when you need to replace the clutch. And for those who don't know, I drive a Mini Cooper and Mini Coopers.

Shauna Lynn Simon (32:09.792)

Are absolutely adorable in how they've been built. But the challenge is that because of how they've been built, they're incredibly expensive to repair because you practically have to take the car apart sometimes to get at the pieces. So let's just say it was not an inexpensive bill. So I want to help you to reframe how you handle some of these expenses because they're gonna happen in life, in business, like unexpected expenses are a just a part of everyday life.

So, you know, something breaks, a bill's higher than you expected, or a payment that you were expecting to come in is delayed. We talked about that earlier, or something costs more than you expected. You know, a launch cost more than you thought. Numerous different things that I can name here. So oftentimes, what does our brain start doing when we when we start thinking about this? We start thinking, how am I gonna pay for this? oh my gosh, what am I gonna have to give up? How can I cut back on some things, even if it's temporary, like, I just gotta really tighten things up. And I'm not saying not to do that. Like these are valid questions, but they're not always the

Most useful first question. So a better question can be, how can I make more money to cover this? Or how can I bring in more money right now to cover this? And again, it goes back to like, could it be as simple as following up on an overdue invoice or reaching out to a past client to see how you might be able to help them? So if you ask yourself, how can I make more money to cover this? The question doesn't magically solve everything, but it moves your brain from fear into problem solving.

And it helps you to look for opportunity instead of only looking for like, how do I sacrifice here? And again, let's go back to that busy work that we call productivity sometimes. Because maybe with this in mind, we look at our tasks a little bit more objectively. So again, it might lead you to follow up with leads you've been sitting on or promote that service you haven't talked about in a while. Maybe you just offer a limited number of strategy sessions, like a, you know, kind of create a new call of some sort or a new little like one-off service. You know, it maybe it has you tighten up your collections process, revisit a

Price that's just too low. I don't want to encourage you to do reckless spending. Like again, this is about unexpected expenses. I don't want to just say, like, you could just like be reckless clicking add to card on Amazon because you're like, I'll just go and make more money. Like, don't get me wrong, it's not a bad way to go about things, but I don't want you to be reckless about this. I don't want you to be ignoring expenses or pretending that budgets don't matter because they do. It's about remembering that in business, though, cutting down on something is not the only lever that you have. Revenue is also a lever.

Shauna Lynn Simon (34:26.968)

So we need to find a way to bring more of it in. So sometimes the question is just, you know, how can I make more money to cover that? And that gives your brain a much more useful assignment than what do I need to give up? Because your brain's gonna also avoid that as much as possible because that just feels a little uncomfortable. Bottom line is that the way that we think about money is gonna affect the way that you price. The way that you price affects your profit. And then your profit, of course, affects your capacity, your ability to serve your clients, and your capacity affects how you lead. If you're constantly undercharging, over-delivering.

Chasing poor fit work as in like not the ideal client, or saying yes from a place of panic, you're always gonna feel like you're just a little bit behind. And eventually the business starts to feel like it's just drowning you. So this is why money mindset is not just some fluffy concept or daily affirmations. It's about taking a different look at money. You need to see the practical side, which is your pricing, your margins.

Your expenses, your offers, your revenue, your cash flow, all of those things. And you also need to see the decision-making side of things, boundaries, clarity, confidence. You know, where do I want to go with this business? Does this align with this? That ability to pause before the urgency and the pressure take over. And so because the goal is not just to make more money, the goal is to build a business where the money supports your life, your energy, your values, and the impact that you want to have.

Okay, so if this episode's hitting close to home, I'm gonna leave you with a few questions. In case you didn't jot all these down as we're going through this. We'll leave you with few questions here. The next time you're making a decision that feels a little financially charged, I want you to ask yourself, number one, how would I approach this if I didn't need the money? If I didn't need the money, would I say yes to this client, this project, this price, this timeline, whatever element of it? It might not always just be like the would I say yes to this as a whole, but maybe certain elements of it. So how would I approach this if I did not need the money? Okay, that's one.

Number two, just ask yourself, am I making this decision from strategy or urgency? Because that just forces you to pause a little bit, right? Then I want you to ask, what is this opportunity actually going to cost me in time, energy, margin, and capacity? Because I think this is a question we should be asking every time we're approaching any opportunity that comes our way. The next question I want you to ask is what actually brings revenue into my business right now?

Shauna Lynn Simon (36:41.548)

And then am I avoiding the revenue generating action because it feels uncomfortable? So ask yourself what that revenue generating action is. If you're like, no, I don't need to do that right now. Are you saying that because it feels uncomfortable or is it because it's true? And if an unexpected expense has come up, how could I make more money to cover it instead of only asking what do I need to cut? The value comes from having the ability to pause long enough to ask some of these questions. And that's that very first question. What would I do if I didn't need the money?

Sometimes the better decision does not come from having all the answers, it comes from having a better question. Now, if this conversation has brought up a few things for you, pricing, I'm sure, is one of them. But how you're viewing things, how you're building your business, how you're growing your business, if you know that maybe your business has outgrown some of the ways you've been making these survival decisions, you've got survival systems you're living off of. You're in survival mode all the time. So this is affecting how you're pricing your work, how you're managing your time, how you're carrying yourself, how you're leading your team, how you're growing your team.

Then I'd love for you to take a closer look at the work that we do in the Real Women Real Business Mastery Program. This is where we work on building a stronger, more sustainable business that actually fits you and not just the lifestyle you have right now, but the lifestyle that you want to have, the future that you want to have, not one that's built from panic, from borrowed strategies or constant overextension. Like I've got frameworks in here that I will share with you and teach you and help you to develop into your own business.

not from a cookie cutter standpoint, but from a way that actually fits you. One with a business that now has clearer offers, better systems, stronger decisions, and more support behind you. Because making more money matters, but making money in a way that protects your energy, your values, and your capacity, that matters too. So if you're interested in checking out the Real Women Real Business program, we've got the link in the show notes. You can simply go to realwomenrealbusiness.com

and on that page if you're still not sure there's a a link there you can also book a call with me I'd love to have a coaching assessment call with you we can talk about your options and see what the best fit is for you. So if this is resonating with you, you know what I'm going to say anytime you join me on the show here of course is that first of all thank you so much for allowing me to continue to be a part of this journey. It's truly an honor for me to be able to share this with you. And if you really like this episode, I'd love for you to share on your favorite podcast platform, share a review

Shauna Lynn Simon (38:59.924)

give us a rating there and don't forget to subscribe to us so you're always notified of when a new episode has dropped, which is every Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. Eastern time. But of course, the best way that you can show your support, not only for this podcast, but for your fellow women entrepreneurs, show them that you care about them, show them that you want them to succeed and you want to raise them up as well. As you're climbing that ladder, we're bringing them up behind us or pushing them up ahead of us. And the best way to do that, share this episode with someone that you know needs to hear it. And let me let me be honest.

That's probably every entrepreneur you know. Share this episode with them. They're gonna thank you for it. Of course, I'd be more than grateful for it. And I truly, truly thank you for being here and for doing the work that you're doing. You've got this, you're strong, you're doing a great job, but we need to make it stronger so that you're not just surviving. We want to make sure that you really are thriving. I know it sounds cliche, but this is the work that's going to get you there. And I'd love to be able to do it with you.

So check out realwomenrealbusiness.com and until next time, keep thriving. Cause you already are. You just don't know it yet sometimes.