361 – How Your Business Income Should Impact Your Personal Life with Erinn Bridgman

Gift biz unwrapped episode 361,

You know,

weird making money,

doing what I love.

Isn't that the point Attention gifters bakers,

crafters, and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one.

Now you are in the right place.

This is gift to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode,

packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow.

Your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal Sue moon Heights.

Hi there.

It's Sue and thanks for joining me here today.

Are you like me?

I'm getting antsy for spring to come last weekend.

We set the time ahead.

So we lost an hour,

but I'm so looking forward to what's coming next.

Every once in a while,

I can even smell spring in the air.

It'll be a bit yet before we can open the windows

and let that fresh breeze in,

but it's coming.

What's also coming is tax season.

And if you haven't already,

you have no choice,

but to turn your attention to numbers,

your financials,

to be exact,

I know,

I know bringing this up,

prompts a little anxiety in me too.

You may have experienced,

or for sure you've heard stories about the nightmares of taxes.

Some ignore the numbers all year and now have to gather,

recreate, record and report all of their financial activities.

And if this is you and you owe taxes that you're

unprepared for well,

that can send you scrambling our conversation today touches briefly on

taxes. So if you're thinking you'll continue to avoid this topic

a little while longer,

stay tuned.

What we really dive into is the five reasons we tend

to avoid numbers.

You may find some insight here for yourself as we go

along. And of course,

then we talk about what to do about all this too.

The other big thing we cover is something usually left out

of financial conversations.

How your business numbers transfer over to affect your personal life.

Obviously there's income you make from your business for living expenses,

but it's more than that.

Taking control and planning out your complete financial strategy,

no matter how large or small the numbers are that you're

working with can enrich your life more than you can even

imagine Today.

It is my pleasure to introduce you to Erin Bridgeman,

as a money management and mindset.

Coach Aaron empowers female entrepreneurs to design a business that is

not just profitable,

but actually grows their personal wealth.

Born with an entrepreneurial spirit.

Aaron cut her chops by scaling her photography business to over

six figures.

In two years,

affording her the capital to begin funding the real estate empire.

She and her husband.

Now run note the word empire they're ever passionate about supporting

women as they uncover their own potential and earning power.

Aaron works with female business entrepreneurs to not just scale their

business, but to use it as a means for building personal

wealth while she's not working with our clients or finding her

next investment property,

Aaron can likely be found vacationing around the world and spending

quality time with family,

friends, her husband,

and her daughter,

Aviva Aaron,

welcome to the gift biz on reps podcast.

Yeah, I'm so excited to be here.

Thank you.

So You are like the perfect mix of business information that

can kind of get us all a little bit anxious and

product experience.

So that's going to be really fun to talk about.

Yeah. I love the blend of being a nerd and being

a business and being a creative and having that spirit to

It's going to be fun to talk about,

but before we're going to do that,

I have to do something.

That's been a tradition here on the show.

And that is to have you describe yourself in a creative

way through a motivational candle.

So if you were to envision a candle that really speaks

and resonates everything,

Aaron, what would the candle look like?

I love this question.

I've been thinking about this.

So, okay.

My candle is a part of a candelabra,

which I think is important to note because I always surround

myself with people and whatever,

if it's my social circle,

if it's in the business world,

if it's my clients that I'm impacting,

I've never burning alone.

I'm always burning with others.

And that's really important to me.

And also a swirled color.

Like the wax is all swirly and there's glitter in it,

but I like to be creative and have a ton of

fun. And the scent that goes off from the candle is

just this really like earthy kind of chill.

Cause I'm really working on tapping into my intuition and embracing

flow. And so that's what I got for you.

You've got a lot of levels go in there,

Aaron. Oh boy,

I've got to tell you,

I love the part.

The candelabra really threw me a little bit in the beginning.

Like where in the world is she going with this,

but working with others.

Right. So often I think that we feel like,

especially if we're an expert in our area that we should

know everything and we can't possibly know everything working with others,

collaborating and then also asking for support,

I think is really important.

Yeah. I'm all about that.

Yeah. And multi-colored yes,

because that's where you get your finance and products together.

Got That.

So definitely a lot to dig into here,

but let's talk a little bit,

I'm really,

really interested to hear the product side of your past.

So share a little bit about that with us.

Yeah. So as you shared in my intro,

I was a photographer at the beginning and as I started

bridging into really impacting entrepreneurs and doing coaching,

I created something called the bridge box,

which was filled with products made by female entrepreneurs.

And so I created a subscription box through that and wow,

that was just so fun to get,

to have a physical item that you knew was like shipping

out into the world.

And people were going to receive on our doorstep,

happy mail is one of my favorite things ever.

And so that was a really fun thing to be able

to create and put into people's hands.

And two,

I've worked with clients who are product based and in the

future, my dad and I are actually working on this is

kind of like not out in the public yet,

but we're working on launching a design align.

So that would be product based as well.

Oh, very cool.

So the product avenue just keeps coming back and interjecting itself

in your life one way or Goes Out,

comes back,

goes out,

comes back a little Bit.

What year were you doing the subscription box?

Oh, that's such a good question.

I think it was probably,

it was like three years ago.

Oh, okay.

So almost well,

I'm trying to think of fit that in because you know,

subscription boxes are all the,

are you right now?

Yes. So right in the beginning or maybe after it's kind

of taken off a little bit was when you started dabbling

and doing yours.

Yeah. People were like all about the subscription box.

You were subscribing for everything.

I mean,

I think people still are,

you know what I mean?

We subscribe for our razors and for our groceries and for,

you know,

it's not the cons box,

but yeah,

I think,

and this is typically my target of buyer loved the subscription

box and being introduced to new businesses.

The thing that's nice about that is people were already accustomed

to the idea now of a subscription where when you catch

kind of the wave in the beginning,

you're having to educate people on the value of it.

And then also the value of your products,

but subscriptions like let's face it.

I mean,

people were doing subscriptions to health,

clubs and apps on their phone,

you know,

all of that.

Why not merge over to a product based Yep.

Makes all the sense in the world.

And then now you also have a real estate overlay here

too. Yes.

So back in the day when we had been scaling our

photography business,

my husband and I,

we always say that we call our money soldiers and we

always want our soldiers to be working for us.

And we had saved up at the time,

a lot of money for us.

It was $18,000

from our photography business.

And we said,

we could pay off one student loan with this,

or we can buy an investment property that would pay off

all of our student loans over a period of time.

we have been evolving since then.

And really in the past year,

we've scaled an entire company to build our real estate empire.

Wonderful. And is that where you really got the experience and

the knowledge and the expertise of your financial side?

You know,

what, not really how I got that is more with all

the coaching work I've been doing with women over the past

five years.

So I've been a business coach for about five years and

I was really focusing on helping people with pricing strategy,

helping them with sales strategy and marketing and mindset to really

help them increase their business revenue,

whether they were service-based or product-based.

And as I kept doing that over the years,

I saw a consistent pattern of a need for support with

women, particularly around money,

both mindset and management,

particularly with creatives who tend to be pretty intimidated by numbers

and data's and spreadsheets.

And yet they were lighting me up.

I'm like creating all these spreadsheets and seeing how much it

can help that woman.

And so that has what is just evolved into really honing

into this money mindset and management side of things.

Sounds great.

And one of the reasons why I was very,

very interested in talking with you is I know you've worked

with a lot of product based businesses,

so, you know,

the financial end of that and where we tend to get

stuck, what have you seen with some of the people that

you've worked with,

the candle makers in the painters and jewelry makers,

all of that,

where do you see they're getting stuck on the financial end?

I see a couple of common themes.

One is really understanding the pricing of their products.

So looking at all the different ways that you need to

think about the cost of your product,

whether it's the actual physical material,

the time,

and getting a very clear and accurate number on that.

And of course I have spreadsheets for us to do that

with the product based businesses and really aligning.

Okay. So what do you want your hourly rate to be?

Because your hourly rate,

isn't just in making the product it's in all the work

you do to sell the product and go to the markets

and all that kind of thing.

And so really helping people get an understanding of when you

sell that candle,

what is your profit for that and about what is your

hourly rate when you kind of put all the numbers together?

So I think that's really important.

Yeah. And this is an area where we so under price

ourselves as makers,

we don't put nearly right price tag on our time.

And I think it's because we do this so easily or

it used to be a hobby that we did for fun.

So if we did it for fun,

how could we possibly charge for the time now that we're

a business,

but you have to.

Absolutely. And what happens is,

is like,

just like what you're saying,

most people who are product based businesses,

they kind of fell into it.

It wasn't like they were,

I want to be an entrepreneur.

So I'm going to like,

go start making this.

They made them for wedding favors or they decided that they

weren't going to hire someone to do it.

They were going to do it,

you know,

different things like that.

And then all of a sudden now they're like,

oh, people will,

the market's actually paying me for this.

So I could actually make money from this.

And I love it so much.

So I feel weird making money,

doing what I love.

Isn't that the point,

Yeah. The transition can be hard.

You're right.

Cause it was for a long time,

one thing,

and now it's turned into something else for profit.

Right. And then there's obviously there's that component of it.

And then there's also just like this worthiness around money.

And do I deserve that?

Will people pay that,

you know,

the scarcity mindset.

And so that's why I love to dig into the money

mindset of things and really understanding your own money journey and

then doing the work to understand like,

okay, well what would the market play?

And what would your ideal client pay so that you can

confidently raise your rates,

knowing that it's going to do well in the marketplace.

Yeah. You also take the whole money concept into a whole

different level,

which is really what I'd love to dive into today because

you talk about,

and I teach on this too,

like making sure that your business is profitable.

You know,

all the things we've just talked about,

you know,

the product,

making sure to account for your time,

all of that,

but you're also taking it to now.

Let's just not have a profitable business.

Let's talk about your personal wealth.

Yes. I love talking about this.

I could talk about it forever.

I think a lot of times as coaches and as you

see like the education field with businesses,

it's really focused on like,

how do we increase our business revenue?

A lot about business revenue.

Sometimes we get to profitability,

which is obviously those are important things,

but if we aren't taking our business and really hoping that

transfer into our personal lives,

we're kind of missing the point of the business.

And of course there's different seasons in business where you need

to be reinvesting back in.

But then there comes a time where we have to make

that switch and we have to get really conscious and strategic

about taking our business and making it impact our personal life.

And a really big way.

I see entrepreneurs struggling with this is not paying themselves a

consistent salary.

They often pay themselves last.

They kind of close their eyes and hope and you can't

be proactive when you're being so reactive with how you're paying

yourself. It's definitely a mindset thing.

And I think you also,

I'm guessing this is probably how you teach,

but you'll have to share and tell me is you have

to make a plan for it.

Like, I'll see a lot of people coming in and maybe

they're going to start a business out of their handmade product

because they have a desire for something like they have a

nine to five job already,

but they're making a product on the side.

They're recognizing that they could probably make some money off of

that. Maybe a friend even mentioned it to them and suggested,

gosh, you should be selling.

They maybe go to a craft show and see that indeed

they can make some money,

but then it's toward something like a family trip or they

want to get the house repainted or something like that.

And it seems to me that when that actually can happen,

then the light bulb comes on and it's like,

oh, so my handmade product and money I'm making off of

that really can affect my life.

So now how could I do it in a bigger way?

And that's what I see you focusing on is the bigger

way. Absolutely.

So I always say piles of green cash are not very

motivating. And so if we don't have a specificity that we're

putting our dollars towards,

it's just like,

what's the desire of fulfilling through this money.

And so what I love to do is help people get

very clear on their personal goals,

whether that is just general lifestyle improvements,

whether that means debt,

payoff, savings plan,

working towards getting money to work into investing.

You know,

some of your people maybe are right at the place where

they're trying to decide if they can make this their full-time

job. Can they quit that nine to five and really put

it all into their side hustle and you can get really

clear on that with numbers and knowing,

okay, how much do I need to live?

What is my monthly budget?

Okay. And then what would my business have to be able

to pay me to fulfill that lifestyle?

Or what would I need to do?

Okay. I have $20,000

of student debt.

Okay. We can get a lot of times people have debt.

They don't even know how exactly how much or they want

to buy this dream house,

but they don't even know maybe exactly what the down payment

is for that.

And when we get super drilled in to that,

and then we see,

okay, how can our business,

the profitability of it start to go towards those personal desires.

You're going to be way more motivated to make that happen.

Okay. So everything you just said there,

I think are things that we I'm speaking generalities of course,

but a lot of us just put blinders on because you're

telling us now we need to look at the numbers.

Exactly. And a lot of times I think we,

maybe I'm really being general here when I say we,

but I'm just thinking of things that I've encountered and seen

with other people is they'll look at some numbers,

but not the complete picture.

Like they'll look at,

oh, well,

you know,

I just made $3,000

off a show this weekend.

Well, that's fabulous.

But did the show cost 5,000

So how much did you really make off the show?

Not just top line revenue And not just that,

but also like how much did it cost to make the

product and then how much time did it take,

you know?

Okay. Then you can really make a decision on whether that

was a good market or not.

Yeah. So what was your true,

true profit when you get down to it?

Exactly. I think we've kind of framed the problem here.

You know,

the problem is we're not always looking at our numbers.

There's huge opportunity out there with your handmade product,

but we need to be able to form that bridge to

go across.

So could you put in some simple terms,

maybe some concrete steps of how we do that.

It sounds like you start with the pricing,

right? Knowing the pricing of your product.

Well, this is what I'd love to start with.

I love being really concrete and really tangible.

I know that's helpful for your audience.

Very helpful.

Yeah. Yeah.

I would ask,

talk about first,

like what you touched on about like,

we fear the numbers,

we're avoiding the numbers and I've kind of brought it down

to, there's like five different reasons why we are often avoiding

our numbers.

And so the first step I would say is to kind

of figure out which one of these is you,

because awareness around that is going to be the key to

start stepping into different action.

So sometimes we say we have what our numbers,

because we're not a numbers person.

I hear women say this a lot.

Oh, you're just not good at math.

I'm a numbers person.

And I love to just totally push against this and say,

nobody is born knowing numbers.

Nobody is born knowing math.

This is a skill that you can attain.

And so if you're kind of using that as an excuse

or as a label,

I would say,

okay, let's get some tools and get some coaching education that

will help you feel supported in becoming a numbers person.

Yes. And what I'm finding with numbers for business is we're

not talking about algebraic equations like you used to do in

school, you know,

the X's and the Y's and calculus and everything else.

We're talking about some pretty basic math.

And then what that story tells you,

what the numbers create for you.

I think we just overwhelm ourself when we say math and

I'm one of them,

I'll say it,

I fall into that.

I'm not a numbers girl,

but you know what I've learned to be because I have

no choice.

Yes. It's a skill.

And when you move from making jewelry for fun to making

it into a business right away,

you are now making it about money,

about numbers,

about that.

And so you've got to learn that skill.

Okay. So I didn't mean to stop you,

but I think a lot of people fall into that category

and listen,

it's adding and subtracting and hopefully it's a lot of numbers

being added,

But that's another story.

Okay. Okay.

So reason number one,

you're not a numbers person.

Number two,

you're afraid.

So you're actually afraid of maybe what you will see.

So I think this is so interesting because with knowledge comes

power and with the lack of knowledge comes fear.

And so if you're afraid you're going to see something bad,

it would be better to see the bad thing sooner.

So you can correct it versus scale a super like non-profitable

business. So I think that's really important to remember maybe somebody

avoids because numbers have defined them in really unhealthy ways in

the past.

Maybe it's a triggering thing,

whether it's the number on the scale or the number of

followers on Instagram or whatever the case is,

you just kind of have this toxic relationship with numbers.

Maybe you think it doesn't really matter,

which is probably the biggest issue if you,

which I don't think most people would honestly say they're rubbing

up against this because they know it matters at some level.

And then sometimes it's not having the correct tools,

not knowing you.

Well, it isn't over complicated.

If you didn't intend to go into business,

it can be hard to think through exactly.

Okay. How much do,

what do I calculate for taxes?

And how do I remember to include everything that I'm going

out and how do I see cashflow in our business and

different things like that.

And so then you have a tool problem and you just

need to have the right tools.

And so I just wanted to start with that.

Cause I feel like you brought that up.

That's a really concrete sort of list to think through where

do I fall into and then what can I do about

that then?

Okay, perfect.

So I've captured them,

but I only have four,

not five.

So see where I fell off here.

Okay. Not good at math being afraid,

thinking that it really doesn't matter and not having the right

tools. What did I miss?

You missed like numbers have defined you in like toxic ways

before. Yeah.

So a whole mindset thing.

It might even be just subtle comments that were brought up

in your childhood money.

Doesn't grow on trees,

or we can't afford that.

Or any of these like subliminal things that you may not

even know that you're affected by that.

Yes. And that is a huge part of it.

Right? We,

your listeners have been alive for 20,

30, 40 years and we have these messages that we've been

putting on repeat that is forming our subconscious.

And so when I work with people,

I love for us to dig into what is your money

journey? What has been your story around money?

What have you been taught by society,

by your peers,

by your parents and what of it is good that we

want to keep amplifying?

And what is that is that we need to rewire.

Right. And you know,

if you don't look at this,

it doesn't go away.

It's still sitting there.

So whether you don't feel like you have the skills in

terms of the knowledge,

whether you're just afraid to face those numbers,

whether you aren't sure or you say to yourself that maybe

it doesn't matter,

all of these things doesn't mean that it doesn't go away.

So if your numbers aren't set properly,

you're still walking down the road to the same thing,

whether you're recognizing and seeing and looking at the numbers or

not Exactly.

I love how you put that analogy.

That's perfect.

Okay. So we have to figure out how to look at

our numbers.

And I don't know if I want to go there.

Totally. Aaron,

you tell me because I really,

really want to dive into some tax conversation because I feel

like it's appropriate this time of year.

We're sitting here in March,

as people will be listening to this and taxes are right

around the corner.

So I'd like to dive into that conversation,

but do we need to start somewhere else first?

You know,

I think it's all combined.

So part of knowing your numbers is knowing your tax number.

And a lot of times that is something that's neglected,

especially early in business.

And you take that $3,000

that you just made up the market business revenue,

And you've got to remember that you owe 30% of that

to the government.

And so really I used to say,

when I was shooting weddings based on my tax percentage and

whatever, it's like,

oh, I shot three or four weddings for the government this

year. Just like really understanding that is a significant expense for

us as business owners.

take, let's say half of that,

even including your time and your cost of goods and all

of that,

you had 50%.

that's not really true because a portion of that is going

to go in taxes,

Right? And if we keep kind of doing it,

we do an average,

we'll say 30% of that is going to taxes and then

$450 is going to taxes.

So you take that right off of your $1,500.

And that is what you get to put in your pocket.

So something that was $3,000

is now $1,050.

Okay. So I know this happens and you probably see this

all the time.

Erin is,

we don't really think about it until it becomes right now,

tax time.

And maybe this is the nightmare.

Okay. We've reinvested any money that we've made,

not accounting for money that we're going to need to pay

in taxes.

And now all of a sudden we do our taxes and

we see that we don't have the money to cover what

we're going to.

Oh Yes.

And that happened to me about five years ago.

And I had an $18,000

tax bill that I had missed.

Well, congratulations,

because that means you had some good earnings,

Right? It's like,

that's a good sign and not so good right now.

And sometimes we predict our tax payment off of previous years

over not accounted for the fact that we just with our

revenue, which was our goal.

And we didn't double our tax payment and I'm on a

mission with everybody that I work with that they'll never be

surprised by a tax bill in the future.

And so one thing I have people do is inside of

my money matrix system,

we estimate your tax percentage based upon your previous year.

And then every month based on the profitability of your company,

it will show you exactly how much you need to set

aside in for taxes.

And I have a system where I recommend having six different

bank accounts,

some for personal,

some for business.

And one of those is your tax account.

And so every month,

based on the profitability of your company,

you're putting that aside right away.

And so you put that into your tax business account.

So it's not even something that you can see as an

operating money for you.

It's set aside.

And many times as you're moving from being earlier on into

business, into maturing,

your accountant or bookkeeper or whatnot,

is going to recommend that you start to pay quarterly taxes

and I'm going to recommend it to,

of course,

like I say,

I'm not a financial planner.

I'm not an accountant.

I'm not those things,

but just seeing like habit and,

and how this sets you up.

Well, it's helps you plan and not have this crazy,

huge bill that you haven't planned for us.

Yeah. And having the peace of mind that it's already covered,

you know,

you have a system in place,

you know,

that it's covered,

okay. Back this up for a second for us first.

And I think a good way to talk about this would

be someone who's just starting because everyone,

if when you're listening,

you can figure out an interject where you are along the

journey based on how big your business is or how long

you've been in business,

et cetera.

But if someone is just starting out,

what would you suggest as the right way to set up

financially? Aaron will be answering this question after a short pause

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So, okay.

I want to say for your listeners who are starting right

at the beginning,

one of the first things I want to,

because, you know,

I do work with people who are further along in their

journey, but many times we're undoing things that like could have

been, you know,

if we were doing this in the beginning,

it would have been great.

So your listeners who are at the beginning have an advantage.

And so I need to recommend that you have CFO meetings

with yourself and at the beginning,

maybe to get in a rhythm like every week.

And in that case,

you will be looking at your numbers.

You will be whether you're starting scrappy with an Excel spreadsheet

at the beginning,

but you are inputting what your revenue has been,

what your expenses has been so that you can see your

profit. And that's really easy.

That's revenue minus expenses equals your profit and that you're updating

your Excel spreadsheet or whatever you're using to be able to

see that.

And then a safe,

take 30% of your profit.

You can make a formula for that and put that into

a business account for taxes.

And every month you'll want to assess the profitability of your

business for that month.

Start to see trends,

things like that,

but right away through just surname,

I think you have to know those numbers in order to

make any sort of decision,

like, okay,

I can afford to buy more wax or I can afford

to invest in this piece of equipment.

You have to be working off of real numbers,

not just the money in your pocket.

Yes. Okay.

I agree.

And Aaron,

I'm going to tell you a story that is going to

make you turn white.

Okay. If you've been listening to the podcast for a while,

you may have heard this story before,

but there was a point in time.

Now this is several years back now that I was working

with someone who had a brick and mortar shop,

and we got onto the conversation about finances.

I was doing an audit of her whole business,

and here we go,

she was hand penciling,

her sales on a piece of paper.

And that was it.

That was all she was doing.

Are you white?

Oh my gosh.

Yeah. That makes,

gives me sort of like heart palpitations.

I know because I'm like,

first off you have no idea where you're at and you

have a lease.

So your overhead costs are much larger than if you were

at home.

But also heaven forbid what if you were to get audited,

you have no trail at all.

So I like the idea if you're starting scrappy an Excel

spreadsheet, but I would way rather have someone right away invest

in some type of a system.

We need a system.

And I'm just going to say QuickBooks,

cause that's what I'm most familiar with and would recommend,

You know,

when we were talking earlier about adding and subtracting,

you don't even have to do that.

If you've got it set up,

you just have to put in the numbers when they come

in or in QuickBooks case,

many times it'll just funnel in,

you know,

you can set it up to funnel in,

Right. And that whole,

you just have to enter it or you just have to

look at it.

That's why I say right from the beginning,

you should be doing your CFO meetings where you have time

every week so that it's not like,

oh, now you have to enter a ton of things because

you haven't done it for a month.

Right. It's much easier and probable to do one week at

a time and just stay on top of it then to

kind of let yourself get buried with something that already overwhelmed

you. Right.

All right.

So Aaron,

we get a bookkeeping system in place,

whether it's an Excel spreadsheet,

whether it's QuickBooks or a similar system and enter in,

like you were saying every single month or week,

we know however you want to do it,

but on a regular basis,

have a meeting with yourself.

I think that also helps us get familiar and more comfortable

with the numbers too.

Absolutely. If we're doing,

if we're putting them together and eventually as you get bigger,

maybe you'll have someone else take over your bookkeeping.

Like I did.

Thank God.

That was a day of joy and celebration when I was

able to do that.

But you know what?

I did it myself for a long,

long time,

which helped me really understand the numbers,

you know,

and profit and loss statements and all of that.

But so we want to do all of that,

but what type of record keeping should we be doing?

Like, do we need to save all of our receipts?

If it's already logged into QuickBooks or something,

Your accountant's going to tell you to save your receipts,

right? Because if you get audited,

that's going to be something that you're going to need to

have. They're going to be able to,

and an accountant is going to be,

and a following accountant on Instagram,

like doing stuff like that,

creative accountants is going to be really helpful.

They put out a ton of amazing tips and helpful things

for you to know and understanding maybe different jargon or different

particular nuances of the law and stuff like that.

So that you can feel like you're crapping yourself and doing

things right.

But from my understanding,

you're going to want to keep organized receipts.

You know what I did in the very beginning,

this was with a business that I don't have any more.

I merged it.

Won't go into my business story here.

But when I first started on my own,

I joined the chamber,

wanted to be part of networking groups and rubbed shoulders with

other people.

And one of the people there was an accountant.

And so what did I do?

I sat down with them,

you know,

we had a little,

I didn't pay,

I think I might've done a trade or they might've done

it for,

I don't even remember.

And we talked all this through,

like, what do I need to set up?

How should I set up?

What should I not be forgetting things like keeping receipts,

any questions that I had.

So that's an opportunity if you're part of a chamber who's

there, who could answer a question for you or put you

on the path.

And sometimes that might be at a charge and it's worth

it to get it set up properly.

Aaron, it sounds like that's some of what you provide,

right? Just getting things going properly.

Absolutely. And a part of like,

what makes me different from a bookkeeper or an accountant,

you need both at a certain stage,

I believe.

And I love for people,

your P and L sheet.

That's what you're creating for the IRS.

That's accounting for every dollar every month.

That's what you're going to need to submit for taxes.

So having a bookkeeper,

having yourself do that is very important.

And then you give it to your accountant,

but that's just like one piece of being the CFO of

your company.

And so what I love to teach people and where I

move people to is really helping them understand what is not

just working cause PNL sheets and stuff like that.

It's very retroactive.

It's very like I've spent the money and now I'm allocating

for it.

Maybe I'm looking at what I used to do or what

I used to spend seeing trends,

but what about really like thinking of the present to the

future? And so I like to help people start to really

see, okay,

start to create projections for their business so that they're automatically

going to then work to make more money,

start to see they be able to make really clear decisions

on, I do have the ability to outsource this now because

I can see based on my numbers that I have room

for that.

And I'm going to be able to allocate that towards hiring

someone or towards hiring a bookkeeper or investing in that piece

of equipment.

And so those are things that no bookkeeper can do or

accountant can do this and stuff that you have to do.

And so that's what I love to help people do is

to really like understand their numbers,

create projections,

analyze the numbers,

figure out how do you make yourself pay a consistent salary

and how do you up that salary?

And that's the business side that I love.

And then a piece of the conversation we haven't really touched

on so much as all the personal stuff.

And I think that's something that is needed.

And that I love to talk about is you also need

to be the CFO of your personal life,

not just your business.

And we spend a lot of time talking now about like

your business numbers and all of those things,

and that's important,

but the whole point is to take your business summers and

bring them into your personal life.

And so I have a system where I teach,

how do we understand your personal numbers,

your personal goals put real actual numbers to that and then

have the numbers from your business transfer over to your personal

life. And so just want to say that,

cause I think that's a really big piece of this that

we want to develop beyond just the beginning and the basis

of P and L seats and things like that.

I love that.

And really what you're doing here is forming a full picture.

Like you're talking about,

you have real estate investments and you're doing coaching.

You're your money mindset,

coach. Right?

All different types of things for hand made creators.

It might be you have a nine to five.

So you have revenue coming in from there.

You may have your partner,

who's making money.

So that's coming into the personal account.

If you're merging all of your money together,

then you have your handmade business merging in.

So that's how you get your full picture of your personal

life finances,

right? It all is coming together.

Yeah. And that's the income part.

And you can't know the income of your personal life unless

you know,

your business numbers.

So that's why we dial that all in.

And if we start to do things like projections and strategic

ways of allocating money to increase profitability,

to increase revenue,

then we can start to increase your income to yourself,

increase your personal salary.

And so you got to do all that in the business

side, but then the financial personal side is yeah.

Knowing all the different revenues that are coming in and getting

a clear picture and then understanding your current monthly budget.

A lot of people I work with like very successful people

don't know how much they need to live.

And so really understanding what that is.

And then what is the upscale version of that?

What is the next step,

next level?

What are you wanting to walk into as a wealthy woman

and then understanding your short-term savings plan so that you're saving

all year for Christmas or you're saving all year for your

home improvements or your car maintenance and that's those aren't accidents

you're prepared and then also creating a long-term financial plan.

And so that's where I talk about five different areas where

you should create long-term goals.

Each person's a little bit different,

but based on that is your first goal to pay down

debt. Is it to create a bigger savings?

Is it to start investing?

Whatever is it start to be more generous?

Is it about like large lifestyle improvements?

Those are kind of the five areas we look at and

we assign dollars to those goals.

And so if your listeners are full-time entrepreneurs,

they are not given handed a 401k,

they're not handed a retirement plan.

And so while you,

for sure,

want to make the present work and make sure that you're

living the life that you can,

and you're cashflowing that lifestyle.

You also want to think about your future.

Yeah. And the earlier you start thinking about your future,

the better when I was in corporate,

I did any matching programs that I could because I didn't

ever see that money to the point we were talking about

earlier, if you just put it aside in a separate account

or wherever it's going to go,

you don't feel like you ever had it to be taken

away. You've earned it,

but it's sitting in somewhere else.

And that has served me so well even to this day.

And it didn't have to be a lot taken out at

that point.

It didn't even hurt.

You know,

I didn't feel like I was making any type of a

sacrifice. And as I started seeing those numbers grow and then

the ability when it became fully vested or whenever I had

access to the money to be able to reinvest watching those

numbers grow is so rewarding.

And knowing that you have a plan for the future,

you know,

I'm getting closer to retirement now.

So if I were to start now versus having started,

then I wouldn't have been as far along we were starting,

then it was pretty effortless to do.

But having said that,

and you heard me hesitate for a second,

it's never too late to start.

Right. So no matter where you are,

if you're not doing it yet,

get started Right.

Start now it's better than starting later.

Yeah. So I love the five areas and I love the

idea of talking about long-term goals.

I heard you speaking about,

you know,

a give back component there to a cause you care about,

or whatever of course retirement is we were just talking about

or debt,

payback, whatever your goals are.

Yep. So I teach five just to be really clear.

So your audience can hear that it's debt paid down savings

plans, and there's two levels of savings.

Whether it's like emergency savings,

you need to have that.

And then the longer term savings generosity.

So how do you,

maybe you're wanting to use the power of money to give

back in a certain way.

And so your goal is to make more money is really

around that.

And I think that's a very important thing.

And then investments and then significant lifestyle improvements,

whether that's upgrading your home or getting the boat or whatever,

those are the five kind of financial longer-term goals.

I like people to look at.

And obviously depending on where you're at in your money journey,

certain things are going to be more important than others.

Sure, absolutely.

And so how do you work with clients?

Is it group coaching with the concepts?

Is it one-on-one share with us a little bit about that?

Yeah. So I run a,

something called the wealthy woman intensive.

It's an eight week group coaching experience where we go through

both mindset and really dig it out of a whole money

mindset, sort of journey people go on through journaling and different

activities and group coaching teaching that I do.

And then I also go through our,

my money matrix system,

which is a system that covers both being the CFO of

your business and your personal life.

And so there's lots of good spreadsheets and nerdy things that

are designed for creative.

So they're very approachable.

And so in eight weeks we get,

you dialed up both in your mindset and in your management

and you get to use those tools then for years to

come. And so within that program,

there's the ability to work with me a bit more one-on-one

or to do more of the,

just the group route.

And then after that people choose to kind of work with

me sometimes in a more one-on-one high touch capacity.

Okay. Wonderful.

And what would you say with people who come to you

in the beginning?

How are they in the beginning?

And what's that transition when they pull out of your classes

have gone through the group coaching class,

what's the value been to them?

And I will say this is a newer offering.

So I am actually just getting ready to,

you're starting again tomorrow are new,

but I've been doing this work with people one-on-one for years.

And I've just kind of evolved into more of a group

program. I would love to maybe share a couple of actual

client stories if that's okay.

Cause I feel like that helps people relate.

Yeah, that'd be great because I'm interested in the value of

doing this because,

and my motivation here is someone who's listening.

Who's like,

yeah, yeah.

I buy in.

I understand.

I understand.

And then we get off and are all done with this

podcast and it kind of gets forgotten.

So I think understanding the value and what this helps you

with inside your life could be really,

really interesting to listen to.

So yes,

if you have a few examples,

I'd love to hear them.

Yeah, I'll do that.

So I think we have these dreams inside of us.

And many times the dreams inside of us are tied to

money. Whether it's,

I want to go full-time into this business or I want

to retire my husband,

or I want to have a bigger home or for all

the kids that want to have or whatever the case is,

what a lot of those junior lava schools all have a

monetary value attached to them.

And so a lot of times,

so a couple of clients stories.

So one client I worked with got a year and a

half ago,

her vision was,

she wanted to retire her husband.

She went to be able to bring him home.

She has four kids.

And so at that point it felt like a very far

off dream.

And within about a year of working together,

we were able to make that dream a reality.

And that was through this type of work,

through her belief,

in what she could bring in,

in her company.

She was stretching herself at a number of like 6,000.

And she's tripled that number since the time we've worked together,

we're together a couple of years now,

but not only that though,

she understood her numbers and her cashflow in our personal numbers

and her business numbers and why her husband was bringing in

and what she would need to do in her company to

bring in that.

And she was able to like,

not only increase her business revenue,

but know all of the facts to retire her husband.

I just jumped for joy for that.

That's amazing.

You hear stories like this and the truth is this doesn't

just happen overnight.

It only happens with a plan.

Absolutely. And that's what you're doing is you're providing,

you're looking at the unique situation of anyone that you're coaching

or have them look at it.

If it's in a group coaching environment,

right. Understand where they are,

think of what their goals are,

all your goals that you were mentioning and then figuring out

a plan to get there and not just wishing that it'll

happen. And when I say a plan like I'm very practical

and these tools are very specific.

So it's like literally seeing here's your overflow from your personal

life. We have $790 this month and we've strategized your financial

large goals.

And we know where to put the $790 and we're literally

putting it onto the next tab of the spreadsheet.

And it's calculating it,

showing you how much you've progressed towards that goal.

And just to get really specific.

And it's understanding your business enough to see,

okay, we can actually see cashflow based upon your actual book

and your projections.

And so we know it's going to be safe in two

months for you to move your salary from 4,000

to $5,000.

And so let's put that extra thousand into our personal side

of our matrix.

Oh, now we have the next month we have $1,580

leftover. Okay,

we're going to put that towards this particular financial goal.

And so it's very drilled in and very practical.

It's not this,

it becomes right.

We take it from this hopeful,

ideal thing to a real goal,

with a real number,

with a real plan to get there,

Which is so exciting because you already see how the future

is achievable.

You see the numbers on the paper.

Yes. What the one gal,

this is another really fun story from the last program.

They had been her and her husband and her son,

her little boy had been looking for their next house for

like a year with an in the market's crazy here in

Indianapolis. And so for a whole year,

they're like getting really discouraged.

And I mean,

obviously we talked to him just a little bit because I'm

in real estate so I can empathize.

And she said at the end of the,

where as you're wrapping up the program,

she was like,

I just have to say this.

I have to say that because of the work we did

in this program,

I am able to know that I can build my dream

home, that we can afford it.

And she's working with a builder currently and they're building their

dream home.

She was like,

if I didn't do this work,

I would have never known me because I've done this.

I would have never stepped into this,

but I know.

And so cool.

Like we do the mindset work where she's been writing down

her future manifestation of this particular for her office,

her room with French doors and like natural light,

just beaming in.

And she's like,

the builder is working with me to make that very room.

I know I'm just like,

this is why I do this work.

It's real women having real breakthroughs.

And I think too,

I want to say like the mindset component is so huge

and women coming onto calls and being vulnerable and crying.

And one of the women in last group was talking about

how she's like,

wow, I didn't know.

I had so much like mindset stuff around money.

And she's like,

as I'm drilling into this,

I'm noticing how my mom treated herself and how my mom

treated herself with money.

And I am running up against the same sort of thing

where I'm having this worthiness complex,

where I'm like,

well, I'm not worthy.

She really wanted to buy a Peloton and she knew she

could afford it,

but it was as she dug into it,

why was she was having resistance?

It was around this worthiness that she had been modeled,

but her mom just sacrificing wasn't worthy of things like that.

Wasn't worthy to be splurged on.

And she was living that out and she was like,

I do not want to live that out from my daughter.

Right. And so I'm drilling into this wordiness and really seeing

where is this coming from and how can I retrain myself?

And of course she bought the Peloton and that's amazing,

but what's more amazing is the work that she did to

like start to really receive worthiness.

And that's even more why I do this work.

Is that personal transformation that happens for women.

Beautiful. Yes.

I love that.

I'm just going to go back.

Cause I just want to reference what you were saying also

with this last example,

is that so often,

like let's go with the home improvements,

right? You feel like you spend the money and it's like,

gosh, I hope I could afford this because you haven't looked

at your numbers.

And so you're throwing money and saying,

I'm just going to figure it out one way or another.

And so you're so stressed thinking about whether you can afford

it, that you don't even really enjoy what's happening along the

way. Yes.

And aren't excited and appreciative and looking forward to it.

You are initially,

but then you're like crap because it's going to bankrupt me.

Like I don't even know,

or how much do I even have available that I can

spend. And all of that gets wiped away.

It sounds like with the type of things that you're teaching,

you know,

and the way it goes from business to personal,

to fulfilling the goals in personal and moving forward.

So, so much value there.

Aaron, I love it.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah. You get to be in the driver's seat,

right? This is you starting to really say like,

yeah, you're going to build a house and your dream house.

You're going to step into that with confidence and with knowing,

Hey, I can afford it.

I'm a boss.

I've got this,

you know,

versus like,

geez, I hope closing your eyes and open.

And Brian,

you know,

that's very different vibe and energy And setting it a different

example for the future for your children as well.

Yes. I always say this and I think this is like

wealthy women will change the world.

And that's why I do this work.

And I believe that statistically,

you know,

that women are more altruistic when it comes to money.

But I also say that because wealthy women,

the work that we have to do internally in order to

come at numbers differently and money differently,

it creates a changed woman.

And also I like to blow it out to even a

bigger picture of like,

this is a societal movement.

This is a change.

You know,

it wasn't a hundred years ago,

less than a hundred years ago,

a woman can open a bank account by herself,

less than a hundred years ago,

a woman could have her own credit card.

I mean,

we're very like if we look at society and what women

have been up against us,

stepping into this new version is not just for us and

not just for maybe the generation that comes after us,

but it's about something much bigger.

And I just love to like,

show that so that people can like step into this with

like real belief in what they're doing.

We were talking a little bit about some of the things

you have coming up.

Do you want to share that with us?

Sure. I would love to.

Okay. So this is Erin middle of March.

So I would love for people to sign up.

You can get on the wait list so you can sign

up for the wealthy woman workshop.

This is a three day intentional kind of program where it

that's totally free where we talk through,

how do we think plan and show up like wealthy women.

And I'm super action-oriented there's video trainings.

There's worksheets.

We do it as a group.

It's really fun.

So I'd highly recommend your audience doing that.

And then also there's a free,

wealthy woman checklist that helps you get really just kind of

all the things that we talked about.

Although floating things about bank accounts and knowing this and that

and your personal business it's all very organized for you there.

So I'd highly recommend that your audience grab that A good

first step into getting to all the things we talked about,

even if you've been very focused on your business finances before,

but making that leap and merging it,

how your business finances affect your personal and then adding in

that layer of goals,

where else online would you send people to go and see

more about you?

Yeah, so I'm most active on Instagram,

so you can find me and follow me there.

It's Erin underscore Bridgman.

My name is spelled different.

Cause my parents have to do that to me,

I guess.

So it's Erin E R I N N underscore Bridgman B

R I D G M a N.

Perfect. And of course that will be in the show notes.

So if you're out driving,

walking around,

aren't able to make note of that.

You can always access the show notes for that as well.

Aaron, this has been absolutely fabulous.

Thank you so much for coming on the show today,

sharing with us all of your knowledge expertise and some concepts

we really haven't talked about before that can enhance our life

overall. It was an honor.

Thank you so much.

Interesting discussion.

Yes. Even though it's important to separate your business numbers from

your personal finances for documentation purposes,

let's face it.

We're in business ultimately to add to our personal accounts when

those dollars crossover their potential to add to the quality of

your life and your future is something certainly not worth being

left to chance.

Next Saturday,

we're talking with an ex pat mom who has turned her

creative skills into over 10,000

Etsy sales that you'll want to tune in for that.

And finally,

thank you so much for spending time with me today.

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