895 Danielle Hayden: Financial Fluency

Melinda Wittstock:

Coming up on Wings of Inspired Business:

Danielle Hayden:

You’re passionate about that craft, but now that you’re in business, you actually have to run the business side of the business, and that includes your numbers, and that includes managing money. But guess what? Remember that teacher who talked negative about money? Or your parents who are fighting at the kitchen table? All of that comes into business with you, and you’re telling yourself all of these emotional stories. If we can overcome and rewrite that story, we can start to embrace what our numbers are telling us.. It is our responsibility and our job as business owners to listen to the story and use that story to make better business decisions.

Melinda Wittstock:

The numbers do tell the story of your business – it’s growth, it’s challenges, it’s opportunities. Yet so many founders fear their numbers; ignore their numbers. Danielle Hayden is a former corporate CFO on a mission to help rule-breaking female entrepreneurs understand their numbers so they can gain the confidence needed to create sustainable profits, and like Danielle says, our success all comes down to our money mindset.

Melinda Wittstock:

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m all about paying it forward as a five-time serial entrepreneur, so this podcast is all about catalyzing an ecosystem where women entrepreneurs mentor, promote, buy from, and invest in each other. Because together we’re stronger, we all soar higher when we fly together, and that’s why we lift as we climb.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who has made it her mission to empower entrepreneurs by helping them master their business financials. Danielle Hayden is the co-owner of Kickstart Accounting, Inc. and author of the book The Profit Planner. As a former corporate CFO and entrepreneur, Danielle shares insights for how to understand what she calls your “money personality” as well as vital tips for how to overcome any limiting beliefs about money constraining your business success so you can make smart decisions, plus everything from understanding financial statements and budgeting to intention setting and proactive management to optimize your revenue and profit.

Melinda Wittstock:

Danielle will be here in a moment, and first:

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Melinda Wittstock:

What is your money personality? Do you know? Maybe you’re a free spender, a keeper, perfectionist, or a balance seeker. And here’s why you should care about your usually unconscious money stories and habits: These are the often unseen hand that drives our success in business.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we talk about the importance of being on top of your numbers, and understanding how these manifest and align with your true intentions for growing your business. For women entrepreneurs this means no more excuses like “I’m not good at math” – it means confronting fears, asking for help, boosting your financial fluency, and bringing in the right team members and experts.

Melinda Wittstock:

Danielle Hayden is a former corporate CFO who became an entrepreneur to help other women master their finances. The CEO and founder of Kickstart Accounting and author of the Profit Planner book series, Danielle shares her entrepreneurial journey along with important advice on everything from proactive budgeting and financial modeling in alignment with your intentions to understanding financial statements, optimizing revenue, cash flow, and profitability, and enhancing your financial acumen and building your team of experts to help you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Danielle Hayden and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

[INTERVIEW]

Melinda Wittstock:

Danielle, welcome to Wings.

Danielle Hayden:

Thank you so much for having me.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, I’m excited because we’re going to be talking about numbers in all things accounting and bookkeeping. And to some people, that’s like a terrifying or perhaps even boring subject, but it’s vital to the success of …

Danielle Hayden:

I promise I will make sure that it’s not boring. I would say we are fun accountants, and I really try to speak about accounting at an entrepreneur level.

Melinda Wittstock:

Numbers tell a story. Over the years with all the female founders that I’ve mentored and, you know, just so many of the women on this podcast, all female founders, for some reason, in various ways, have had to overcome a fear of numbers or a fear of looking at the numbers or leveraging the numbers. What’s that about?

Danielle Hayden:

You know, I think that we think we can compartmentalize, right? So that we think that we’re a person at home and then a different person at work, and we can’t. So as individuals, we’re living a human experience. So, we’ve gone to school, we watched our parents struggle with money or have money. We watched our aunt and uncles, our grandparents, our teachers, our colleagues, our friends, right? We’ve watched them all have experiences with money. And then let’s, not to mention what’s on Instagram and tv shows and movies that women aren’t air, quote, good with money, that our husbands need to manage finances, or we’re not in the STEM programs, right? So, there’s all this background noise, and then we come into business, right? We become business owners, and we come into business because we’re really passionate about our craft. We’re passionate and we want to help other people, but then it. We’re, like, slapped in the face with all the business stuff.

Danielle Hayden:

You’re passionate about that craft, but now that you’re in business, you actually have to run the business side of the business, and that includes your numbers, and that includes managing money. But guess what? All of those stories came with you. You know, remember that teacher who talked negative about money? Or your parents who are fighting at the kitchen table? Or the SNY comment that your uncle used to make about your rich aunt? All of that comes into business with you, and you’re telling yourself all of these emotional stories.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, we have these money stories, and a lot of them are deeply embedded, subconscious beliefs. So, in other words, most of the struggle is a mindset.

Danielle Hayden:

Absolutely. It’s a mindset because if we can overcome and rewrite that story, we can start to embrace what our numbers are telling us. Like you started to say, your numbers are telling you a story. It is our responsibility and our job as business owners to listen to the story and use that story to make better business decisions. So once. Once you can start to face the numbers and know and understand that it’s not your report card, right? Like, I always feel guilty when my son comes home at the end of the quarter, right? Because he’s in high school, and we’ve been doing this song and dance for a long time where, you know, he. He doesn’t get the best grades. And I could be mad and frustrated with him throughout the years and ground him and punish him, and he’s looking at me like, gosh, I tried so hard, and I’m going to try new studying techniques this quarter. I learned what this teacher’s looking for. And instead of embracing the lesson, we shame, like, you didn’t get good grades. And so, again, where we all grew up with this, with our own parents, our own school systems, and now we’re in business, and we get these quarterly reports from our bookkeeper, tax accountant, and. And you look at them, you’re like, well, I’m not good enough. I’m not good enough. I should have never started this business. I’m too small.

Danielle Hayden:

I’m not making enough. I don’t have enough cash. And so, we start telling ourselves these. These stories around it, and as soon as we can change our mindset to know and understand. Your numbers are just a lesson. They’re just a tool. And if you can reframe the. The story around your financials, you can start stepping into your power as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as a CEO, to start making confident decisions.

Melinda Wittstock:

This is so important because as we’re growing our businesses, I’ve found as a serial entrepreneur, you’re confronted with all your subconscious beliefs because they come up in certain ways or different ways you get triggered or different challenges you have to overcome. That kind of, in essence, shows you what you believe. So, it’s kind of a tandem process, right? Like, so you’re growing your business, and, like, with each different, you know, growth spurt, you’ve got to take it up a notch in terms of, like, what you need in your business. And, like, for instance, everything from the financial systems you need to be on top of your data or actually understanding your KPI’s or your sales funnel, being on top of your cash flow, all these sorts of things. So, it’s not just, like, maintaining your QuickBooks.

Melinda Wittstock:

It gets a lot more sophisticated fast. So. So take me through that process with your clients and, like, when they join you, you know, they’re starting with sort of, like, bookkeeping and whatnot. But what’s that journey for a growth stage entrepreneur that, that you take them through?

Danielle Hayden:

Not every client journey looks the same. So, it depends on when they’re coming to us in their journey. But I’m just going to walk you through if you are a solopreneur who maybe hasn’t hit 100k yet, kind of what this trajectory could look like. So, you’re growing your business, and you know, you have to pay taxes at the end of every year. As you start to your business, you know that you need a tax account, but what your tax accountant needs in order to be able to file the taxes is the bookkeeping. And in order for the tax return to be accurate and to make sure that you’re receiving all those deductions and all the good stuff and you’re not overpaying your taxes, you need to have clean and accurate at bookkeeping. So that first stage of entrepreneur, you’re really looking at your finances as a must have. Like, I have to file my taxes, therefore I have to have bookkeeping, and I want to make sure that I’m not overpaying in taxes and that I’m doing the right things. And so, when a client comes to us at that stage, we’re really helping them just to make sure that they’re compliant. Right. This is more about compliance. And then as they start to grow and they start to hire and they start to establish processes and systems, what we need to look at changes. So, at about 100k in revenue, this is where our mindset needs to shift from compliance to I’m running a business. It doesn’t matter how small I am. I’m running a business.

Danielle Hayden:

I have an LLC; I have agreements with clients. I have agreements with vendors. I have agreements with contractors. I need to know my numbers so that I can stay in business. And at this point is when we, it’s really important as a business owner that you start to shift your mindset and that it’s your responsibility to look at your numbers throughout the year. And so you’re looking at your financial statements, either monthly or quarterly, and you are asking yourself questions like, what’s working? What’s not working? Is my spending aligned with my goals? Does my spending align with where I want to be this year? Does it align with my intentions? And so, you’re starting to look at your numbers to ask yourself those critical thinking questions. Now, around 150K to about $200,000 in revenue. What we start to see is our clients need to hire more experts.

Danielle Hayden:

So, we start to hire people outside of our business who can come in and help us either with our mindset, business coaches, marketing consultants, website design. Right? Like, we’re starting to hire outside experts to help us grow and get to the next level. And in order for us to start to make those decisions, we have to ask ourselves, can I afford to make this decision? Can I afford to bring these roles onto my end in my business? It becomes more important that we’re looking at our numbers and asking ourselves, can I afford to get to the next level? Now, around $250,000 in revenue is usually when we see people start to shift to, I need people in my business, right? Like, I can’t do this all on my own. I need to make sure I have contractors and maybe even employees who are working with me on a regular basis. And so again, your responsibility as a business owner, it’s growing to, we need to know, do I have enough revenue coming in to be able to sustain this workload for these contractors and employees? So again, the reports don’t change over time. If you started this process early, you’ve gotten used to looking at the income statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow statement, and you’re learning how to review it. Because even if you have the best bookkeeper and CFO in the world, it’s still your responsibility to look at the numbers and critically think about them, because you’re the only one who can make the business decisions. So over time, you’re learning how to look at your numbers.

Danielle Hayden:

You’re getting more and more comfortable with it. So, as you are growing, you can start doing things like build out a budget, talk to your money team, consult your numbers. Does that make sense?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, it does. Yeah. 100%. Well, it’s kind of who you’re being at each one of these stages and what the business is demanding of you changes. I’ve seen a lot of entrepreneurs be in a really kind of happy growth stage where they’re getting lots of clients or customers, and they’re in that beginning of scaling, but run out of cash as they’re growing. We’re not knowing their numbers. So, there are different challenges and different perils, you know, at each step, kind of along the way, just talking about mindset for a moment, though, how do you get people to shift from like a scarcity mindset into one of abundance? Does this come up a lot? You know, because when people are making decisions based on lack or fear, sometimes they can be the wrong decisions, counter to the whole, like, inherently expansive nature of business. How do you work through that with people? Because I think most people are in a scarcity mindset because we’re trained to be.

Danielle Hayden:

Oh, thank you for saying that. We are trained to be in a scarcity mindset. Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so, and so how do you, I mean, I guess it starts with awareness, but for instance, I’ve seen this manifest where you really need to hire people. But if you’re coming from lack, it’s like, oh my God, how am I going to be able to pay this person? Will I be able to pay this person? Oh my goodness. And also hiring that person to do something as opposed to achieving a result. Okay, so I like to look at hiring more as an investment. But if you’re thinking of it as an investment, what’s the return that investment going to be? And I find a lot of people falter there.

Danielle Hayden:

We find that people land in one of four money personality types. And you can go to kickstartaccountinc.com quiz and find out your money personality type. But I’m going to walk through the four types, and I think that this is the first step. Right? This is the awareness right here. And then we can talk about how to use this when you look at your numbers. The four personality types are free spender, keeper, balance seeker, or perfectionist. Our free spender is somebody who loves to spend money. They don’t really consult their finding their financials or their numbers or the cash balance before they spend money.

Danielle Hayden:

They see it, they want it, they buy it. And usually, we know when we’re a free spender, our keepers are the opposite. Like nothing ever feels like enough in savings. They save, save, save. And they’ll say, when I ask, what are you saving for? They’ll say, well, I’m just reinvesting in my business. I don’t take an owner’s draw because I want to invest in my business. I’m like, well, what are you investing in? Like, well, I don’t know, like, you know, the future of the business. I’ll invest it as things, as things come up.

Danielle Hayden:

Right? So, our keeper really wants to have everything tucked away in savings. Our perfectionist needs to know where every dollar is coming in and where every dollar is going out. Like, they want to know where every penny is being spent and it’s freaking exhausting.

Melinda Wittstock:

I’m definitely not that. Okay, so, yeah, that sounds exhausting. Oh, my God.

Danielle Hayden:

So, our balance seeker is somewhere in the middle, right? They know they can’t do everything themselves. They have to hire people in order to succeed in business. They know that they need to look at their numbers to make business decisions. But it’s not the end all, be all. They don’t obsess over every penny. Right? It’s really finding that equilibrium, that balance seeker. So, take the quiz. Right? Like I said, KickstarterInc.com quiz.

Danielle Hayden:

Go take the quiz. A lot of people are surprised which category they end up falling in. That’s for the first step. Because when you go to look at your financial statements, I want you to ask yourself this question. I want you to look at your spending, and you’re going to ask yourself, does this align with my goals or my intention for this year? And what do I mean by that? If your goal is hockey stick growth, like, I want to grow my revenue this year, then you, then your spending should match that. Your spending should be in advertising, marketing, marketing consultants, maybe paid ads, conferences. Like, you are building the marketing funnel for your team and your, for your business.

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Wings of Inspired Business is brought to you by the new podcast, Zero Limits Business Growth Secrets. Join me together with Steve Little – serial entrepreneur, investor and mergers & acquisitions maestro – as we explore the little-known 24 value drivers that spell the difference between a $5m business, and a $50mm even $500 mm business. That’s Zero Limits Business Growth Secrets, produced by Podopolo Brand Studio at zerolimitsradio.com – that’s zerolimitsradio.com and available wherever you get your podcasts.

Melinda Wittstock:

And we’re back with Danielle Hayden, founder and CEO of Kickstart Accounting.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]

Danielle Hayden:

And your spending should align with that. A lot of people get on calls with me, and they’ll say, so, Danielle, tell me where I can cut back. I’m like, cut back? What would, did you hit your goals last year and, like, nope, didn’t hit the goals. I know I’m a failure. I should have tried harder. I might try harder. We need to spend intentionally to hit our goals. And so, if your goal is to spend more time with your family, right.

Danielle Hayden:

So, for me personally, um, I’m about 18 months from my son driving. He’s my last, last baby in the house. And, um, I know that I want to make sure I am the one to drive him to school and pick him up from school every day. And, you know, I don’t need to be around all the time, but I need a little bit of space in my calendar. So, for me, my spending needs to be in my team because we’re still in growth mode and I’m still on a mission to help women entrepreneur. Like, I am so freaking passionate about what we do, but I don’t have to be the one doing it all day, every day. I need to see in my numbers that I’m paying my team because they’re helping me on this amazing mission that Kickstarter County Inc. is on.

Danielle Hayden:

So, my payroll has to reflect my intention for the year. So, yes, first step is awareness. Second step is how is our money personality type and our goals being reflected in the way we spend money? And the only way you know that is by looking at your income statement every month. And your income statement has to be accurate, right? If you’re doing your DIY bookkeeping, we need to make sure it’s accurate and then talk to your money team, because they’re going to help you understand that information so that you can then use it to ask yourself those critical thinking questions 100%.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, this gets into this whole aspect of leverage, you know, like, in terms of your own time as the founder or the CEO, how can I best advance my business? And who do I need to hire to plug in to do the things that maybe I’m not good at doing, or I just can’t do everything because there’s only ‘one of me’ kind of thing, right. And really being able to really understand what kind of return that you want. And this, I mean, you mentioned the word intention, which is interesting. A lot of people don’t know their number. Like, they don’t really know where they’re going, or they aim their number maybe too low, or they just can’t. They’re limited by their thinking in terms of what they think is possible. And kind of meander towards a kind of generality rather than setting a goal for the year.

Melinda Wittstock:

Like, what kind of number do you want? What’s the number you want in your life personally? What do you want for your business? And then start to reverse engineer. Well, what are all the different ways that, like, we can get there?

Danielle Hayden:

I think there’s two ways we can think about our intention for the year. There is a budget, right? So, to me, budgets are the ultimate smart goal. Like, there’s nothing better than a budget because you are building out exactly where you want to go. It’s very specific, it’s very measurable. If we want to build out a budget, that’s going to be our specific map. And your bookkeeper, your money team, should be able to help you build out a budget. And building out that budget is give you very specific, where do I want to see my revenue go? And if I want to see my revenue go there, what do I need to spend in order to hit those revenue goals? Now, your intention can be a little bit different, because your intention also helps you build that budget. Every year on our podcast.

Danielle Hayden:

Our podcast business by the books, we do a podcast every new year’s about not just setting goals, but setting your intention. So, I mentioned my intention about my son. But this can look differently for you in each season of your business. So, if it’s okay with you, I’m going to tell you a story about my client, Jenna, and how her intentions changed each year and how that reflects back in her numbers. Is that okay?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, that sounds great.

Danielle Hayden:

Okay. So, Jenna came to us as a freelancer, and she said to me, Danielle, I need you to teach me how to operate my business at a loss. I was like, all right, not sure about that request, but I’ll take a challenge. So, we brought in all of her transactions into this, into QuickBooks, and we did what we call a financial review call. So, every client, when they come to us, after we do the catch up, we do a financial review call. And on the call, I said, Jenna, I got good news and bad news. The good news is that I don’t have to teach you how to operate your business at a loss because you’re making a profit.

Danielle Hayden:

The bad news is that we need to figure out why you don’t have the cash. And we need to talk about your tax savings, because we don’t have enough time in the year to minimize your tax liability. You’re going to be paying taxes this year. Here’s the really cool part about what happened to Jenna. She considered herself a freelancer before this conversation. By knowing her numbers and by knowing and understanding that information, she went into the next year with the intention of growing her business. She said, I’m not a freelancer anymore. I am growing this thing, and I can do it.

Danielle Hayden:

And we watched her invest in marketing, live conferences. She was traveling. She was doing in person, networking events. I mean, this girl invested in her business’s growth. Now, the following year, she was still riding high from all of her investments. But she said, I really want to buy a house. I need to put down roots in my community, and I want to buy a home. And so, we had to change her intention.

Danielle Hayden:

Her intention was to be very profitable this year. And so, we had to, you know, use some strategies to back out on expenses, decide what she was going to spend, on what she was going to remove from her business. And she was able to take the owner’s drawers and the salary she needed to finally save up and buy her house. It was right in time for her mom to get sick. And so her mom moved into one of the spare bedrooms at her new home, and her intention changed again. Her intention was to build out the infrastructure of her business so her team can keep the momentum, so her expenses increased again, and she built out her team and her team supported and rallied around her as she cared for her mom. After her mom passed away, she was able to get back into the business and restructure things in a way that allowed her to go back into growth mode. So, you see, your intention for the year personally needs to align with the way you spend money in your business and your numbers.

Danielle Hayden:

When you review your income statement, when you look at your budget, it helps you understand if you are acting accordingly to your intention.

Melinda Wittstock:

A hundred percent. I think getting really clear on our intentions is key to almost everything in business, like and in life, for that matter. Because, like, when you know what it is that you want and you’re, I don’t know, there’s a trick to doing the intentions because there’s a different between. Difference between an expectation, a goal and an intention. The intentions best, you know, best stated as something that’s already happened. With the kind of emotion felt. I do you find that a lot of the business owners you talk to, though, or you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Do you find that a lot of the folks who work with you don’t necessarily know what their intentions are, that they have to get just a lot more clear about what those are and in terms of what’s possible?

Danielle Hayden:

Yes and no. Some of our clients who come to us are very in touch with, with where they want to see their business go. They are working with a coach or a mentor who is helping them with that. And so, when they come to us, they’re clear on their intention and we’re really helping them with the bookkeeping so that they can track their spending and their income according to those intentions. And other clients who come to us are newer to business or newer to that concept. And at our heart, we’re, we’re a bookkeeping and accounting firm, and so we don’t spend a ton of time on coaching our clients through understanding their intentions. But we do ask the coaching question when we review income statements with our clients.

Danielle Hayden:

Like when we go to look at their income statement, we will pause at every, like category to say, does this align with where you wanted to go?

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Danielle Hayden:

Like, and really ask that question. So, if you’re working with a money team or a bookkeeper who’s not asking those types of questions, you want to have somebody who’s not just like, hey, the data says that you’re losing money. You should probably look at that. That’s an issue. That’s not the kind of support that you want. We want the kind of support that celebrates with you when things are going well and can cheer you on when you need the support when things aren’t going well. It’s helping business owners understand that when they look at their numbers, it doesn’t mean pass or fail. It means here are the clues.

Melinda Wittstock:

All of entrepreneurship is a learning process. So, the numbers or the results or whatever are the kind of breadcrumbs in terms of what do you need to work on? The whole process is iterative and, like, you’re going to have these failures along the way. Right. And. But the numbers at least are giving you the data that you need to be able to kind of understand it, you know? So just in terms of the process that you were discussing, you’re starting with bookkeeping and compliance and, like, tax and just all the things you got to do, but then that more proactive thing where you really start to think about revenue systems or how to optimize. You know what I mean? How sophisticated does it get, how quickly for a lot of your clients?

Danielle Hayden:

It depends on our on our client. Everybody is different. It depends on how sophisticated you want to get and how. It depends on you. And so, I say that to say, ask, right? Speak up. You are in control of your own destiny, right. You control the type of business that you run.

Danielle Hayden:

You are in control. That’s probably why you went into business on your own, right. Is to control your destiny, to control your schedule, to control your life. Take that control and ask the right. Ask questions. It doesn’t have to be the right questions. Ask the questions to help you navigate to the right answers. There’s no stupid question.

Danielle Hayden:

It’s just finding a team that allows that space and support we have as part of our core values that there’s no judgment. We don’t talk about our clients. We don’t judge our clients. You need a space where you can be vulnerable because money is vulnerable. And so having that space to be able to come and ask, like, hey, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know, I know that takes some bravery because some people, like, I always joke, actually, I have this running joke with my board chairman. Like, “you can be right, or you can be rich.” Like, which one?

Danielle Hayden:

Exactly. Exactly. So just ask. Ask for help. Ask the questions you’re going to navigate and steer the ship with any relationship with. And maybe it’s not just a relationship with your bookkeeper, but even your own relationship with money, you are going to be the one to navigate it. What I see happening more than anything in entrepreneurship is that, like, look, guys, we’re busy, right? I’m a business owner, too. We are all busy.

Danielle Hayden:

You make time for what’s important. And I hear this a lot, like, in the fitness industry. And, you know, you, if you. If what is important to you is your health, you’re going to go to the gym. And if your business is important to you, you’re going to make the time to look at your numbers. So you need to create the space, the time, and find a team who you can be vulnerable with to ask the questions.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right? So, Danielle, you were the CFO in corporate, you know, the eight-figure company, and there was a certain point where you said, okay, enough of this. I’m going to go off on my own and become an entrepreneur and help other people with it. What was the spark that made you make that transition?

Danielle Hayden:

You know, there was a part of me that sat in the boardroom month over month, quarter after quarter, thinking, I want. I do love my job. Like, I loved my job. I’m not one of those that came out of corporate saying, burn down corporate. Like, I loved my job, and I loved the management team and the board of directors and the investors and all that communication. But the time and effort that I spent in helping the board use the numbers to make business decisions. I said, I should be using this time and energy to help entrepreneurs make better business decisions because I want to see my community succeed. I want to see.

Danielle Hayden:

I want to see the entrepreneurship space succeed. I want to see women succeed. Women don’t always have access to this information. Women don’t have access to the team that they need, the people that they need, the education that they need. Accounting and finance is a male-dominated field. So, women don’t always have that. That space to be able to go and say, I need access. I have questions.

Danielle Hayden:

I’ll never forget. My first year in business, even as a CFO, I didn’t do a great job at my bookkeeping, and I went to go see my tax, my parents tax account. Joe, even though I’m a CPA, I was like, I need somebody else to file my taxes for me. So, I go into Joe’s office, and it’s a hot summer day, and it’s so sticky. I have curly hair, so my hair is big. And I, a single mom of two young kids at the time, and everything just felt big. It was a mountain, sticky mess. And I walked into Joe’s office, and as I shared with him the bookkeeping and what had happened this year, this man shook his head no at me and called it my little business.

Danielle Hayden:

And when I walked out of Joe’s office that day, I said, no other woman will ever have to feel the way I felt walking out of Joe’s office that day. And that is why I do what I do, because I don’t want to just make the rich rich. I don’t. I want to help women in this male dominated field get the access that they need.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right? This is so important. So, like, when you were growing your own business, what were some of the challenges you had? Like, so you’re this expert on money and bookkeeping and the financial management, modeling, all these things that you do, you know, you would have done as a CFO. How did you apply that as you were growing your own business, were there any challenges or unexpected things along the way that confronted you that you had to overcome? Come.

Danielle Hayden:

I think it’s similar to so many other of our clients. It’s that moment of, I want to hire new team members. I want to grow. I’m scared. What if it doesn’t work? What if I hire too soon? What if I hire too fast? You know, I had all the same concerns that every other business owner has.

Danielle Hayden:

And that’s why I think entrepreneurship is so special, because we do it anyway, right? Like, you’re scared, and you do it anyway. So, for me, the biggest lesson I learned was that I could be two things at once. I can be scared and be brave, right? I can. I could let my money mindset hold me back, or I can look at the facts and do and take, take action on what the numbers were teaching me. I could do both at once. And so, for me, that was the biggest one, was when to hire, how fast to hire, and then just using the numbers as much as I could to calm that anxiety, to say, it’s okay. You can be scared and be brave anyway.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, this is such important work you’re doing. I want to make sure that people know how to best to find you and work with you. You mentioned the quiz and a whole bunch of other things, but who’s your ideal client? And if they need your fractional or other services. What’s the best way for them to get in touch?

Danielle Hayden:

You can go to kickstartaccountinginc.com gift. There you’ll find some awesome downloads. There’s a tax deductions worksheet, how to hire a Worksheet and some podcast episodes. Check out our podcast business by the books. We talk about numbers and how to use your numbers to manage your business every single week. There’s so much good stuff there. Our ideal client is a business owner in growth mode. Our packages start at $50,000 a year in revenue.

Danielle Hayden:

So, if you are a business owner who is in the process of growing your business, we have packages that scale with you as you scale your business. We work with entrepreneurs using bookkeeping as a vehicle to help you make better business decisions. So, we take the bookkeeping off of your plate, work with your tax accountant, your financial advisor, and you as a business owner, most importantly. Right?

Melinda Wittstock:

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings today and flying with us.

Danielle Hayden:

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

[INTERVIEW ENDS]

Melinda Wittstock:

Danielle Hayden is the founder and co-owner of Kickstart Accounting, Inc., the author of the book The Profit Planner.

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Melinda Wittstock:

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