(upbeat music) - [Voiceover] Funding for "Working Capital" is provided by the Friends of KTWU and GO Topeka.

- It seems these days that everyone's schedules are filled to the brim.

The balancing act of work versus life can be a real struggle at times.

Where do we find the time to better ourselves, let alone better our careers or businesses?

Well, today's guest may just have a few answers for us, coming up next on "Working Capital."

(upbeat music) Welcome back.

Nine years ago, Tracy Jepson started on her own entrepreneurial journey.

Her passion for business is vividly evident in everything she tackles.

She's here to help new and established businesses find their path to a more profitable future.

Welcome back to the show, Tracy.

You've been on before with Flying Fish Divers and I'm glad that's still going strong.

- Yes.

- But today - we're talking about kind of what got you into that.

I mean, to me you're a workaholic, but I think because of the way you started, part of your success, we'll talk about it, is how now I think you've freed up time to really hit home on all your passion.

So first off, tell me about TLJ Consulting and how did you start this?

What pushed you over the edge onto this new scary journey nine years ago?

- Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks again for having me back too.

So, nine years ago, my husband and I were going through Dave Ramsey's plan of getting out of debt.

And part of his plan, if you're familiar with it, is to work an extra job.

So as I started working an extra job, I didn't have a lot of time at home and knew I needed to do something I could do out of my living room or out of my office where I wasn't having to continue to be away from my family.

And I threw an add on Craigslist looking for some bookkeeping clients.

I was doing the financial management for a nonprofit here in town prior to that and so I thought, "Well, I can do that just on the side."

About six months later I had replaced my full-time income, gotten us out of debt and was fully into my own business.

So at that point, I was ready to resign from my position and start helping entrepreneurs all over the country with their businesses.

- Six months.

That's pretty incredible.

And not, I don't think everyone should look for that kind of result, but still what we'll talk about today, I think will help them on the path in their own entrepreneurial journey, so.

- Yeah, absolutely.

And it's one of those things we do, we say six months seems like an incredibly short amount of time to start a new business and to get to the point where I was able to replace that income.

But what you don't understand is so many business owners don't have any idea what they're doing with their numbers.

And having somebody to come in not only help them with that but then answer questions, keep them accountable, and help them actually make decisions that keep them profitable, was really the direction that people were looking for.

It wasn't that they needed their P and L done, they really needed somebody to advise them on how to move their life and their business forward.

- Do you think that's something kind of in our culture, especially in our businesses, that as Americans, we don't like to ask for help?

We all should know how to do everything ourselves so when you start your own business, you better do the bookkeeping, you better do the marketing, you better do this all yourself, otherwise you're a failure, right?

Just 'cause you have a good idea.

But where is that so wrong in our psyche?

- Oh, it's completely wrong.

And you're right, everyone wants to wear all of the hats because they think they need to.

They think, oh, I've started this business, I'm now the superhero.

And that is a great way to crash and burn not only your business but your personal life as well.

And I think the scariest part for business owners is delegating not only because they think they're the only ones that can do it the way that they can and the way that their customers would expect, but it's very expensive to hire.

It can be very expensive to outsource.

People can start with very small steps, virtual assistance, part-time help, that kind of thing, that actually make that delegation very easy.

And I think if a lot of business owners would start out by documenting all of the things that they do, bringing on that person, it makes that transition so much easier.

The business owner is not the only person who has that skillset, and honestly, is probably the person who doesn't have the skillset to be doing their marketing and their finances and all of the things.

- So even as a one-man or one-woman band, you really need to think about a division of labor.

So then you can really start looking at, I can do all these, or maybe my marketing, that's where I'm really missing so maybe I need to find someone to go that route.

- Yeah.

We really want entrepreneurs to stay in their gift.

You know, if they are out helping people repair cars or they're doing bookkeeping or they're running a flower shop, whatever that gift is that they have been given, that they're going to go share with the world and that they're going to solve that problem for somebody else, stay in your lane, stay in your lane and do the thing that you do best and the thing that you enjoy doing the most.

Like I don't enjoy doing my social media, I don't enjoy doing marketing.

I have someone that does that for me.

They can go and they can reply to comments and they can go and post things, that type of thing.

Like that's not where my sweet spot is and it's honestly not the place that's gonna make me money.

- You find someone else who's passionate about that kind of work.

You can still be totally passionate about your whole new business.

That doesn't make you bad when you can't do that and you can find someone better.

I think usually the best managers have a team around them who for the most part are smarter than them, at least in one huge area.

So I mean creating that toolbox of outside workers who can help your business is really key these days.

- Absolutely.

And if you know, if outsourcing your marketing is not the very first thing that you can do, outsource somebody reading your email, outsource somebody, responding to your clients.

The things that are small tasks on your plate that take up so much time that again, are gonna take you away from doing the revenue-generating activities that you should be doing.

- Are there even people who could do your scheduling remotely?

Like say taking your emails and you have, "Here's my open times."

Can you get that much of a virtual assistant?

- Oh absolutely.

And even your calendar, you can outsource to software.

AI can do so much of that.

Softwares like Acuity or Calendly.

All you have to do is leave a link on your website or in your email signature for people to be able to book their own time with you.

You don't even need someone having that kind of conversation with a client.

They can do it themselves.

They can even pay for the appointment if need be before they show up to the call or to your office.

- You're almost making it sound too easy.

Before we go to this first break, real quick, what was a couple of your biggest hurdles when you started out?

Even in that first six months or maybe a couple years down the road, what was the biggest hurdle you had that you maybe almost thought maybe not?

- It was that I could do everything.

It was, I was able to do my books and I was able to bring on clients and I was able to answer emails, which gave me a lot of clients, which was great.

The problem is I can't manage that type of work or that workload.

And then everything started to fall apart.

So.

- It's the time involved.

- Absolutely.

- Just 'cause you can do everything in the business doesn't mean you have time to do everything in the business.

- Yeah.

- Correctly.

- Absolutely.

So that was really my biggest downfall, was getting too big too quickly without delegating.

And then again, it all kind of started to fall apart.

So it was poor customer service, work product wasn't great.

There was a huge transition period in my business where I was wondering, what on earth have I gotten myself into?

- Well, good advice to start out.

It's time for a short break.

Stick around we'll be right back.

(soft music) (cat meows) (light upbeat music) Welcome back.

We're talking with Tracy Jepson about how you can help better your business.

And we started talking about a couple things that kind of scared you starting out, but what are some of the warning signs?

What are some of the things people have to look for?

The pitfalls in this entrepreneurial journey?

- Yeah, a couple of things.

If they don't know what their numbers are, so say they haven't outsourced their bookkeeper and they haven't outsourced their finances, if the owner doesn't know what their profitability is or if they don't even know if they're profitable until at the end of the year, they hand everything over to CPAs, sometimes in a box, yes, people are still working in paper receipts these days, and they ask the question, "How much did I make?"

If they don't know that number at an ongoing point in the year, it's probably a sign of other things going wrong in the business that are likely, their time is not being managed appropriately.

So that way they're not gonna be making money.

So red flags are not knowing our numbers or not being profitable at the same time.

So if a company's not profitable, there could be a lot of things happening.

Their pricing could be inaccurate, they could have too many staff members.

All of these things are going to stress out a business owner.

And so if they're not making money, it is going to impact clients, it's gonna impact their team if they've got one, and it is going to start boiling over to their personal life pretty quickly.

- Because I mean, that's the bottom line.

And one of the biggest stressors I think in relationships is financial security and where that money's coming from and going out.

So you start a new business, especially if you're married or a partner or something else and they're not totally involved and they're just seeing numbers trickle in, I mean, how can starting this business affect your home life?

- Yeah, it can really wreck a home life.

I can almost always guess when the very first time I speak with an entrepreneur, like a sales call or anything, I can almost exactly guess what their personal life looks like.

And I ask them, you know, "Are you profitable?

Do you understand where your numbers are?"

And they're like, "Oh, my books are messy.

I don't know how anything's going."

I can guarantee the way they are in their business is exactly how they are at home.

And if that individual is married or has a partner or gosh, if that partner is part of the business, I can 100% guarantee that what's going on at home is even more chaotic.

There's likely debt, there's likely arguing, that kind of thing.

And again, those stressors that you take out either on your partner or on your kids or the impacts on your friends and family relationships, that is not giving you the life that you set out to have when you started the business.

Everyone wanted to have this freedom and they think, "Oh, I'm gonna control my time and my money and I'm gonna be able to go to my kids' soccer practice."

Well, the second you're the one sitting on the sideline checking emails, trying to figure out if a check's gonna come in, wondering where the money is, this is all of a sudden not going to be the life that you had hoped for.

And people are gonna wonder again, what on earth is going on and how they can fix it.

- So you start off on this journey, you're on your own.

You're doing it all fine, things start snowballing.

What are some of the first signs personally, like entrepreneurial burnout?

- Yeah.

- And to me, I mean, if you get to entrepreneurial burnout, you're probably already to the point where you should have outsourced some of your business before that, even though it may be hard on your bottom line, 'cause you didn't have that expense thinking when you first started that.

But how can that actually help your business down the future?

You know, a little hit in profitability right there because you're hiring basically someone else.

Not hiring someone full-time, but you know, those services.

So how does that reflect down the road and how will that really help you?

- Yeah.

I always tell people, hire before you think you're ready.

We go through kind of a cashflow methodology that I work with with clients.

Start paying someone, even if that person's not real, into a bank account.

Start setting aside that money, seeing if the cashflow actually will support the outsourcing.

Try it for a month, try it for two months, and then all of a sudden you hire this person and you have money to pay them.

You know, your cashflow is gonna support it.

And the second that you hire that person, they should actually be making your company money.

This should be revenue-generating because you're no longer spending time on that task, whatever it was, you are now able to focus on actually making money in the business.

So anytime you put a team member or a contractor or anyone else in place to help with the business, they should actually be bringing in money or you should be seeing an increase in revenue because of their productivity.

If you don't, it's likely because again, the delegation isn't quite there.

Maybe you haven't decided exactly what role they're going to play, but having very clear guidelines before you make that engagement isn't really important.

- I mean, does it matter on the scale of the business?

I mean, can you actually jump too soon because you're not scaled up so you don't really see?

- I don't think you can scale too soon.

I don't think you can scale to that first hire too quickly.

I really think that, again, getting out of those zones that are not your zone of genius is the most important thing because you will actually be more successful quicker by delegating.

It was definitely the first place in my business that I did not do it soon enough.

And I had to do a lot of backtracking.

And I see a lot of business owners do the same thing.

I think also when you start to notice that your boundaries of when you're answering emails, when clients are calling you, when you're actually calling them back, is also a huge sign that something should have been outsourced or that you need to be able to start reeling that in or that burnout is gonna come a lot quicker.

Having boundaries around your time, what you're doing at certain hours of the day, like that is definitely one of the biggest indicators of burnout, is that you are doing too much too often.

- Yeah, too much much work life is blending into that late nights for far too long.

- Yes.

And the thing that I hear most from business owners and I say, "Why are you sending me an email at midnight?"

Or "Why are you responding to your clients at that time of day?"

And they're like, "Well I need to.

They need to hear from me."

And the thing is, 90% of the businesses, 99% of the businesses, are not emergencies at 10 o'clock at night.

There are no financial emergencies in my business after 5:00 PM.

Like there is nothing that's gonna catch on fire or crash a business anytime.

You know, again, unless we're at the hospital or some medical type of thing.

Nothing is so important that you have to leave your family to be checking email, to be trying to answer calls or questions.

Nothing is that important.

And that your family life, your personal life, your time, is the thing you have to protect.

And unless you're doing that, you will burn out.

- That's some great advice.

It's time for another break.

We'll be right back.

(soft music) (upbeat music) We were just talking about entrepreneurial burnout, some of the pitfalls you need to look for.

But there's also ways to kind of combat that.

I think you have a new little way, 10 minutes a day to kind of change the outlook, I would say, on your business and your personal life?

Tell me a little bit about this new routine I guess.

- Yeah.

So it's kind of my passion project.

So you think I'm a workaholic, I think I only try to put things in my life that are beneficial to others.

And so I started a newsletter that's gonna go out every week.

It's called "LifePreneur Lounge."

So really is focusing on the health and wealth of your business and your personal life.

And so every week, it is 10 minutes a day that you can do to help improve entrepreneurial burnout and make sure that you are really getting that work-life balance.

There's business tips and life tips, all kinds of things.

But the first issue went out this week and I think it is probably the biggest 10 minutes of anybody's change to their day.

And I will get pushback.

People will say, "Oh, I don't have 10 extra minutes."

You know, we all have the exact same number of minutes in a day.

And I believe that you can add 10 minutes into your morning routine that will really set the tone for the entire day.

So starting out with mindfulness.

Getting a couple of minutes just saying, "Okay, I'm in the mindset.

Here's the most important things I need to do today."

Really starting with a positive tone in your head, with an I-can-do type of attitude.

That two minutes can go a long way.

Moving your body.

I understand not everybody has time to go to the gym in the morning.

Walk around your neighborhood, walk around the house, take your kids down the driveway, go check the mailbox, run up and down the stairs for a couple of minutes.

Jumping jacks, anything to get your blood flowing.

Soon as you get your heart rate going and moving, it automatically improves your mood and it is going to get you into a mindset and a body flow that's gonna move you throughout the day.

- Positive outlook for the day.

- Yeah.

Absolutely.

- Gratitude.

So I kind of put my gratitude and my mindfulness into the same five minutes.

So I use what's called a five-minute journal and every day I get to write out the three things that I'm thankful for, I get to set my intentions for the day, and a couple of affirmations to remind me how amazing I am so that way when things get hard, I know that I've already put this in place.

And then reaching out and connecting with someone.

So my husband generally leaves the house before, generally before I'm even up and out of bed, to go to work really early in the morning.

And just sending a "Hello, hope you have a great day," is just a great way to connect.

Send your mom a text.

Dad, friend, anyone, just to reach out and let someone know you're thinking about them.

If you're kind of taking yourself out of your own mindset and connecting with others, again, it's gonna improve your heart rate, it's going to improve just the health and wellness of your mindset for the day.

And it's going to set kind of the intentions that you've got.

- That's great.

'Cause I think, like I say, I kind of called you a workaholic.

I think most workaholics are the ones who probably need this the most, but they won't think they have time for it.

But why, I mean, you just told us there, but why are the people who aren't gonna listen the most, why do they really need it?

'Cause it's almost a badge of honor that, "Well, I worked 18 hours out of the day."

So I mean, they take that, those late night hours, not just like they're only working at night but they start at 8:00 AM and they're going through.

Why is that a badge of honor?

Why do so many business owners go that route and probably offset their their home life by thinking the best business owners will always be working.

- I think there's a perception in society that business owners have it together, that they've got money, that somehow they were able to break away from this nine to five, and they are looked at in a different light than we would look at somebody who is punching the clock every day.

And failure is huge in small businesses.

I think the SBA says something like 20% of businesses fail in the first two years, 46% fail in the first five years, and 64% don't even make it 10 years.

So this is a huge number of businesses that close.

I mean, we see it even in our community every day.

A new business closes and you hear commentary from the community saying, "Oh, I can't believe they're not there."

Or, "I wish they were still open."

Obviously local support is important for those businesses who are actually going, but it the sense that their paycheck or that money cominG from that business is what's keeping the lights on at home.

It's what's supporting their family.

The men and women who are running these businesses, there is such pride in what you take in saying, "I can care for myself and my family," and also still wanting to be a very giving business.

As soon as a business opens up, all the nonprofits want donations and the kids want donations for sports teams and sponsorships, and those are all-- - It helps get your name out there.

- Get your name out.

It's marketing, it's advertising.

And that is such a great thing to do if a business can afford to do it.

Yeah.

- Like you were kinda saying.

All these businesses, you know, some don't last very long and there's a public outcry.

And then everyone will rush there for the last weekend.

So Where do these businesses go wrong to where they're not attracting customers all the way through?

Is it probably, like we're talking about they didn't do their marketing right, maybe they're taking their marketing on?

I mean, how can we help the pecans get out to these businesses before they close?

- Yeah.

I mean, it's amazing.

So my business, you talked about Flying Fish Divers.

So we've been in business almost for almost two years.

There's not a week that goes by that somebody doesn't come in and say, "Oh my gosh, I didn't know you were here."

And in our opinion we try to do marketing, try to push things out.

There are just people who are not going to either be watching the channels that you're on, you're not asking people for referrals, that kind of thing.

So it really simply can be that some people are living in a different world that you think you are as a business owner.

Like, well I might be connected with other business owners.

Maybe I'm not as connected to the community or the groups of people who are my target audience for my business.

And I think a business owner also goes in thinking, "Oh, everyone's gonna know who I am."

They need to know who they actually want to serve.

Just because you're in business doesn't mean you have to be for everyone.

There are restaurants that families are not gonna go to because they might be high-end or it's very much for couples or you know, kind of this romantic dinner that maybe we're not taking toddlers to.

That restaurant is probably not going to be sponsoring preschool activities or kids' soccer teams.

Like you have to really know as a business owner that you aren't for everyone.

And I think that's hard to understand as well.

But when you can really define your niche and define that ideal customer and speak to those people directly, that is how the people who you want to come support you are gonna know who you are.

- That's some more great advice.

It's time for another short break.

We'll be right back.

(upbeat music) Welcome back to "Working Capital."

Okay, Tracy.

Where do you head from there?

I know you'd have this new... - "LifePreneur Lounge."

- Okay.

- So it really is that life entrepreneurial balance.

And so yes, that is really a passion project of mine right now.

I've been very surprised.

We launched it about, I don't know, 72 hours ago or something, and have about 1500 subscribers.

Some of them are paid.

- Wow.

- Which is great, it will become a paid publication, but we have support from all over the world.

So I've got clients, friends, complete strangers, most of the list, I don't know who they are, which is very exciting, because again, this is something that is meaningful to everyone.

Yes, and while it is dedicated for entrepreneurs, it absolutely impacts the lives of nine-to-fivers as well.

And if they have a entrepreneur in their life, might be something to share.

So that'll definitely continue.

I do hope even that can turn into, whether it's retreats or gatherings, just really kind of continuing to help individuals.

I think that'll kind of change some of what I speak about on my podcast, which is "Beyond the Bank Account."

It was always started to talk about everything but the numbers in your business.

While those are important, they definitely impact everything.

So those will kind of run hand in hand.

But we're continuing expanding Flying Fish, so hopefully our pool will be up and running in the next year.

So we're very excited.

Just broke ground on that.

So that's - Fantastic.

- one of the many things.

And then the advisory firm really does continue to grow.

We're bringing on new clients regularly, our team has boomed.

We've added three new team members just this year and I look forward to adding a few more.

We've got applications coming in for new team members all the time.

So very, very excited where that's going.

And I think really finding a need.

So what is the need in the community?

Where are the gaps?

Where are the gaps that I'm seeing in my clients' lives?

And being able to determine, can I fill that?

Or is there a way to start another company to support that?

I always joke and say I'm gonna become a marketer.

I don't know if that's really gonna happen, but I do know that talking about your business, niching down, really determining who you want to work with, as much as who wants to work with you, is important in a business.

So we'll see what that life takes on in the future.

But I can't imagine a day not being an entrepreneur.

For me, it has gotten the balance that I was looking for when I started out, you know.

We got out of debt and now I am free to golf whenever I want, travel kind of at will, and still be able to serve my clients and my teams.

- Well, kind of with that, where do you head next?

Well, really, you have all this knowledge that you are sharing with all these other businesses.

Where do you keep learning?

I mean, where do you go to learn new ideas, new ways to outreach?

Where's your knowledge growth from?

- Yeah, so this is gonna sound really funny.

I go to a lot of conferences and that's not the funny part, but I go to conferences that are not in my industry.

I don't go to accounting conferences, I don't go to advisory conferences.

I go to marketing conferences, I go to conferences for financial advisors.

A lot of my clients are financial advisors.

- Getting out of your comfort zone then.

- Oh yeah, I go to real estate conferences.

Probably 90% of our businesses are short-term rental clients, property managers, brokers, realtors, I go to their conferences and I go learn about those industries and about what they are teaching in those conferences and in those small classroom situations.

And I know that the more I know about what they're doing, I can help my clients more.

And it's really interesting because while there are certainly industry-specific tools and that kind of thing, the knowledge really transcends any business.

So the knowledge that I'm learning at a financial advisor or marketing conference, I can absolutely use for my realtors.

I can use it for the brokers or the doctors or the dentists that we work with because the principle is the same.

You just have to apply it in different places.

So I seek out conferences and learning opportunities in entirely different industries that are not my own.

I almost never go to an accounting conference.

- That's kind of a great idea.

I never thought of doing it that way, 'cause then you're probably better with the team members.

If you bring team members on board, you kind of have a grasp of what you're asking them to do then too.

- Yeah, and not only that, but yeah, I want to figure out again where, where do I have a passion?

What do I actually enjoy doing?

- What can I pivot?

- Yeah.

- How else can I continue to help?

'Cause you start a business to solve a problem.

If I know that every realtor at a conference is learning about a specific challenge in its marketing, in their industry, or learning how to create a niche, and I already know how to do that because I'm helping advisors in this industry or doctors in this industry create that exact same thing, I can solve the problem that they have and our client list continues to grow because we're able to solve problems, like business owners solve problems for other people.

- Hunting for opportunities.

- Yeah.

- That is just great.

So this has been fantastic today.

We look forward to having you on again and we'll get some more advice from you in the future.

That's all the time we have.

I'd like to thank Tracy Jepson from TLJ Consulting for being on today's show.

And as always, if you know of any interesting businesses or business topics, we wanna hear from you.

So give us a call, drop us an email, or send us a letter.

Tune the next time and thanks for watching "Working Capital."

(upbeat music) - [Voiceover] Funding for "Working Capital" is provided by the Friends of KTWU and GO Topeka.