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Episode #93 Understand Business Finances with Liz Lajoie

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Are you feeling out of balance with the money for your business? Today on Financial Fluency, we are chatting with the lovely Liz Lajoie. Liz is the owner of Stratera Business Solutions, a consultancy that helps coaches and creative professionals manage their finances. In this episode, Liz will give us an insider look into her new book which is being released today, that details how to manage and understand your business finances. With this, you’ll be able to free up your time so you can do more of what you love and achieve your zen.

Liz has a strong background in professional services and business management. She spent a decade as a business manager, CFO, and partner for a civil structural engineering firm. Liz was invited into the ownership and became the only woman in the ownership group. During that time, she suffered from a mystery illness that seemed to have no true diagnosis. After several years, she discovered her illness was Lyme disease. The disease put things into perspective for Liz and made her realize what kind of work made her happy—helping people sort out their small business finances while helping them achieve their goals.

Money management is a process. Liz’s book From Zero to Zen: Secret Keys to Nurturing Your Numbers and Finding Financial Flow is a financial how-to book for small businesses and entrepreneurs that will walk you through the best financial practices. Her goal is to have readers feel confident about their money and better understand all the ins and outs of being a small business owner. The book goes through how to read financial statements, setting aside money for taxes, how much money to take out of your business to pay yourself, and more. Liz drives home a key point—you can’t do things right if you don’t have a handle on it.

Some of Liz’s business tips:

  1. Separate personal and business money.
  2. Create a business checking account.
    1. Note: If you haven’t created an LLC or an incorporated company, it might be hard to open a business checking account. In that case, open up a separate checking account to manage your business finances.
  3. Use a financial accounting system to give you a full financial picture.
  4. Look at your cash flow regularly in order to keep accurate reports for your business.
  5. Scan paper receipts to one location to keep a track of everything.
  6. Assess your client onboarding process as the business owner to develop and nurture your relationship(s).

Liz Shares Words of Financial Wisdom

“Take a look your initial onboarding and/or contract flow to get cash in hand is. It can be an area that takes a lot of time, which can affect how long it takes for us to get paid. It’s a great opportunity to develop a great client relationship. Your contracts, invoices, receipts—anything written for your service can be a part of your client communication. The better you are at that, the more the client is going to love working with you. And they may be great as a referral or a continued client.”

Connect with Liz

You can connect with Liz on her website www.staterabusiness.com, or follow her on social media.

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/lizlajoie

Facebook: www.facebook.com/staterabusiness

Twitter: @staterabusiness

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Resources

Get Liz Lajoie’s book, From Zero to Zen: Secret Keys to Nurturing Your Numbers and Finding Financial Flow 

Zen Calculator: https://staterabusiness.com/zencalculator

Stratera Business Solutions: http://www.staterabusiness.com/

Quickbooks: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/

HubDoc: http://hubdoc.com/

 

#93 - Understand Business Finance with Liz LajoieLiz’s passion is partnering with coaches and creative professionals to help them focus on their clients and grow their businesses. She loves to support her clients as they learn the ins and outs of managing their money, and finding ways to increase profits while decreasing any stress associated with their business’s finances. She believes it can be intimidating to face your finances as an entrepreneur. When you jump over the hurdle of “I just don’t want to know” and get comfortable with your numbers, amazing things can happen and you realize how much better you feel about your money, your business, and the life you’re working hard to build.

Her new book From Zero to Zen: Secret Keys to Nurturing Your Numbers and Finding Financial Flow is available on Amazon Thursday, May 18th.

She also has a fun, free tool – The Zen Calculator – which helps identify the top money-making numbers and how to use them to grow your business. Get access to the calculator here: www.staterabusiness.com/zencalculator.

Episode #92 The Journey of Imua with Meghan Alonso

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Meghan Alonso’s journey of Imua, with imua being a Hawaiian word imua (ee-mooh-ah) meaning “to advance forward with passion despite rough waves”, was birthed from a personal history of medical needs along with a huge passion for helping people.  Meghan’s company Imua Services, helps startup companies and individuals get their medical innovations up and running. With nearly 75% of all startups in this field failing, Imua Services offers training, education and connections to key development partners, tailored to the client’s needs so they can bring their life-changing and even life-saving technology to the world.  

Meghan’s Inspiration

Meghan’s passion stems from some rough waves due to medical issues for her and her family.  Meghan was born with a folded retina in her left eye that by the time she was in college was replaced with a custom made, hand painted prosthetic eye which looks almost imperceptibly real.  She also has an extra vertebrae in her spine which has resulted in numerous issues including scoliosis, disk herniations, and a tilted pelvis among others.  She had a love of dance and gymnastics, and despite pain which she learned how to manage through exercise, she excelled at both, and even did gymnastics right through college.

Her family’s biggest challenge though came from an unidentified illness that plagued her brother, which was eventually identified as Hepatitis C.  Both Meghan and her mother also tested positive for it.  Meghan’s mother likely contracted through a blood transfusion in the mid ‘70s which she transferred to her son and Meghan in utero.  This led to 7 different treatments of low-dose chemotherapy. Through this challenging time they kept moving forward, and now happily report that all three of them are completely free of the disease.

The Hawaiian Connection

Meghan’s passion for surfing led her to Hawaii where she enrolled in a graduate program that ended up not being for her.  After one semester, she dropped out, and surfed all over the island.  She worked at the 4 Seasons Lanai which she loved but eventually realized she didn’t see herself doing it long term.  She obtained Exercise Science Master’s Program in Houston and eventually settled in San Diego.  There she helped athletes reach their full potential.  This led to her working in an orthopaedic rehab clinic where she was exposed to medical devices, and a multitude of patients with different rehab protocols.  She was later invited to build a rehab centre from the ground up which is now a three centre organization.

When she moved on from there, she Meghan had the opportunity to live out one of her childhood dreams of dancing on TV and with the Ooh La La salsa dancing troupe, toured all over Europe and the US.  She also was part of America’s Got Talent in Season 6.  All the dancing took a toll on her body, and the pain in her back became increasingly worse and she discovered she also had hip dysplasia and she had damaged the lining of both of her hip sockets.  This led to surgery in Colorado which involved a hip replacement.  Her experience at the clinic led her to finally dive into the field of medical devices.  

The Journey of Imua Services

She started Imua in 2015 after she had been working in medical product development.  The company she was working for was predominantly an engineering firm that innovators used to take care of the engineering component of the device idea.  She soon found herself being contacted by passionate people who had great ideas, but no idea how to get started.   Initially, she offered them resources to help them get started, and soon, it became a business.

Meghan helps her clients navigate the complicated process of bringing their ideas to the marketplace.  Whether they move towards actually manufacturing and marketing their product, or selling the idea to a company who can do so, Imua’s mission remains to become the world leader in helping entrepreneurs, scientists, students and inventors bring their life changing ideas to fruition.

Connect with Meghan

You can connect with Meghan on her IMUA website at http://imua-services.com/,  via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghanalonso, on Twitter at https://twitter.com/meghanmalonso?lang=en,  and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/meghanmalonso.

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Resources

Episode 2 of Meghan’s Podcast – Inspired by IMUA – Running on 3D Printing Prosthetic Legs: How 3D Printing Changed Derby the Dog’s Life with Tara Anderson: http://imua-services.com/taraanderson/

Meghan’s Podcast – Inspired by IMUA – http://imua-services.com/podcast-archive/

 

#91 - The journey of imua with Meghan AlonsoTexas born and bred with ALOHA SPIRIT and a sprinkling of So Cal carefree, meet Meghan Alonso.  Meghan M. Alonso is known for her medical device podcast, Inspired by Imua, and her valuable connections in the medical industry. She is a patriotic military wife, pet parent, founder and co-founder of 4 successful companies who thrives on guiding medical device and IVD companies through development and manufacturing.

When she isn’t helping others, Meghan is hard at work on her MBA she is pursuing from Auburn University, staying active with her adorable husky Abby, cross-fitting, enjoying great restaurants and fine wine with her husband, and soaking up the sun on the So Cal beaches.

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Episode #91 Livestream and Profit with Katya Varbanova

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Ever wonder how to turn livestreams into income?  This week, we have LiveStreamKatya, a Live streamer and a strategist who helps Entrepreneurs livestream and profit, growing their audience online.

When Katya started her online business in 2015, Katya was working as the right hand of a high profile Executive Managing Director in London.  Despite having a great deal of responsibility, the job was not overly stressful, and she was able to develop a business on the side.

Katya discovered Periscope quite by accident, in fact to quote her, out of boredom.  Once she started getting to know the platform, she saw the potential in it, and started a community so that she could combine efforts with others so that they could all get 10,000 followers each. From that idea came Peri10K, a free community Katya created, in which the members supported each other, and created and shared content together, attracting more followers.

The members created a show called the Share-a-thon, which was a daily livestream show where one topic was discussed and members would share all their followers.  The high quality of the speakers and interesting topics allowed the group to grow very quickly.  Within a couple of weeks, the group had grown exponentially, and Katya was spending countless hours after her 9-5 and on the weekends to support it.   She then realized she had to decide whether to keep it, or shut it down.  At this point, she was not making any money with it.  When someone suggested that she charge a monthly fee for the group, Katya set it up and saw her membership grow to 60 members within 30 days, which was enough to quit her 9-5.    

She tiered the membership levels, so that the early birds got in for $15 per month and 20 people signed up.  The next 20 people signed up at $30 per month and the next 20 people signed up at $50 per month.  She also incorporated as soon as she started to charge to minimize tax implications.

From the initial platform of Periscope, Katya added a blog that quickly had thousands of viewers, and that she invited others to guest post on.  They also started monthly masterminds, hot seats, a Peri10K app and eventually training on live streaming.  

Today Katya defines Peri10K as a mastermind that does 2 things:  keeps members accountable, and give them the support and knowledge that they need to succeed.  The monthly membership rate went up to $75 per month, and then to its current level of $97 per month.  Membership is by application, and is only open a few times a year.  There are currently somewhere around 150 members.  

Many people find that livestreams on their business page tends to be much less followed than those on personal pages.  In order to grow your Facebook business presence, Katya recommends going live as often as you can on your business page, and not on your personal page.  Firstly because visitors on your business page can be tracked, unlike personal page followers, and secondly because it is actually against Facebook’s terms and conditions to do any selling, and if someone complains, Facebook can shut down your page, no questions asked and without warning.

For help with tracking viewers on Periscope, there is a software called Fullscope.tv  that is available for $20 per month, which allows you to see who was there and read and respond to the comments.  You can also collect emails by having your followers put their email addresses in the comments, and mast export them.    

Because Twitter and Periscope are part of the same company, you can easily reach out to your followers very easily.

Today, Katya generally prefers Facebook for live streaming supported by ads to target the right audience.  While Instagram live is great for nurturing followers and hosting giveaways, it doesn’t allow you to share content.  Live.ly and Live.me are great for the under 18 crowd and allows you to actually make money from their live broadcasts.  Busker allows you to sell products on the platform or get tips.  It links to your stripe account, and people can buy right from your broadcast.   

Connect with Katya

You can connect with Katya on her Youtube channel at  bit.ly/katyayoutube, on Periscope  at  periscope.tv/livestreamkatya, on LinkedIn at https://uk.linkedin.com/in/livestreamkatya , on Facebook at Facebook.com/livestreamkatya and Instagram at instagram.com/livestreamkatya.

Social: @LiveStreamKatya everywhere.
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Resources

Get Katya’s free Video Planner called Show up Already, the Live Video Planner to Stop You Scheming and Get You Streaming at http://www.peri10k.com/live-video-planner/

Peri10K:  http://www.peri10k.com/

Busker:  https://busker.co/

Live.ly for iPhone:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/live-ly-live-video-streaming/id1085024470?mt=8

Live.ly for Android:   https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zhiliaoapp.lively&hl=en

Live.me:  https://www.liveme.com/

Periscope:  https://www.pscp.tv/

Also check out : 90 Day Year

 

#91 - Livestream and Profit with Katya Varbanova

LiveStreamKatya is a Live streamer and a strategist who helps Entrepreneurs utilize live streaming to grow their audience online and generate revenue. With over 35,000 social fans, she’s one of the early adopters on Periscope who quickly learned the ways of the platform and was able to validate and build her business idea, and within 90 days she quit her banking job.

She is the CEO of Peri10k, which is a community for speakers and live streamers and she helps entrepreneurs share their message through live streaming. Today, she is one of the 50 (out of millions of users) GOLD VIP Broadcaster with over 22,000 followers on Periscope and is passionate about teaching others how to generate revenue through live streaming.

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