Transcript
Michelle Lynne: Welcome to Designed for the Creative Mind, a podcast for interior designers and creative entrepreneurs to run their business with purpose, efficiency, and passion. Because, while every design is different, the process should remain the same. Prepare yourself for some good conversations with amazing guests, a dash of Jesus and a touch of the woowoo, and probably a swear word or two. If you're ready to stop trading your time for money, and enjoy your interior design business, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Michelle Lynne.
Michelle Lynne: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. This is Michelle Lynne, and I am excited to introduce to you Tara Newman, for today's episode. She is the Founder and CEO of the Bold Profit Academy, where she teaches service-based business owners how to sell premium services and programs without the emotional stress of launching, worrying about ads, overwhelming social strategies, or complex funnels. Tara hosts a weekly podcast called The Bold Money Revolution, and she has been featured in publications like Money Magazine, Yahoo Finance, and Huffington Post, as well as other publications and many other podcasts. So welcome, Tara. Glad to have you here. Thank you.
Tara Newman: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here with you today. We're right before the holidays, it feels festive.
Michelle Lynne: I know, exactly. I need to have like a little festive cocktail or something or some decorations in the background. Well, Tara, thanks so much for being here. Let's just start by introducing, like, what do you do?
Tara Newman: Okay. So I consider myself a business growth strategist I work with, and I always like to be really clear, because right, like when I show up and I talk, and people hear what I say, I feel like there's so much responsibility in that. Right? So I always like to be really clear about who I talk to because depending on who you are, you may or may not want to take what I say with any grain of salt, right?
Michelle Lynne: Well, I think you have a lot of good things to say.
Tara Newman: I do. But I'll give you an example. So I work with service-based business owners, primarily women, but also men, who are selling premium services. These are established experts; these aren't people who are one step ahead. And what I help them do is pay themselves a six-figure salary, because if they were to go out into the real world, and I hate to say real world, but into the traditional job space world, they would likely, very, very likely be commanding a six-figure salary very easily. No matter what profession you're in.
Michelle Lynne: Okay, so then you're taking them outside of the corporate or whatever they would be doing as a professional, dropping them into their own service-based industry, and ensuring that we get paid, as that individual, well into the six figures.
Tara Newman: Yeah, the reality is, is most people, at least most people in my audience have started with another career somewhere. They have other skills that they've transitioned into their business, even if it's not in the same industry. Maybe it has been.
Michelle Lynne: And that's my background, I came out of corporate in a completely separate industry.
Tara Newman: You were a restaurant manager.
Michelle Lynne: Yes. I was a restaurant manager and a recruiter, basically.
Tara Newman: Yeah, yeah. So for sure. Right. So we're all people, and it's usually women, and what gets missed with women is that we're usually necessity entrepreneurs. We've left for a reason. And, you know, today, it's so easy to flip open an app and get your business education and start setting your goals based on what someone else is doing. And forgetting the original intent of why you started a business, which is likely to create greater flexibility and autonomy so you could spend more time with your family. Maybe for your health, there's usually three reasons, I need to spend more time with my family, it's, you know, this whole childcare thing is not working. I am the best at what I do, and that is putting so much stress and pressure on me because I keep being the one who has to do everything at my job, so it's creating an unhealthy environment for me. Or I have a chronic illness and this environment is not serving me. And so these are like the three reasons I hear from women as to why they leave and go and do their own thing. There's usually an urgency there, where you just up and leave a steady paycheck. You go and do your own thing. And usually, women say, hey, if I can just have more time in my day and make the same money that I was making when I was working for somebody else, like that would be the dream.
Michelle Lynne: Yeah, and maybe even not as much to begin with, but you don't have all the stress, all the pressure, and just the nuisance factor.
Tara Newman: A hundred percent. And, you know, we're willing to make these tradeoffs. And then we come and next thing you know, everything's seven-figure this, eight-figure that, six-figure months in, you know, in online business spaces, and there's this, like, aggressive push for growth, and it becomes very unhealthy, equally unhealthy, if not more unhealthy, than before.
Michelle Lynne: Yes, I can relate to that.
Tara Newman: Because now you're not being financially compensated the way you were as if you worked for somebody else. And it's really easy when you show up and you do the tasks that are on your job description, and your employer direct deposits money into your account. But when you're working for yourself, there's like, I think I looked at all the steps at one point, but there's like a good 12 to 24 big steps you need to take to make sure that money gets from your business bank account to your personal bank account.
Michelle Lynne: Yes, all the overhead that has to be accounted for, and then praying that you've got a little bit left over for yourself. So that makes perfect sense. Now, so you teach, so I'm just trying to set the, like who you are, so as we dive down into our conversation, our audience can understand a little bit better. So you teach people how to translate.
Tara Newman: I teach three things. Four. So I'm Profit First certified, so if anybody's ever read the book, Profit First,
Michelle Lynne: Love that. Yes.
Tara Newman: I have my mastery certification from Profit First. And so when you look at the Profit First equation, it is sales minus profit equals expenses.
Michelle Lynne: Yes.
Tara Newman: I teach sales. I teach cashflow management, how to profit. I teach marketing, and what to do with your money to grow your business.
Michelle Lynne: Ah, that is so good. Okay. So that encapsulates who you are. So going forward, I think our audience will have an understanding about our conversation. So you and I had spoken a little bit about in advance, you say strive for $250,000 years instead of $10,000 months?
Tara Newman: Yes.
Michelle Lynne: Why?
Tara Newman: Oh, a couple of reasons. So $10,000 months, you know, everybody's like, oh, this is the benchmark because then you'll have approximately $120,000 a year in revenue. But the reality is, is that is nowhere near enough for you to be paying yourself and a team. It leaves you very little financial margin. It leaves you very little to invest in your business or in other revenue streams.
Michelle Lynne: I think that is so true. Because I remember back in my early days, I was so excited. It's a $10,000 month, yay. But that doesn't cover, I mean, there's so many other things that you take out of that equate.
Tara Newman: Yes. So my rude awakening, oddly enough. My rude awakening was $100,000 a year in revenue does not mean $100,000 a year that I pay myself. And so some of you, this might be your first moment that you're realizing this. And we all have that moment.
Michelle Lynne: Yes. I started my business thinking, okay, so I can set my own schedule. I can make houses beautiful. I can, you know, change other people's lives and so forth, and make a bucket of money while I was doing it. And then it's like, you know what? Yeah, that's not gonna happen. I might be working my ass off and not bringing a whole lot of money back.
Tara Newman: So I think what you want to strive for is taking home $10,000 a month.
Michelle Lynne: There you go.
Tara Newman: And so in order to do that, you need to generate about $250,000 in revenue. And what happens when you aim for $10,000 months is you don't price your services appropriately.
Michelle Lynne: Yes.
Tara Newman: For the 250 plus, in revenue. Now, there is a factor here. Eighty-eight percent of women are generating less than $100,000 a year in their businesses in revenue.
Michelle Lynne: Ouch.
Tara Newman: Right.
Michelle Lynne: So that means they're not taking home bubkis.
Tara Newman: Right. They're overspending on marketing. They're overspending on team. They're undercharging, and they're overdelivering.
Michelle Lynne: Oh, you just described our audience.
Tara Newman: We haven't been taught.
Michelle Lynne: Yeah, I totally get that. I did that for so many years. It's just, yeah, so no judgment there, y'all, as you're listening when I say it's our audience, believe me, that includes myself for a long, long time. So how do you get more sales? And how do you convert more leads without, like, what do you do? Like, is it social media? Is it Google Ads? Like how do you? How? What do you suggest?
Tara Newman: So before I look at any of that, I want to know why people buy. I want to know who you're talking to. And why do they buy?
Michelle Lynne: Right
Tara Newman: Because what I want everybody to think about is how they can create a differentiated strategy in their business. When you come online, what you see a lot of is mass-marketed programs, low dollar, high volume, and we think, oh, this is the path to getting out of burnout, or this is, this is how we're supposed to do it. And they're selling a lot of entry-level solutions. And the reality is, is the women that I work with, and the women that I just mentioned, you're established experts, you've likely been doing this for quite a while. And if you're transitioning even to something slightly new, you have skills that would transition to what you're doing.
Michelle Lynne: Right. Because we're not going to go start an interior design business, if we don't know the first thing about how to make something, let's just, simplicity, make it pretty.
Tara Newman: Right. So you have to stop selling to entry-level people, we want you to differentiate yourself. And the way you do that is you go, how is my audience, how is my core market, underserved?
Michelle Lynne: Oh, that's a good question to start with.
Tara Newman: Where are they not being served? So I can't necessarily speak for you, but I can speak for myself in the sense that when you go online in any online business education space, it's seven figures, it's 6k, it's 600, it's six-figure months, whatever the heck they call it, I don't even know.
Michelle Lynne: It's so over the top.
Tara Newman: It's so inane, right? And the women that I work with do not want a million-dollar business. They want to be millionaires, but they don't want to own a million-dollar business. And you can be a millionaire without owning a million-dollar business.
Michelle Lynne: Well, that's interesting.
Tara Newman: So if there are women out there, like me, who have three dogs, two kids, my husband owns his own business, we have two businesses in this house. I've got an aging mom. And the thought of having a seven-figure business, after retiring from a corporate career, I'm not interested in that.
Michelle Lynne: There you go.
Tara Newman: I want a high, highly profitable business that supports my lifestyle and generates cash flow, so I can take that money and invest it in other revenue streams.
Michelle Lynne: Okay, I'm following. That doesn't suck. That sounds like a pretty darn good goal to have.
Tara Newman: Yeah, so the women that I work with, they look online, and they're like, I don't fit in here. Where do I go? They're underserved. Nobody's talking to them.
Michelle Lynne: So what does one need to do to create a business like that? Because I think you've got everybody's attention.
Tara Newman: I will tell you, give me one more minute. So with the differentiated strategy, underserved market with an unmet need. There's something that's really important to them that is unsatisfied. So if you think about in your space, in the interior design space, what's everyone saying? And what's everyone complaining about? What are they not hearing? What are they continuing to try and find a solution for? What's not being resolved? Right? And so those are the areas where you can find your underserved market who has an unmet need, because if they're still looking for people, they haven't found the solution.
Michelle Lynne: That makes sense. So the homeowners that are hiring us are looking for us to bring them the solutions for their unmet needs.
Tara Newman: Yep.
Michelle Lynne: Okay. So basically, it's time for interior designers to sit back and realize that we're not just making things pretty, that we are solving problems.
Tara Newman: Correct.
Michelle Lynne: We are problem solvers before we are interior designers, and how do we market that?
Tara Newman: What are they really hiring you for? Right? That's the question you need to be asking. Because when people buy, they're hiring us, our services or products, to do a job. They want to make progress. And they haven't been able to make that progress even though they've tried other things.
Michelle Lynne: Right, because a lot of our clients try to do it themselves and realize that it's not like HGTV where it's just rainbows and unicorns and poof, the house is pretty.
Tara Newman: Right. So, you know, you have to find what is it that they're hiring you for really.
Michelle Lynne: And is that how you suggest marketing to them?
Tara Newman: Yes. So I could talk about build your business, I could talk about grow your revenue, I can talk about increase your sales, I could talk about make money, find clients now. I'm talking about getting you paid like the expert you are.
Michelle Lynne: Amen. Amen.
Tara Newman: Because that's what you want. And if I talk to women running service-based businesses, who are established experts, and I say to them, let's increase your sales. They get like, oh, I don't know. Sales makes me feel nervous, icky, this, that, the other thing. Right? If I say to them, let's grow your business. Ooh, that feels hard. Right?
Michelle Lynne: Yeah.
Tara Newman: Well, what are they trying to get? What do they actually want? Well, they want to get paid.
Michelle Lynne: Yeah, they want more money.
Tara Newman: Why do they want to get paid? Why do they want to get paid? So they can create long-term financial stability for their families.
Michelle Lynne: Yes. Long-term financial stability for their families.
Tara Newman: Right. And now we can talk about the multiple revenue streams.
Michelle Lynne: There you go. There you go. Yes. And I think you're right, because you have to remove the fearful topics and get to the heart of it, which is the same thing that we need to do with our clients that we're pursuing, is remove the fearful topics and get to the heart of what they actually want.
Tara Newman: Yep.
Michelle Lynne: Because everybody has a different driver to get this problem solved.
Tara Newman: Yeah. And so I know that if somebody comes to me, which they do, and they hop on a phone with me, and they're like, I want to build a seven-figure, online business, and I want to sell courses. That's not me. I don't work with them. I say no. If they came to me, and they're like, listen, I want to make sure that I'm taking care of my financial goals and my financial future. And it's really important to me that I start paying myself more than I'm currently paying myself, and I'm willing to do the things that are going to make me uncomfortable to do it. Then that's my person.
Michelle Lynne: Okay, so what do you tell them at that point? Because right now you're talking about both business as well as personal finances. And do you get into the nitty gritty of, hey, your personal finances are screwed up, your business finances are screwed up. Like, do you talk about all of it? Or do you just focus on the business?
Tara Newman: So what I do is I help people reverse engineer their business based on how much they want to pay themselves.
Michelle Lynne: Okay.
Tara Newman: Listen, it's gonna save you a lot of sanity, it's gonna save you a lot of time, it's going to direct you to how much you really need to be charging, and who you really need to be talking to.
Michelle Lynne: So you start with the business reverse engineer, how much I could take home. So if I want to make a bazillion dollars a year, you would say you need to make x times bazillion. And then this is how we merge into your personal paycheck.
Tara Newman: Yeah, so I have a calculator that any of your folks can download, I can give you the link at the end, where you would go in and you would put down your monthly family expenses. And I get like, sometimes you have a financial partner at home. And so you might either split that out, you might be looking to retire that person, you might be looking to maybe contribute to family vacations, whatever it is, whatever you need to be responsible for, you would put in there. I mean, heck, inflation alone is really increased, right? So we need to be making sure we're getting these calculations, right. So you're gonna go in and some people freak out and they're like, oh my gosh, like, I don't have that information. I'm like, cool, I didn't have that information for a really long time either. I started my business and I had never managed my own money personally. I started handing over my paycheck to my husband when we were dating. We were living together, and we were dating, and he's like, let's just combine our money and we're gonna be paying bills, we're gonna be getting married anyway, I'm like yeah, cool, fine, whatever. I was young.
Michelle Lynne: Good thing it worked out.
Tara Newman: And until I started, and by the way, so I always caveat this. Just because I have combined my money, my finances with my partner does not mean that you have to combine your money with your partner. If you are in a position where you are working with something like financial abuse or you don't trust your partner, where they do shady stuff with your money, please don't merge your accounts. I just want to make sure everybody's safe and don't think that I'm advocating for something when that's not always the best way.
Michelle Lynne: Well, and also just as a side note there, also because in a marriage, people have two different stories about money. And sometimes even if it is a healthy relationship, the money arguments come up. It could be easier to keep them separate.
Tara Newman: Could be.
Michelle Lynne: So just a thought there. Thank you.
Tara Newman: You're welcome. So, you know, until I ran my own business, I never even managed my own money, he would be paying all the bills. So people say to me, like, oh, I can't do math. I can't, trust me like, been there. I am not, I did not go to school for finance and get a finance degree.
Michelle Lynne: But the Profit First is such a model that it is, I don't want to say it's easy, but it's simple.
Tara Newman: It's very simplified. Yep.
Michelle Lynne: And effective.
Tara Newman: Correct. So over the last eight years, I've had to really increase my financial literacy, because I do have this belief that, you know, if you're someone who struggles to look at your bank accounts or struggles to look at your credit card statements or anything like that, you really shouldn't be running a business, because you're going to do financial harm to yourself, and you're going to do financial harm to other people. So in this calculator, you put in what your expenses are, you can guess. We all have some kind of idea of what things cost or what you would be responsible for. The calculator is great, because it's there to continually model, it's calculator, it's for you. It's an Excel spreadsheet, and you keep it and you use it, and you modify it as you go, and as you obtain new information. And what it does, is it tells you how much money a year you need to have to meet those obligations or those goals. And then it reverse engineers it and tells you how much revenue you would need, how much profit you would make, how much money you would have to pay yourself, how much money you would have to pay for taxes, and how much money you would have to spend in your business.
Michelle Lynne: Oh, wow. That is all-encompassing. And how does that work in regards to the different industries?
Tara Newman: So Profit First is aggregated across all industries. I will say that if you are in a design business where you have people like in an agency style, and you have people delivering work on your behalf, that would be a little more advanced. And that would be a little more advanced calculation. But for most
Michelle Lynne: Oh, gotcha. It's not going to be an exact science. It's a free calculator, but it's pretty darn close.
Tara Newman: It will be enough to create some eye-opening, there's a 15-minute training that goes with it, that I do. And it's a start.
Michelle Lynne: Yeah, that sounds amazing.
Tara Newman: It's a real start because we don't realize that things cost money.
Michelle Lynne: Except for those shoes and handbags that I really love.
Michelle Lynne: Imagine trying to bake a cake without a recipe. You kind of know what the ingredients are, but you don't know how to put it all together. After lots of hard work and trying different combinations, all you are left with is a sticky situation and a stomachache. Babe, running an interior design business can feel exactly that same way. That is why I created The Interior Design Business Bakery. This is a program that teaches you how to bake your interior design business cake and eat it too. If you don't want to figure out the hard way, and you want guidance to follow, a recipe that has already been vetted, someone that has already been there and done it and will help you do it too, then check out the year-long mentorship and coaching program, The Interior Design Business Bakery. If your interior design business revenue is below $300,000, or if you're struggling to make a profit and keep your sanity, this is the only program for you. You can find that information at designedforthecreativemind.com/business-bakery. Check it out. You won't regret it.
Michelle Lynne: So basically, what you do is you like, okay, so here's the free calculator and so forth. But the services that you provide, if I wanted to enlist you, you would say okay, Michelle, let's sit down and lay everything out, because I have employees, I have overhead, I have all these things. And you would say here's what you need to do. Here's, you know, the cost of doing business, basically.
Tara Newman: Yes.
Michelle Lynne: And here's, you can bring home five dollars.
Tara Newman: Yes, yeah. So then if you would, you know, then if anybody needs anything beyond that, then, you know, I would sit down and I would do an assessment with them. We teach people how to do it in one of our programs, so that you can do it for yourself. And so you have a better understanding of Profit First because it is really important. I think that the KPI for your business
Michelle Lynne: And KPI is?
Tara Newman: Key Performance Indicators. Yeah, I think it's your owner's pay not your revenue.
Michelle Lynne: Ah, that makes sense, right.
Tara Newman: What's the point if you're just gonna pay yourself the same if you'd be making. Listen, it's really not that far of a jump when you look at the hours you're putting in and what you're paying yourself, to my son who's working in a local restaurant making $16.50 an hour.
Michelle Lynne: Right. Yeah, if we take a look and break down what we're making per hour, it can be pretty, pretty discouraging. Been there, done that, laid on the floor in a pool of tears. Minimum wage. So with that, how how, I'm trying to form a question. It's at the tip of my tongue. How do you? Do you try to drive sales higher so that you drive your revenue up? But you're also taking a look at expenses and guiding that.
Tara Newman: Yeah. So the question that I realized that women need to have answered pretty much immediately, immediately, if they already have a business and they already have money coming in, is the need to answer the question, do I need to repurpose or utilize the money I have coming in better? Or do I need to go make more? Or both. Right? But what I find is that, and we have when you download the calculator, there's other resources in there. One of them is helping you plug your money leaks. So if you go through and you plug your money leaks, and you're like, oh, well, I didn't have a lot of money leaks, well, then you need to go make more money.
Michelle Lynne: That makes sense.
Tara Newman: If you're like, woah, I was like really spendy and there were places where I could save some money, then it might be a combination of both. But for the most part, it takes women quite a while working with me to go, oh, I can't diet down this business anymore. As women we're so used to smalling ourselves up, dieting things down, putting ourselves in the box, tying the little bow.
Michelle Lynne: Uh huh.
Tara Newman: And so that's the first inclination is to do without, to do without, to do without, to cut, to cut, to cut.
Michelle Lynne: To cut your budget, cut, cut, cut.
Tara Newman: Instead of doing the unfortunately, uncomfortable things of going in, it's not just raising your rates, it's learning how to sell at a premium price. We can all just go change the number on our website.
Michelle Lynne: Yep, just add a zero.
Tara Newman: We can all mindset ourselves there too like, it might take a little longer, but like, you can, you know, get your mind finally ready and to go and do that. But then you actually need the skillset to go and enroll clients into
Michelle Lynne: A higher ticket solution.
Tara Newman: Services at a different level, and be able to communicate your value, which is why we talk about why are people buying? Why are your people buying? Because that's how you position yourself for the higher price point.
Michelle Lynne: And I think that that's so true, because you have to know, as interior designers, this is a luxury service, not everybody can afford us. And that's okay because we don't have to be all things to all people. And I think that identifying the needs that our clients have, is just knowing who our ideal client profile is. Like, are they running towards pleasure or are they running from pain, a combination of both, or whatever the case may be. And heck, we all know, you know, we're willing to pay premiums in our own world for the solutions that we want. And you know, my premium might be different than your premium, and my wants is going to be different than yours. But at the end of the day, there's enough ugly houses out there that clients are gonna come and pay what we need to make a profit. And I think you've also hit on something, Tara, is that as women, sometimes we do play small. And it's time for us to step up and step into the expertise that we bring to the table.
Tara Newman: Yeah, so I'm going to give an example of playing small because I have a client who, this was her, we just finished working together and she's like, wow, like my biggest insight was I was playing small. And she goes, and that's not a phrase that I tend to use. But she had heard that from other people for so many years and didn't know what that meant. So if you're sitting here going, I'm hearing this but I don't know what it means. I'm going to give you her an example from my work with her. So she came to a call and she said, I need to make $10,000 in the next six weeks, and all I have in front of me is a $3,000 proposal. So I said, okay, I said, let's talk through the $3,000 proposal. And I started to ask her questions that are consultative, trying to understand this client of hers' need, why are they buying? How are they underserved? What is the unmet need? And I said, so what you're telling me is like, collect all the data and 45 minutes later, I said, what you're telling me is, is that this is a $20,000 offer, not a $3,000 offer. So if you ask her the same questions that I've asked you, extrapolate that information, and then present it to her like this, that's a $20,000 offer. Now, you might not feel comfortable going and selling that at $20,000
Michelle Lynne: Because she was ready to ask for three.
Tara Newman: But what I want to show you is how you've overlooked $17,000 worth of value.
Michelle Lynne: Amazing.
Tara Newman: And that's when she went, I'm playing small. Because it wasn't the first time she did it that year. And she was very prepared to go and ask for the $20,000 based on the work that we had done.
Michelle Lynne: Oh, good.
Tara Newman: But she, but you, you keep doing it. You revert back because you go, you default to your comfort zone.
Michelle Lynne: Oh my gosh, just think about the clothes we put on every day. We have our favorite clothes that we wear over and over and over again because they're comfortable. They might not be the best looking. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Tara Newman: So that's really her. She was like, oh my gosh, like I totally get where this is happening.
Michelle Lynne: I love that. I love that. So Tara, I'm still not making the connection between, like Profit First is a process but you take that model and you put your own secret sauce in there to help elevate. How did you learn how to do, where does that come from?
Tara Newman: Oh, um 23 years of being in business in one form or another. I think just trial and error. Lots of failure. Lots and lots and lots of failure.
Michelle Lynne: Yeah.
Tara Newman: I probably have I don't know, you know, made more money mistakes than most because I'm willing to make them.
Michelle Lynne: Yeah, I understand that.
Tara Newman: I make mess-ups with my money all the time. I tell the women in my program, okay, so like this woman, I'm like, okay, you got a $20,000 offer. I don't actually care if you sell the $20,000 offer but I want you to propose the $20,000 offer.
Michelle Lynne: Right.
Tara Newman: Because that's the actual next step. That's the win. Getting them to propose that higher-level offer. I don't care, I want you to fail. If you're not failing, I don't know how to help you.
Michelle Lynne: There you go. And in our society, like I think, in our society, failure is looked down upon. But that's the only way we can grow. And that's the only way we can learn. So the more failures we have, the more success we're going to find.
Tara Newman: Yeah. And I'm curious. Curiosity is really important in business. Be curious. And so I'm curious, I'm a researcher, and I'm a problem solver, and in solving my own problems, I find solutions.
Michelle Lynne: Yeah. And you can serve others.
Tara Newman: Like, you can be a millionaire without having a million-dollar business. Let's touch on that. Because I know that was something that even when we were in the green room, you wanted to talk about additional revenue streams.
Michelle Lynne: Yep.
Tara Newman: And this was one that took me a little while to figure out for myself because my husband runs a manufacturing business. And we live in a very high cost of living area. He's been in manufacturing. This isn't his first manufacturing business. Oh, we went bankrupt in the last recession. Our first business went out of business, and we went bankrupt. That was a big lesson.
Michelle Lynne: That would be a big lesson. Yeah.
Tara Newman: That was probably worth more than my master's degree in psychology.
Michelle Lynne: Yeah. Good stories.
Tara Newman: Yeah, you know, we're tired. He's 48, I'm 46. And it's dawned on me that you don't have to wait until you're 65 to retire. So when I left my corporate job seven years ago, I said that I retired from my corporate career, I semi-retired, and I'm choosing to do work that I love and do it differently than I would do it if I was working for somebody else. Because at that point, what is the point?
Michelle Lynne: Yeah.
Tara Newman: And so I got really interested in this concept of this country and what we call retirement and how we use our money. And then like I found the online business space, and everybody's talking about like passive income. And it's not actually passive.
Michelle Lynne: No.
Tara Newman: And I'm like, no, that's not true.
Michelle Lynne: That's a bunch of BS.
Tara Newman: That's a bunch of BS. So I got really interested in researching wealth. And I actually started taking courses to get my CFP, my Certified Financial Planning certificate. As someone who never managed her own money, by the way until eight years ago. So I just want everybody to hear that.
Michelle Lynne: You just dove right in, didn't you?
Tara Newman: And I barely made it through math, by the way, so, but I like, I speak the language of money. It's something that I do really well. And I had to give myself permission to really lean into that. And so in researching wealthy people, they have seven income streams.
Michelle Lynne: I've read that.
Tara Newman: Yes. They have seven revenue streams. They typically look like owning a business. They look like maybe some kind of royalty or affiliate-type payment. It looks like maybe being on a board of directors. It looks like maybe a dividend portfolio. It could be real estate, it could be stocks and bonds, right? So there are other ways that you can be generating income, that don't require you to be earning the income all the time. I want everybody to learn how to take the income that they have earned, because you have worked very hard for that and put it someplace to work for you, so you don't have to work for it. And in order to do that, you need cash flow, you need Profit First, you need to be paying yourself and you need to be profitable. Because that's the money that you're gonna then take and go invest in real estate. So you're going to take the profit from one business and use it to start another revenue stream.
Michelle Lynne: Hence, you don't have to have a million-dollar business, revenue, in order to become a millionaire.
Tara Newman: Correct. You just have to be consistently profitable.
Michelle Lynne: There you go. Otherwise, you're not gonna have the cash to invest elsewhere.
Tara Newman: At the number you've decided you need to hit that revenue goal.
Michelle Lynne: And it's not just to make ends meet, it is to become profitable so you can turn around and put it in a vehicle that will provide for you literally while you sleep.
Tara Newman: Yes.
Michelle Lynne: Yep. Nope, and it seems so simple.
Tara Newman: But what we're doing instead, in a lot of cases, is we're putting it into Facebook ads.
Michelle Lynne: Yes.
Tara Newman: And we're putting it into team that we may or may not need. And we're putting it into marketing initiatives that may or may not work. And we don't know what to do with it, so we're just putting it everywhere else but the place that needs to go to generate more income.
Michelle Lynne: Because it should, quote-unquote, should go back into the business. Whereas really the business is the business of you. And if we look at ourselves as the business, because even though we're the business owner, it doesn't have to go into that entity. It needs to go into a tool that will help us.
Tara Newman: Yes, and I think where we get tripped up is Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit First, often talks about think like a shareholder, not a CEO. Think like a shareholder. And he said this, and I was like, oh, I understand this. Because years ago, I worked for a CEO at a company, very wealthy, married somebody even wealthier than him, had a ton of money, and his perspective on the business, which I always appreciated, was every year, we just need to grow profit 7%. And that was like a really weird number because even back 15 years ago, this country and our people have a very unhealthy addiction to aggressive growth.
Michelle Lynne: Yes.
Tara Newman: We see it everywhere. Right? And so 7% doesn't seem like a heck of a lot when everybody else wants to 10x all the things. And I always took that with me. And I'd always be like, oh, remember, he was just like, 7%. Like, you don't have to constantly be doubling your revenue and 10x-ing things. And we need to understand why we're doing that. Because what I find happens, and this is any investor with any business investment they make, whether it's real estate or anything else, the percent that they're looking to earn year over year isn't a ton. It's 7%, 10%, maybe, maybe 15% maybe. But like 10 is like a really good return.
Michelle Lynne: Yeah, it's not like you're gonna get that on your savings account.
Tara Newman: Right. So year after year compounding that year after year. So if I grow 10%, and then 10%, on the 10%, and then 10% on the 10%.
Michelle Lynne: Yeah.
Tara Newman: Right? And so I was like, yeah, that's how we need to be thinking about our businesses. Because why do people spend so much money reinvesting in the business to achieve hyper-aggressive growth that they don't need?
Michelle Lynne: Or necessarily want, but that's kind of what the expectation is.
Tara Newman: Correct.
Michelle Lynne: Interesting. Yeah. And instead, so the business might be growing, but the profit might not be. So maybe there were, like, I've had years where my revenue went up, but my profit didn't. And therefore, it's like, why not just take that money and dump it in somewhere else, instead of working harder on my job, than to make the money towards my retirement somewhere else.
Tara Newman: And I want the opposite for everyone.
Michelle Lynne: Yeah. So do I.
Tara Newman: I want, and this is where, you know, so we have different phases in business or stages of business, we have startup, growth, and then but everybody just wants to scale everything. Like we're just scale happy, like scale it, scale it, scale it. And I'm like, listen, if I tell you stories about the businesses that I've gone into and have had to scale down, because they didn't scale properly, so I put an extra step between growth, we want to get you out of growth because growth is where people get stuck and burn out. But before scale is stabilize.
Michelle Lynne: And that's when quality of life comes in too.
Tara Newman: Yes. And to stabilize, you have to answer the question, how can I make the money that I'm currently making but more profitable?
Michelle Lynne: Yes.
Tara Newman: With less of my time.
Michelle Lynne: Absolutely.
Tara Newman: Easier. And then when you can do that, then you scale.
Michelle Lynne: I love that. And also, just and one of the last things before we go into this last segment, honoring our audience's time. So many people look at what they think is an overnight success and it's taken 20 years. So just because we're looking to the left or to the right, and comparing ourselves, there was probably years of that stability before somebody scaled up. Or they did a lot of work behind the scenes before they even came forward. So I think that is a key factor that you just said, the stabilization gives you a chance to breathe.
Tara Newman: Yeah, I mean, listen, in 2010 I declared bankruptcy. I have an incredibly successful, profitable business now. My husband does too.
Michelle Lynne: Yeah.
Tara Newman: You know, we rebuilt, we have wealth. It's not overnight. It's not without failure.
Michelle Lynne: No, Yeah, I was gonna say blood, sweat, and tears.
Tara Newman: Yep.
Michelle Lynne: But you get to that point where you can just kind of continue managing. I like that, that space in between, the growth and the scaling. Yeah, I think that this is gonna give me a lot to think about when we're done. Love it. Okay, so Tara, I could sit here and talk about all things business related, because this just floats my boat. But I also like to have a little bit of fun.
Tara Newman: Yeah, let's have fun.
Michelle Lynne: So this segment is just going to be a quick, rapid-fire Q&A session for the audience to get to know you a little bit better.
Tara Newman: Sure.
Michelle Lynne: So what was the last time you laughed until you almost peed yourself?
Tara Newman: Oh, goodness me. My husband and I have been watching comedy on Netflix.
Michelle Lynne: Is it the Schlesinger chick?
Tara Newman: Ooh, she is hysterical.
Michelle Lynne: I just discovered her. She is hilarious.
Tara Newman: She, yeah, I literally spit water out of my mouth and probably peed myself at the same time. At her last, but that's what got it started. It was her last one.
Michelle Lynne: This most recent one, yes.
Tara Newman: Yes. And then I went back and watched all her other ones. And then I watched everybody else's.
Michelle Lynne: Yeah, I just, I just caught her most recent one. And I sent it to a handful of my friends, I was like, you guys have to watch this. And so we're catching up on all the other ones. Okay, that's hilarious. What is your favorite book?
Tara Newman: Oh, goodness. I read so many books.
Michelle Lynne: Yes, I can see some over your shoulder right there.
Tara Newman: Yeah, these are books for my kids. So I'll say I'm a huge nonfiction fan. And fiction. So fiction. I'd say I read all the Outlander books at least three times.
Michelle Lynne: My colleague Debbie loves those books.
Tara Newman: Yeah. Business books. I would say, you know if you haven't read Company of One by Paul Jarvis. That's a really good one. And then psychology emotional, I just read Bittersweet by Susan Cain and that rocked my world.
Michelle Lynne: Really?
Tara Newman: Yes.
Michelle Lynne: Okay, I've written all these down. That's one of the fun things I get to catch some new content. Okay, what is the best compliment you've ever received?
Tara Newman: The best compliment that I ever received was from a mentor probably about six or seven years ago. And she said to me, it was like this time it was the end of the year, and we were reflecting on what's happened and she's like, I just got to ask you, she's from Montana. She's like, I just got to ask you, how do you haul balls the way you do? It's like, you know what, I'm gonna take that as a compliment. She's like, you got so much done in such a short period of time. I thought that was really funny.
Michelle Lynne: Oh my gosh, that is greatness. That is greatness. What is your favorite productivity hack?
Tara Newman: Sleep?
Michelle Lynne: Oh, amen. What is your biggest pet peeve?
Tara Newman: Oh, too many to name. I can be a very peeved person.
Michelle Lynne: If you had to pick one.
Tara Newman: Biggest pet peeve is these days, I'll say is the divisiveness that we're seeing in the world. Like, let's just all find common ground, people.
Michelle Lynne: Absolutely.
Tara Newman: I'm a tired woman. Let's just find common ground.
Michelle Lynne: Amen, amen, and amen. On that, I think we can wrap this up and just, yes, I think the divisiveness is exhausting. But you have brought such great content and such great insight. Tell the audience, how can we find you? Like, how can they find you if they're driving right now, this information is going to be in the show notes. Where is the best place that they can connect with you?
Tara Newman: Yeah, so if you do want the revenue goal calculator that is at theboldleadershiprevolution.com/revenue. I really encourage you to come and grab it, it is absolutely free. There's other things in there like the how to plug your money leaks. And you know, women find up to like $10,000 in their businesses by plugging their money leaks.
Michelle Lynne: Sweet.
Tara Newman: Yeah, yeah. So these are really, really useful and helpful tools. And then I have a podcast, the Bold Money Revolution podcast. I'm not on social media as much anymore, I just, I'm done. Your girl is done.
Michelle Lynne: Understood.
Tara Newman: But those two places are absolutely where you can find me. The podcast and my website.
Michelle Lynne: Well, that's because that's where it makes you money. And you don't need to be all over Instagram and shit, just to be.
Tara Newman: That's a podcast for a different day but yes, that is true.
Michelle Lynne: Good, be where your money is. Okay, good, I will make sure that information is in the show notes. And then for those of you who can benefit from even more resources surrounding the business of running your interior design business, y'all know that I have a community on Facebook you can join, it's called the Interior Designers Business Launchpad. But if you are an interior designer, and your revenue is $300,000 or less, or you're just not making any profit, join me in the Interior Design Business Bakery. This is where I can give you the foundation and the recipe to follow. And then Tara can go and like finish seasoning it.
Tara Newman: Listen to what she said, be where the money, you said, right? You said be where the money is. Yes, follow the money.
Michelle Lynne: Amen to that. That's the sales process. Follow the money, work closest to it.
Tara Newman: Yep.
Michelle Lynne: So, Tara, we could go in like 99 other directions. But for now, thank you. We might need to get another one on the books.
Tara Newman: Yeah, absolutely. Anytime.
Michelle Lynne: Thanks for being here.
Michelle Lynne: Hey, y'all. If you love the show and find it useful, I would really appreciate it if you would share with your friends and followers. And if you like what you're hearing, want to put a face with the name and get even more business advice, then join me in my Facebook group, the Interior Designers Business Launchpad. Yeah, I know it's Facebook, but just come on in for the training and then leave without scrolling your feed. It's fun. I promise you'll enjoy it. And finally, I hear it's good for business to get ratings on your podcast. So please drop yours on whatever platform you use to listen to this. We're all about community over competition, so let's work on elevating our industry, one designer at a time. See you next time.
