Episode 166: How Financial Advisors can help you and your business achieve your goals with Amanda Thompson of Endurance Financial
In this episode, Fiona chats with Amanda Thompson, an amazing award-winning Financial Advisor and Founder of Endurance Financial. Amanda shares her experiences, achievements, and plans to clear the stigma over financial planning & who should or shouldn't have one. Tune in as Fiona and Amanda talk about tips and frequently asked questions of business owners in Finance.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
A brief introduction of Amanda Thompson
Amanda's Background in Finance
How Amanda shares her expertise with her family and kids
Importance of knowing the basics in Finance
Endurance Financial
How COVID impacted Endurance Financial
Tips for Small Business Owners
What does growth mean?
What is the difference between an accountant and a financial advisor?
Frequently Asked Questions
Amanda shares her achievements, and plans
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
We are into a new year. Welcome, 2022. I can hear the cautious exhale. In some parts of the world, I know they're in lockdown right now, so let's hope. I've got everything crossed that 2022 is a little easier than the last two. Welcome, if you are new to the podcast, thank you so much for being here and sharing your time with me. If you have been reading for some time, thank you for coming back.
This episode is an interview and I know you're going to get so much gold from this. It’s literally not gold, but it's going to help you with your money. I'm talking to an incredible woman who comes into my group coaching. She helps so many people in small business and people who are not necessarily in small business look at their money, get clear on where they want to go, and how to build that money up.
Before I get stuck into this interview, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians on this beautiful land on which I record this podcast, live, play, and have my life, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. I acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
I also pay my respects to anybody else from other Aboriginal and indigenous communities that may be reading. I pay my respects to their elder’s past, present, and emerging. This episode is an amazing one. You probably want to take notes. Get things ready, if that's you and also this is a perfect time for this to be coming out because it's a new year. Enough with the intro. Let's get into the episode.
It's my absolute pleasure to bring you a conversation that I had with the amazing award-winning Financial Advisor and Founder of Endurance Financial, Amanda Thompson. Amanda is somebody that I regularly bring into my group coaching program to answer anyone's questions about anything. That's one of the things I love about Amanda. She's not, “You can ask me about these, but not about this.” It's any part of your financial life, whether it's, “What should I do with my super? I haven't been putting money in the way I should.” I know that there's a common problem, particularly for people who've been in their own business for a long time and maybe built it organically or started when they were young and they thought, “I don't need that.”
If anyone's reading from overseas, super is almost like a 401(k). It's almost your retirement plan. For a lot of people, it’s the money that you're putting in this nest egg that will helpfully support you when you come to that age of retiring. It could be questions about super. It could be questions about the other end of the scale where you're making so much money and now you're like, “I'm ready to invest in other things like a property or shares. Should we be investing in a bigger warehouse, more machinery, or different manufacturers?”
It's any question that comes up around your finances. The other thing that I love about Amanda is she encourages people to work not with a financial advisor but with your accountant and meet with them at the same time. To remind yourself, your accounting, your financial advisor may be a bookkeeper, they're all trying to help you grow your money, use your money in a smart way so your money works for you, not the other way around. I love that attitude that she has about, “I'm here to serve you. How can I best help you?” I find that refreshing. I have met with two financial advisors previously and didn't love the experience. I did feel I was being talked down to.
In one particular case, I felt like she had made up her mind that I wasn't the right client for her, I wasn't wealthy enough, and all these other things. That was a crushing experience. When I talked to Amanda and the way that I see her talk to people about money, it's so down to earth. It’s, “Let's start from wherever you are.” It's not, “You have to be at this point before you see a financial advisor.” That's a common myth that exists a lot where financial advisors are only for people that are earning X amount of money, have multiple investment properties, or huge share portfolio. They're not at all.
What I love is that Amanda is launching a program to help people in an affordable way, understand their money without necessarily having to lock in, and see a financial advisor for years on end. The other thing that I love about Amanda is she used to work in the boardroom of Australia's biggest banks and she worked there for a long time. Outside of being one of the few females at the top, she also talks about how she couldn't keep working in that environment. She ethically couldn't keep working for those places. That’s why she started her business.
Further to this, Amanda is a proud single mum of daughters and she is such a role model for showing them what's possible but also living in true alignment with who you are. Outside of all of that, she's a massive Ironwoman, does triathlons, and is constantly doing these incredible physical endurance activities, you could say. How does she have time for all of this? I do not know, but she is one of the most motivated and strong women that I've come across in business and it was my absolute pleasure to ask her to come on to the podcast.
She's also a keynote speaker so if you have an event coming up that you think she would be perfect for, make sure that you reach out to Amanda. You can do that through EnduranceFinancial.com.au or you can find Amanda over on Instagram, @EnduranceFinancial. She's a world championship qualified 70.3 Ironman, award-winning financial advisor, keynote speaker, and a single mom to two girls.
As you can already imagine, talking to her is super inspiring and this episode was just that. We delved into quite a bit of my own money mindset and personal background. This is what I love about Amanda. She works with people from all different backgrounds and money situations but she dives into why do you have these thoughts around money? Where do you see yourself when it comes to financial success? I will stop rabbiting on. Amanda is so incredible and I know you're going to get so much out of this. Here it is, my interview with Amanda Thompson, the Founder of Endurance Financial.
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Amanda, welcome to the podcast. How are you feeling?
I always get nervous before these. You know that, Fiona.
I get nervous too and it’s my podcast, so it’s totally fine.
It's a good sign though. There are positive endorphins. We'll be able to have a great podcast.
You're coming to me from Melbourne. We're out of lockdown. The first interview I've done was so long but we're not in lockdown. It's so exciting.
I'm seeing clients in real life. I forgot what that was like. It's amazing.
I am super excited to have you on the podcast because I know that you're going to help so many people. Money is such a stressful topic for many business owners. You're going to help so many people. I know that you're so committed to this. I bring you into group coaching as an expert. I try to promote you wherever I can because I believe in what you're doing. Before we get stuck into your business, what you do, and how you help all these people, I'd love to know your background in finance. Did you always plan to be a financial advisor? Have you always worked in that space? Did you completely start somewhere else?
It's a little bit of a funny story. There's always a funny story with me. When I was in high school, I was asked what I wanted to do in the counseling session and I said that I wanted to be an accountant because I loved numbers even from primary school. They stuck with me and the career counselor said, “No, Amanda. You’re too out there to be an accountant.” I was a bit taken aback. I was like, “Hmm.”
I went away and said, “Some people may not agree with this.” I went to a private school and as I've gotten older, I realized what they did want was doctors and lawyers to come out of their school, so I got convinced to apply myself towards the sciences and medicine. Through Amanda’s defiance, before the start of my year twelve, I dropped a couple of science subjects purely so they couldn't push me down into the medical field. I ended up starting physio as a career.
I fell into finance because way back when I was younger, I was starting this personal training business and I thought that you needed to have a job when you go and jump into something new because I've always supported myself financially from a young age. My first temp position in the city was a fund manager and I never left. It's a funny way how I came full circle and loved every single minute of the financial planning world.
As life evolved and I had children of my own, I realized that my mum, as amazing and hardworking as she is, never grew up with financial intelligence or education ourselves. I wanted to make sure that I provided for my family and education as well. That's where I sit in life at the moment and how my own businesses evolved is full circle to growing up as a kid.
I find that even with my son. He was like, “Mum, I want to start a t-shirt business.” I was like, “Let's talk about that.” It's amazing when your children can see what you're doing and can see that these are possible things. I can be in charge of my money, I could start a business, or I could do whatever I want, especially because you have two daughters.
You talked about your life growing up. I was talking about how my dad grew up with two parents and his dad passed away at a young age. His mum was forced to change their whole life because there wasn't a whole lot of money coming in. She had to change their house into a bed and breakfast, which completely changed everything. I remember at the time, it was the 1950s in Ireland, we had no help and she was much shunned. Now she's a single mom.
His brother left Ireland at 17 to go overseas to different places to get money to send home. He always said to my sister and I, “If I have daughters, they have to have the best education. They have to be independent because I never want this to happen to them.” How do you feel about that with having these daughters? Are you always talking to them about finance, looking after their money, and all of that?
Yes and no. I make them aware of life. I suppose that I've developed a habit so then I don't necessarily know I'm doing it with them. I'll send my youngest into the supermarket, for example, with cash, which we don't deal in much anymore, or with a specific, “I don't want you to spend more than this,” so she's not just tapping and going.
I'll give her a shopping list and say, “You can't spend more than this,” and that type of thing because she can't see how much is on that card that I'm sending her to tap and go. There are little things like that I've transferred. My eldest had a little share portfolio ticking along in my name and I've transferred those shares to her but with the absolute, “Do not sell them without asking me.” At least she's looking in on them and I'm hoping that she'll start to save for herself for that wealth creation option.
There are little things that I've done in time of playing the good part. I didn't buy my daughter's first car. Her dad and I agreed that whatever she saved, we'd match and that's been one of the best things we could have done to give her an understanding of, “You have to work hard for your money and you have to save it.” Now, she's got a car. We paid half and she paid half, and it's great. There are things like that that have always been there.
For me, it’s similar. I giggled with you before and said, “A man's not a financial plan.” Having two daughters and being a single mum, I want my daughters similar to what you're saying about you and your sister. Whether I had girls or boys, to tell you the truth, with independence and understanding of their own hard work and how to protect whatever it is that they choose to do. Should anything happen to them later on, they've got sufficient knowledge to be able to take a step into life on their own.
What a lucky daughter to have shares. I could talk about this particular topic all day long. My parents scrimped and saved and we went to “good schools”. Predominantly, my parents were like, “If we can get you to the place where you can choose what you want to do at university, then you're on your way.” We all had to work from the time we were 14. For nine months, we had a job at Kohl's. Something that's come up later has been that a lot of the people I went to school with and a lot of people I'm friends with were taught about wealth creation at home. Their parents had shares, they talked about shares, and their parents had different investment properties.
My parents never had that. Just six circumstances and other things. I saw my mother working out the finances all the time. You mentioned the supermarket. It was funny because my dad used to take us around the supermarket because my mom worked nights so she would be working and sleeping on the weekends. He would take us to the supermarket and we had to add everything up in our heads. If we got within $3.50 of the checkout, we could go and pick something like chocolate or whatever. That was us learning about money and also learning about addition.
Going back to the people that we're surrounded with, it's something amazing that you're doing that even at 19, they even know about shares that they even exist as a thing. So many people don't grow up with the knowledge that there are other ways to make money and there are ways for your money to work for you. It's incredible what you're doing for them and for their friends as a result as well because I'm sure they're talking about these things with them.
I hope so. It's something that I'm on a bandwagon at the moment. I've got a bee in my bonnet and for some reason, I’ve been interviewed by ABC Radio several times in different states about how it should be something that's taught in the final years of school. Some basic financial skills, even understanding tax income and superannuation. If you get a job, what do you need to look for? I went on a podcast talking to youth down in Geelong. I've got this passion for trying to get into the schools. It doesn't have to be a subject. We have sex ed. We have online bullying or an online digital footprint. Why can't we have 1 or 2 one-hour sessions at 10, 11, or 12, giving them some basics on finance?
The Barefoot Investor who's gone up and up here and overseas started because his dad was like, “You could put that money into a share and it could grow,” as a kid and he got obsessed with that. Both of us are privileged to even be talking about this stuff but there's also getting into schools and opening up people's eyes to what is out there because if you don't know, you don't know. If you're not surrounded by people that have that, then you don't know as well. The gap between the people who know, the people who have access, and the people that don't is growing ever wider.
We are privileged to be talking about it but it doesn't deserve privilege, if that makes sense. Everyone can do it. They’ve just got to understand. It's a bit like financial planning and financial advising as an industry. Sometimes there's still this cloud over it. “Are we ready for a financial planner? Do we need one?” It’s up there. Only people that have investments, share portfolios, or self-managed super funds need a financial planner. “I've got my accountant,” or whatever it is. There's still a stigma over financial planning and who should or shouldn't have one.
When my accountant first brought up a trust, I was like, “What? Isn't trust for trust fund babies who have a crazy amount of money?” It’s so interesting. I could talk to you all day.
You know me too and you know which buttons you're pushing because I want everyone to have an understanding of what's available to them. It doesn’t have to do with “being rich.” It's all about having an understanding and an education on money. That's my passion. Whichever it is and it happens to be businesses and business people at the moment that seems to be seeking out my advice. I love watching people start to understand what all those figures on the page mean.
On that note, can you tell us about your company, Endurance Financial? What do you do? What does a financial planner or advisor do? Do you only work with small businesses? How does that all work?
Generally, I've got to work on my elevator pitch a little bit more because instead I babble away and it probably comes from my work in corporate financial planning for a good part of 10 to 12 years where it was about the profits of the company. I often say people go into business normally if we put them into two boxes. One, because they think that they can make more money doing it themselves than what they're getting paid in their particular business or they want a lifestyle choice and they think that working part-time or they want more time with their family, whatever the choice is.
For me, it was neither but it was both because I am never going to earn as much money as I did working as a bank financial planner with all their commissions and things like that. Also, my lifestyle can be quite hectic when you run your own business. I didn't leave those types of jobs for that reason but I did because I couldn't handle it anymore. I did it for my girls, for my morals, and my values.
I left because I needed to do it in a way that when I work for someone else, I wasn't allowed to. It wasn't the way that things were done. Endurance Financial is the Amanda way of doing things. I’ve got to take it back to the start of our conversation where I didn't like someone telling me that I couldn't be an accountant when I was younger. Why can't I do whatever I want?
Financial planning comes with some major regulations and our authority body is quite strict, even certain things that have occurred in the past. I still have to work within those boundaries but other than that, the way I give advice and my motivations are completely different, which is why Endurance Financial is different. It is your usual investment superannuation and insurance stop if that's what you're looking for. For me, it's evolving and I tend to be helping women more so than men, and maybe it's because of who I am, a single mom with two kids, a business owner who started from scratch. You tend to attract like-people.
The answer is no, it’s not just women and business people. It seems to be a little bit of the way at the moment. What happens after that is those businesswomen that come to me have brothers, sisters, mums, or dads and I ended up getting referrals from that sense. That’s Endurance Financial. It’s been going for a few years and I loved every single minute of it except the Melbourne lockdowns where I've had way too much Zoom time.
Speaking of the lockdowns, we are still in this life with COVID. I'm wondering, did you get a huge amount of people coming to you because of what happened in 2020 and what is still happening in 2021? Did you see your business go up or go down? Did you feel like a lot of people went like, “I need to figure out my money?” How has COVID impacted your business?
It was stagnant. There were not a lot of new clients so there wasn't a lot of new money coming into Endurance Financial in that sense, but I'm lucky enough if the way that I charge is ongoing for clients and the relationships. A lot of COVID time was spent with my clients deciding what they needed to do. Some couldn't work and some could so I had businesses that were going for the COVID grants.
There was a lot of time spent on that for me and not a lot of money coming in because I won't charge my clients for things like that. People are probably shaking their heads when they're reading about it. There are some things that I can't do. If you're my client and you're being hit by something, I'm not going out and charging you money when you're in a not-great shape or when something untoward happens like COVID. Endurance Financial itself stopped in its growth for two years.
I also don't like Zoom. I know people say it's the way it's going. It stops driving time and gives me more time. I love the relationship that I have with my clients in a personal setting. I'm more comfortable with myself in person than I am on a video. All of the reasons for that mean that this has been crazy busy for me. We have a heap of new clients finally reaching out because now that lockdowns are over, people are a little bit more comfortable and positive about where things are going. People weren't making any financial decisions in COVID unless they needed to cut back expenses because they were struggling.
I can imagine that. They’re saying that a lot of people have more spending money than they've had and it's going to be hopefully a bumper year for retail because people have saved everything. People didn't want to go and spend because no one knew what was going on. If someone out there is reading this, they're a solo operator or they're a small business owner, and they've never looked at their money or maybe they look at tax time or BAS, what are some things that they could focus on first? Is there a good place to start? Is it depending on their lifestyle and everything else? Is there anything where you'd say, “Firstly, I’d have a look at these.”
The first thing is exactly what you said. If you're the type of person that is looking at your finances at tax time and it's a hassle to get everything together for the accountant, then you need to take a step back and start to focus more on the finances of your business. That would be my first point. Because it is your business and your money, you need to have an understanding of it prior to not being able to make any changes. Lodging your tax returns is the end of the financial year and you can't make any more changes.
If you take a step back from that, the first thing you've got to do is have an understanding of yourself, your business, what your goals are, how both your goals and your business goals combined, and how to get there. I don't know whether too many people do that because we jump into business and we work so hard on what we're good at that often we don't think about the finances until tax time. As long as we can pay our bills and we are getting some form of money in our hands ourselves, we're going okay. That’s the first thing.
The second thing is that you should learn from your tax return or your financials and that's the key time to, if you haven't already, go and have a think about it. Do you know what all of those figures mean? Do you sit back and say, “This has jumped up. This has gone down. What does that mean? Should I be taking money out of the business? How can I now make this work for me?” I'm a big believer in diversifying no matter what you do so I'm a big believer in all of your wealth not being tied up in the value of your business. What are you doing on the outside of your business is another question that I ask most business owners. Where's your growth happening outside of your business?
That whole concept of where the growth is happening outside of your business is huge, Amanda. I love how you nonchalantly say it. So many people reading will be like, “What? There is no growth. My business is the growth.” That’s such a massive question there. What do you get quite often when you ask that question? This is the thing. We can get in our little bubbles.
I'm going to be frank. Where I live, we bought our house, and now our house is worth twice what we bought it for. The area is going up and you can see it. You can see it in the type of cars that are coming into the supermarket. You can see it everywhere. You sometimes think, “Are we losing the community that we had?” Because I went to that school, I was aware that I was not as wealthy as everybody else. I don't want my son to grow up with that. When you talk to people, would you say that most Australians have some backup plan like shares or investments?
I'm going to come back to you with the little snippets of your life. There are two parts of people. We're similar. We know that, you and I. The first thing is so many people like yourself work so hard in their business and it's your passion. It's what makes your tummy spin. It's what you get excited about, therefore, you forget to find the time to do something external to the business. “I've got to keep growing. I've got to do this. I've got to do that.” What does growth mean? Does growth mean more clients or more money? What happens when you stop? What's outside of that business? That’s my first question to you and you don't have to answer it but I'm using your example.
The second part of it is, a lot of Australians, Melburnians, in particular, are in the same boat as you. You've gone and had huge property growth. There's always an emotion-backed money decision. If you love where you live, you're going to keep living there. It doesn't matter what your house is worth because that house isn’t going to provide you any passive income until you sell it.
I love those questions and I'm going to journal them. What's interesting is that a place that I worked at years ago gave shares in the company as part of the bonus scheme. They're the only shares that we own. It's been fascinating for me to watch these shares go up and I'm like, “I didn't know this. No one showed me how to buy shares.” That’s what we're looking at as well. It's fascinating because sometimes you will think, “Am I the only one that doesn't know about all this stuff?” It's good to know that lots of people don’t and are not doing it.
It’s what you're interested in as well. When people think of shares, “I don't know what to choose.” Everything's different. There are so many opportunities out there to have growth in the Australian share market without having to pick one company, but there are also other ways to get into property these days. For investment properties, you don't have to have a massive deposit or things like that. There are other ways of wealth creation. It's not just shares. It could be superannuation depending on your age.
It's fascinating because some friends of ours were talking about a beach house they bought years ago and I said, “I don't mean to be rude, but how did you do that?” They own multiple properties and they said, “We realized we could never pay the mortgage ourselves so we got the loan and we went to six friends and we said, ‘Who wants to be part of this?’ We drew up a contract and all six of us own it.” You don't hear that many stories of things like that where there are all sorts of ways to do this instead of thinking you have to do it all yourself.
That's where a financial adviser, business coach, or whatever it is that you want to entrust to people, for me, in particular, most financial decisions are backed by an emotion. I read something from a contact of mine on Instagram saying that she purchased her first home. The spiel that went with that was, “This is what these keys mean to me. We never lived in a house when I was a child. We moved from rental property to rental property.” To me, that's why she bought that house. It’s not for wealth creation. She's got a loan purely because she needed that emotional feeling in that. It's quite an extravagant example but if you are reading this and you pick something in your life, I bet you, you will be able to go, “There’s an emotion back to that.”
There's a big study that was done about 100,000 people in 2018 and they found that 90% of purchase decisions are emotion-based. We think we're buying rationally or because of the price or whatever but we are totally buying with emotions.
It’s not houses or cars or when we go shopping, but even things like superannuation or why you go and see your financial planner in the first place. There will be an emotion back to it, not necessarily something that you've seen. For example, you may have inherited money and the emotion is, “This was a gift that I want to make sure that I respect whoever gave it to me and don't do something wrong with it. I need help with that.” There's still another emotion in that. There’s a sad time that's occurred and the emotion attached to this is, “I don't want to disappoint,” or, “I want to use this money to respect whoever it is given to me.” It’s simple things like that. It’s still emotional-backed as well.
I'm going to get so many DMs about this episode. One question that comes up in group coaching and I know it must be something you get all the time, is what is the difference between an accountant and a financial planner? Should you work with both? Should you work with one? What are the differences and how does it work?
If there's an accountant reading, it's not meant to be derogatory in any way, shape, or form. Accountants tend to be reactive purely by the nature of where they sit in a business or person's life. It's at the end of the financial year and a whole heap of information is given to them. They lodge tax returns and they have to keep up with so many new regulations. They've got not a lot of choices because they're so busy or they're offering or that we as clients don't see the menu earlier when something needs to be done. They're quite reactionary in that.
They'll lodge your tax returns and they may say, “Try and do this next time,” or whatever it is but there's nothing planning that occurs. There’s no forward planning that can often occur. That's where financial planners and accountants should, in my opinion, work together. We said it in a coaching call and one of your people on it met with their account by their own doing, facilitated, and they’ll catch up with both their planner and their accountant at the same time. That's amazing.
My response to that was, “So it should be because we are both working for you.” Everyone who you choose to be in that area of your life should be able to sit at a round table and go, “I want to do this, this, and this for Fiona.” Your accountant says, “Amanda, that's not going to work because we do this, this, and this.” It's important that both of those people are on the same page or have an understanding of what the other one wants to do or is doing.
The other part of that is that because of the nature of advice, many accountants are not qualified to give advice on a product or self-managed super fund investments and the likes. Sometimes accountants can't. They're stuck because they're not allowed to and vice versa. We, planners, can't lodge the best returns and tax returns. I don't know deductions or depreciation schedules and things like that.
I often will say to my clients, “Can you please go back to your accountant or copy me on the email? Could we do this and this?” It’s in their understanding of what this business or this person does and how would that work. I work closely with a couple of accountants with all of my clients. I often say to my clients, “If your accountant won't meet with me, then we probably need to find a new accountant because it shouldn't be a competition. We shouldn’t be thinking that you have to have one or the other.”
Thank you for explaining that. When that client said that she meets with both, I was like, “That sounds like such a good idea.” I often will have people that will say to me, “I'm working with a different coach on this. I'm working with a life coach on this.” I'm like, “That's great. We're not in competition. We're all helping you.” That's what you're saying. On the topic of money, people have asked this in both groups that you've come into and it's something that is often brought up when I talk about money, “What is a good percentage profit for my business?” I don't know if that's a, “How long is a piece of string?”
Are there any key markers or are there even small things? I worked with a client who had seen their accountant and the accountant had run all the numbers. I’m not in that finance space but I said, “Let's run your average monthly income for the whole year.” What they were left with was a small amount of money. I was like, “Do you see that? It may seem like you're making a whole lot of money but what's left is little.” I was wondering if there are any key numbers people should be working towards or places they can find this out?
What’s the answer I gave on both of those times? The answer was, it depends. I believe in individual parameters and I believe in cashflow a lot. If you can't pay your bills or you're having to blow out when you pay your expenses even though your tax return is showing a profit, then something's wrong. To me, it's not a key number, it's a key feeling. You are your biggest indicator of how you're going.
This is why people need to work with a business coach or a financial planner or whoever they trust to have these honest and open conversations and to sometimes make people accountable. I know it's a little bit of a digression to what you've asked but I will come full circle. If you feel as if you can do more, the answer is, what could you do more? What could you do better? Why do you want to make more money? How much do you want to make?
We talked in the last session that you and I did this in a group. We're talking about business owners. The first question I'll ask people is, “How much would you earn if you work for someone else doing what you do now?” Because then, you get your individual specifics. If it's $100,000, for example, that you would earn, take your tax off, then what's your net pay? You go, “What was your tax return when you're an individual?”
Then what we do is we work on the figures in your business because our expenses versus not in business are completely different as well and you're not getting superannuation paid. There's a whole host of things that truly add up to how profitable is your business. To me, Fiona, and I'll talk personally now, is that I've had a year where I made a profit in my business paid the tax. I'd be honest, in COVID, I made a loss. I still paid all of my bills and I still had the cashflow that I needed. I knew that I wasn't going to have a great year because I had a couple of big expenses that I had laid.
The bank manager would tell me that my business wasn't going well but I can categorically tell you that it didn't change all that much from a cashflow perspective and I can tell you why it looked like it did. That's what I throw back to other people, “As long as you can say what those financials look like and why, that's your first tick.” The second tick I say is, “Are you building wealth outside of your business? Are you taking money from your business? Are you taking more than you need, less than you want?” Can you see how everything is specific to an individual?
Yup. I knew that was coming but it's so great how you explained it and gave people so many ideas and questions to think about. Outside of money, talking about things outside of your business, something else that I'm shocked by when I found out about it with you is that you do all this other stuff outside of work. By other stuff, not just the normal things like I do other things outside of work but you are in triathlon and you've done women competitions.
You're a single mum and you're running a business that's demanding for lots of people. How do you also prioritize these big things? My brother has run marathons. I know it takes so much training. Even when I used to run 10Ks, it's a lot to train for that. How do you prioritize that stuff that helps? Do you have any advice for people reading, whether they're parents, whether they're small business owners, whether they're both? How do you practically make the time? What advice would you give to others?
Sometimes there's a do as I say and not as I do approach. I have experienced burnout when I was in the corporate world, which is a whole other podcast. I've been there, done that, and shouldn't have done it, so I know what working myself into the ground does. I know the fear of nearly dying because of it, true story.
I have also learned in time that I need to listen to myself and my body. That's both in emotional, mental, physical soul, everything. The well-being is huge for me. I have a newsletter that I put out every month and anyone can subscribe to it on my website. I had this conversation on it saying, “When I grew up and had kids and became a single mum, my mum used to say to me, ‘Find the work-life balance, Amanda.’” It's a real common concept, “Find the work-life balance.” There's no such thing, is my answer to you. I don't believe in that. You can be perfectly imbalanced.
When you're a business owner mum and choose to do something outside of those two, it can often change what the priority is. When I'm in training for an Ironman, for example, it’s probably a full-on twelve-week. I'll sit down with my coach and I will know when those overload weeks are. I know when I'm going to be both emotionally and physically drained. Therefore, I have to make the choice to block out time in my work diary or I'll start to work late. That's the benefit of working for yourself, you have control over those things. For myself, I'm very much into pre-planning like I do in my job, time management, and making sure that I don't overload myself.
I love that advice. Many people in small businesses, myself included, part of the reason I started mine and I only work three days a week is because I was in burnout as well. I hated the place I was working. All my life, I was consumed by that place, that job, that role. It's amazing that you do all this other stuff as well. You have helped so many people and I'm sure you're helping so many people reading this. Have you had mentors or other books? Do you have quotes that you live by? What has helped you?
I have so many people I’m lucky enough to call my true friends and they are my biggest advocates and supporters. Unfortunately, in the financial planning business that I run, I haven't come across anyone that does it as I do or who is like me. There's a reason I'm the only planner in my business because I haven't even found someone that is so like me that I want to employ but I'm lucky.
This is where COVID has been great for me. I joined a group of businesswomen in a small club through Business Chicks called Business Club by Business Chicks. It has been the most amazing, uplifting experience for me. I built a new self-confidence in myself that I didn't have. Even though lots of people think that I did, I didn't. It's given me a new scope on what I'm doing workwise.
Especially in COVID being a single mum, some of the things that I went through weren't even business-related but I had these people that got it. In that sense, I've been lucky. My triathlon friends come from all walks of life so when you're out running or training with people, you learn so much and you hear other people's stories.
Probably the best thing I could say for me is I've learned to share myself, which encourages sharing back. What I've got and why I'm doing this today with you is for that same reason. If people can hear some of the things that I've been through or some of the things that I say and it resonates with them, then I've already helped them as other people have helped me.
It's not a plug but I love your book. Your book has given me a different direction in what I'm doing with my business. For those readers who haven't gone out and bought Fiona's book, Passion Purpose Profit. I know it's passion first because that's me. As much as I know you, I went and bought it purely because you had passion first. I was like, “I've got to read this. Someone who puts that first is something.”
Thank you so much. Thank you also for mentioning those other places because it's always good for people to know what's worked and what people would recommend. I'm sure you must have so many moments running your business and prior to that as well. What are you most proud of from your journey in business so far?
What I'm proud of is that every single day, I still get up loving my chosen career and wanting to go and help people. The fact that I get to help people is still my favorite and my proudest moment. The fact that my girls are watching me do it and I'm being able to lead by example is what I'm most proud of.
It’s such a good answer. Thank you, Amanda. What is next for you? I know you have a course coming out. Where can people connect with you if they're reading and thinking, “I need to work with her.”
What's next is this course. I was talking about balance. COVID, I'm sick of the word but it's the reality. I've had no triathlon races. They keep getting canceled on me because I can't travel anywhere. I got a bit down about it. One day I was sitting there and I was helping a client and then the next day, I got practically the same client. They are both businesswomen starting on their journey in their business and they asked me the same question.
Out of that was a new course studying with me. It’s going to be a sixteen-week all you need to know about business finances. I was talking before about how do you read your tax returns and make sense of what it is that your business is doing for you? It's going to be all things finance and business and giving you this healthy money and positive money mindset for yourself, however that works. It's going to be a step-by-step but you can be your own financial planner, essentially. You'll come out with your own individualized plan for yourself and your business.
That's going to launch in February 2022. Every waking moment is nearly thinking about this course. I can't wait for that to launch. Watch this space for more info coming up soon. Other than that, you can find me on my website, which is AmandaThompson.com. The newsletter that I said that you could subscribe to is on there and some information about insurance financials on there. If you want to have a laugh at my everyday life, you can always find me @Amanda_Tri_Mum on Instagram.
I subscribed to your newsletter and I don't subscribe to many. I recommend it to you as well. It's a great piece of information that comes out. Thank you so much for speaking about great information. You’ve given so many tips, ideas, and insights, and opened up the conversation for people to think about this stuff and talk about it. We don't talk about money enough. It’s a huge part of our life and a huge part of our business. Six years working with people, the amount of people that come to me, “This is exactly where we're going. Here's why we need to earn it,” is small. Most people do not think about it.
Sometimes, unfortunately, they think about it when it's too late when the actual event occurs and they've got to think about it. I like to pre-plan.
If there's anyone reading who is from a high school, please get in touch.
I'd love to talk to the students.
The more that we can talk to younger people about this, the more that everyone is aware of stuff. We watched The Pursuit of Happyness with my son. We have always volunteered at homeless shelters. Making people aware of all sorts of ways of what's possible but also the other side of things. The more we can all discuss money because it is a part of life, the benefit of everyone else. You're doing a huge job in helping people get to that place.
Thank you and thanks for the opportunity to have a chat.
You're so welcome. Thank you for coming on to the podcast.
Have a great day.
You, too.
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There are so many tips and insights. I love how down-to-earth and no BS Amanda is when it comes to this stuff. I say it all the time, we all need to be talking about money way more and way more honestly and transparently than we are. Especially in small businesses, you see so many highlight reels out there. People seemingly making all this money overnight and it's all so easy. If you could just crack it, you'd be there too.
I love how honest Amanda was in this conversation. That's how she is all the time and talking about these things. Even her questions to me, I have my own money mindset things. I definitely would urge you to read this again and maybe think about the questions that she's asking me in terms of your own life and looking at any money mindset blocks that come up for you. Or stories or ideas or beliefs that you have around money. That is always an important thing to do before you get cracking into the actual, “Let's look at the numbers. Let's look at where we're going to push no money out to.”
I took away so much from that conversation. I always do it with Amanda. Amanda touched on it, she is having a course that is coming out called Business Financial Fitness. That is a program that you can go through with Amanda and understand where is your money coming from? What do you want to do with it? What does financial success look like for you? If you want to find out more about that, you can go to EnduranceFinancial.com.au or you can find it on Instagram, @EnduranceFinancial.
I would love to know what you most took away from this. Perhaps you are in a similar situation to Amanda. Maybe you're a single parent. Maybe you left corporate and now starting your own thing. Maybe you're about to launch a course for the first time. There are so many things that came out from that that could resonate with you. I'd love to know what you took away from that. You can send me a DM, @MyDailyBusinessCoach. Of course, you can send a DM to Amanda as well.
There are two things that stood out for me. There were so many but I love that she talked about that an accountant looks at what's happened and a financial advisor looks at what can happen. Both of them can look at those things. I love that she talks about working with them together and remembering that they're both working for you. You are the client and they are there to help you.
I often talk to my clients about, “What's your relationship with your accountant like? Do you have a good one?” By good one, I don't just mean they get you, a certain amount of tax back, or you didn't have to pay as much. I mean someone that is part of your team that you can go to on a whim about any question. That is also what Amanda was talking about as a financial adviser, having the most support that you can.
Money is a huge part of business and it is a huge reason why people go into business. They either want to earn more or they want to earn a similar amount, but not have all the stresses, politics, and everything else that comes with working for somebody else. I've worked with thousands of small business owners now and I could count on one hand the amount of people that did not need to make any money from their business. The majority of us do need to make money and it's by working with people like Amanda or your accountant, or both ideally, that you can make the most of your money.
It brings me to point two that stood out for me, which is when Amanda talked about not having all your wealth tied up in your business. Often, I see people where that is fully the case. There is this absolute fear of losing the business, of anything preventing the business from continuing on its path because that is where all the cash is tied up in.
It's been interesting to look at one of the business coaches that I've worked with myself. Looking at the way that she's shifted and adapted her business over the years and also used her business to then be able to buy multiple properties. Then those properties are returning, I would imagine, a decent rental income for that person. You can see having them there becomes a whole lot more different, diverse ways of her making money outside of the business.
I loved the idea. Often, we go into business with this idea of like, “I'm going to make this much money,” and then we don't think about, “How am I going to diversify? If I'm making a good profit, what am I going to do with that? How can I best set myself up for the future?” That's exactly what Amanda helps people do.
If you're reading this and you're thinking, “I need to get in touch with Amanda,” or, “I'd like to work with her,” you can find out how to work with her one-on-one over at EnduranceFinancial.com.au, but you can also check out the Business Financial Fitness Program. That is her course and that is running soon. It's starting in mid-February of 2022, so definitely check that out, @EnduranceFinancial on Instagram. You can send Amanda a DM.
As we go into this new year, money is a huge reason that people start a business. It’s also a huge reason, unfortunately, that so many businesses fail. In whatever way, whether it's working with Amanda, whether it's working with somebody else, make sure to be looking at how you're making your money, and then how is your money working best for you.
That is it for this episode. If you enjoyed this, I would love if you might have five seconds to leave a review. If you've listened to us on Spotify, they have now included ratings. If you listen to us on Spotify, I would appreciate it so much if you could go to the actual show page on Spotify and then hit the ratings and give us five stars. That would be so great. This is episode 166. Thanks so much for being here. I'll see you next time. Bye.
