Voices in the Financial Reports

I have had my meeting with my CPA friend, Sally, and what an interesting experience. You may remember my reporting that she was going to help me learn to hear what my financial reports had to say. Well, this gal should be a coach! We sat down with the balance sheet and the profit and loss statement for my business for February and she proceeded to have me get quiet and “listen to whatever the reports might say to me”. She was very cool with no agenda attached to it as though she had coached for years.

The first things the reports said to me were all emotional – they said “this is very complicated stuff” and “you’ll never really get all this” and “you don’t even know what some of this stuff means”. Slowly, by not letting me off the hook with that, Sally helped me hear other things as well. They also said – “this part of the business made more of the income than the other two parts last month.” They said – “the equity in the business (the stuff that I own) is much bigger than the liabilities (money that I owe)”. They said – “at this rate, the amount of gross income I am making this year is more than I realized”.

Then we talked about how to use the reports to track goals over time. You can make a decision based on the financial information and check at the end of the month for results. For example, the sales of my e-book were a “low hanging fruit” this month – meaning I could spend a little time to make a significant income return in that area. Next month, you can compare how much time you spent on the project to how much income was generated by the activity. Through this process, you will learn over time the key indicators of your business that help you decide how to most productively use your time to generate income. I know that doesn’t sound very coach-like, but it does sound like an entrepreneur. It is vital to tap into your inner entrepreneur in order to continue to do the coaching work that you love. Even if it means learning to hear the voices in the financial reports.