two opposite diagnosis's
The numbers are my crystal ball.
And last week I saw two TOTALLY different futures for clients.
The first: after looking at her numbers and hearing her story, her industry and the barriers she is facing, I couldn't in good faith encourage her to move forward. I saw the writing on the wall (that she was feeling for a long time and was having a hard time admitting to herself). This is SUCH a hard part of my job but I have had to do it countless times. It's not my job to fluff up the truth. Just like a doctor, I am not going to pretend that I don't see something dire in the test results.
So I told her what I saw. And I could tell she felt devastated AND so validated. From that point we could talk about what it would look like to move forward. This was not the end of her success, or her expertise - it will just be the end of this container. She will absolutely go on to do something badass in the future. This business was just a stepping stone.
The second client: Her numbers told a story of ALMOST being at the sweet spot. She came to me a couple of months ago SO burnt out. But after looking at her numbers this week, she is SO close to being where she wants to be: profitable, paying herself well and consistently, and not paying for past mistakes, but being able to move into the future. In about 5 minutes we were able to identify one small change that would have made her 60K this year if she were to implement it.
Her truth? She had given raises to her most trusted employees, but hadn't raised her prices. She was absorbing that cost herself and her bottom line was being affected. She needed to raise her prices to a fair margin on a few items, she needed to get ahead of her tax bills, and start time-studying jobs so she knew exactly what was going into executing each job. If she did this, she would absolutely be able to pay herself, and be profitable.
This is why I learned to love and trust the numbers so much. (at first they would give me the cold sweats, too - I would get flooded and not be able to understand what they were telling me) But when I learned to stay grounded and listen to what they were telling me, I could see clearly what needed to be done.
It is huge part of what I see missing in client’s lives- the relationship with the financials. They either make it WAY too complicated with a million tabs in a giant spreadsheet or they avoid them like the plague. Either way they aren’t getting the information they need.
How do you feel about your relationship to numbers, math and money? SO many of us have old stories about “not being good at math” or “hating numbers”. Let me know in the comments!
