#77 | Financial Strategies for Interior Designers with Carla Titus

Welcome to the Designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald. If you're tired of one-size-fits-all all advice to running your interior design business, you're in the right place. Join me each week as we dive into topics to help you run a thriving interior design business. Without the hustle. We'll talk about the business of design, but also mindset and mental health because I know when you thrive, so will your life and business. It wasn't that long ago that I stepped away from my corporate interior design job to build my own design business so that I could realize my own creative dreams, have more time with the people I love, and serve my clients at the highest level, while making more money than I ever could have working for someone else. It wasn't always easy, and I made my share of mistakes along the way. Fast forward to today. And I've learned a thing or two. Since then I've built multiple six-figure interior design businesses on authentic word-of-mouth referrals with many repeat clients. And I want to share it all with you the ambitious, inspired, and I get it occasionally overwhelmed interior designer who shares this dream of transforming lives through the art of interior design, You can do this. Thank you for letting me spend part of this day with you. Let's get to it.

Kate Bendewald

My guest today is Carla Titus, the founder and CEO of wealth and worth within. She is a seasoned financial expert and today she is on a mission to empower business owners to take control of their finances to grow profits, have cash in the bank and pay themselves so that they can build personal wealth. She loves working with interior designers to help them achieve financial clarity and peace of mind so that you can get back to the work you enjoy doing. Carla offers fractional CFO services in financial consulting to interior designers looking to grow their business profitably. Today, we're talking about scaling your business sustainably so that you are still profitable. I am so excited to get into this. Please welcome my guest, Carla Titus. Hi, Carla, how are you? I'm doing great. Thanks

Carla Titus

so much for having me on. I can't wait to share all the knowledge and so all the questions about financial management and your business so you can make it fun.

Kate Bendewald

I love it. I will be I will be honest with you. I talk about finance. I live eat, breathe it in my own business. But it's not something that I love. Right? It's just a, it's a, I don't want to even call it an unnecessary evil because it's not evil. It's good. We love money. We got to manage it, organize it and all that stuff. But I love it when I can talk to somebody like yourself who can sort of peel away the layers of the mystery of like, how do we all make this work? So that we can continue to be the creatives that we are run to run a business for a long time. Right. And so I I feel I feel good when I can have somebody here to kind of break it all down for for us. So why don't we Why don't we jump right in? Sounds good. I want to start by asking you what's behind the name. I really love the name of your business wealth and worth within. But I have a feeling that there might be a bit of a story there. What is what is behind the name? Yeah,

Carla Titus

there is definitely a story. And it started when I started to work with clients. First, I volunteer with a company to just help them, you know, with their finances. They were struggling and they needed to make some decisions. So ultimately, we ended up selling that company which was great for the founder to be able to move on. But then one of my other clients I noticed like this trend of working with women owned businesses at the time that they really had a good intuition they just weren't doing making decisions from a perspective of looking at the data or the numbers. And so I felt that it was within them. which is part of the name to be able to do this, but they needed some guidance they needed, you know, a guide to really demystify and clarify wolf down to the simple terms of what they needed to know, to be able to manage things. And they've gotten this far on their own, and they just need a little help. And so, you know, creating wealth was one aspect of what we were doing for our clients, we wanted them to pay themselves and be able to build their personal wealth through their business, that it was ideally better than a job. And that they were fast tracking their way to wealth worth because we wanted to create more value for their business, like the valuation of the business be higher, because they're having the better financial outcome. And it was within them, and they just needed a little help to get there, right, someone who can just explain things in simple terms, not come with all the lingo and all the things complicated, make it complex, but really simplify it for them to be able to achieve it on their own. And there's a whole, you know, Brendan's Bration video I have on my Instagram where I share a little bit more about that story and how the name came about. And the process I went through to, you know, decide on that.

Kate Bendewald

Oh, this is so good. Carla, I have goosies. Because right now, I'm in a season where I'm really spending some time thinking about and focusing on and journaling and reading and listening and meditating on this idea that I like you, I also see a trend of, you know, I'm gonna say women in this case, because that's the folks I work with primarily, there's an I struggle with this too, but sort of a lack of trust in yourself. And wanting to change that conversation with women and with designers that, like you said it, they have the intuition that was already there, they just needed a guide someone to kind of help them along, right. It's not this necessarily, like, hero's journey, but maybe it is. And so what's what resonates so much for me about what I just heard you say was that you recognize that the intuition and the wisdom is already there, we just need to put a framework around it. And so that's, that's kind of how you, you help women so so thank you for that, because it fits beautifully with some of the conversations I'm hoping to have this year, and talk more about is really helping designers recognize and own their own wisdom that already exists in and trust results. So cool. Yeah,

Carla Titus

we want to like continue to grow their confidence and what they're doing by bringing different aspects and really sharing with them what numbers can do to help transform their decision making going forward, and not that they have done anything wrong in the past, it's just that this becomes an even better way to make decisions by bringing in the numbers to really help them you understand what's working well, what's not working, what they should do more of less of, and where they can really work smarter, not harder to still achieve the goals that they want to achieve in their business. Yeah.

Kate Bendewald

Why did it become important for you to work specifically with women, women in business? I know you have a couple of finishes that you work with, but interior designers is a part of that. What drew you to this work specifically? In your career?

Carla Titus

Yeah, I mean, selfishly, I'll say I'm an amateur interior designer, I think I play around with that. But besides that, I think that there's just so much power in the transformation that designers do for people in like their space, you know, to feel relaxed and enjoy their, their homes, you know, where they live. So I think that we need more of them in the world. And then specifically around women owned businesses, because I think and by the way, we do have fantastic male clients we work with as well. You know, we love on them, they take care of us, we take care of them great. But I think the niche around women owned businesses is because we feel that women owned businesses do so much good in the world, they give back more they provide flexible jobs for working parents, and they are able to have the impact and, you know, really think about the community at large. And I think that it's just important for us to continue to see more women business owners thrive and succeed. And they bring others along with them, give them opportunities, I mean, have otherwise and create jobs and, you know, available jobs that were in there before that don't follow the norms of you know, other big companies like you have flexibility because you know, you have scope pick up and drop off and you need to work within those parameters and like, you don't need to be sitting in meetings unnecessarily because we can do the work asynchronous through you know, technology and other systems. So I think it becomes good for the community when women has have economic power and money in their hands because they just tend to be good for the world and we want to see more of that and nothing wrong with you know, guys that own businesses. I think there's a lot of them that do also Very good. They have a lot of help. So we don't necessarily want to focus our attention there. And we want to empower women to feel that they can succeed, that they can have the business that is providing for them and their families, and then beyond them have a bigger impact into the community.

Kate Bendewald

I love it so much. Most of the people listening are probably listening through the podcast, but we also do this through YouTube. But if you're watching on YouTube, I've got my hands in the air, because we're going to church and I am yes to everything you said. And it's just true. Like we there's there's data and research to back it up that when women have wealth, when women have financial freedom, there's so much good that can come out of that. So though, the person themselves is not the only one benefiting but their communities, their schools, their their organizations around them, the other families that they impact. And so I, I am, I'm right there with you. And so let's get into a can you, you are a fractional CEO for business owners, you, as I mentioned a minute ago, you have a few different fields or category. Let me trace a niches that you work with. But interior designers is one of them that you specialize in, you haven't combined 15 years of corporate financial planning, analysis strategy and online business, you have Oh, consulting experience. So can you share with us exactly what is a fractional CEO? And how do you fit in to the financial team? With your clients?

Carla Titus

Yeah, that's a great question. And we get asked this a lot, because at the end, there's a gap and an indication on what this role might be for a company and when is it time to bring it on? And why would you even need one like this. So in the role of chief financial officer for a company, as you know, big corporations hires, they partner with the CEO to make decisions, they bring in the financial expertise, and lens to really help drive the direction of the company financially. Also set the plan, like the goals and like what we're going to achieve, and whether or not we're on track or off track monitoring performance along the way. Why this is important for small businesses is because normally, you don't have access to this type of expertise, or partnership, because one you can't afford it. CFOs are expensive, you know, their 2323 $400,000 a year plus share, you know, shares and bonuses on top of that, because that is the type of you know, they obviously do much more value than what they cost to the company in delivering a financial plan that the company can achieve. And so what we do is we took what we you know, my knowledge and corporate and my financial experience in consulting and brought it to a small business at an affordable price by making it a fractional role, meaning a part time role, or less than part time sometimes, where we can support clients to still do all that planning the financial vision and strategy direction and setting. Look and review of the numbers together answer money questions, that maybe your bookkeeping team right now is not, you know, skilled or prepare or experience to be able to support you with or neither is your accountant that's only focused on you once a year when tax time comes. And you're asking this people, hey, I want to have answers to my money questions. And they're like, yeah, no, I just want to sit behind the computer and do your transactions and then give you a report, don't talk to me in the most loving way possible, that's just the kind of role that they want to have, right the function they want to play. And the account that might be like, Hey, I have 400 other clients. So I don't have time for one on one questions. And we will deep dive into should I hire? When can I afford to do this? Can I invest as much in materials? Like should I preorder some of the furniture I'm trying to, you know, sell to my clients in the design plan, they're not going to sit down with you and look at those details. That's the function of a CFO and why your business might need one at some point, as you're growing and scaling and you're really kind of feeling like, I'm not sure what I should be doing. I know I have ideas can I afford it? Can someone please answer those questions for me and we do it through financial analysis by looking at okay, here's the cost here's the benefit. And then here's what you can afford to do.

Kate Bendewald

This makes so much sense and I do want to clarify, I think I said CEO fractional CEO earlier and what I meant to say was fractional CFO because that is a different role because you are focused on the financial piece specifically so I just wanted to correct myself there. So cool. So what we're talking about here is your bookkeeper is looking at your business through the lens of like your Chart of Accounts, balancing the books corresponding everything that you're doing inside your business with the QuickBooks accounting and your all that stuff, right we got that we know what a count it does for you CPA at the end of the year, helping you with your taxes and all that fun stuff. But we're Carla comes in is really helping designers understand their businesses, big picture, financial picture, helping them strategize in terms of what can they do? What are some areas, some levers that we can pull on to increase our profits. And so, to me, I hear like you're, you're really a partner with them and helping them look at their financial, the financial piece of the business in a more strategic way. I I wish that when I was in the height of my career, running a business that I had had a CFO, a fractional CFO on my team helping me do that, because there were so many times that I made a decision I do, I do look at my numbers very closely. And I sort of think about these things. But I also make a lot of financial decisions on intuition, which I know is not always financial experts favorite way of doing things. But I did it and I got by on a just fine, and I did really well. But there were so many times where I just didn't know how to piece it all together. And I just had to make a decision. Hiring for example, on a gut with a gut check and looking at the boat, looking at the balances and just doing it. And it really wasn't grounded in any sort of like real hard math, there was loose math, it was big picture math. Like, I'm not saying I didn't wasn't looking at that at all, but a lot of it and I just did it kind of scared, right? I just did it without knowing. And that worked out right. Most of the time, I never had any major financial challenges in my business. But what a relief it would be to have somebody like you to help go through those decision making moments, right?

Carla Titus

Yeah, and when you set up a partner in this real raid one, you know, being a business owner, slowly, you don't have another person you can talk to about these things like your employees don't want to know that you can't make payroll in two weeks, right? Like that's big. That's what you go to your CFO for. And then we solve the problem and try to work on a plan to get you on a healthy cash flow. I think the lack of preparation around some of those big decisions like hiring, and like if you don't have enough cash, and then you're expecting someone to come up and perform right away, like the timing of it could be off. And you're literally winging it, right? That's a very common thing. And sometimes it works great. Like, listen, not everybody is going to need a CFO always. But like, you could definitely get definitely perspective, more insights, and then know the numbers. So you know, the risk going into that decision you're still making. And there's times I've done analysis for clients that say you shouldn't do that thing. And they still decided to go forward with it. And I said, Okay, how do we mitigate the risk, and then make sure that we have enough cash to weather, if this doesn't work out, and then they were all works out. And that's great. So really, our function is to bring that perspective, bring that second brain to the business to say, Hey, have you thought about this 10 other options that you could go down with, when it comes to hiring, that maybe you didn't even consider like bringing someone contract, everything was one part time, only doing five hours a week, if that's what you need right now and growing with them, you know, over time with a role. And I think sometimes we just get stuck with like doing what everyone else is doing and not thinking outside the box. So we get really creative about problem solving with a business owner or like the CEO of the business and then come up with a better outcomes because of it right, and then take risk at the adequate level so that we can see it through and then be around for a long time to continue to design beautiful homes and places for you know, the people that we want to impact through the work that you do, and then get to do more of that because you have the money to do the impact that you want to have.

Kate Bendewald

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I love it. I think there's just so much peace of mind that can come from having this this partner relationship available to you? I want so okay. So today, we're really going to focus on the idea of scaling your interior design business. So we're really talking to designers who have been in this for a bit, right, you've got some experience or more established, and it's like, you kind of reach a plateau where you've got good client, like things are clicking, things are working, you've got good clients, you've got, you've got the in the flow of client work is coming in, right. But I'm feeling I'm like, Oh, I remember this feeling where it's like, oh, and I've got these projects coming in. But I don't have the capacity to do all of them now. And I'm having to like, push them off six months to get started, right. It's a great problem to have. But sometimes you just want to get the project rolling right for the client. Otherwise, you're gonna miss out because it doesn't work for their timeline, right. And so you can sort of plateau and hit this this ceiling where you need to hire, you might need to find office space. You might need to invest in different kinds of software to help you do things faster, whatever the case may be. So there's all of these different ways that you You need to spend money to make money. Right? And so I, I know that this can be really agonizing for designers who are at this place. Because we're can't always see how it would all work together, how can I know that? You know, by hiring this person, I'm going to get my return on investment. So I want you to walk us through. When we when we, when you're working with a designer, and they can't see how do I get from point A to point B, and still be able to pay myself and still be able to run the business and not dip into savings? How do you approach that with them? To help them understand how to go about it? Do you have a framework? What What's your process? Yes,

Carla Titus

we actually do have a framework for this because we know how complex this can get. And there's so many moving pieces, right? So like to be fair, this is not a simple exercise, that you just throw some numbers on a spreadsheet, and then you off you go, right. The reason why we help clients with this is because there's a lot of those pieces that need to fit together work together towards the same end goal. And so when we're thinking about hiring, and the cost of hiring the, you know, the amount of time it takes, and then onboarding projects, and making sure you have the right people supporting the right projects at the right time, that you're paying them the right amount, that you've gone in those deposits ahead of time to be able to cover some of the costs of bringing on new people and hiring them all the time, you know, that is going to be critical. So what we do is we outline it in a financial plan. And we started looking at before you make a decision to hire before you make a decision to take on those projects that you pushed out six months, we say what would it look like if we pull in those six months projects out now and hire a person to help us support that? And then we start to go through all the variables, right? We go look at what is the price that we put on that project? How are we going to get paid for that project? When are we expecting the money to come in? When are we bringing that person on to do the training and get them on boarded into a her company with all the tools and resources and things they need to be successful, and really created in a really detailed 3060 90 day plan for that onboarding for the new hire, because here's the thing, you could put numbers together all day long. But if you can't execute to those numbers, and continue to monitor performance stores that you will most likely not achieve them be off track before you even get started. So the goal of putting the plan together is not just putting the plan together, but it's also following the plan. And that's where we come in to help you, you know, stay on track and make sure okay, then we hired a person, that means we need to put an ad out, we need to start, you know, vetting candidates going through interview process, how long do we think that's going to take us? Then how long is the training going to take? When would they start to see the first client so we need to then prepare our cash flow to weather those maybe first 60 days where they're not producing any results for they're just getting on boarded, and then go on to starting to work with a client and get up their process so we can get started, right? And so it's all around the timing. It's all around the the inputs to the plan, then you got to think about, okay, what am I ordering, placing furniture, orders, tile orders, whatever the materials, you need to make this job happen, you'll need to have the cash for that too, on top of having the cash for the new hire. And then it all depends on like when the money is coming in for those project milestone invoices that you're doing. And if you haven't thought of that this is the time when we do all of it. So that we can look at it comprehensively understand what are our margins? What are our profit expected after covering the cost of bringing this person on? And then we say, Okay, this plan seems viable, it's solid, what are our risk areas? What if something goes wrong? What could go wrong? Think through that problem, know that we have a solution to it and then go move forward with the plan, then now we have clarity on solid numbers to follow. And we know we are performing to that or we're not. And then we need to pivot and make something else happen or make different decisions because of it. But having the plan to start as the signer, you'll get the peace of mind because you'll know, okay, I know what needs to happen. I know my timeline, I know my costs. Now I can move forward with certainty because I've done the work ahead of time on that decision being viable, and what I expect to get out of the decision that benefit that ROI from that employee that I'm bringing on and when I expect to see that materialize, so that way, you can hold people accountable. You can say, Hey, your onboarding period was 60 days or 90 days. And I'm seeing you taking a client call. Yeah, this is a problem. We need to address it before it becomes a problem. Yeah,

Kate Bendewald

yeah. What's, what I love about this so much is that it's it's not just putting together the numbers and I can't tell you how many times I've had designers come to me and they asked me like, How much money should I have saved up to hire or to leave by now I'm like, I throw out a number at you. I don't know your business or your finances. And not to mention, I don't know that I'm fully equipped to do that for somebody. But so it's not just throwing spaghetti at the wall right? We're putting a We're we're thinking about the nuances of your business, not a business, your specific business, your capacity, what you're capable of what are all of those ins and outs right and and then weighing that against the risks so that you can feel really informed about how you how you move forward.

Kate Bendewald

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Kate Bendewald

You touched on something that I want to I want to come back to the outsourcing is a common strategy to scaling. I don't know how you define it. But when I think of outsourcing, I'm thinking of loosely like hiring independent contractors versus employees, whether they work hand in hand with you in your studio in your office, or whether they're remote that's neither here nor there. I think for the sake of this conversation, correct me if you think differently, but how? It's a very powerful strategy. If done right. How do you help clients understand their return on investment, when deciding whether or not to outsource and who to outsource to?

Carla Titus

So sometimes clients come to us with not the clarity on what they really need, but they know they need help. And so we start by asking, like, what's the minimum amount of help do you need? And then if their answer is like, oh, I need someone 40 hours to do this 10 tasks, right? Then we're not going to say all sorts of to attend a nine because that's an employee. Like if they're working 40 hours for you, that's just categories as an employee, you should pay them in payroll, Let's not mess with, you know, those guidelines. If they say the answer back to me is like, Oh, I didn't tell him for five hours a week to come do some design planning or like, work through, you know, like a proposal for a client, then the question is, why would you bring an employee, like you can outsource that to a contractor, still, you know, give them a deadline, you don't have to tell them how to do the work, just need to tell them when you need it back by and obviously, based on their experience, you will decide who you hire. And then that cost is very different than bringing on an employee, right? Because you're getting some partial help part time help, which is maybe all the business needs for now. And then as the business grow, you just have those contractors are no longer viable, and you need to actually bring a part time employee longer term. But this is all about being intentional about what is it that we need? What do we need the gap to be closed with? And then what are some options we can assess? So outsourcing is always an option. And I think people just overlook it, because they're always like, well, they told me how to hire employees or I can, people can only work 20 or 40 hours a week for me otherwise they don't want to work for me. And that is not true. There's a lot of people out there that want flexibility in their life. They don't want a boss, they want to bill you an invoice you for their time, when they want to work, how they want to work. And as long as they're delivering the result. They don't care that you employ them. They care that they have work from you and probably 10 other designers that they work with. So I think we need to reshape, you know, what we think of what are the needs of the business and then alignment with what we would hire and what roles we will bring on instead of automatically going to what everyone else is doing, which gets people in trouble because then they overextend themselves, they don't really need the help at that level. In the This is not mature enough or grown enough to be able to support that cause. So that's another aspect of it. Right? So what can you actually afford? Yeah,

Kate Bendewald

yeah. So I guess that speaks to the, to the idea of like, a figuring out, if this is the right time, if you're in the, if you're in the right time and place of business to take that step, it's also recognizing that, you know, with an independent contractor, they can really help move things along without that long term responsibility that you have to an employee. So it can be a good sort of half stop, if that's what it needs to be, although I'll stay in my business. All except for one of the designers who worked for me were independent contractors. At one point, I did promote one to a full time employee, and that's what I needed in that time, right, that was what worked, but the best part about it was is they were not only helping me to, I'm talking about Trump thinking about return on investment, right? I was paying them a good amount, what they will ask to be paid, right? But they were helping me get through work, get through projects, move projects, a lot help clients get results faster, because it wasn't just me doing all of it, they were, you know, I was guiding them. But ultimately, they were executing the work themselves. And I was able to build them out, you know, or put their costs built, build it into my services. And, you know, and then for the hourly ones that were, you know, working on projects hourly, for me, you know, I'm billing them out two, or three or four times what I'm paying them right to cover my costs, and all of all of those things. And they're actually providing an additional revenue source for my business, while allowing me to deliver a project faster to a client and for cheaper than if I were doing all the work myself, right. And

Carla Titus

so you have so much capacity before you run out of time to do all the things if you want to do more business, you're gonna have to bring some help. And the other thing we didn't touch on, but I think is also really important is, when you hire experienced contractors, they actually could maybe improve your business in other ways, like giving you new ideas, things you didn't think about coming out at the same time, from a different angle, that you're like, oh, wow, that was way better than I was gonna come up with. surprise you in that way. And so it also goes back to you know, you know, the level of expertise and experience, and you feeling comfortable delegating, but that could also be a really positive, you know, ROI, on bringing someone that you're outsourcing to, because they can't really come into your business right away and start to take on work, not have to train for 6090 days on the way that you do it. Like they have their way they have their experience, and they can just get work done, which I think accelerates the path to scaling much quicker. I'm not saying that will be forever, you know, eventually, you'll want to hire an employee and maybe, you know, replace them at some point, or maybe that contractor becomes that employee that has happened to depending on their goals. So those are things you want to evaluate. And then it all comes back to you know, what can you afford to do? What's in your budget on your plan? And then deciding if those are the right people to support you and your business on to the next stage and the next phase of growth?

Kate Bendewald

Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's such an important point. And I was reminded listening to you of that would that was a mistake that I made at one point where I was hiring for an employee role. And I interviewed probably eight folks. And it ultimately came down to two. And I ended up hiring the lesser experienced designer between the two, because she wasn't going to require as much salary as the other designer. But not by a lot, right, just looking back on it. And then, you know, it's she was she was a lovely human to work with. And she did a great job for me. But there was once I got her into that role, there was so much hand holding and work that I needed to do to get her up to speed with my quality expectations, those sort of things. Then I think, had I taken the chance on the designer who was more experienced and commanded a higher salary, I probably could have gotten further faster. So c'est la vie. But it was a lesson that I learned the hard way because I was like thinking to myself in those first 90 days like oh my god, I can't believe I'm having to like go through all of this and it was a little bit of regret but ultimately we got her up to speed and she was great and she was lovely with while she worked with us but it was a I didn't have Carla there to help me understand how to how to think about the way the different scenarios so it really crystallized for me what how important somebody like you can be to to a designer. Oh, I want to this list. To me to my next question, I understand some of the fear and hesitations that some designers have, when wanting to scale their business. When you're scaling a business, meaning you're maybe hiring, maybe you're getting office space, maybe you're buying new office equipment, furniture, that kind of thing. When you're scaling a business, you tend to have more that you're accountable for and to write. And that can be daunting for business owner to carry that mental weight of that accountability, you can start to become obsessive about money and the finance piece of running your business and get sucked away from the creative work, right? So it's like, it's like, Okay, I've taken on this bigger responsibility. And now I have to be accountable for it. Right, I want to make sure that the bills are getting paid, and that the money's coming in and everything's flowing. And yes, we that will never change no matter who's on your team, right? But is it possible when scaling for designers to find a sweet spot? Where because because I think the fear is, I'm not going to be able to be a designer anymore, I'm going to have to be the CEO all the time, that's the hat I'm gonna be wearing all the time. And I will be able to do the creative work. So is it possible for designer to find a nice sweet spot where they can have a pulse on their business finances, be in control that know what's going on, and still have time to actually do the design work? Yeah,

Carla Titus

and I think that not everybody got into business to just run their business, like sometimes they actually do like the work like, in my case, I still have clients, I love doing spreadsheets and financial analysis and problem solving with them and partnering to give them new perspective based on my experience, and I don't think that I will ever go away from them. But you know, like the business demands could increase to the point where we have to reconsider how much time we're spending on that. But I think if you want to still be a designer, there's definitely a place where maybe you delegate a part of what you do, but you keep the person who enjoyed the most, like, if you're like, I just don't want to on numbers or whatever, y'all sorts that to someone who does it. And then you come and review it together and really make decisions based on the finalized analysis instead of like, having to put it together, right. And same thing with design work, you could maybe have someone else created the same, the same plan, and then you give your touches and inputs that make it like that much better, or like the final result. And so I think sometimes we think is like an all or nothing. And we created businesses because we want to enjoy what we're doing. So if you enjoy designing, why would you stop, like there's a place for that, you can still run your business on the other 50% of your time, and making sure that you're allocated enough time to work on your business, like strategy, vision, you know, the budget, all the things that come with running a business, because unfortunately, yes, you don't have a job, you just you have to do all those things that business owners have to do to, but really keep the things that you enjoy. I'm a big advocate of that, because we did not create this to just be a job that we do all the things we made, and then that come into work every day. Because that's, you know, I mean, there's plenty of that out there. So like, if you want to create your business and design it on purpose, to be fulfilling, to allow you to be creative, then you need to keep those aspects of it as a top priority and balance that with your time you have spent working on your business, on the overall direction, you know who you're going to hire, what are you going to do the yes, the math behind the profits and all that because we do need to have that money to be able to feel good about the business and pay ourselves so that we don't become resentful of it. But you know what I tell designers too, it's like, if you had a cash cushion, maybe you wouldn't be so stressed out about money. So if we create a cash runway that you know, you can cover your expenses for two or three months, no matter what happens, then you get to afford to be more creative, because you have the safety now you have that peace of mind, you're not worried about oh my god, I can can pay payroll again in two weeks. You like, Oh, I got that covered for the next three months, even if we don't make another dollar, which probably never happened, because you're good at what you do. But then you get to enjoy to be creative.

Kate Bendewald

Yeah. Ah, this is so good, because I've talked about this in like Q and A's and stuff off of the podcast, but it is this idea of focus on the focus. And I love that you're really drawing a line under this. There's nothing more soul sucking for your creativity that zaps your creativity than not knowing where your next dollars coming from right. And not having clarity of the financial picture. And, you know, like the the the thing that I'll hear sometimes from designers who are trying to figure this out is just like, I'm not a numbers person. I'm not a finance person. I'm not a math person. I'm not a spreadsheet person. I'm like honey, you need to be if you're going to be in business, at least a little bit. And you don't have to do it on your own. But you can't just have your head in the clouds and lala land and you know, and Not exactly what we're doing here. And so you need to sort of like, own this responsibility. But it doesn't have to be overwhelming. And it doesn't have to take up every hour of your day either. But that is the biggest creativity. Zap is the anxiety around money, right? It's hard to be in that creative space when you're stressed out of money.

Carla Titus

I mean, nobody can write like, I mean, if you can't pay your personal bills, like everybody's gonna stress about that type of thing and single difference in your business. So once your financial health is in a good place, and you feel good about it, then you get to be more creative and not worry so much about what's happening, because you can afford to have the time to react, change the plans, or pitch new clients get new business, like you get to have the time to the luxury of time is always what I call it as you're buying yourself, that peace of mind and time to react and not have to make decisions from a place of desperation. And you know, like, that's what we want our business owners to be like enjoying their business with this, what is business? What is your business has to do for you? It's what I always ask, because I think that that needs to be in the forefront of everyone's mind online. We give so much to our business, what are what is the business doing for us lately, and really demand of your business, the thing that you need from it, right? Like pay your salary, be able to afford to do certain things, invest in it, and really make it enjoyable by having the peace of mind to get through whatever comes your way. Because as business owners, we know, there's never smooth sailing, there's always something that's going to come up and money can solve a lot of problems. Let's be honest, like you can throw money at the problems, and sometimes they just go away altogether. But if you don't have it, that's when it becomes really stressful. Yeah,

Kate Bendewald

yeah. Yeah, it is often a barrier to not being able to do the things that you want. I do want to give a quick shout out to my friend, Jenny Carlson who financials for creatives. She's been a guest on the podcast before, she's also been inside the membership teaching there. And we'll link to that podcast episode. But she does some really cool work. And I worked with her. I hired her years ago, because I want to talk about money stories for a second, we all have money stories. And if this work, the money work feels hard, or you feel resistant, or you get emotional, or like sometimes there is like a legitimate feeling of panic. And mine came from I'll just be honest, because I've talked about this. Not. I've talked about this before, as I share this story, quite openly, but I grew up with a single mom. And we struggled financially my whole life and moved a ton. And it was always it was it was financially challenging. And there was a lot of anxiety around it. So fast forward as an adult, I didn't have the tools and I wasn't equipped to hold money, focus on money, put energy towards money in a healthy way I retreated from it, because that would have been my experience with money, I had to do some of that deep work first, in order to get stuck, get unstuck out of some of those old patterns. And Ginny really helped me do that helped me uncover my money story. So if you're listening to this, and you're hearing what Carla can help you with, but you're still having that sort of internal struggle, that internal battle, it might be that there's some money work story, some some money story work that needs to happen to kind of understand where that's coming from. Because I think I feel I know that if you don't address that first, then all of this other stuff is going to be harder to manage and work through, like all the stuff that you're talking about. And I'm sure you probably do some of that with your clients as you're bringing them on and talking through that. So I just, that's a really important piece, I think, to not gloss over is that, you know, we all have many stories.

Carla Titus

Yeah, we hold space and we're very gentle with the way we approach that aspect of it. Because it is true, we do bring our own personal traumas with money or like situation with money, or maybe even you know, positive things about money that we bring to our business like guys, a lot of business owners that love saving and something silly, like saving too much, right? And like that happens. So like, why are they saving too much? Because they're afraid they're not going to have enough or, and we understand that, but we're also very gentle around like, Would you feel comfortable if we use some of this to Mr. Wars growth, right. And like we kind of help them get through that and get unstuck. But we understand that there's a lot behind the scenes that are telling us or not telling us and we try to you know, ask where you know, we feel comfortable just uncovering where's that little bit of that coming from and and what can we do to help you move on past so that you're not using that fear to feel your decision making but really think logically through the scenarios we run. Like, you know, we're mitigating risk. And I think sometimes it's hard to look at your numbers, especially when things are not looking great. And I always say like, it's not about measuring your worthiness. It has nothing to do with that. Is this a business? This is an entity separate from you and it happens and I'll be performing great Okay, well that happens. The goal is, what is the progress we're making? If we can't measure our starting point, how will we know if we're getting better? And so sometimes it's all business owners like, yeah, maybe it looks really bad. But are we getting better every month? Are we improving year over year? How will we know if we don't even look? And sometimes that shifts their mindset into Oh, now I can focus on improving on progress on making it better, rather than dwelling on like how bad it looks right? Because they think that is attached to them and their identity or like, Oh, I'm a failure as a business owner, because I didn't do the right thing for them. Not only taught you this, things like this, someone come here and said, Here's business finances, one on one, here's what revenue is cost a good soul. Gross margin, like nobody told you those things. And you're expected to just be an expert and know these things and do it all on your own. I don't think so. And that's why clients come to us, because we understand that you didn't have the education, we would love to empower you through knowledge that you can feel confident, now tackling this and also simplified in a way that is attainable, because I think that's what causes us to want to reject looking at it or call ourselves, I'm not a money person. Or I don't like to look at my numbers. And those are just excuses to not want to like tackle it because your feelings fear of like, I don't even know and I don't want to admit that. I don't know. But with us, it's okay. Because we love to educate like I literally had a whole education session with a client yesterday around how to pay taxes, what are estimated taxes, how much you calculate for it, like, they were like, light up, because like, nobody ever sat me down to talk to me about these things. And there feels so basic. And yet, we're all going around thinking that we all know this things. And we don't. And I'm just sitting here thinking, Oh, that's basic stuff. And they're like, Oh, thank God, someone is here to teach me that right? And we don't mind because we're like, oh, what what do you mean, you don't know, like happy to teach you, right? Let me show you all the things like it lights up my day knowing that some of that knowledge, or is going to be so useful for business owners to apply.

Kate Bendewald

Oh, my gosh, you're so in your zone of genius with the work you're doing. Carla, it is a gift to women and business owners and interior designers. I love I want to not gloss over something really, really, really important that you said. So when it comes back to it, which is we often find ourselves attaching our personal worth, with our work and with our business and with what's in the bank account. And I am guilty of this just as much as anybody else. And it is a it is a journey. And it is something I'm trying to be extremely conscious about that I am separate. My worth is not defined by my business and you sounds like have that messaging baked into your process when you're talking to your clients. And I think I don't know how I don't know if other designers feel the same way. But I feel like that's something that we haven't talked about, right? A whole lot. It's just like you are you are your business, but you're also not. So you can have a financial picture, that doesn't look great. But that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. Maybe you made a mistake, but everything is fixable, everything is figured out double. And you can always always always do better. There's always room for improvement. So

Carla Titus

really, I was saying there's sometimes lessons we have to learn by making the wrong decisions. And as long as we learned a lesson, then it was worth the money we lost or didn't you know the thing that didn't go well. But if we didn't learn the lesson, that's when we refocus and go back and really learn the lesson to make sure we don't do it again. But that identity piece, I think is just what we're told, you know, social media has a whole thing around like, seven figure business owner, and I'm like, if your business is a million dollars, and you lose a million dollars every year to make that I am not interested whatsoever in getting to that figure, right. And I think that's the perspective we're missing is we're talking top line revenue or like revenue numbers, but we're talking about vanity metrics, because at the end of the day is what is your profit after you pay yourself, you pay your taxes? And if you have nothing left, I don't care how big your business is. It doesn't matter because you can have $100,000 business that keeps $70,000 A year and that's way more financially successful than a million dollar business that loses a million every year.

Kate Bendewald

What she said y'all, yes, that yes to that? Yeah, it's it's looking at the right numbers and putting it into perspective. So as we wrap up here, I want to ask you this. What is the number one mistake or mindset shifts that you would like to see designers start to do earlier on in their business, right like is what is something that you see happening over and over again, that you just want to like shout from the rooftops and say, if you could just do this one thing differently or whatever, like, do you what would that thing be that you would love to just help lift up all designers or business owners?

Carla Titus

Well, you know, in all honesty, there's like 10 different ones, but We're gonna try to narrow the short like, you see that theme, right? And you're like, Oh my God, if someone would just tell you this is not. Yeah, the way and you know I mentioned the profit one, right. So like, that's a big one like we got into business like money other ways to do schoolwork the job because you at least get a paycheck. You don't have to do this whole thing that's stressful. Like, it's not worth it if it's not better than a job. So let's get get it to that point, right progress around that. The other one is around cashflow. Like nobody talks about cash flow. It's real. The timing sucks. It's always like you owe a bill before you get paid. And then how do you cover that? Right? Nobody's talking about it, because it seems complicated. But it really is just around the timing on making sure that you're invoicing appropriately. For when you know, you're going to need to pay things and then planning for it so that you don't get caught by surprise. And then you have the right resources in place to cover all the bills that are coming due. And that requires a plan. So you got to look at your cash and make sure that you have enough cash and that your bank account is positive for the unexpected, because business is full of surprises, good and bad. And we want to make sure you when we get those good months, and we're squirreling a little money away, and then we're months or not so great. We got the money to cover us for that season. So making sure that you understand that and you know, maybe there's some seasonality in your business that happens often when things slow down a certain time of year. Guess what, Christmas is never a surprise. It happens every year in December. And somehow we're not ever prepared for it, right. So it's no different in our design business, we know that certain months a year, we're going to slow down. So we want to squirrel away during those good months to be able to save for that. And then you know, be mindful of where you're spending your money, you work so hard for it. And so often I see business owners just buying the next shiny thing, the one magic pill that will solve all their problems. There is no such thing there is consistency and discipline. There's executing to your plants and sticking with it long enough that it starts to work. And then you continue to do that. Because guess what boring businesses are the ones that are making money, the ones that are doing things over and over again, they're consistent, they're showing up, they're doing the work. And they're putting in the reps. And those are the businesses that we get to support that we're seeing succeed over time, right? It's not sexy, it's not the new thing. It's not the new strategies that we were just trying to sell you is that consistent thing that we know works that you're showing up for every day, and sticking with it. Because my goodness is so easy to get distracted? Like I get distracted all the time. And then I have to refocus on like, Am I really like spending money in places that I want to be boom, because it's making a difference for me, or entertaining me because I want to have a little fun and like get distracted and you know, squirrel and all the things right? Which is so easy. So stay focus.

Kate Bendewald

Yeah, yeah, that's, I'll be very honest, that has has always been the thing that I struggled with. It's like I could make the money. But I also could spend it because I like things, you know, and I had to start to be really conscious about, wait a second, I worked really hard for that. Like, just, you know, and so just trying to be a lot more conscious about where that money's going. And it's, it's a journey, right? But that was for sure. The thing that I personally struggled with the most for a little while. They're cool. Carla, you are a delight and a pleasure. You are a treasure to this, this community. And I know that the designers listening are going to feel a little bit lighter after having listened to you a little bit more optimistic and hopeful. Let's say that a designer would like to reach out to you and learn more about what you do, where can they find you online?

Carla Titus

Yeah, they can go to our website wealth worth within.com There is a contact page where you can book a call to talk to us if you're ready to hire a fractional CFR one more information about what that might look like for your business. If you're not ready, you're welcome to sign up for our newsletter, we always have amazing new resources that we're putting out for free. We want to educate everyone on being excited about their money and the best ways to handle it. We also let you know what's going on with our business and like our own growth journey as we're scaling as well. So I find that people sometimes like to know more about, you know, who we are and what we do. And then if you want to get some resources that are free, again, educational ones, and you can follow us on social media or wealth within Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. We're always active posting new information that maybe you can take action on in your business to get better at it. And we would love for everyone to just, you know, listen to this episode and then do one thing that you heard today that you think would improve your business finances to get you into a better financial state.

Kate Bendewald

Oh my goodness. Okay, we are going to be 100% sure to link to all of these things in the show notes. So if you're listening and you're driving, don't worry. We will. We will say that for you make it easy to find for our listeners. Carla, thank you so much. I appreciate your time and sharing your expertise. You again are just a real treasure and I'm grateful that we've had the chance to talk today. Thanks for having me today. All right, bye for now, girl. Hey, friend, thank you so much for letting me spend a part of this day with you. I'm so passionate about helping designers like you. And I believe in a rising tide that only one of us does. Well, we all do better. So if you share this attitude of abundance with me, I want you to do just one little thing. Please share this episode with someone using might love it. And if you're feeling extra generous today, go ahead and take just 30 seconds to open your podcast app and leave us a five star rating and review. It's free for you to do and it helps me to be able to keep making more episodes and resources for you. However you choose to help please No, I appreciate you so very much. Thank you, my friend. Have a wonderful rest of your day. I'll see you soon.