Discover the transformative power of financial clarity and empowerment as we navigate the journey from corporate finance to entrepreneurial success with finance guru Kendra James Anderson. Our conversation reveals how diving into the world of money management can lead to peace of mind, especially for women founders who often grapple with financial fears. Kendra shares her story, shedding light on the path to becoming an accidental entrepreneur and how her expertise in organizing business finances has been a beacon of serenity for her clients.
Settling for less can sometimes feel like the only choice in the hustle of business, but in this episode, we reaffirm the importance of self-care and the art of setting boundaries. Hearing about a personal revelation that reshaped her client interactions underscores the significance of mutual respect and support in fostering a sustainable professional life. We tackle the tough choices that come with letting go of clients who disrupt our tranquility and celebrate the courage it takes to trust our instincts for a healthier work environment.
Wrapping up, we delve into the synergy of money, power, influence, and peace, and how these facets can coalesce in harmony. With actionable advice on managing finances with less pressure and the merit of embracing the iterative process of business development, we carve out a path toward success. Kendra, from The Finance Femme, joins in with a wealth of resources, ensuring you have the support needed to balance these four pillars and focus on your next step toward continual progress.
https://thefinancefemme.com/
Go check out all of our episodes on our website: https://womeninthearena.net/
If you are ready to tell your story or want to refer someone, please email me at audra@womeninthearena.net
***Last thing- I'd love to interview the following women:
Maybe you can help me get there****
Thank you all for supporting this show and all of the Women in the Arena!!
Discover the transformative power of financial clarity and empowerment as we navigate the journey from corporate finance to entrepreneurial success with finance guru Kendra James Anderson. Our conversation reveals how diving into the world of money management can lead to peace of mind, especially for women founders who often grapple with financial fears. Kendra shares her story, shedding light on the path to becoming an accidental entrepreneur and how her expertise in organizing business finances has been a beacon of serenity for her clients.
Settling for less can sometimes feel like the only choice in the hustle of business, but in this episode, we reaffirm the importance of self-care and the art of setting boundaries. Hearing about a personal revelation that reshaped her client interactions underscores the significance of mutual respect and support in fostering a sustainable professional life. We tackle the tough choices that come with letting go of clients who disrupt our tranquility and celebrate the courage it takes to trust our instincts for a healthier work environment.
Wrapping up, we delve into the synergy of money, power, influence, and peace, and how these facets can coalesce in harmony. With actionable advice on managing finances with less pressure and the merit of embracing the iterative process of business development, we carve out a path toward success. Kendra, from The Finance Femme, joins in with a wealth of resources, ensuring you have the support needed to balance these four pillars and focus on your next step toward continual progress.
https://thefinancefemme.com/
Go check out all of our episodes on our website: https://womeninthearena.net/
If you are ready to tell your story or want to refer someone, please email me at audra@womeninthearena.net
***Last thing- I'd love to interview the following women:
Maybe you can help me get there****
Thank you all for supporting this show and all of the Women in the Arena!!
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me again this week. This week, we're going to talk about money, power and numbers. I know that I know everybody's thinking oh gosh, this gives me chest pain. No, no, no, no, no, you do not want to miss this. My guest this week is Kendra James Anderson. She is the CEO of the Finance Femme as well as a co-founder of Minted Lanes. These businesses are designed to fill a need for founders, especially a special place in our heart for female founders. She's going to talk to us again about money and finding your peace. It is my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you Kendra. Kendra, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
Kendra :Thank you, Adra. I appreciate you having me here and definitely look forward to the conversation.
Audra :I look forward to our conversation, as well as at the intro, I mentioned that we're going to talk about money, power, influence and peace. Yes, none of those seem to go together. I know, I know.
Kendra :It usually doesn't. Usually, when folks are talking money and power and entrepreneurship and business, it's usually very black and white, very heavy on the numbers, very much about profit. I admit I was there. I was very much that way as well. And then life happens and babies happen and it has a way of shifting your perspective on things. It does go together, but it feels like it doesn't initially.
Audra :Let's start where you were initially. You were in. First of all, you're brilliant. You have a degree from Clemson, which means that you were extraordinary. Let's face it you are extraordinary. You have a degree in corporate finance and accounting and you went on that path. You went down that well-worn corporate path.
Kendra :Yes.
Audra :What did you find there?
Kendra :Actually, I loved it. I loved it.
Kendra :I've always been a numbers person, though my mom was an accountant, my dad's an engineer, so I feel like it was in my brain even just growing up. I helped my mom put the grocery list together in Excel when I was a little girl. For me, finance and accounting. As far as schooling and even in my corporate life, I loved it. I learned a lot about business and entrepreneurship well, not necessarily entrepreneurship, but a lot about business and a lot about the relationship between CEOs and CFOs of these large companies and how they communicate and how they work together to push the needle forward in a business. My corporate experience was amazing and I had no idea that entrepreneurship was even going to be a thing for me.
Audra :It was an accident. You're an accidental entrepreneur 100%, 100%.
Kendra :I was perfectly confident in that corporate world and had the vision of climbing the corporate ladder and getting that huge office with the all glass and all windows and just kicking my feet up. That was the vision. At the same time, though, I had friends that were starting businesses maybe even a few years in business and they were doing very well. They were making multi-six figures, some of them making millions a year in their business, but they weren't happy. They were struggling to feel like they were making money. It was baffling to me, because I'm like you're making all of this money. What's the problem? Let me talk to your accountant. Let me talk to your accountant and let's see what's going on.
Kendra :I found out, audra, that they didn't have accountants. They didn't even have accountants. I'm like how are you making $2 million a year in your business and saying you don't have anyone looking at your numbers? That's when this all started, because I started then supporting those friends and getting their finances in order, understanding their business books, still just thought it was just me helping out friends. Never dawned on me that it would be a whole business. Until after a few months of doing that probably about six months of doing that I noticed the change in their business and which meant a change in their life, because now they're lighter, they're like, oh, they can see their profits and feel their profits. That's when the light bulb went off for me and it was very clear that, while I loved my corporate career, it was really just paid training to go and do this for a living and for the rest of my life. I quit. After about six months of doing that, I decided I was going to quit and I've been in it full-time.
Audra :You went and changed their lives by making organization of their finances, of knowing what their returns have been, what their account payable have been, account receivable. All of that suddenly making sense of all the noise and the chaos. Is that where you introduced peace into this whole money, numbers, power, influence, or did that come later? That sounds like a lot of peace to me. You have peace of mind, that you know where all the numbers are and know where everything's going. That, as a woman, gives me comfort. I don't know that might be the same for the people you were serving.
Kendra :Yes, absolutely Ironically, that's where peace for clients started to come in, and I can share with you later where peace for me actually started to come in, because it actually was two different points.
Kendra :Yes, for clients, definitely I think it's the clarity, because, really, what the numbers? What I often find is it's the fear of the unknown and a little bit of like fear of judgment as well. There's, okay, I don't know what my numbers are, and then the seconds I start looking at them. Maybe it's going to expose something that I don't want to know. And then it's like ripping down and building back up a house. You don't know what's behind the walls and you're kind of like, let's just keep it behind the walls. But once you start to get the clarity around it, then you can actually start to make the changes for the better, you can start to implement things that's going to make your life easier and your business runs smoother. Peace definitely sets in once you just get a little bit of that clarity around what's going on and you can get some assistance in and understanding what strategies to use to move forward in your business as well. But absolutely, peace definitely comes with the clarity in your numbers.
Audra :I mean no one wants to admit that they're not great at budgeting or financial planning, but not everybody can be good at that.
Kendra :Well, and also in business. It's just different. You can be amazing at managing your household or not. Honestly, maybe you're not going to be amazing at managing budgeting in your household. It's also just not something that everyone thrives in. I can't paint or draw to save my life, but there are people out there who are so artistic and can see the vision and can make it come to fruition. So we all have our own skills and gifts, and I think, though, with money, just one of those things where folks feel like they should just already know certain things, but it doesn't always translate. Personal doesn't always translate to business. You might be able to run an amazing household and not be able to balance the books in your business Perfectly normal. We don't learn this stuff in school, and even if you go to business school and you learn to take some finance and accounting classes, it's not practical, real experience. So definitely don't feel ashamed for it. A lot easier said than done. I understand, but try not to feel that shame over it.
Audra :So when you started stepping in and you started building your own business, what did you see were the results that were unexpected for you.
Kendra :I think for me it was the connection.
Kendra :I got to have connection with the actual business women, with the owners, in a deeper way than I had initially anticipated Because, at least for me when I was incorporated, it was very just transactional.
Kendra :We're running the campaign, we want to see the numbers, see how it worked, do a little post-mortem on the project to improve it for the next time around. It's very we're going through the process of emotion lists but when you are working with someone in their business, your business is your livelihood, like it is. If it's doing really, really well, you're likely doing a little happier in the mornings when you wake up. If you're struggling to pay your team and to cut payroll, you might have some sleepless nights. And so I think when I started working with business owners and seeing that change in their business and that change in them, it changed me Because I saw that there's this really emotional and personal relationship that develops when you're advising folks when it comes to their money and their businesses. And I was not expecting that. I was not expecting that, but I'm thrilled, like now, years later. I'm thrilled and some of my clients are actually some of my closest friends.
Audra :So you now have this personal emotional investment in your client's businesses. Yes, there's a flip side to that. That also sounds like there's a lot of pressure there and that it might take a personal toll on you. I know that that might have happened to you as well, so I'm alluding to the piece that you went finding for yourself personally, but I want to just there.
Kendra :For sure, because so you do get really invested into your client's businesses, and sometimes you get so caught up into the work and what you're doing that you forget for yourself what you need. And so, yes, exactly about three years ago, I had my son first child, and it just so happened to be in 2020, during the height of the pandemic. And so here I am, new mom, still carrying on calls with clients. I told myself I was going to have like a quote unquote maternity leave and I'm still like taking client calls, I'm nursing my son while bouncing on a yoga ball and carrying out client calls, and it was a struggle. And that's when I realized, over that time period, that this no longer works Like.
Kendra :I still want to be able to do what I'm doing, serve how I'm serving and who I'm serving, but it has to be a shift, and that is when the tipping point happened for me, where prior to that, I was about profits and ensuring that there's enough profit and margin to be able to sustain and scale a business. It shifted and it was about peace and profits, like equal parts peace and profits, not profits with a little bit of peace. You have to figure out how to really balance the two, and that's when you start to have sustainability. And that's exactly the point in time when I made that shift and focused on peace in addition to profits.
Audra :OK, so this sounds unique, because that is not certainly peace, and profits are never taught in business school, it's not even discussed in many corporations, and you're doing just fine by making peace one of your number one priorities, absolutely how?
Kendra :did you get there? It's really a matter of once you draw the line and decide that this is what it is. There's really no looking back, honestly, because once you get a little taste of being able to have both, it's very hard to become unbalanced, because the second that you start to get out of balance you feel it very quickly and you can, of course, correct. So it's having a consulting call with a prospect that you know is not the right fit. You can very easily say this is not going to be a good fit.
Kendra :I can maybe suggest you to someone else, whereas beforehand I would not have been able to do that or I would have struggled to do that. I would have said, ah, this is really a smart thing to do in business. But once you see the benefits of it and for me that is being able to pick up my son whenever I want to, being able to just walk out of the office my home office and go take a nap if I feel like I need to go take a nap Because I'm just drained for that day Once you reap those benefits it's very, very hard to turn around and go backwards. But if it's what you want, you first have to allow that for yourself, so that you can feel it.
Audra :What I'm hearing is making yourself a priority, because which is contrary to what we've been taught, but what I'm hearing is make yourself and what you need a priority, so then you can show up more equipped in everything else you do, absolutely.
Kendra :And it's far more sustainable that way. Right, Because you wake up Every day. I don't wake up to rainbows and unicorns and glitter. Right, Like I said, I have a three-year-old.
Kendra :Some days I'm waking up at 4 in the morning and it's not my choice for my day, but it is what it is. But I'm able to stomach and take those things, take those blows a lot easier because I have been able to intentionally build a day and a work week and a life that keeps peace and profits at the forefront, and not one over the other. And so, yes, it is keeping your priorities at the forefront, it's being aware of what your priorities are. You're going to have your foundational things that are not likely to change very often. Right, you might have some things that are more seasonal, that might shift a little bit here or there, but your foundational things are not going to change that often and you want to check in with yourself to really make sure that you're aware what those things are.
Audra :You said something a little while ago that I'm sure that some small businesses just was shaking going. No, I don't know that I have the luxury of doing that. And you mentioned that you were being very particular about the clients that you take on, the ones that you know that are going to rob you of your peace. How did you get brave enough to do that, that you knew that there was, I mean, a small business? Every client counts, every single client counts. But you had the strength of self and the priority of making yourself first in that relationship and recognizing when a potential client is not good for you. How did you?
Kendra :get there. So, audra, let me share with you something that I have never actually shared before, and it was the actual moment when I really made this shift. So I'm always referencing the bouncing on the ball and nursing Carter and carrying out a client meeting. Well, there was one particular time when I was doing just that and a client a then client of mine who had at the time two small children, two children under five, long time client, my second highest revenue per month client that I had, so big client of ours, and I'm on the meeting with her, and he just starts getting a little bit fussy. And so I was like, let me just put you on mute for like a few minutes, I'm going to go lay him down, I'll be back. And I did just that and I came back and I came back to her chewing me out about taking time away from our call to handle my son when we had this important meeting that's going on. It was a weekly meeting that we had and I was like I'm going to go lay him down.
Kendra :I knew in that very moment that this relationship instantly has to end, that this is not the type of support that I need to be able to also support her. This is just not a good fit. And we got off of the call, into the call, you know fine. But we got off of the call and I immediately put together a presentation to close out our contract together. And I did that, I sent that over to her and I remember, for months after she was doubling down on her stance, you know, kendra, I don't understand why you let us go. You know you are the one who was unprofessional on the call and couldn't handle your sign. I mean, I was shocked that not only did it happen initially, but like it's continuing to happen, from a mom of young kids at that, you know. And that's when I said I have to be very careful of who I exchange energy with in this business and I have the choice.
Kendra :And then, very shortly after that happened, I had a client. I got a prospect who I actually ended up closing and converting into a client. More money, a fraction of the stress and work. And still to this day as a client and still to this day, on every meeting we'll ask how's Carter? How's Carter doing? It's a completely different dynamic. You know the relationship with this client and the relationship with that client. I let that one go and I ended up you know, it's the old adage right, it ended up getting something even better, and I saw what can happen when you know that something is not right and you do something to fix it. And yeah, that was the exact moment when I decided to make that shift.
Audra :So you felt it in your gut, you knew oh that was.
Kendra :that was it for me. You know I it was okay. This is unacceptable. There's absolutely there's nothing that is okay about this, and so I have to change this.
Audra :First of all, that was incredibly brave. You're a small business owner. That must have, first of all, must have been very, very scary to say. You got to go for two reasons. One you don't. You don't know if you're going to get another client, just like her, Absolutely. And two, you picked you. Yeah, that's, that's not eat. I'll just speak for myself. That's not always easy for me to pick me when I know that something is good for me Because I'm not. I've been wired and trained that I'm last on the totem pole. And for you to jump in and pick you, your priorities, your business, and then not know what's going to happen afterwards, I'm, first of all, I feel I feel ill for you in that moment. I can imagine how you felt. But I'm also incredibly proud of you, of how brave you were.
Kendra :Thank you. Thank you, yeah, it was difficult, but you know what it's it was. It was, I don't know. It's hard to explain. It was difficult, but yet it was easy at the same time. And I'm not sure if it was also just like the post, you know, post baby hormones, where I was just like, oh no, this is not happening. And it was just, you know. You know, I wasn't thinking for clearly either maybe at the time, but but no, it's. I felt so much lighter as well. And sometimes, even if your revenue is feeling a little bit lighter, if the stress in the weight on you is also feeling lighter, sometimes it's worth it. You know, sometimes it's worth it. A temporary dipping your revenue for a permanent dipping your stress levels is going to be worth it. The revenue will pick back up.
Audra :Do you think, if you hadn't done that and walked away from that client, that you would have had the capacity to welcome in the even better client?
Kendra :Absolutely not, Absolutely not, Absolutely not. And there you go there, there you go, Like that. That's the lesson for you right there. You know, I definitely would not have had the capacity I don't even know if I would have, you know open up the books to even take consultations at that time had I not let them go. I mean, they were, they were second highest revenue, but they were probably the highest as far as energy expend by the team and so, yeah, they just. It was unfortunate, but it happened for a reason. That exact interaction happened for a reason, and we would not, the business would not be where it is right now If that hadn't happened.
Audra :That sounds like a blueprint for life, not just business, absolutely. And you actually practice that and help other women do just that is to find the balance and find the peace and find that happy medium. So what is it that you do? Because when you and I first met, you said that your top priority is for yourself and teaching others how to find that balance and how to find peace. How do you do that? I mean we're we're slow learners. I'm not going to, I cannot even sugarcoat that we are. We are slow learners because we I don't think that we have all realized that we deserve that, but I'm all ears to hear how to learn to find that balance of peace.
Kendra :Yeah, it really starts with figuring out what do you really want? What do you really really want? What does your ideal day look like? What does your ideal week, month and year look like? That for me was a big exercise for me to even do initially, because I never thought about what do you mean? What's ideal for me? I'm just going through the motions. I mean I could create my day. So just figuring out what is ideal for you, what do you want it to look like?
Kendra :For some people, they're in the season of wanting to scale and they're fine with working 50-hour work weeks as long as they get to a specific goal and they can maybe bring on that next team member or whatever it is. For others, it might be working two days a week and gardening the other three to five days. So it's really getting clear on what you want your day to look like and what your foundational things are that you're wanting to accomplish, and then, with that, it's okay. Well, how do we support that? How do we actually make that happen? And with business, yes, you have to look into your profit and loss statement and your balance sheet and your actual financials, but a lot of times it's more operational. Financial statements are an afterthought, which what has already occurred. It's what money have you already made and have already spent? The big way to figure out how to get to where you're wanting to go is really more on the finance side. It's more about the projections. So you think about.
Kendra :The first step is thinking about what you want your day to look like. Be very clear on that. Then the second thing to consider is how do we get there? What are the things that can do within business to help me actually accomplish that? And so, as an example, for someone who wants to spend a lot of time with their family and not traveling on the road all the time and doing all that, you probably don't want to be the next world-class speaker that drops a book this year that has to go on a book tour, a 20-city book tour. You want to align what you're doing with what you're actually wanting out of life, and I think a lot of times we assume the next thing that we're supposed to do, but we don't check in with ourselves to see if it's really in alignment with where I am right now and what I'm wanting to get out of my life.
Audra :So that's being real, real honest with yourself which isn't always easy, Actually, it's pretty darn hard is to get real clear of what you want.
Audra :And when you started thinking through this, did you really literally have a notebook and start thinking through okay, what is it that I want? What is it that I don't want? That's something that I would do. I would write things down. I love lists. Yes, I love lists. I love crossing lists off when I finish things. I love this. So, in order for me to think about this, I'd have to make a list. Did you do the same thing? Absolutely.
Kendra :Absolutely have a notebook. I actually have a notebook and writing down what do you want your days to look like? Even as granular as you're comfortable with, some people want to stay a little bit more high level. On Tuesdays I want to go to Pilates and on Friday I want to go and do whatever you can. Just create that and I will tell you.
Kendra :I will pause here and say I am the least woo-woo person that you know. I'm extremely analytical. However, I will say over these past three, four, five years, a little bit of the woo has sprinkled into my life, because I can see the power of writing it down. Get it out of your head, write it down, actually visualize it, because the analytical part stepping in here on the woo a little bit for me is when you write it down and you also have something to hold yourself accountable to. So, yes, there's something I'm sure to be said about manifestation and putting it out into the universe.
Kendra :But also, if you are a tactical person that wants to know how to spend your days, you spend your days in alignment to what you have wrote down on that paper and if it's not in alignment, you can very quickly say I don't want to write a book and go on a book tour this year. That doesn't fit with this. It makes it very easy to say yes or no to things when it's clear and clearly written down. When things are really gray and just kind of floating around and you're just not sure, you say yes to a lot more than you probably want to say yes to, and then we get back into that overwhelm and, oh, I'm not getting the results that I'm wanting. Well, we don't even know what the results that you want really are. We got to be clear first.
Audra :That's a really good point that when you I mean what you've said was really powerful when you're in the middle of the gray and not clear of what you want, you say yes to a lot and then you're halfway in the middle of it. What did I say yes to this? Why did I think I wanted to do this? Because you're in the middle of it and you're like this is terrible, this is not for me. Why am I here? This is not what I had in mind, but you're saying it's because you weren't clear with what you wanted in the first place.
Kendra :Right, right, and some things can shift right. But again, those core values, those are usually pretty locked in for a while. But some of the things might, some of the data, they shift. Okay, maybe it's not Pilates on Tuesday, maybe it's Pilates every other Friday, whatever Like that little stuff. Nuance of that can shift, but your core values. Do you want to spend time at home with your family, and let's build a business around doing that. Do you want to travel the world when your business is done? Let's build a business that can do that and still be profitable. But we have to be very clear on what that is first.
Audra :Like I said, these are all lessons that, even though we're talking specifically about businesses and entrepreneurs, and specifically female entrepreneurs, this sounds like this could apply to every aspect of your life. I know that you've applied it to specifically your business but, have you applied it in other areas of your life too?
Kendra :Oh, absolutely Absolutely. Friendships, like going into friendships, like does this actually feel?
Audra :you know, does this actually feel an alignment.
Kendra :You just it's that whole, you know, checking in with yourself, just check in with yourself, and I think one of the benefits that we have as women is our intuition is really, really strong. It's really good, and I think that, at least for me, it's not that I didn't trust it initially, I just didn't listen to it enough initially because there was so much chaos all the time that I'm in. But once I learned to quiet that which I'm still learning I think that's going to be a forever journey, but learning to quiet it, to really check in, I can intentionally check in. It almost never serves me wrong. And so like leaning into the fact that we have this strong intuition and helping that kind of guide you through different scenarios.
Audra :That's the important part is being able to quiet the noise and really listening to yourself, listening to that intuition, and not letting yourself talk yourself out of it, because how many times have you thought this is really important? But then your logical brain kicks in and goes what are you thinking? That's silly, that's ridiculous. I don't think you should do that, or you have responsibilities, or whatever.
Kendra :Yeah, and to that point where we're talking about this as business and personal, there's actually been times where I've had clients who I will come in or they'll suggest something in their business and I really want to try X, y and Z and they start talking through it and it sounds amazing. But I'm running the numbers and looking at the data and I'm like, logically, the data is showing like this and I want to put this in front of you so that you have that process, this data, like think about it, really sit within and think about it, but then still come back to me and tell me what your gut is feeling. And that's where we'll go and we'll just track you and see how it's going, but we'll still go with your gut. So there's the intuition and there's the gut, and then there's the numbers. I want you to have both. I want you to know how you feel, but still have the numbers.
Kendra :It doesn't mean the numbers trumps the intuition. They just let the numbers actually give the numbers a chance to help inform you. But then still go with how you're feeling. And most of the time, if a client comes to me and they're feeling a certain way about something, and I give them the data, if they decide to still move forward with it. Most of the time it actually does work out. Sure, we might have to tweak some things along the way, because we're still looking at the data to help us guide. But if they have that gut instinct about their products and their industry, go with it, you know. But just let the data support you. It doesn't have to trump your, you know, just have to trump you.
Audra :That is a real. First of all, that's very rare coming from someone with an accounting background. I did not squash Somebody's dream just because the numbers don't match. Yeah, I think that might be your superpower.
Kendra :Well, thank you, thank you, I think it's. I think it's it comes from my Um like why I'm supporting women and and you know, because I know that we have this intuition, I know that we have this ability. We can do anything. Like we, we, we literally can do anything. We hold our families together, our relationships together, our children together, we, we bear our children like we can do anything, so we can absolutely run and crush a business Hands down. We just need to support. We just need to support. We need the data, that's all.
Kendra :And so I'm not here From an accountant or finance perspective to tell you how to scale your business. I'm here to support you and what you're already wanting to do. Let me just give you some of the data and metrics to help guide you, to help guide where you're wanting to go. But the numbers, the numbers should not trump how you're actually feeling about Some type of a launch. Or you know the next hire. You know how many of us have ever been involved in hiring someone or maybe being that hire where the resume might look a certain kind of way but you just don't quite have the feeling that it's a good fit, or maybe the inverse maybe the resume is not that great, but you really love the candidate like you, you, you want to lean on your intuition as well.
Audra :You know the numbers are great, but you do want to leave your intuition like I said, that's a superpower, because that is literally being somebody's partner and going yeah, you can do this, you can totally do this and Go and go for it. I mean there's, statistically Speaking, since the pandemic, more small businesses have been luck, has been launched by women yeah, at an extraordinary rate, and a lot of them are doing quite well. What do you think's behind that?
Kendra :I think that we got stuck in our homes and you know we had time to be home and Either, you know, maybe we were still working our full-time job or maybe we, you know, got furloughed, or all sorts of different scenarios, but we were home and we have the ability, while being home, to get some of these creative ideas out and say you know what, why not just try it? Why not just see? Let me just see. And I think that that served a lot of us well, because we had the time.
Kendra :Now, of course, you know we also, for some of us, had our kids Kids at home with us too, which was like chaos, but we were still able to because we're living, you know we could do anything, we're able to still get it together. And it's almost like you know the situation where we were like an experiment right, like we were trapped in our homes, you know, unable to really go out and do other things, which which limited some of the external Stimuli around us, and now we could focus in our energy in our home offices or in our homes, doing whatever we wanted to do, and so I think that that helped a lot of women have that time and ability to To get things started, you know, and also it didn't hurt that folks were used to doing things on zoom now and they were used to doing things virtually now and okay, if I have to order something I'm gonna order it online now. So it almost set the stage for a very Internet or online based kind of business, and that's how a lot of the businesses got started.
Audra :I mean, after all, women are Creators. We are literally born to create in every aspect. Yeah, there's a lot of women listening. I I think I have a lot of audience members that are like I really would love to start this business, but I am terrified. What if it doesn't work? What if it doesn't do this? What if it doesn't do that? What would you say to them?
Kendra :Yeah, if it so, I get it. Your, your, your feeling is valid and you can still do it, you know. And if it fails, okay, fails is definitely like in quotation marks, because Any failure we all I'm sure we've all heard this any failure is actually a lesson. You're learning something and it's it's hard to, I'm sure, it's hard to really believe that before you actually do it, but the second that you actually fail, you realize, oh, that there's truth there. Okay, like the greatest business owners and entrepreneurs have failed so many times, but the failures are like a drop in the bucket compared to where they actually are, what they've accomplished.
Kendra :But the failures were needed, there were necessary. I mean, what do you consider a failure? Also, like you might, you know, launch a marketing campaign that didn't do as well as you thought. Was that a failure? No, you still got some lessons out of it. So I think, like, practically speaking, you know, if you are Nervous or scared or worried about starting the business, start smaller. You know you don't feel like you have to put all of your, your money, into something from the very beginning. Start smaller and then just build on that momentum, but start, because there's Probably nothing worse than Going five, ten, fifteen, twenty years down the line and having all these what ifs, that whole time, you know, man, I wonder if I would have just did that, or I wonder if I just started this. And then when you do it and you're like man, I should have started this 15 years ago, you know, and Just just start it, just start it.
Audra :Just be brave and close your eyes and jump yeah.
Kendra :I mean because, at the end of the day, you know If the jump, the jump can be calculated as calculated as your heart needs. You know Some can jump with, you know pulling ten thousand out of their savings and you know taking a two-week vacation from their job and saying, okay, I'm gonna take this two weeks to go really, really hard. This invests ten thousand. For some, doing that would be, you know, more negative than positive. It will cost too much worry. Maybe it's only five hundred dollars that you're pulling. Jump to the extent that you feel comfortable, but jump. You know, but jump.
Audra :Listen, listen to your intuition and and go for it Absolutely now, before we run out of time. I wanted to make sure that we let everybody know that you also have a podcast. Yes, yes, I do what is the name of your podcast and what do you? What is your topic of discussion on your podcast?
Kendra :Yes, thank you for asking. So the podcast is the Kinjenacoll podcast and over there we just talk all things business strategy, business finance. The last couple of years of the podcast has really been focused on the business side. So some like tactical, tangible things, you know what's profit versus revenue, like those sorts of things. I do think I'm gonna be pivoting a little bit this year to actually have you know what a forecast, like you want, maybe if you, if you would care to join me.
Kendra :I love to Love to talk a little bit more about. You know some of the not so technical components of being entrepreneurs starting a business and and and everything. But yeah, the Kinjenacoll podcast is the name of the podcast.
Audra :I mean, that sounds like so much fun to be able to listen to you and and have you on the ready to help encourage these, these budding entrepreneurs, to maybe get answers to the questions that they already have in the back of your mind, because Maybe they can't afford a fractional CFO right now that they can afford 20 minutes to listen to you, give them some sage advice.
Kendra :Yeah, absolutely Absolutely, and I try to make it, you know, light so that you know I know accounting and finance isn't the most fun topic in the world, but I try to give actual, real life examples from you know, from clients that we have on the product-based side and the service-based side, to help it be relatable so that you can actually use that information to better your business.
Audra :Well, at the beginning I talked, I said that we're going to talk about money, power, influence and peace, and people probably rolled their eyes at me and went what are you talking about? But this entire conversation, we've exactly talked about that Power, influence, peace and money all being able to coexist together Absolutely, and I think that the foundation of it is trusting yourself and being really, really clear at what you want Absolutely. Is there any other little nugget of advice that you can give us as we are on our journey of trying to marry those four things in the same spot?
Kendra :Yeah, you know, the one thing I will just add to this from a money and kind of money management standpoint is, you know, try to take some of the pressure off of yourself when it comes to money and money management.
Kendra :As far as, like I know, goal-setting is like a big thing and, yes, it's very important to know how much money are you wanting to bring in and all of that but really just kind of focus in on what do you want to do, what do you want to offer, and then just like, start there, you know, sell it, see how it feels, tweak it, Because oftentimes that first business idea that you have isn't really where you're going to settle. It's going to maybe be some version of that. So don't spend too much time, energy, effort, money in trying to build completely this perfect version of what you have in your mind before you just start, because it's very likely that it's going to be iterative and there's going to be different versions of it. So you know, don't, don't. I guess the advice is just, yes, jump and start and don't worry too much about it being perfect. Quote unquote right, perfect before you do it.
Audra :That's very comforting to know that I don't know. I don't have to have it all right, I don't even need to know everything that's going to happen, right, maybe? Just I need to know the first two steps, yes, and then the rest will figure itself out.
Kendra :Because you can have step one through 100 written out perfectly, but by the time you get to step three, step four through eight has changed, which means now nine through 100. So you just don't want to go too far down the path.
Audra :Yeah, don't wait until it's all perfect, because it'll never be perfect ever. Exactly, Kendra. If the audience wants to reach out to you, where can they find you?
Kendra :The best place is the website, so just head over to thefinancefimcom and you can get all the information there as far as our services, but then also the podcast is linked there.
Audra :Email social media is all there and I will make sure all of that information is in the show notes. Now, this is my favorite part of the show. If you've listened before, you know what I'm going to ask, but this might be a surprise for you. My favorite part of the show is when I get to back away from the microphone and you get a direct, intimate moment with the audience to share with them anything it is that you want to leave with them, have it, haunt them and make something meaningful in their day. So the mic is yours.
Kendra :Well, thank you, you know.
Kendra :I will just say that the only thing that is stopping you are the only thing between you.
Kendra :Where you are currently and where you're wanting to be, the biggest thing that's kind of stopping you from being there right now is just the noise in your head. It's not you specifically, it might just be the noise that's in your head. And so working through that, trying to get your heart, is to really quiet that noise, to get clarity on what it is that you're really wanting is really going to be that next big step. And just when things get overwhelming because they can just always focus on that next big step, whatever the next big step is, if you've worked through the noise and now you kind of feel like you have, you know, some guidelines down, then what's the next big thing that you have to do? And just really try to put your energy there, because really truly two, three, four, five steps down the line is is always in motion, and so if you can just put your head down and really think about the next big thing, then you know, then I think you'll you'll find, looking back three, six months, that you've made that progress.
Audra :And if you need more encouragement, go listen to Kendra's website or podcast and she'll give you a ton of encouragement, so I hope that you all go and check it out. Kendra, thank you so much for being here and making money, power and influence and peace not sound so scary and so impossible, and making it sound absolutely achievable and that you absolutely can make it happen in your life. Yeah, absolutely, thank you. Thank you, aja, thank you and thank all of you for listening and we'll see you again next time.