Money drives most business decisions, yet we all have money mindset obstacles and advantages that play a role in whether we grow our business fast and with confidence, or slowly and by putting in more and more of our own time.
Business coach and money mentor Clare Wood shares with us her expert insights, tips and strategies to overcoming your small business money obstacles so you can start growing faster.
Clare is a self confessed numbers nerd, who left her job as an accountant in the corporate world to become a business couch and money mentor, and a wrangler of two little boys.
With a love of empowering entrepreneurs to manage their money and make more money, Clare is here to talk about obstacles that might be holding back the growth of your business, and strategies to navigate the path to bigger impact.
Clare Wood
Clare Wood is a business coach and a money mentor. She’s a numbers nerd (a CPA), a wrangler of two boys, a drinker of wine, a gym junkie, a wanderluster and a podcaster with a reality TV addiction. She loves empowering entrepreneurs to manage their money and make more money.
Connect with Clare
Resources
You are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero
Get Rich Lucky Bitch by Denise Duffield Thomas
Manifestation Babe Podcast
James Wedmore Mind Your Business Podcast
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Podcast Transcript: Money Mindset Clare Wood
Nicci O’Mara
Money is what drives most business decisions, yet we all have money mindset obstacles and advantages that play a role in whether we grow our business fast and with confidence, or slowly and by putting in more and more of our own precious time. So today, business coach and money mentor, Clare Wood, is on the podcast to share with us her expert insights, tips and strategies to overcoming your small business money obstacles so you can start growing faster.
Hi there and thanks for joining me for Episode 17 of the Simply Standout Marketing podcast. I’m thrilled to have Clare Wood on the show today. Clare is a self-confessed numbers nerd who left her job as an accountant in the corporate world to become a business coach and money mentor and a wrangler of two little boys. With a love of empowering entrepreneurs to manage their money and make more money. Clare’s here to talk about obstacles that might be holding back the growth of your business and strategies to navigate the path to bigger impact.
Welcome, Clare. It is so wonderful to have you here today.
Clare Wood
Lovely to be here today. Thanks for having me.
Nicci O’Mara
Oh, my pleasure. Now, look, you’re really a very successful business coach and a money mentor. What led you to where you are today?
Clare Wood
Well, do we want to go right back to the beginning? I may as well… So I actually started my career as an accountant, can you believe it or not? And I worked in the corporate space for many years as an unfulfilled corporate accountant. And when I had my first baby, I got made redundant and I was helping my husband with his business. And he said, you’re really good at this. And he said people would pay you for this. And so I thought about it and thought, I wonder if I could start my own business. And literally, I had a couple of client referrals within the week and my business has just grown from there. And there’s definitely been a lot of learnings, a lot of lessons along the way. And I’m very grateful to be at the stage I’m at at the moment, which is scaling up and starting to offer one to many products.
Nicci O’Mara
That sounds fantastic. And I love that you’ve you know, you’ve come from that corporate background and accounting, but now you can help other businesses from the coaching and the mentoring side of things.
Clare Wood
Yeah, and I really do think that that background has really set me up very well for coaching because I’m not just talking about things from a theoretical perspective. I can really jump into people’s numbers with them. You know, I get my hands dirty helping people do their budgets and analyse and understand their financials and things as well. So, yeah, I’m very grateful for my background in accounting.
Nicci O’Mara
Absolutely. You said that you have learnt a lot of lessons along the way, starting up your own business. What’s something that you think that you would have loved to have known back when you started that you would change and do differently?
Clare Wood
What a great question. I wish that I had come into the business with a view or a buffer about how much I was going to invest, because the way that I grew my business, especially in the early years of business, I ran it off the smell of an oily rag. I didn’t spend a cent on anything. And what I’ve realised is how much I was actually inhibiting my own growth by doing that. And, you know, if I was to start all over again, I wish that from the start I’d said, right, I’m jumping into, you know, an amazing programme or investing with an amazing coach.
I wish I’d done my branding properly early on and of course, you know, run Facebook ads and various things like that. And, you know, everything’s a lesson and a learning. But for me, in a retrospect, that’s the biggest thing that I think is, it’s like, I think I was always too scared to spend money and to invest money. And I think that the more that I am doing that, the more I’m seeing big leaps in my income and growth in my business.
Nicci O’Mara
Absolutely look, I totally agree, because it’s the same thing that I did when I first started my business. And you just go, should I invest in paying an accountant, paying for someone to do this stuff that you can’t do really well yourself. That was always something that I always wished that I had changed back in the early days, because once you get in there, you get stuck doing the work, doingg the day to day work rather than the business of growing yourself, which, you know, I’ve also learnt myself over the years and you go, okay, I’ve just got to actually invest in it.
Clare Wood
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Nicci O’Mara
Now, look, there are a lot of misconceptions about money management when it comes to building a business, you know, what’s one of the common misconceptions that you hear a lot about money management?
Clare Wood
OK, I have found that a lot of business owners talk about their sales number, and I’m so guilty of this as well. But, you know, we talk about the six figure business or someone made, you know, $500,000 in their business or whatever. Without putting the context of profitability around it, and this for me, is something that I really want to educate people about, is that actually the amount of revenue that people make or the amount of sales that they make might have very little to do with how much money they’ve actually got.
So when you are looking at your business and you’re looking at what other people are doing, it’s really important to take into consideration the profitability of their business as compared to just the sales. So when I think about money management, to me it’s really about knowing your numbers and being super clear, like how much profit am I actually making from this business and then making your business decisions based around that, as compared to just chasing that sexy top line sales number.
Nicci O’Mara
Yes, you so often hear people talk about six figures, seven figures, eight figures, but no one ever says this was my profit. So, I mean, they could be a one million dollar business, but they could also be spending a million dollars. And really, at the end of the day, they’re worse off than someone who’s making $200,000, but they’re only, they’ve got $100,000 dollars in profit or so. Yeah, we do concentrate definitely too much on the sales figures. I do agree.
Clare Wood
Yeah. And so that’s something that, you know, I’m trying really hard too, when I share numbers, share the profitability and share the, you know, be more transparent around it. And it’s something that I really want to empower my clients and business owners to do; is still to learn to really understand their numbers and to focus on profit instead of sales.
Nicci O’Mara
Yes, I think that’s a great idea. Now over the last few years, probably the last couple of years only, I’ve done a lot of work on my money mindset and found how many stories I’d been telling myself that were holding me back, which are plenty of them. But look, it’s not something that everyone understands the effects of. So how would you describe what money mindset is and its importance to your finances?
Clare Wood
Yeah, so your money mindset is how you feel about money. And, you know, if you’re listening to this and it’s the first time you’ve heard of the concept of money mindset, you might go, I feel great about money, and I said terrific. But what we do is we actually do have underlying beliefs around money that maybe aren’t so positive. And some examples might be, you know, I’ve had clients who come to me and say, I’ve got a great money mindset.
I’m like, fantastic, OK, let’s hire someone in your team. And they’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s just slow down a bit. Or I might say, let’s put your prices up or people won’t pay me more than I’m already charged at the top of the market. And that’s when we really start to uncover these underlying stories that people do have around money and really start to grow. Well, actually, you’re holding yourself back from your next level of business because you do have these money stories.
And look, I’ve got money stories. Everyone does. And it’s really interesting that they change and evolve over time. So you might sort of break through one set of beliefs and then you come up against a whole new group of stories at your next level. So money mindset is really getting clearer with what your beliefs around money are. And then if you do have unhelpful thoughts about money, working to reprogramme those so that you don’t make decisions in your business to hold you back, you actually bravely and confidently invest and know and love your numbers.
Nicci O’Mara
Yeah, well, it’s something that I find so many businesses, once you do start talking to them and once you understand what money mindset is and how it actually is holding you back, because I was astounded the stories that from being a kid, the things that our parents would say to us or that our teachers or university lecturers, whoever said to us was incredible. The difference that makes. And also, when you start out, things along the lines of, I think covid will have an effect on our money mindset. Do you think that will change people’s money mindset?
Clare Wood
Yeah, I mean, all kinds of experiences that we have in life can change our perception of money in a good way or a bad way. So any experience that you go through is definitely going to shape your beliefs around money.
Nicci O’Mara
Yeah, look, we’ve been talking a bit about small businesses who are struggling to grow, that they have this fear of spending money on the things that are actually going to help them grow their business, like marketing, like hiring staff to undertake the day to day work. What are your thoughts on how to navigate the line between investing in the growth of your business and overextending yourself?
Clare Wood
Yeah, and this is, I guess this is really my jam. And the answer that I share frustrates people a lot because it’s not a clear black and white answer, unfortunately, because truthfully, what that line looks like is going to be different for different people. And, you know, I’ve worked with some clients of mine that have a very wealthy partner and the partners like full steam ahead, do anything you need to do, whereas other people, you know, they need to be making a profit in their business because the household is depending on it.
And I think that everyone kind of sits at a different place in the spectrum. Obviously, from my experience, the more that people invest, the faster that they grow, provided they’re doing it in a mindful and and measured way, of course. But that’s not always realistic for all business owners. And sometimes, too, it’s not sensible. Like if I have gone and hired the coach that I’m working with now, when I first got started in business, I probably wouldn’t have understood half the things that she was talking about.
So it wouldn’t have really made sense to do that at that point in time. But I definitely think that, you know, you really need to have a think about what is your capacity to be able to invest? How long are you able to go without getting a return on your investment or how long are you able to wait until you do get a return on your investment? And again, your appetite for risk and investing. I know that some people, you know, have a particular amount that they like to spend on marketing, whereas for other people they’re like, I want this thing to grow, I’m all in. So they’re happy to kind of accept a bit more risk there.
Nicci O’Mara
Yeah, and that’s what I say to a lot of my smaller clients. Have a strategy, what are you actually going to improve on in the next 90 days? What’s the purpose of it? You know a lot of businesses I see don’t have the foundational stuff right. So they don’t have their messaging right, which affects pretty well everything that they possibly do. And all those foundational things like having an email on an email database and on a website that actually, you know, captivates and engages people rather than just having a website and also your money management, because so many of us go it’s okay, we’ll do everything ourselves, but I just go get on the expertise, not for everything, but to get you a strategic plan side of things or for someone just to help you get started and then build from there.
Clare Wood
Yeah, and I definitely think that getting the foundations right is, to your point, is so important in terms of scaling your business.
Nicci O’Mara
Yeah. Now, look, what are some of the other big mindset problems that you see business owners struggle with that have a major impact on their business?
Clare Wood
So, I think there’s obviously money mindset and this is all connected, fear, and a lack of confidence. So fear pops its ugly head up any time that we are wanting to do something different and you’ll get all kinds of messages that, you know, people are laughing at me, what if no one wants to buy my thing? What if I make these investments and they’re the wrong investment. And a lack of confidence is the other thing. People are just really scared to get themselves and their business out there. And that can sometimes really hold people back from the potential of their business.
Nicci O’Mara
What are some simple strategies that people can use to work on overcoming their money mindset issues?
Clare Wood
Well, the first thing that I would suggest is that they understand they educate themselves around what money mindset is, so, whether that’s doing a course, reading books, listening to podcasts, the first and most important thing is really understanding more about it. Then the next step is to really work out what your stories are. And I know even now that, like when things pop up for me that I go, oh, that’s a money story. And then once you’ve identified what it is, you can then start to work on rewriting it.
Nicci O’Mara
That’s a good idea. And what are some of the resources that you actually use or that you love and have found great knowledge out of or inspiration?
Clare Wood
Yes, so. There’s a lot of really fantastic books. There’s You’re a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero. Get Rich Lucky Bitch by Denise Duffield-Thomas. There are some fantastic podcasts, I love the Manifestation Babe podcast, James Wedmore’s podcast, Minding Your Business. And then there’s courses that you can invest in to learn about money mindset. So I did a fantastic course called Money Bootcamp by Denise Duffield-Thomas, and I’ve now created my own course, which is very different to hers.
A lot of people go and do Denise’s course and then do my course. And, you know, inside my course I’m teaching about money management, but also about money mindset. It’s looking holistically at your relationship with money.
Nicci O’Mara
Oh. What are some of the things you actually learn within it?
Clare Wood
Yes, so. Inside my course, I teach practical strategies around how to manage your money. So I use some of the sales tracking tools that I use with my high ticket clients. We do the process, I call it sales planning, but it’s actually budgeting. I just try and make it sound a bit more fun. Teaching people about how to make a plan for their money, how to look at the investments. We look at their overall strategy. So we actually look at, you know, how people are going to scale their business to the million dollar mark.
So really identifying what works for you and your business, because some people teach launching, some people teach, you know, how to grow your team. And the way that I teach is I’m like, it’s got to be what feels good for you. So I empower people to uncover their own particular strategy, to scale that feels in alignment. Then we spend a lot of time doing things like journaling and identifying their money stories and rewriting them to empower people to scale their business.
Nicci O’Mara
They all sound wonderful. What about, I know you talk about making money fun or sorry, I shouldn’t say money fun. The money management side of business fun. What are some of the, you know, you’re thoughts on trying to make it more enjoyable? Because I know I certainly don’t enjoy doing a lot of the financial stuff in my business.
Clare Wood
Yeah. Look, I think it’s about finding tools that work for you. A couple of things that I do that I think make it a bit more fun is I actually draw a visual representation of sales each month and I colour it in. And if you want to go and check out on my Instagram at clare _wood_coach, in my reel’s, you’ll actually see my sales tracking tool and it looks like a giant penis. Sometimes it even looks like a bong people tell me.
I just think it’s such a fun and playful thing that I always use now and have a bit of a play and fun. So when I’m tracking sales, it’s not like typing numbers in a spreadsheet. I’m colouring it in with a fluro pen. And I do this beautiful practise where everyone that pays me money, I hand write their name down and I send them a beautiful little blessing and say, you know, thank you, Lisa, for investing with me. I hope that you love the transformation that you have inside my course. And I’m sending you so much gratitude.
And, you know, other times I’ll say, you know, I trust that this investment will come back to you tenfold. So I really think about the individual person behind each payment. And, yeah, I found that’s a really beautiful way to bring some fun and playfulness back into the money side. But the other thing, too, that I love to do is, you know, and I love to sit down and have a look when this money comes in, what am I doing with it?
And so when I’m doing, like, my cash forecasting and things like that, I’m sitting here at the moment, some of the things that I’m investing in. I’m writing a book. I’m getting a new brand. So I get to manually write those things out and get so excited and say, this is what this money represents to me. I’m not just filling in a spreadsheet here. I am, you know, getting excited about how I’m going to be able to invest this back into my business or, you know, or my personal life.
So I at the moment planning a holiday. So when I’m doing my cash forecasting, I can sit here and be like, oh my gosh, it feels so exciting and expansive to know that I’ve allocated money aside to drink cocktails and to hire a babysitter while we’re away. So I think bringing the play and the fun back into money is a really beautiful way to not make money management so boring because it doesn’t need to be.
Nicci O’Mara
I love that idea. I think that’s so good. I’m going to have a look at that and another thing. So I’m actually in James Wedmore’s course, so I’m one of his members. And one thing I learnt from him, which really stuck with me was he said, you’ve got to think of money going through you. So the more money you earn, it means then you go and put more money out. You know, you have a bigger impact in the community or with, so whether you’re actually helping different charities or whether you’re earning money and then you going into a cafe because you can afford to and you’re buying a meal, and then the money from that goes to the owner of the cafe and the person who’s serving you. So they actually get their wages and then they go on and they spend that money elsewhere. So it just keeps going on and on. And I thought, oh, that’s such a good concept.
Clare Wood
And something that I say to people is that in relation to the flow of money is, you know, if you want money to flow in, money needs to flow out as well. And this is where I definitely help myself back in the earliest stages of business. And yes, of course, it is a balance. We don’t want every single cent we earn to be spent straight away. That’s not honouring the, you know, the energy of money. But at the same time, I really do believe in that in the flow. Flowing in. Flowing out.
Nicci O’Mara
Yes. Oh, definitely. And I think it really has to. And I think after having been in business for so long, that’s one of my biggest regrets, was not investing early on. I mean, my business has changed and evolved over the years. And I worked in corporate and then worked in consultancy and then stopped that and did other things and back doing consultancy, but only doing branding and strategic planning and copywriting and things along those lines.
So it’s got to change and you’ve got to change along with it. But I think investing in your own business and also in your own learning as well. I’m amazed at how much I’ve learnt by investing in training inside the last five, 10 years is huge.
Clare Wood
Yeah, 100 percent. I mean, if you think that you can do it all on your own in business, then I think you’re being a little bit naive. You know, the way that we all grow is from educating ourselves from others.
Nicci O’Mara
Yeah. And also forming that community with other people. And that’s why I love doing this podcast and connecting with people like you and learning from you and from others. It’s so good for me as well as for people listening. So it’s so good that we can, we’ve got a platform that we can share our expertise with others. And I love it.
Clare Wood
Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s so much fun. And you’re totally right. It’s just fun being able to connect with other business owners who speak the same language.
Nicci O’Mara
Hmm. Absolutely. Now look, where can listeners connect with you?
Clare Wood
So, I have a podcast that is called the Clare Wood Podcast. So you could definitely come and check out my podcast. And I’m also pretty active on Instagram, like I mentioned before at Clare_wood_coach. And But you know, I share a lot. Every day I’m sharing practical advice over on Instagram about how to use your money mindset, how to manage your money in your business, so if you want to come and get some great tips, make sure you come and give me a follow.
Nicci O’Mara
That’s wonderful. I definitely will be. Thank you so much for coming on and spending time with us today. I am looking forward to keeping on following your podcast. And I’m also going to get on Instagram because I don’t think I follow you on Instagram.
Clare Wood
Not yet. And if you do come and add me, if you’re a listener and you do come and add me, drop me a dm. I love when people drop me a little message and say, hi, I heard you on a podcast. I love to really say hi to people. So please do.
Nicci O’Mara
Oh, that’s great. Look, thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge. And yeah, hopefully we can chat again soon and help some more people.
Clare Wood
Fantastic. Thanks so much for having me Nicci
