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Danielle Hendon joins us on the Steve Jobs inspired Join Up Dots Podcast
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Introducing Danielle Hendon
Danielle Hendon is todays guest on the Join Up Dots, the podcast where we connect you with inspiring entrepreneurs and experts who share their stories and strategies for success.
Today we have the pleasure off a first on the podcast, a Fractional CFO on a mission to empower small business owners to achieve their financial goals and build thriving enterprises.
Join me as we explore the intersection of passion, purpose, and profit, diving deep into the strategies and insights that drive entrepreneurial success.
With over a decade of experience in corporate finance and accounting, our guest brings a unique perspective to the conversation, combining technical expertise with a genuine passion for helping people succeed.
Together, we’ll uncover the four corners of financial success—reliability, profitability, strategy, and execution—and equip you with the tools and knowledge you need to take your business to new heights.
From setting a solid financial foundation to executing strategic plans and maximizing profitability, we’ll cover it all.
So whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out on your journey, todays episode of Join Up Dots is your go-to resource for actionable advice that really works.
So what made her create her own business in the first place?
And of course what has been the challenges that has made what she offers stronger in the long run?
Well lets find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Danielle Hendon
Show Highlights
During the show we discussed such weighty subjects with Danielle such as:
Why the first stage of a business’s financial foundation is the reliability stage, which sets the foundation for the rest of the financial statements.
Danielle Hendon discusses the difference between corporate and small business, highlighting the importance of helping people increase their livelihoods and legacies.
David Ralph wonders if easy tasks like bookkeeping should be maintained or delegated, citing lack of knowledge of business workflow.
and lastly……
Return To The Top Of Danielle Hendon
If you enjoyed this episode with Danielle Hendon, why not check out other inspirational chat with Ben Guttman, Jane Stein and the amazing Olly Richards
You can also check our extensive podcast archive by clicking here – enjoy
Full Transcription Of Danielle Hendon Interview
Intro [0:00]
Life shouldn’t be hard life should be a fun filled adventure every day. So now start joining up dots tap into your talents, your skills, your God given gifts and tell your boss, you don’t deserve me. I’m out of here. It’s time for you to smash that alarm clock and start getting the dream business and life you will of course, are dreaming of. Let’s join your host David route from the back of his garden in the UK, or wherever he might be today with another JAM PACKED episode of the number one hit podcast. Join Up Dots.
David Ralph [0:39]
Yeah, good morning to you. Good morning to you and welcome to Join Up Dots the podcast where we connect you with inspiring entrepreneurs and experts who share their stories and strategies for success. And today we have the pleasure of a thirst on the podcast a fractional CFO never knew one of those existed on a mission to empower small business owners to achieve their financial goals and build a thriving enterprise. Join me as we explore the intersection of passion, purpose and profit, diving deep into the strategies and insights that drive entrepreneurial success and we have over a decade of experience in corporate finance and accounting. Our guest brings a unique perspective to the conversation, combining technical expertise with a genuine passion for helping people succeed. And together we’ll uncover the four corners of financial success, reliability, profitability, strategy and execution and equips you with the tools and knowledge you need to take your business to new heights from setting a solid financial foundation to executing strategic plans and maximising profitability. We’re going to try to cover it all. So whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur, just starting out on your journey, today’s episode of Join Up Dots is your go to resource for actionable advice that really works. But here’s some questions what made her create her own business in the first place? And of course, what have been the challenges that have made her offer stronger in the long run? Well, let’s find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Danielle Hendon. Hello, Danielle, how are you?
Danielle Hendon [2:14]
I am amazing. I am so excited to be here today.
David Ralph [2:17]
I love Americans for saying that. You are always so excited. You’re so excited. I have people that connect with me. And I’ve had to get up out of bed at two o’clock in the morning. And they still say I’m so excited to be here. Is that something that you sort of naturally see, because I know you grew up in the United Kingdom. And we’re not like that at all. We’re a bit weird. We’re very doom and gloom and sort of non gushy. So is that something that you naturally have? Or is it sort of, you’re surrounded by it, so you can’t get away from it?
Danielle Hendon [2:49]
I think it’s a little bit of both. I think you have different people everywhere, right? But for me any chance I can get to talk about finance and get people looking at numbers, because so often we put our head in the sand, I just can’t help but be excited.
David Ralph [3:01]
I’m excited about numbers. And I’m excited about metrics and data. I’m a bit of a spreadsheet geek. And I like to know because I think if you have got the numbers, you can manage it. But I’m sure through your experience, you’ve seen so many people that when you say to them, okay, what is your profit margin on this? I can’t even answer you the basics. Do you find that? And does it shock you to your core?
Danielle Hendon [3:27]
What I find the most amazing is how large a business can get running on instinct without looking at the data or looking at the numbers. Everybody usually knows their revenue. They know what money is coming into the bank account. But they don’t often look at it from a profit perspective. And it’s just a game changer.
David Ralph [3:45]
That’s fascinating, isn’t it? Because we talk about entrepreneurs being sort of driven by their gut driven by instinct being our betrayed take risks and stuff. And I kind of wonder whether that is the right way, whether those companies that are growing big on instinct. That’s That’s true entrepreneurial spirit, isn’t it more than just looking at the data and crunching the numbers? Like I probably would?
Danielle Hendon [4:12]
Absolutely, it takes a little bit about you’ve got to have the instinct, but you’ve also got to do what I call calculated risks I am, as you would imagine from an accountant, a little risk averse. But that doesn’t mean you don’t take risks. That means you calculate the risk and you jump with your eyes wide open.
David Ralph [4:28]
Well, you took a big risk when you started your own business. And I know that a year you was an employee and your company closed its doors and you were thrown out into the streets with a cardboard box. Was it instant that I can see this coming? I’m going to start my own business, or did you sort of get made redundant and then think Oh, what the hell should I do? Should I get another job? What was the process you went through?
Danielle Hendon [4:54]
So I’ll take you all the way back to the beginning. I’ll give you kind of the origin story because I know so much of what you Do is about joining up the dots and honestly like going through every step of it just made me who I am today. And I actually went to college as a music major, I was going to sing opera. And I had an English professor that had us write all about the future of our career. And I realised very quickly that I don’t know enough people in high places to make a living doing this. So I had some friends that were in the accounting side at the business school, took a couple of classes and absolutely loved it. So I switched majors, got my accounting masters, and then did what most accountants do here in the US and joined a public accounting firm. I again, loved what I did, and that’s definitely something that has been a common thread through my professional journey is always doing what you love. And I started a family and realised, again, very quickly that 80 hour work weeks don’t mesh very well with a newborn in the house. So I left public accounting and being in the Houston area where I’m at, I had a lot of oil and gas background. So I went to an oil and gas company in downtown Houston, again, loved what I did, they had a very family feel everybody talked to everybody. I just I loved who I worked with, and what I got to do. And I was there for about a decade before, they went through bankruptcy because of the oil prices. And they ended up on the other side of bankruptcy owned by the bankers slicing and dicing and selling everything off. And by the time the pandemic hit, it became very clear that we’re going to completely close the doors, we knew that was going to be the end. And I’m sure you have plenty of listeners that did something similar. But the pandemic as awful as it was, and I don’t want to take away from that was a double edged sword. For me, there was a silver lining in this what I will call workaholic parent because when you love what you do, you do it a lot. Getting a completely different perspective of parenting, getting to be the swim mom and like get them to school and get to know the coaches and the friends and the teachers and all the other parents. And that’s something that I didn’t want to give up. And I realised I could go back downtown I could do, I could run another audit department, I could do this all over again. Or I could try something different. I could try to do what I love while being there for the people that I love most. And I’m very grateful to a friend of mine who was a business owner. That introduced me to another fractional CFO. And she just gave me all the encouragement and you’ve got this and you can do it. And I took a leap of faith and I’m never going back. Oh,
David Ralph [7:31]
good on you. Let’s give you another round of applause. You deserve that. And and can your kids now swim? Oh, well, I still sort of paddling around half drowning? No,
Danielle Hendon [7:42]
they’re actually pretty competitive swimmers. They’ve been swimming ever since. And they they adore it. Because
David Ralph [7:49]
I basically quit my job really, because of that. I had two dots that joined up. I used to work up in London, my first three kids literally grew up without me because I was so focused on providing for them. And I was getting home late and I was already in bed and I saw them at the weekends and about that. And then the last two when they came along, I said no, I can’t do that. I’ve got to be here to put them to bed and be with dad but I wanted to be. Now they’ve all grown up and I don’t see them at all. They get in their cars go off with their girlfriends and boyfriends. And that’s it. I’m sort of like an empty nester. But it is interesting when back realisation that we’re only here to provide support. And whether it’s support for our loved ones or support for our customers is all about value value value and you get it back tenfold, don’t you?
Danielle Hendon [8:43]
Absolutely one of my favourite things about the leap from corporate to small business is as a an employee in a corporation, you’re kind of that cog in the wheel, but it’s all about increasing, at least in the US increasing share price or what they call shareholder value. And I realised very quickly when I made the jump to small business, that I’m actually helping people increase livelihoods and legacies. And that just feels really good. When
David Ralph [9:10]
and when you look at business, because obviously you’re going to be giving advice and I was pondering this with a guy just before you came on the show. And we were talking about how you can give the right advice. You can give advice that works. You can give advice that’s proven. But if the person that takes it doesn’t use that advice, or does it in the wrong way or whatever, it fails miserably. How do you deal with that? Because you’re obviously heart centred, you’re somebody that cares. But you’ve done your best, and it’s still not good enough. How do you overcome that, Daniel?
Danielle Hendon [9:43]
Absolutely. I think it’s a combination of mindset and accountability. Finance isn’t just about the numbers. It’s about how we feel about the numbers. It’s what we think about the numbers and it’s also helping people get over some of those mindset hurdles. And moving to the accountability where I’m going to be there every we’re going to have that call once a month. And I’m going to say, Hey, you said you were gonna do this? What’s going on?
David Ralph [10:09]
I dude, I appreciate that. Or do I say, oh, Danielle, get off me case of my wife’s always moaning at me, I’ve never you moaning at me, I don’t need this.
Danielle Hendon [10:20]
In my experience, they always appreciate it. But I always try to make it about them to something I learned very early on in my career when I was doing audit is your best path to success is to make it very personal to the person that you need something from.
David Ralph [10:36]
I knew cause have to build that relationship, don’t you, you need to know that person. You can’t just sit on a zoom call. It blows me away how much of business is about human interaction and how few people will try to interact with people, they want to do it on social media, they want to do an Instagram, they want to sort of keep their real life interactions at arm’s length. And that is difficult to create a business, isn’t it? I? Well, I personally think it’s difficult. You’ve got to be able to almost touch and feel them.
Danielle Hendon [11:10]
Absolutely. So I do my business. Virtually, I do it on Zoom, but we have conversations about the kids and the things going on in life. Because as a business owner, the line between your business and your personal is very fine. And I’ll be honest, and say most of my clients become business besties. And we talk about all kinds of things outside of just running the business.
David Ralph [11:32]
So what is a fractional CFO vein? Because I’ve never heard of it. And when I saw that I thought that is it? Is it a financial term? Or is it one of these things that you’ve made up yourself? It
Danielle Hendon [11:45]
is a financial term. So CFO means Chief Financial Officer, yeah, to a corporation. Fractional CFO is providing similar financial guidance, but on a fractional so part time basis. And what we do with our clients is we meet once a month, and we do all the doing behind the scenes, and then we’re meeting with them to go over and understand the story that the numbers are telling, so that they know how to make The Next Best decision in their business. We don’t do the bookkeeping, we don’t do the taxes, we know just enough about both to try and guide and communicate with the bookkeeper and the tax person. But we focus on the budget and the cash flow and the forward looking perspective of your financials. So
David Ralph [12:28]
say you got a shopkeeper, you got a shopkeeper? And he’s selling shoes? And you’re in Texas? And he is in Vermont, we say? And how do you know things like a book flow? How do you know about you know, the personal environment that that shops in to be able to give the right advice?
Danielle Hendon [12:52]
asking all the right questions, because I don’t know the flow. But I’m gonna ask you if you have a system to track it. Do you know the foot flow? Do you know how many people are coming in each day? Do you know which one of your shoes is selling the most? Do you know which one of your shoes has the highest profit margin and what you’re paying for them. And the things that I can help you dig into, we’re gonna dig into and the things that I don’t have the data for, we’re going to help you make sure you set up systems to capture it. It’s
David Ralph [13:17]
all about systems, isn’t it? It’s the thing that scares people, but it is all about systems. So let’s talk about systems. You start your business and you’re sitting there and you suddenly go, Oh, I’m gonna be a small business owner. Brilliant. It’s a bit of a leap. Because you just don’t know what you don’t know until you find out you don’t know it. And more often than not, there’s financial difficulties, their struggle. But the thing that is evident is no one can do it on their own. They have to surround themselves with a team and surround themselves with the right people that they can trust. They can rely they can delegate. How long were you just you before you may be used to largest you? I don’t know. But before you sort of branched out and started expanding.
Danielle Hendon [14:02]
So from a team perspective, the very first thing I did was hire a bookkeeper because I knew I didn’t want to do the bookkeeping.
David Ralph [14:10]
Yeah, but why? If you like numbers and stuff, Isn’t it nice to know your own business inside out?
Danielle Hendon [14:16]
It is but you don’t have to be the one putting in every single transaction to know it inside out. I can know my clients inside out without doing their bookkeeping. And your time and value as a business owner is worth so much more than it would take to learn how to use QuickBooks or Xero or whichever bookkeeping software that you’re trying to use. I’d know the Accounting I know it inside out, but I don’t want to go learn another system and how to put it all in there when somebody else already knows how to do it.
David Ralph [14:44]
Because I do all my I’ve got about five companies and I do all my book work. Every Sunday morning. I start at seven o’clock. Put the radio on. I plough through it nine o’clock, and then I hand it over to the accountants I hand it up to the clever people I deal with the government and all that kind of stuff. But I like to know, I like to see the invoices. I like to see what’s going through. Am I? Am I gonna fall down? Yeah. Should I step away from it? Should I hand it off to somebody? And then try not to micromanage.
Danielle Hendon [15:16]
It’s less about micromanaging and more about understanding the value of your hour, what else could you have done? Maybe revenue generating in those two hours? Watch QuickBooks cost? Yeah,
David Ralph [15:29]
have a coffee, eat some biscuits. You know, Sunday morning at seven o’clock, there’s not an awful lot you can do. So that’s why I kind of do it at that time, because I’m up and about. And so, you know, it’s one of those kinds of easy tasks. But I often wonder whether the easy tasks should be maintained, or should they be delegated. Because I think a lot of times, the business owner doesn’t know the hit business. They don’t know things like the workflow. So we’re talking about, you know, I’ve got a member of staff, I’ve got member of staff who works in a shop that I actually own. And he never has, as many people come through the door as other people. So the next member of staff will have saved 70 in a day, he has about 36. And I say to him, it can’t be that it can’t be you’re just not putting them down. You’re not documenting. Now I document everything. But without me knowing that information, I wouldn’t be able to even ask those questions.
Danielle Hendon [16:28]
No, but you don’t have to necessarily be in the weeds to see that information. either. You can set up those systems to give you metrics and ratios and things that give you that information. I like to make sure that business owners, I’m sure you’ve heard the saying like if you’re so far in the weeds, you can’t see the forest and you want to see that big picture and that forward looking and not be stuck in the day to day moment and lose out on that
David Ralph [16:53]
when somebody comes to you, and we’re going to be obviously talking about the four corners of financial success that your business is built around. But when somebody comes to you totally new, and I imagine you only deal with US businesses, because of the tax issues and stuff is different from like the United Kingdom. Would that be right? I do,
Danielle Hendon [17:12]
especially with the generally accepted accounting principles and IFRS. And all the accounting things that go in between the two different countries. Right.
David Ralph [17:20]
Okay. So somebody comes along to you and says, Daniel, I want to start this new business. And I think I’m going to be made redundant. And what would be your first advice, what would be the advice that you would sit them down with, to make sure that they don’t fall on their sword like most of us do when we start our own business?
Danielle Hendon [17:40]
I think my very first piece of advice if they were gonna start a business well, so let me back up and say, It depends if they know what they want to start, and where they want to start, I think doing something you’re passionate about. And for me, because I am heart centred, it’s it’s all about working with business owners that are passionate about what they do. When you’re passionate about it, you’re not gonna give up and you’re gonna persevere, and it’s gonna work out. And there’s always a way to figure things out. If you’re just doing something to make money. It doesn’t necessarily work out quite the same way.
David Ralph [18:09]
Paul, I don’t agree with that. Because I, I’ve been doing this for 10 years, I’ve been giving advice. And I always used to say, Go for your passion, find the thing you’re passionate about. But I now see that the thing that you’re passionate about becomes boring. When you’re doing it all the time as a business, it just naturally. I like making money. I’m passionate about making money. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing, as long as money’s coming into my bank account. Isn’t that what entrepreneurship and businesses about ultimately, you’re there to make a profit,
Danielle Hendon [18:40]
you are there to make a profit. But I feel like at least with the businesses I work with, we’re also here to make a difference.
David Ralph [18:47]
That’s why I’m different. I just like I’ve just like the money coming into the bank account, is I’m too cold, I’m too cold, I should have more heart on it. So okay, so you’re gonna say to the people over there, go for the passion, try and find a passion. And they’re gonna say, I don’t know, I don’t know what I’m passionate about. You could quite easily fall into like life coaching can you for, you know, in that situation?
Danielle Hendon [19:14]
You could a little bit and then I would kind of if they don’t know what the answer is, I don’t know. My next question would be What are you good at? Because when you do what you’re good at, you tend to enjoy that more than doing something you’re not so good at.
David Ralph [19:26]
Okay, so we’re coming along, and I’m saying to you, okay, I’m really good at being organised and keeping people organised and running calendars. So you’re gonna offer me that I might be a virtual assistant for small business owners out there helping them stay organised on a daily basis. Okay, so that’s our business. That’s what we’re going to do. What would be the first stage of the four corners that we should focus on? I would imagine it’s going to be strategy first of all, or would that be later on?
Danielle Hendon [19:56]
No. So the very first stage and this often catches people off guard has that reliability stage, one of the least looked at financial statements is your balance sheet. It is what sets the foundation for the rest of your business. If your balance sheet doesn’t reconcile if things are off, we can’t trust your profit numbers. We can’t trust what’s on the other side of those financial statements. So you start with the reliability before you touch anything else in my team knows this, because it’s how we work with our clients, the very first step in our process every single month is to make sure the balance sheets have been reconciled, and that we don’t have any questions about them.
David Ralph [20:31]
Now, people don’t do that. They don’t have the spreadsheet set up. So it’s a big ask at that stage, isn’t it to be coming into it cold and understanding these kinds of things? So is it like, you know, are they happy to have this homework thrown at them? Or do they get a hold? Danielle got so much when we pray anyway? I’ve got so much to do. I haven’t got time for this.
Danielle Hendon [20:57]
Absolutely. And this is part of why normally you wouldn’t see a fractional CFO with a startup not very often, unless they’re like funding backed, because they don’t have the information and the data and the funds for that. And normally, they would start with just a bookkeeper and getting to know what those numbers actually are.
David Ralph [21:15]
Yeah, okay. So I’ve been now running this business for five years, okay, this virtual assistant business that we’ve just created, that’s when it would be right for a client to step to you where they’ve gone past the startup phase, they might be looking for sort of more investment and expanding, but they’re kind of trapped in the numbers by not sure what they are providing delivering spending, they’re just in a bit of a mess. Absolutely.
Danielle Hendon [21:42]
One of the places I think most clients find me is when they look to hire what I like to call them and Amy, the person that can take things off of your plate. Because we are all only human, there’s only so many hours in a day. And eventually you hit capacity. But making that first hire can be one of the scariest steps for a business owner, because now you’ve got to pay somebody else. And walking them through what those numbers look like and doing what we call a break even analysis and reminding them, hey, this person’s only got to do 10 hours a week to make to break even, you’re not going to go under because of hiring. Those are usually where people that place is usually where people start to find a CFO.
David Ralph [22:21]
So let’s see if I’m Oprah Winfrey. And we’ll be back with Danielle, the
Oprah Winfrey [22:25]
way through the challenge is to get still and ask yourself, what is the next right move? not think about, oh, I got all of this stuff. What is the next right move. And then from that space, make the next right move, and the next right move, and not to be overwhelmed by it. Because you know, your life is bigger than that one moment, you know, you’re not defined by what somebody says is a failure for you. Because failure is just there to point you in a different direction.
David Ralph [22:56]
So if Oprah was sitting with us now she would say write the first one movie is reliability. Okay? And really understanding but I imagine the next bit would be vain. profitability, would that be the next one?
Danielle Hendon [23:09]
Absolutely. So many business owners feel like you have to sink every last penny back into the business and they forget to pay themselves. And we’ve all got bills to pay on the other side of this business. Your business is not sustainable if you are constantly thinking everything into it, and not taking care of yourself.
David Ralph [23:27]
Well, we saw this at the pandemic, we saw that so many people, business owners were paying everyone but not themselves. And I can instantly think maybe 20 or so people off the top of my head, or business owners that I know. But I probably still doing that paying themselves less. My dad, for example, he had a business for years and years and years. And when the business closed up, we found out that it was his business and he was paying himself a fraction of what his employees had been earning for years. And I said to him, why did he do that? He said there wasn’t enough money to go around. I said, but it was your business. You should be getting the rewards first before anybody else. But he operated like that for years and years years.
Danielle Hendon [24:14]
And so many business owners do and I’ve know from watching listening to some of your podcasts, the Profit First mentality and putting your Profit First is a big thing. And it it has to happen. It’s it’s a habit that every business owner needs to create.
David Ralph [24:29]
We were talking on a podcast recently about the financial runway and everybody says if you want to create a business, you’ve got to create a financial runway. And we was also talking about the physical runway actually looking after yourself and making sure that you’re you know, you’re healthy and you’re fit and you’re energised before you’re actually going into this. That’s one of the parts of the puzzle, but I would sit down with somebody really and hold their hand and say to them Have you got the energy in your body to be able to go through these four stages? Have you got the energy in your body to be creative? But have you got the energy in your body to to have the those risks thrown at you and sort of deal with them? Because it can be exhausting. Danielle, have you ever thought of that yourself? You’re sitting there and going, I’m just exhausted here. I just don’t think I can do another day for a while.
Danielle Hendon [25:25]
I think if any business owner answered no to that they’d be lying to you. We’ve all had the overwhelm the burnout, the could you wear so many hats as a business owner, and if you don’t have a support system to call you out on it, and support you through it, then you end up floundering and drowning. So
David Ralph [25:44]
who picks you up when you’re floundering, and you’re just exhausted? Because from experience, I just kind of worked harder and harder and harder until he brought me down. And then everybody came out of the woodwork afterwards and said, Oh, yeah, I could see you were struggling. But nobody said anything to me. I was just all like, dealing with it on my own. Who is your support network? Daniel,
Danielle Hendon [26:04]
I’m a huge fan of always having a business coach on my side, somebody that’s gonna give an external perspective and be there to help hold me accountable and call me out. And I have an amazing business coach that I’ve worked with since I started this business, and she will actually be the one that says something’s off. Why have we still not made that phone call?
David Ralph [26:24]
But would she say Danielle, you’re looking bit rough today? Which would she be as blunt as?
Danielle Hendon [26:30]
I don’t know if she’d be quite that blunt. But she would sit down and tell me Okay, so we said that we were gonna go to bed on time. Are you still working late at night? And
David Ralph [26:38]
that as a business owner is when you’d lie, because we would all lie at that stage.
Danielle Hendon [26:44]
I’m actually pretty honest with her. I’m, I’m all about being as self aware as I can. And if somebody’s gonna call it out to me. I know. I’ve got to do something about
David Ralph [26:52]
it. You know, the price pretty honest, isn’t totally honest. There’s some wiggle room in the phrase pretty honest.
Danielle Hendon [26:59]
A little bit. You got to have a little bit of grey area in life. Yeah, absolutely.
David Ralph [27:03]
So right. Okay, so let’s get back onto this. So we’ve got reliability profitability, and we’ve touched on the sort of mental aspect, the physical aspect, then we move into strategy. Now. I still think that surely you should have a strategy at the front end, you should have this planned out before you move into the others tell me why I’m wrong.
Danielle Hendon [27:26]
So a lot of clients will come to me and they want the budget and they cashflow and they want it now. But in order to build the right strategy, you have to understand what’s underneath it. And that’s where the reliability and the profitability come from, if I don’t understand your profit margins, and your revenue, and your cost of goods sold, and we don’t have good numbers that are reliable to build that budget off of, I could build you a budget all day long, but it’s not gonna work.
David Ralph [27:53]
Come on, let’s just have a little strategy or mini strategy at the front end, where I started to look at it, which would then help me projecting to different income streams and plans and stuff.
Danielle Hendon [28:06]
You could but if you built that strategy off of bad data, you’re gonna get bad results. Yeah,
David Ralph [28:12]
okay. Why, okay, and I’m, I fell back into the startup world. And we’re not we’re five years ahead. So we’ve got all the data now we’ve got it all there, we then hand it over to you. You look at it, and then you build a strategy based on the first two steps, right? It makes sense to me, okay. Now, this is going to be the hard bit for all business owners the execution, not that it’s wrong. But we don’t like to be told, we kind of think that we know the answers because it’s our business. We know it better than anyone.
Danielle Hendon [28:44]
And you’re absolutely right. I don’t know the answers. I’m going to help ask the questions. I tell my clients all the time, the strategy is your budget, essentially. But the goal isn’t to hit the budget. The goal is to understand why we’re not hitting the budget so that we can either make adjustments to the budget, or you can make adjustments in your business.
David Ralph [29:05]
I used to come from corporate nine years ago, and I never knew them ever to hit a budget. I don’t it was always a complete guess at the beginning. And then they would Nick something from one budget, they’re done better to put it into the other. I used to think this is madness. We sit here every quarter going through the budgets and everyone’s guessing.
Danielle Hendon [29:27]
So that’s where those first two steps come from. We want to be as accurate as we can. And for our clients, especially from a small business world, we have the ability to get a little more precise than you do in corporate corporate has so many numbers that they’re putting in, they can’t do what I call bottom up budgeting. We will literally build a budget for clients with a line item that says cell phones and we know the cell phone is going to be $100 a month. And it’s then we compare that to your actuals and we go hey, it looks like we didn’t pay the cell phone bill this month. Or is that on your personal account? Oh, do we need to move that over? Like what happened?
David Ralph [30:02]
Yeah, yeah, I would you look at it close enough to say, look, actually you’re paying $100 for this cell phone, but actually, you could get it for 30 down the road. Where are you to that point?
Danielle Hendon [30:12]
Absolutely. That happens in the profitability stage. So during profitability, we’re really analysing the revenue and the expenses. And on the revenue side, we’re looking at what are your revenue streams? What are your profit margins? What is the cost of generating this revenue, because so many service providers will forget to value their time as a cost to generating revenue. But then we’re also looking at the expenses below that profit line, and all the expenses it takes to run your business. And with our clients, we bucket those in one of three categories. For expenses we’re going to look at is that expense required to run your business? I don’t know anybody that can run a business without a cell phone and internet today, is it something I like to call a personal perk, the things that are tax professionals or accountants tell us to run through the business, because there are tax benefits. In the US, one of my favourite examples of this is putting kids on payroll, your kids are going to have a job description and do something for the business. But the dollar really add value to the business the same, like you could probably get it cheaper, faster somewhere else. But it’s a tax benefit. So a lot of people do it. And then everything else in the business is an investment. And we go line by line with our clients through that to figure out what is this investment returning on time, money, or both? And then we circle back to those required costs. And we say, hey, once last time, we kicked the tires on this, can we get this cheaper? Can we get creative and do this a different way? Is there another way to achieve the same result for less money?
David Ralph [31:45]
Danielle is no one listening to this podcast. It’s just you and me. Okay? Why would anybody start their own business is a lot of a hassle when it is, you know, why? Why do you do it, Danielle?
Danielle Hendon [31:59]
freedom and flexibility. And that runs through not just how we serve our clients. But as I’ve grown a team, I’ve realised coming from the accounting background, and I mentioned before, like the 80 hour workweeks, and there’s this hustle hard play hard. And it doesn’t have to be that way. I feel like people should get to do what they love, and be there for the people they love. And being able to build a business that provides that to other people makes me so happy.
David Ralph [32:27]
So how flexible, are you because I’ll be honest, I am literally 100% flexible. I do things when I fancy it. It’s very rare that anything sort of restricts my time, How flexible are you on a sort of day to day basis.
Danielle Hendon [32:44]
I am flexible enough to get the kids to and from school, get them to their activities. We do have client meetings. So those have to happen during business hours that makes sense for other clients. But we me and my team all kind of set what is the ideal work day for us? What are the hours we want to work? And that’s where we all try to be available to each other and to our clients?
David Ralph [33:06]
Well, okay, so I like best. So you actually your lifestyle. First, you’re looking and saying, I want to provide the best I can. But on the sort of the balance of it the ying and yang, how does it provide the best for me as well? Absolutely.
Danielle Hendon [33:21]
It’s deciding what is the most important for me to be at running book to my kid who forgot it at home during the middle of the day is not on my top tier list, they are going to learn that they need to be responsible for themselves Good
David Ralph [33:35]
luck, bad luck.
Danielle Hendon [33:38]
But picking them up and being available to them after school is important to me. So we cut the business day off at four o’clock when I have to go pick them up. I
David Ralph [33:46]
spent years whizzing back up to the school because my daughter had forgotten some important book or some important outfit or whatever. You can’t be back good Danielle, that you’ve mastered that as well.
Danielle Hendon [33:59]
Oh, I have my son is pretty severely ADHD. So we’re fairly firm in that if you forgot it, you need to set up reminders for yourself because he’s got to learn routines and habits that are going to make him successful.
David Ralph [34:12]
So when you say you’re being flexible, are you not just juggling a lot of plates? You know? Obviously, you’re you’re a mum, which is a whole job in its own. You’ve got family responsibilities, you’ve got work responsibilities. How flexible really is that? It’s just doing lots in different areas, isn’t it?
Danielle Hendon [34:35]
Yes and no, I’m a huge fan of time blocking. So even in those business hours, I like to set aside time for myself. I have an hour blocked out to work out in the middle of the day or an hour blocked off to remind me to call a friend and connect with other people. It can get a little lonely being a virtual business owner when you’re just sitting in your house with your computer screen all day and making sure that I do the thing If that take care of me, those do still happen during the day as well,
David Ralph [35:02]
because that’s why I started buying offline businesses gave me a reason to go there and not just be in my office in my house. Well, I recall, Join Up Dots, you know, I’ve actually felt myself getting depressed. Because everything I’d created to leave me with a life that was totally flexible, and I could do anything on my own terms. Yes, I could, but nobody else could. And I was just on my own all the time. Absolutely,
Danielle Hendon [35:29]
it can. It can, being a business owner in general is its own space. And if you don’t connect with other business owners that understand what that’s like, it can get very lonely very fast.
David Ralph [35:41]
So do you ever just block off time and sit in your chair with your eyes closed? And sort of just, we won’t say meditate, but go into your own zone? Or are you always doing something?
Danielle Hendon [35:53]
I’m a little bit of a busy body. So the closest I get to that is an audio book or a podcast and just sitting down and listening. Just
David Ralph [36:00]
Join Up Dots isn’t the only podcast you listen to Daniel,
Danielle Hendon [36:04]
you are one of many. I have a lot of podcasts that I love. I love getting new ideas. And I feel like the freshest ideas come from podcasts. You
David Ralph [36:12]
could have lied to me. You could have just said, you know, yes. And I would have, I would have accepted that totally. There’s no wiggle room there. There’s no grey area, there is a straight Yes, I
Danielle Hendon [36:22]
remember sort of already honest,
David Ralph [36:24]
I don’t want honesty, relationships. I want people to just adulation and blow smoke up me. That’s what I want. Well, let’s hear from Steve Jobs. He created the whole theme of the show. And I haven’t played his speech for a while. But I think it applies to your life pretty pretty closely. Here’s Steve Jobs.
Speaker 1 [36:42]
Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards. 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path. And that will make all the difference. Is
David Ralph [37:17]
that all you need Danielle, is it all you need is faith and a belief that things will join up?
Danielle Hendon [37:26]
I would say no, I think you still need again back to my I’m a little risk averse. So the calculated risk, you need information you need to do the research to do some background to to calculate the risk you’re about to take and jump with your eyes wide open. It takes a lot of faith to make the jump. But you don’t have to jump with your eyes closed.
David Ralph [37:48]
It’s fun. No.
Danielle Hendon [37:50]
It’s It’s It’s insane. I never thought I would enjoy again. I’m very risk averse. So my husband is the more entrepreneurial spirit in our family. And I never thought this would be the journey I’m on. But I would never go back.
David Ralph [38:03]
Every time that I’ve jumped and jumped a couple of times in my career. I’ve done it with my eyes closed. And I look back on it. And I think, Oh wow, that was brave. It didn’t seem brave. At the time, it just seemed that I had to do it. Otherwise, it was never going to do it. But the first job I just walked out of and I didn’t have another job. And in those days, I used to have a few beers. And I just sat in pubs all summer, having a having a drink, I had a lovely time. But um, I had no idea what I was going to be doing. And things work out. And that’s what I say to my family all the time, something will happen. You don’t need to be stressed, you just need to be taking action, and something will happen.
Danielle Hendon [38:44]
That is very true. As long as you keep moving forward. And I’m a firm believer that failure is only an option if you stop trying.
David Ralph [38:51]
Yeah, yeah. Rick Astley said that he’s never gonna give it up. And and it still works to today. You know, if you do stop, that’s the only time you can fail. Because I’ve got so many things I do now was not part of the equation. I can’t even imagine how they came into my life. But they came into my life. I grabbed them. And they were sort of part of what I do now. But I couldn’t have sat there having a strategy meeting with you at the beginning and saying that I wanted to do this and that whatever. It just wasn’t part of the equation.
Danielle Hendon [39:25]
And I have so many clients that come to me and we’ll start looking at their numbers. And we’ll go through things and they’re like, I just want to, I want to stay where we are. But as they start to get a taste of like that growth, then it’s like, oh, let’s hire somebody. Yeah, let’s do this. Let’s do that. And it’s they get very creative, it can be very free.
David Ralph [39:41]
So let’s go through those steps again, because we sort of covered so much in his podcast, but we were talking about passion, purpose and profit. And the cornerstones of those was reliability, profitability, strategy, and execution. All of them have got their challenges All of them will build on to the next step. But we’ll just go through it quickly again, why reliability at the front end?
Danielle Hendon [40:08]
If you do not have reliable numbers, bad data in equals bad results out, you have to have reliable numbers first. And
David Ralph [40:16]
if somebody hasn’t, and they just go, I don’t know, I’ve just been Yes, say intuition doing it as I’m going along. How can you overcome that? How can you get the data, when your whole life is just living on instinct,
Danielle Hendon [40:30]
don’t be afraid to ask for help find somebody that likes to look at the data likes to look at the numbers, if it’s not a bookkeeper, or if it’s a friend, it’s somebody whose zone of genius is going to add that extra layer that you may not be interested in, but it’s what you need. Okay, so
David Ralph [40:47]
we’ve now got a friend working for us. They’re digging around, they’re finding out all the information that I just got no idea about, and then we can sit down with you, and we can do profitability. And why next? Why would we do that?
Danielle Hendon [41:02]
You need to understand how the money moves in your business, before you make a plan for that money in the future. You have to understand the past, you need to know what the revenue streams are and where the expenses are coming from.
David Ralph [41:14]
I know from business quite often I can be really organised, I still get expenses, I have no idea. Or I’d forgotten about or especially from the government, the government are the ones that kick kick, kick you right between the legs, when you least expect it, you think to yourself, oh, I’m doing quite well now. And they suddenly come out and they want their, their piece of the pie. Absolutely,
Danielle Hendon [41:36]
they are always going to want their piece of the pie. But I tell people all the time, if you want to be profitable, we are going to have to pay taxes. And we just need to plan for it. Because my goal is for you to be profitable.
David Ralph [41:48]
Yeah, as I say, there’s only two consistence in life, death and taxes. And there’s no getting away from it. Okay, so we’re now into strategy. And we’ve given you the information, we’ve found the information, we’ve given it to you, we’ve looked at the the sort of the both sides of the bookkeeping, the expenses, the incoming, we’ve got our bottom bigger, we know what we can play around with, let’s look at strategy.
Danielle Hendon [42:15]
We’re gonna build out a budget, that is your strategy. And if you’ve ever heard of the SMART goals and things that everybody talks about your budgets the same way, it’s just with numbers, we’re gonna build that out for the rest of the year. And if the year seems too far ahead, for you to look, build it out for one quarter at a time. And
David Ralph [42:30]
this is quite scary bit when somebody has got a few quid in the bank. And they might have been sort of bootstrapping it. And then you’re suddenly saying, we’re going to invest in this, we’re going to invest it, I see it when people, they don’t invest in marketing at all, you know, they’re they’re pretty much stagnant, because nobody knows their businesses better. Even though the money in these rare, they don’t want to then reinvest.
Danielle Hendon [42:54]
Absolutely, we’ve got to develop again, systems and processes, I love systems and processes. And we do what we call KPIs, which is key performance indicators. And we say, if we’re going to invest this in marketing, what are the results we want? And how are we going to track to make sure we get them.
David Ralph [43:10]
And last one execution. So we’ve now got our strategy, we know the money, we’ve got the data, everything’s organised, bang, we’re going to execute.
Danielle Hendon [43:20]
And it happens different than you think the execution is not in executing the budget. The execution comes in comparing the budget to your actuals, comparing the plan to what happened, and then executing in your business to either get back on track or adjust your expectations. Wow. Okay,
David Ralph [43:38]
so with the four, just before we send you at the end of the show on the Sermon on the mic to give some of this, well, her own advice to your younger self. Are they equal 25% 25% 25%? Sort of like difficult? Is there one that actually takes a little bit more time than the others? How does it sort of pan out?
Danielle Hendon [44:01]
I would say strategy and execution definitely take more time. And they are what we do with our clients ongoing every single month to make sure that we’re staying on track,
David Ralph [44:10]
and reliability and profitability. If you do it right from the early stage, you should have that anyway.
Danielle Hendon [44:15]
You should and it’s just kind of a kick the tires, make sure that we’re still continuing to reconcile those balance sheets, and that we have good numbers.
David Ralph [44:23]
Well, brilliant. So Danielle has laid it out in front of you for anybody out there in the United States. I imagine Canada’s different ballgame as well with different government is that
Danielle Hendon [44:33]
it is we tend to stick with just the US for now, that may change one day, but we’re just US based right now.
David Ralph [44:39]
Yeah, it’s big enough. It’s big enough, you can make a business based out there. And all you got to do is connect with her and she will show you the path to an organised structured business where you’re you’re managing it and that’s the key thing with businesses. You’re managing it. But how did she get all this experience? Well, we’re gonna find out because we’re gonna put her on the Sermon on the mic, when she’s gonna go back in time. I even speak to her younger self and just share some of that advice that she’s learned. And if she can give her some dots to become stepping stones to move forward, what would those dots be? Where we’re going to find out because this is the Sermon on the mic
Speaker 2 [45:20]
here we go. With the best bit of the show the Sermon on the mind the sermon on.
Danielle Hendon [45:41]
Okay, so I would tell myself to keep doing what you’re doing. Trust your instincts, as much as your intelligence you can and will find a way to always make a living, doing what you love. It won’t always be easy. It’s not gonna look like you expected. But failure is only an option. If you give up trying, and we don’t do that.
David Ralph [46:02]
I love that it’s not gonna look like how you expected that is absolute truth. That’s the most truthful you’ve been Daniel there. You say there was no wiggle room? There was no grave is it isn’t it is not going to look like how you expected?
Danielle Hendon [46:17]
Oh, no, I never thought I’d leave corporate.
David Ralph [46:21]
And but yeah, ultimately glad that you did.
Danielle Hendon [46:23]
Absolutely. I could not imagine it any other way. Looking back
David Ralph [46:28]
good on you. Good on you. That’s what it’s all about. So how can the listeners out there who have been listening today and want to tap into your knowledge and expertise? How can I connect with you?
Danielle Hendon [46:40]
We’re gonna have a landing page just for you guys. It’s gonna be the number four, not the words, but the number four corners, cfo.com/join up dots. Brilliant.
David Ralph [46:52]
So they can just come across. And we’ll make the show notes as easy as possible to click through as well. And then they can they can connect with you. And stop you having any flexibility at all, because you’re so busy all the time.
Danielle Hendon [47:05]
Oh, that’s what scaling is all about. I love teamwork.
David Ralph [47:08]
So you’ve got me, you’ve got me again. Well, Danielle, thank you so much for being on the show. And thank you so much for spending time with us today. Joining up those dots. Of course, please come back again, when you’ve got more dots to join up. Because I do believe that by joining up those dots and connecting our pasts is always the best way to build our futures. Danielle, thank you so much.
Danielle Hendon [47:27]
Thank you.
David Ralph [47:30]
So Danielle Hendon. So it’s so important to know the numbers and know where their incomes going and the outcome. Yeah, it’s just important, and lots of people don’t. And as she was saying, lots of people don’t pay themselves first, they pay the bills, they pay everything, but they don’t pay themselves. What’s the point of being in business. The reason you’re in business is to get that flexibility. Get that lifestyle that you want, and you can’t get out in corporate and very, very rarely, but you can by creating yourself and all of you can do the same thing. Start small, start creating income streams, and never look back. Until next time. We’ll see you again. Cheers. See ya. Bye. That’s
Outro [48:09]
the end of Join Up Dots. You’ve heard the conversation. Now it’s time for you to start taking massive action. Create your future create your life. Easy only you live God we’ll be back again real soon. Join Up Dots Join Up Dots Join Up Dots John. John, John Join Up Dots.