Beginning Balance

Mark explores his anxiety around staying in the same business for several years, and why he has finally come to peace with staying in one lane and executing his book keeping business.   Mark Butler, Virtual CFO https://markbutler.com https://letsdothebooks.com   You Need a Budget https://www.youneedabudget.com

Thinking about a business partnership? Well, think long and hard about it, because entering into a business partnership is a lot like entering into a marriage. Good partnerships require effort, resources, and a high level of emotional intelligence. Put simply, they add a lot of complexity to the task of running a business. This doesn't mean they aren't worth it, but Mark and Jesse urge extreme cau...

Mark and Jesse explain how you can incorporate YNAB and the Four Rules into your business without changing your accounting software and without making your accountant grumpy!   Mark Butler, Virtual CFO https://markbutler.com https://letsdothebooks.com   You Need a Budget https://www.youneedabudget.com

At some point in their growth, most businesses will need to hire additional help. Often businesses begin by hiring contractors to offload some of the operations from the owner, which are paid as contractors and issued a 1099. As the business continues to grow and the need arises for full-time team members, those contractors sometimes become defacto employees, and therein lies the trap!   It's vita...

Mark points out that liabilities on the balance sheet don't necessarily reflect all the liabilties a business (or an indivudal) has. Following Rule Two (Embrace Your True Expenses), there are known long-term, non-recurring expenses that will come up in a business. Operating with no debt on the balance sheet is a wonderful thing, but without sufficient reserves for those non-recurring expenses... M...

Mark and Jesse share their personal investment asset allocations, and discuss the role of risk, risk tolerance, and emotions in the investing life of a business owner. Jesse explains how his personal risk tolerance has changed alongside the growth of YNAB, as his net worth became more and more tied to the value of the company, and how that has influenced his ultra low risk investment portfolio.  ...

Mark and Jesse tackle the common business saying: "if you're not growing, you're dying!" Is that really true? And what exactly does growing and dying mean exactly?   Mark Butler, Virtual CFO https://markbutler.com https://letsdothebooks.com   You Need a Budget https://www.youneedabudget.com

Do you cringe when it's time to close the books? Are you frequently frustrated by an accounting problem, or certain tasks your bookkeeper is asking you to do? You've got messy books, and as Mark and Jesse argue, it likely means you've got a messy business as well.   Accounting should be boring and repetitive, Mark says. When onboarding new clients for his bookkeeping business, he spends a lot of t...

Gather round folks, let's have a meeting... about meetings. Many people hate them, but they are a necessary part of business communication... and unfortunately meetings often become disorganized and bloated, leaving employees frustrated and less willing to invest their time in preparing for and participating in meetings in the future. Jesse thinks meetings get a bad rap, however, and offers some s...

Mark and Jesse discuss the hiring process at YNAB, where the stacks of cover letters are deep and competition is fierce. How do they differentiate candidates in the first round? How do they weight employee referrals? What's the most important factor in finding the right "fit" in the final round of applicants? Jesse answers these questions and explains why hiring managers should be excited about ev...

There are some common sayings in the business world -- "if you're not growing, you're dying" or "innovate or die" -- that suggest business owners must always be looking for the next big thing that will propel growth. The truth is, it's HARD to find things that will move the growth needle. Whether it's new menu options at a restaurant, new services or products, or ancillary things like customer edu...

Mark and Jesse discuss the best indicators for determining why your business is growing, and how to grow it in the future. These are very different from trailing indicators, things like the P&L which summarize what happened in the past. Understanding what actually drives growth in your business is difficult work, but it's crucial work. Too often, business owners end up spending lots of time and en...

A lot of companies are fond of saying this about their employees and their work culture -- "we're like a family here." Usually it's coming from a good place, wanting to emphasize the bond that employees have in a collaborative, productive work environment, but Jesse argues it's misleading and potentially harmful language that business leaders should avoid.   Mark Butler CFO https://markbutler.com...

If the title sounds like a philosophy paper... well, maybe it is. A philosophical discussion at least! Jesse has been reading Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman, a book which poses some deep questions about human mortality and weighing what we choose to do against the seemingly infinite choice of things we could do.   Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortal...

Mark and Jesse discuss the value of forecasts, operational and financial models, and annual planning in general, as well as the pitfalls of putting too much faith into the numbers and not enough scrutiny into the assumptions.   Mark Butler CFO https://markbutler.com   You Need a Budget https://www.youneedabudget.com

Mark and Jesse ponder a question -- is there anyone who doesn't need a budget? What about a person in the upper, upper crust, that has hundreds of millions or even billions to their name? Or what about someone who simply has very few desires, that are easily covered by their existing cash flow? The discussion quickly gets philosophical!   Mark Butler CFO https://markbutler.com   You Need a Budget...

Whether or not the successful admit it, luck plays a role in making things happen. Having the right at the right time, a chance meeting with the right person -- these factors could be called luck, and they matter in the world of business. But is that all there is to success? There's a saying that "luck is the residue of design," a nod to the influence of luck but also a reminder that without intel...

Mark and Jesse discuss some of their favorite books... and some of their not-so-favorite books. They both love to read books, especially about business, but they also admit a danger in the practice. It's easy to confuse reading books, or blogs, or listening to podcasts, as an act of creation, as if doing so is actually improving or advancing your own business. Occasionally they may offer insight,...

Business owners have a variety of reasons for starting and then continuing to operate their business. For many, it's to make money, or to make more money. Or, perhaps it's the security that comes with being your own boss. The desires that drive business owners can change and evolve, too. Some people endeavor to solve complex challenges, or to move the needle on a large industry or societal problem...

There's something about business spending that seems special, more important or impactful than personal spending or at least worthy of some exemption from normal budgeting practices. Maybe it's the large amount of money that typically flows through a business (large compared to the business owner's personal salary or distributions), or perhaps it's a believe that any ROI business spending generate...

Mark and Jesse answer a listener question: how do you pull the trigger on a big ticket purchase? When you've budgeted for a large purchase, and accumulated the cash, it's hard to see that cash flow out of your bank account. Mark and Jesse discuss the psychology behind large cash purchases, and how to manage your emotions as a business owner.   Mark Butler CFO https://markbutler.com   You Need a Bu...

Mark Butler and Jesse Mecham discuss how much business owners should share about the company's financial position, and more importantly, why context for the information is vital to fostering trust and goodwill with employees.

Mark and Jesse discuss the concept of "margin of safety" in a business, that is, building in cash reserves to your operating plan for when things inevitably don't work out like you forecasted. Whether your business has to absorb unexpected costs, or revenue is down for a period, or some other "unknown unknown," having a margin of safety in your business ensures that you have the resources to survi...

It should be no surprise that a business with 100 employees has different management challenges than a business with 10 employees. At some point, managing the business becomes less about the idea that founded the business -- creating something that people like and want, product market fit, etc -- and more about solving the logistical challenges of scaling that business to grow. As Mark and Jesse d...

There's plenty of firms and consultants out there selling strategies and solutions for customer acquisition using partner programs, referral codes, and other internet based referral tools. They promise to be the "gasoline" that accelerates the fire of growth in your company, but do the results hold up to the promise? Is it possible instead to build a business where your main source of customers is...