Pay Play Profit

In this special roundtable episode of Pay Play Profit , host Jessica Mae Stafford , former Visionary of TBL and now Head of Sales & Partnerships at Stellar Brands, is joined by key leaders from both organizations to share the story behind TBL's acquisition by Stellar Brands  and what it means for the future. Marilyn Adkerson, CPA , Founder of TBL, reflects on her transition into retirement and the...

Summary In this episode of the Pay Play Profit podcast, Jess Stafford discusses the essential roles within a financial team for small businesses, including CPAs, EAs, bookkeepers, and accountants. She emphasizes the importance of understanding each role and how they contribute to a business's financial health. The conversation also introduces the Profit First system, a cash management strategy tha...

Summary In this episode of Pay Play Profit, Jessica Mae Stafford discusses the complexities small businesses face in today's tax and trade environment. She emphasizes the importance of adaptability, strategic planning, and the role of technology, particularly AI, in enhancing business operations. The conversation covers various topics including tax strategy, the impact of tariffs, sales tax shifts...

If you're planning to or already starting to do business across states, you've got to know what's going on from an income tax perspective. A multistate income tax is different from a sales tax. And a multistate income tax can have a lot of different names attached to it depending on the state.   Joining us today once again is Chris Mahler, CPA who is also part of our TBL family strategic partner a...

Inflation is here – and it's here to stay for a bit. Obviously, we have to deal with it, but how? In today's episode, we discuss some things you have to think through to shield yourself from inflation, or at least mitigate its impact. Hindsight is a good teacher. And so, if you can capture those lessons and put them in your plans for your future, you're going to be better prepared when the next cy...

The best profit decisions are happening with your time, energy, and money, which means more pay, play, and profit in your business and life. And a huge part of that is understanding your financials.  Your financials are three-dimensional – profit, tax, and cash flow. You also need to think about direct costs versus expenses in all these three dimensions. "Direct cost" refers to the cost directly t...

What kind of entrepreneurial life do you want? Many people loosely exchange words like freelancer, sole proprietor, small business owner, and entrepreneur but really, they're not the same.  Entrepreneurship is a long journey and has its different seasons. For instance, you may have been freelancing for a while to get some extra money on the side. Then you probably caught the entrepreneurial bug an...

How can you attract new clients and make sure you're the right fit for each other? There's so much to talk about when it comes to client onboarding, and part of that is learning how to attract new clients and set the right expectations from the start. A partnership is a two-way street, which means your clients also need to know how they can help you serve them better. The magic happens when there'...

If you are a small business owner with children, putting your kids to work in the business is a great way to start helping them navigate some financial decisions. You've got to teach them to put money on the strong side of the table and one of the ways to do that is by getting them to invest in a Roth IRA. A lot of people struggle with financial literacy and it's important to start teaching and tr...

You've probably mastered knowing your customer avatar, but have you taken the time to really figure out who your ideal teammate is? Imagine, this is somebody you're going to spend 2 to 10 hours a day, depending on the season of life you're in with this person. You'll perhaps engage with them more than you do your partner or your children sometimes. And yet, people make these decisions on who they'...

Are you quick to say phrases like, "I won't," "I can't," or "I shouldn't?" If so, that's a good sign that you're tapping into a limiting belief.  We all have limiting beliefs as a result of our past experiences, family backgrounds, and spiritual or socioeconomic backgrounds. Oftentimes, these beliefs were instilled in us in childhood and we carried them with us as we got older. In this episode, we...

Do you feel like you're a square peg in a round hole as an entrepreneur?  Many times, we think we have to get it all figured out right away. Then, we think we have to stay exactly the same as who we were the day we started. If our business doesn't look like it was supposed to look when we set out to start it, we view that as a failure. In today's episode, Katie Chase shares how her entrepreneurial...

What's the cost of protection worth to you? If you're a growing business, and you're involving people in it – even if it's just you and five others in your team, or whether it's virtual or physical – there are a lot of things to navigate around the HR world.  Today, Tameaka Shelton of Employ and Relate helps us break down some HR basics that you need to get covered so you can bulletproof yourself...

The health of your accounting and your book starts with the health of your chart of accounts, which is basically an accounting terminology that refers to a list of categories including income, expenses, and liabilities. If your business is extremely consistent in how it's spending money, what it spends money on, and how it receives money, then you can make sound decisions over the course of 90 day...

The accountable plan is a policy within your company or your entity, which outlines how you reimburse yourself as an owner, employee, or shareholder-employee. And if you have team members within your business, the accountable plan is a good policy for them to get reimbursed for expenses as well.  One of the ways you get compensated for your business is wages, distributions, and expenses. And so, y...

  If you're a small business owner with employees and you still don't have an accountable plan, then now is the time to start thinking about it. In this episode, we're diving into using an accountable plan to create tax-free reimbursements – in a legal way.  Every decision is a profit decision, and profit is measured in time, energy, and money, and that especially happens around your tax, your tax...

It's almost Thanksgiving! It's also a great time of year to understand what quarterly and annual planning should look like because, as an entrepreneur, you want to schedule your success and not lose traction.  At The Bottom Line®, we're following the EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) style where we break our annual planning down into 90-day segments to make sure that we're still aligned with...

Are you scared of emailing people just because you think you're going to bother them? Whether you're still new to ecommerce or you're scaling to grow your brand, it's crucial that you know how to run email marketing campaigns effectively. Today, email copywriter Chris Orzechowski talks about why having an email marketing campaign is one of the keys to your success as a business owner.  Chris skipp...

Whether you're selling products or services, digital courses, or memberships, having a clear picture of what your client experience looks like will help you create the kind of relationship you want to build with your clients. While there is no perfect client, no perfect team, no perfect accountant, and no perfect business, relationships are still the key to keeping it all together when some things...

Profit is measured in time, energy, and money – but how do you achieve a triple win on all three? Here at The Bottom Line, we have made a profit decision to shift from the usual 40 hours to 32 hours per week. We're working towards making it our full-time standard, even during tax season.  In other words, we want to get more done in less time. Part of our vision is to create an environment where pe...

We are not promised tomorrow. If you died or were disabled, how much would your loved ones have to invest in figuring everything out while they're also grieving your loss? If you're an entrepreneur or a business owner and you have children, having a last will and testament is one of the things you need to prioritize. You want to make sure your assets are treated the way you want and that all those...

If you have a limited liability company, an S Corp, a C Corp, a partnership, or anything that's formal and a legal entity, you need to hold an annual meeting in your business and document certain things that have been decided. In this episode, we will give you a framework to think about for your next annual shareholders meeting. The first quarter of the year is an excellent time to host this meeti...

Year-end is the perfect time to decide if you're with the right accounting partner. In this episode, Ashley Travis, our digital marketing person at The Bottom Line®, joins us to talk about the top 12 questions you should consider asking when it's time to hire an accountant, tax preparer, or accounting team for your business. Ashley pulled these 12 questions together based on the things we get aske...

Do you have a proven process? If yes, do you have a visual form of your proven process? And does 20% of the process drive 80% of your results? If you answered no to any of these questions, then you must listen to today's episode as we dive into our proven process here at The Bottom Line®. In fact, it took us almost nine years to get a proven process. Although we've had processes all along, we didn...

If you still haven't been planning for retirement, there's no better time to start than now. Maybe you're a spender and not a natural saver or maybe you're too much of a saver and don't spend money when you should. Either way, this can cause issues down the road because there's a difference between spending, investing, and stewarding. Whether you have a spending problem, you haven't been brought u...