Today, we’re talking about how important it is to take time off for the holidays, enroll in that professional development intensive you’re interested in, or hire that new employee you desperately need.
It is so easy to become a martyr for your own interior design business – taking pay cuts, never giving yourself time off, always sacrificing how you need to grow for the sake of the company’s growth as a whole.
But to be completely honest, the more you limit your own growth, the more you will stunt the growth of your business. You’re the heart and soul behind the great design work your company does, and you need to tend to yourself in order to continue doing that great work!
Thankfully, the Profit First method provides a way for business owners to make smart financial decisions while also investing in their own well-being and growth.
If you aren’t familiar with Profit First, you can read about the basic elements of it here.
Once you have your basic Profit First interior design accounts set up and you’re comfortable using them, we suggest opening another account called something like “business development.”
We have a story from Account Solve’s founder, Lori, to illustrate why: Lori has been using Profit First for a long time – she runs Profit First accounting for her own business as well as many others.
In addition to her regular bank accounts, she has 3 bank accounts at another bank that essentially she never looks at – and that’s on purpose.
She deposits a set amount of cash into those accounts on a regular basis, and lets the cash build over time.
Recently, Lori needed a fractional COO, and when considering whether she could afford to pay one for the services she needed, she realized that her “Professional Development” bank account was the perfect solution to be able to bring on the COO without messing with any of the rest of her cash flow.
She was thrilled when she opened that account and saw the cash she needed right there – she didn’t even know how much had been saved at that point, and it was a huge sigh of relief to be able to have the money there right when she needed it most.
Lori says that one bank account has been the most valuable in her business out of everything Profit First has done for her. It helps her when she needs a COO in a pinch, creates opportunities for her to enroll in continuing education programs, or makes other investments for her business that otherwise wouldn’t be possible.
Maybe you read that story and think “Well, that’s great for Lori. She must be so rich to be able to just push loads of cash into an account and use it at her leisure. I could only dream of doing that.”
That’s a very real and difficult position to be in. But we’re also here to tell you that the entire point of Profit First is to help you start investing with your money now – not to dream about starting when you have more cash one day. The system is set up so that you can add cash to your accounts, in tiny amounts, over time.
Even if you can only add $1 or $5 or $20 at a time to your business development account, that’s absolutely better than nothing, and it absolutely makes a difference.
Whether you’re brand new to Profit First or you’ve been using it for years and still haven’t quite figured out how to invest in yourself and your business, we encourage you to start today by simply opening that account.
Start as small as you need to, but just be consistent, and watch as you get to reap what you faithfully sow for years to come!
