Suzanne Proksa:
Welcome to the Suzanne show with me, Suzanne Proksa, HR and business strategist, former featured Etsy seller, plant addict, concert lover, gardener, landscaper in training, and human straight up obsessed with helping others and cheering on women. Here, we talk a little business, personal development, women's health, and a whole lot about things that matter, help people, and give them joy. Grab your coffee or your wine, Break out one of your hundreds of notebooks. Light that soy candle, and let's dive in. Hello, Suzanne show family. I am really excited for this episode today. I love a good money conversation, and we are getting into it today with Kim Graham. Kim Graham built a debt free multi 6 figure business by providing valuable millionaire in the making transformations to established female entrepreneurs.
Suzanne Proksa:
She has a customized approach to give her clients the tailored understanding to organize their money gain healthy money mindsets through tangible action steps, humor, and relatable storytelling. Are you ready to step into your millionaire lifestyle? If you are give it up for Kim Graham and Kim, please feel free to add on to that introduction. We would love to hear more about you before we dive into questions.
Kimberly Graham:
Hey, I'm so excited to be here. This is so much fun. My name is Kimberly Graham. And as I said, as you said in I'm a profit coach, millionaire, moneymaker. I love being able to help female entrepreneurs. And how I got to this place was actually super random. I did not grow up learning or loving numbers. I was not a person who was a part of a multimillion dollar household.
Kimberly Graham:
I didn't have a type of background where I learned about money from birth. I actually was afraid of money. I was scared of using money. I was super scared of credit cards. All the way up until, like, college, I always had this, like, looming idea that I just I was scared of using money. I would hoard money, but I also love to spend money as well. After I got out of college, I decided that I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna get married. So my husband and I, we were together for, like, almost 9 years.
Kimberly Graham:
When we got married, he had $76,000 worth of student loan debt, and I didn't have any debt at that point. And I was like, oh my gosh. This is my worst nightmare. So anyway, fast forward to, like, what we were able to do is we were able to understand more about how to communicate around money in our finances, how to manage our money effectively. And that as a result and getting additional jobs and all that stuff, we were able to pay off that $76,000 in 28 months. So when we did that, that really set us up to believe that we could do anything even as 2 educators working for not a ton amount of money, but we were able to do so much with our income as a result, and we recognized we could do anything we wanted to do. Fast forward even further when I decided to have we had decided to start a family. I had my baby girl, and I said, I wanna I wanna quit teaching and just I wanna have the choice to stay home.
Kimberly Graham:
And so I went into some direct sales, tried to find different ways that I could still make income because I just wanted something, an outlet for myself. And that's when I recognized that a lot of business owners that I came in contact with did not know what was going on with their finances. And that to me was like, oh my gosh. And so yeah. So that's kinda how I got into the space because I had already been doing it. It's how I built my business businesses. And, yeah, so now I'm able to help these amazing female entrepreneurs understand where their money is going, feel good in their finances and actually have a good head space when it comes to building and managing their wealth.
Suzanne Proksa:
Thank you for sprucing up my intro. So my first question for you is as an entrepreneur, how do finances affect your business and your life?
Kimberly Graham:
Oh my goodness. This is a really good question. Money affects everything. Money affects every single thing we do. It affects the the conversation that you have about sending your kids to summer camp to, you know, having a medical issue and wanting to get the best medicine for yourself, to I need to take a mental health day, but I don't have any days left in my 9 to 5, and it's gonna have to come out of my paycheck. Like, money affects everything. And so it really is when I started recognizing how it affects just especially. My husband and I don't fight about money, and I don't say that to brag.
Kimberly Graham:
It's just that I recognized how often we don't fight about money and how we don't fight in other areas of our life as a result that when I would see other people again in their business, in their marriages, in their conversations they would have, the main thing that I would hear is I just don't have the money. Everything is so expensive. He just does this. She just does that. Well, I'm not gonna I'm not I wanna communicate with them about their money. And that was when I really started to recognize that there really isn't a lot of things that you cannot name that do not that are not affected by money. So when you ask the question like, oh, is does money affect how does it affect you? It affects everything. And I don't mean that in like, you have to be a multimillion dollar, you know, blah, blah, blah, to be able to to be successful.
Kimberly Graham:
That's not what I'm saying. But it you need to pay attention to your finances. You need to understand how it affects every part of your life. And when you do, that's when you kinda have this conscious wake up call of like, oh my gosh, I need to get this down. Like, it is so important. If I don't get this down, if I don't understand which I know it sounds really doom and gloom, but it's, it's very, very, very, which I know it sounds really doom and gloom, but it's it's very, very impactful.
Suzanne Proksa:
So we both know that in the online space, there's all this talk about 6 figures. Sometimes that can be a little misleading to a brand new entrepreneur who thinks that's going to be easy to achieve in their 1st year. And so what do we say to to those people? But also, what do we say to the person who has achieved 6 figures and is realizing that it may not come consistently. What would you say to each of those women?
Kimberly Graham:
This is one of the main, like, misconceptions I see in the online coaching space is that we make 6 figures or it's not even in the online coaching space. If you've ever read Proksa First by Mike Michalowicz, he talks about how he would go into these network networking events with other corporates, with the high ups and all that stuff. And they would talk about their businesses, and they would talk about making the 6 figures and all that stuff and the revenue and the cash value and all that stuff. But they didn't make Proksa. And they didn't understand how to even talk about how much they were bringing in. I've worked with multimillion dollar businesses, and they're not paying themselves what they should be make paying themselves. They're not managing their money. They're just kinda throwing it, and they thought they came into the idea.
Kimberly Graham:
So this is for those new people. And even for those current business owners who are making 6 figures in revenue. The idea that the more money I make, the easier it will be to spend, the easier it will be to to pay myself, the easier it will be to whatever. It's such a fallacy. Like, that's not true. The more money that comes through your fingers in your business, if you don't manage it, it will leak right out in so many different ways that when you finally, like, get to the point where you look at it, you're gonna be like, how in the world did I do all of that? How did I where did it go? So for those new people understand that being a 6 figure business owner, I'll break it down for you. If you are operating on a 50% profit margin, meaning that every single dollar that comes in, you're taking 50% cut, and that goes back into your personal account. And the rest of it is going towards, you know, reinvestment into the business, taxes, and, you know, backup funds because you might have a low month.
Kimberly Graham:
Just because you're making 6 figure doesn't doesn't mean that every single month is gonna be consistently the same. It's gonna take a while for that to happen. And even the established business owners could be making a myriad of different, like, incomes depending on what's happening with their revenue, their recurring income. You might have a client fall off. You might have a month where you want to outwork, so therefore you don't pick up new clients. Like there's so many variables that you might not have a consistent income every single month. So what is your backup plan? But going back to breaking it down, let's just say that you took 50% of a 100 k. You're pocketing $50,000, which is about the same amount that a teacher is making.
Kimberly Graham:
And I say that because I am a teacher. I'm not saying that to dumb down teachers or anything. Like, teachers do amazing work, but it is not as like, you know, exciting as you think it is to make 6 figures in your business. And the only people who are actually doing that and actually bringing in the 50 k are the people who are actually paying themselves consistently in a good way and actually are managing their money. If you wanna make a 100 k in your business, you wanna shoot for 200 k. You wanna go for the multi six figures. That's when you can actually say I'm bringing home a $100,000 into my personal finances. But for the most part, this idea that we're bringing in a 100 k or bringing in 6 figures and just touting that does not tell the whole story of where the money has been going, how it's been shared within the business.
Kimberly Graham:
So although it is something that you can totally shoot for, understand the background of what that actually means. I think that totally answers the question even for the established business owner. If you've been, you know, if you've been doing your business and you've been making really good income, you've been making months, the 8 ks months, whatever it happens to be for you. But when it gets to tax time, you're confused that you didn't have as much on your income statement. It's because you weren't managing your money well. And so it really comes down to how are you managing your money with every single dollar that comes in. If you can manage that, then you will actually be able to see the profit that you desire.
Suzanne Proksa:
Thank you so much for breaking all of that down. My next question is what's the first step an entrepreneur should take when they are tackling their finances?
Kimberly Graham:
I would say the first step that any business owner should take is opening a business account, opening a bank account that is separate from their personal account. I see a lot of business owners that will have their business and home kind of like intermixed together, and that's a recipe for disaster. So you wanna make sure that you have a separate account that is simply for the business. You wanna make sure that this account is one that does not have minimum fees. You don't need anything to open it. It's simply there to hold money. We're not out here trying to get the high yield savings accounts yet for your business or anything. We simply just wanna be able to have a place for money when someone pays you to go into a space so that you can see how much it's actually growing.
Kimberly Graham:
I'll give a little bonus here that you need to make sure you also have a place for managing the money, making sure you're writing down how much it costs for your business to run. And and do a little dreaming here. You can say, okay, what would I like to be able to do if I bring in 2 additional clients or if I'm working with x amount of dollars? This is where I would like my money to go on a monthly basis. And when you start to kind of like dream it out, you're kind of creating yourself a, a budget, so to speak of. This is how much it would cost for my business to run. This is what I would like to be able to do. So this is a really good opportunity if you wanna start your business off on the right foot. Open a bank account that's completely separate and just work on making sure that as people are bringing an income or income to you, payment to you, it goes into that place.
Kimberly Graham:
So then you can really start planning how you want to manage that money. I wouldn't worry so much about paying yourself. I know this sounds really contradictory since I'm a profit coach. I wouldn't worry about paying myself immediately. I would worry about making sure that I'm building it up to a good cushion of money that I can say this is a good place for me to like use a seed money for my business. But then once it gets surpassed that seed money, then I would say, okay, it's time for me to start paying myself consistently. So that's what I would do if I was like just starting over the very first things that I would do.
Suzanne Proksa:
Okay. Great. So then what is the next step that you think they should take? You know, what what makes the most sense after they they get past that first step? So in your business, after you've gotten a really good amount of clients and you, you know, gotten that seed money kind of replenished back and you have this dream idea of what you want your business to look like. Now it's time
Kimberly Graham:
to start creating a routine for yourself. So in the same way that you are sitting there on Canva and you're dreaming about what your your next social media post is gonna be, or you're going live, or you're making that next thing and you create space in your day or in your time to focus on these things, you need to make a routine to focus on your finances. So look at how much has come in, really map out, like, what might be coming in in the next, like like, forecast what's gonna happen in the next week. What's gonna happen in the next month. Kind of like a marketing, you know, meeting you're having with yourself. But also it's a great time to say, I'm gonna try and pay myself x amount of dollars off of these sales. But the percentage to start with is 50%. But if you're first starting out and your goal is to kind of build capital within your business, then you are absolutely welcome to do a 30% pull instead of a 50% pull, just so that you can start to build up some of those residual savings.
Kimberly Graham:
And so that is kinda like the next step. You really have to be strategic about this part and and kind of building up what you need. That there's also another part in here where a lot of people will say, well, how much do I need to bring in? That's another question that would be vital to ask yourself at this point. How much do you actually need to bring in from your business for you to leave your job, for you to, I don't know, do whatever you wanna do, like, for you to go on this vacation. Whatever your business is for. This is a good time for you to be like, this is what I need to bring in in order to make this goal happen. And this is what I need to be able to make sure I also have money aside for taxes and and all of those things that are important for continuing my business and making sure it's sustainable.
Suzanne Proksa:
Okay. So we're doing great. We're earning 6 figures and we've gotta make sure that we keep that money. Right. How can an entrepreneur make sure that they do keep their money? What are some tips that you have around that?
Kimberly Graham:
So this kinda goes back to that idea that I mentioned about having a routine with your money. So from the very beginning, when you start your business, you have this routine with your money. It's as as common as you go into, you know, a store to pick up materials for your business. You have to sit down with your business every single week, month, however often you're getting paid. If you're in coaching space, you're probably getting paid on a monthly basis. So at least every other week, when you know that money's coming in, you need to sit down, you need to track how much you've made, and you need to track making sure that you pay yourself and making sure that you're saving. This is at the point where you're starting to build that momentum in your business that you need to kind of branch out and have several bank accounts. Again, going back to Profit First, it's a great method.
Kimberly Graham:
If you've never read it, go read that. It's a great method for how to manage your bank accounts. But, basically, all in all, you wanna be able to have a bank account that is for taxes, one that is for backup pay, one that is for backup expenses. I believe I already no. Backup pay is different than expenses. And so that way, when money comes in, you're able to immediately have a percentage, no matter what the percentage that comes out is a percentage goes to back pay. So if I have a low month, I can still be able to pay my expenses, pay myself. I need to have a percentage that goes to taxes.
Kimberly Graham:
I need to have a percentage to go here, there, everywhere. I can make accounts for any of these things, but it just causes you to have organization in your business. So then you're able to kind of have, like, an ecosystem of, I can see exactly a funnel of how my business is working. Money comes through, and I can see exactly where it's going. They know exactly how much I need to pay myself and it helps it. It becomes easier to actually, when you talk about managing or keeping more of your money, the reason why people lose their money is because they don't look at it. And it's easy if you're relying on borrowing money. If you're lying on a credit card, it's easy to let that money get away from us because as long as we don't hit our limit or as long as we say to ourselves, I have every intention of paying it back.
Kimberly Graham:
No one ever decides to use a credit card and says, oh, I'll never pay it back. Everyone has the intention of paying it back. But when that client doesn't come through, when all those types of things don't come through, then you're sitting there going, well, now I have to leave it there. And then it starts to accumulate because maybe you put something recurring on the credit card. So all that to say, you wanna make sure that you're not using a credit card at first. Right? Especially if this is a business where it's a service based business, you don't need a lot of materials to get started. I would shy away from using that. And if you are using them, use it for small reoccurring things so you can build up those business points.
Kimberly Graham:
I get it, But use it for small things. Other than that, I would be focusing on using my cash flow to make sure that I am putting it in all of those places and then making sure that I'm paying myself. That keeps you from letting your money fall through the cracks because we're borrowing money and we're having too many avenues for the money to go. If we are more in control of where it is, it makes it a whole lot easier to manage. And so that way, even if you're building and you have a huge, like surge of in of of income coming through, you're still able to handle the same routine so that you're you're able to keep and manage more of your money. And next step is, like, if you started to outsource, if you and decided that you wanted to hire out to someone, Having these funds there is going to help you be able to say, oh, you know what? I actually have a fund set aside specifically for hiring out. Even though right now, I'm just starting my business and I might not need it, in 6 months, I might need a VA. And so having an account that's there, that's growing so that you can outsource with ease without having to borrow money to do that, that is where you really start feeling like a CEO, and it's a beautiful feeling.
Suzanne Proksa:
Okay. Let's hit on one of my favorite topics, and that is money mindset. Boy, is this a doozy for a lot of people? What mindset issues do you see the most that prevent people from making the kind of money that they want to.
Kimberly Graham:
So money mindset is absolutely a big topic and for a good reason, it can really help. It's can stop a lot of entrepreneurs from reaching the heights they could reach because they're so worried about so many different things that they don't even realize are happening. For example, you might have a fear that, well, if I bring in that money, even though I know I could do it, I feel like I could do it. I'm scared because I will lose that money. Like, I could make that money. So then why even try? So I'm gonna price myself low or I'm gonna price myself low because I feel like I don't have the value there yet. So I need to just, like, continuously keep my prices low until I get, you know, proof of concept, and maybe I'll raise my prices. But then it's like, how do I share with another person that I have raised my prices? And there's just so many parts of entrepreneurship, and we're not even getting into the home finances part and working with your spouse with your finances where money mindset can just absolutely mess up.
Kimberly Graham:
It just can mess up a business. You know what I mean? So you really have to take a hold of it and be aware of it. There's so many anxieties around finances and around money. And when you decide to be an entrepreneur, a true entrepreneur that wants to scale and grow their business, it's more than just learning how to sell things. It's more than just learning how to talk to people. It's also learning how to manage your back office, and we can't just outsource it and hope that it gets better because somebody else is managing our funds. We have to there's some things that we have to take control over ourselves. We can't run away from our own spending habits.
Kimberly Graham:
We have to just head, you know, take them face on. So when it comes to money mindset, I see a lot of that where people are fearful of charging their worth, fearful of managing their money, fearful that they'll lose it or feel fearful that it will change them. That's another one that I hear a lot of. Like I'm scared of charging what I know I could charge because what if money changes me? And I always talk about how money does not change you. It only enhances what you already have within you. If you're a goodhearted person who wants to help others, who wants to uplift others, who wants to do good in the world, more money with correct money management habits are only going to enhance that part of you. But if you don't have the habits to support that, then more money will probably just run out of your hands because you don't know how to keep it. And you're always gonna be giving and giving to others and have nothing to show for yourself.
Kimberly Graham:
So I hope that's a good example that brings together how that money mindset can just
Suzanne Proksa:
kind of mess up a business and mess up your personal perspective around finances. Once they've identified these different money mindset issue problems, how do we go about making sure that they are not constantly creeping up again? You know, I know a lot of women who they do the work regarding money mindset, and then every once in a while, it it goes sideways and they gotta come back and kinda do that work again. What advice do you have to just try to keep that in a more even level so that we aren't doing this to ourselves where we're, oh, great money mindset, crappy money mindset, set, great money, mindset, crappy money, mindset. How do we
Kimberly Graham:
try to level that out? Yes, the back and forth. Right. So going back to what I said earlier about routine, that is gonna be the best thing that you can do to keep yourself from having these constant swings of back and forth. Because we're human, and we are gonna obviously go back to a nature of self gratification, instant gratification because that's just that's just who we are. Right? We're humans. But in order to keep ourselves into that discipline space of, like, I am a a a business owner that is making money, is managing her money well, like, I have to consistently routinely look at my finances. I have to consistently write down the goals that I'm going after and stay focused on them. So in the same way that, you know, again, you revisit your map of what you wanna do for your business, you think about, you know, sales and how far it's going and how you're communicating with your clients and thinking about how to sell.
Kimberly Graham:
You also need to be doing routines, routine conversations with yourself around, how do I feel I am doing with the way that I'm managing my money? Am I happy with the way I'm it is with the way I'm managing my money? Is the way I'm spending a reflection of who I want to be? And is it also honoring the things that I want right now? Like, it's okay to have needs and wants both on your spreadsheet or on your budget, but it needs to be in a balanced way that you feel that I know that I'm I'm, you know, making the responsible future side of me happy, but also making the little kid inside of me happy too. Both of them are important. So we need to make sure that we're routinely giving ourselves that moment to focus on that. One of my coaches has something called a CEO report where it's like a, a report where we write down, like, here's what we did in our business that worked really well this month. And here's the places that I needed to work a little bit more on. And here are the places that I need support in. And here's where my money went. And, like, doing something like that, like a CEO report or a journal or whatever is a great way for for us to nip it in the bud as soon as we find out, as soon as we feel ourselves slipping into that negative, poor mindset, scarcity, all that stuff.
Kimberly Graham:
Like we have to consistently push ourselves into that lane where we are gonna be our very best selves.
Suzanne Proksa:
Okay. So you've told people, the basic basics about finances and how they affect your business in life. You've talked to people about those expectations when it comes to money. You've talked to people about tackling their finances, how they go about keeping their money, working on that mindset. I mean, this has been sheer gold, and I am sure that people want to reach out to you after hearing this. How can they go about finding you and reaching out?
Kimberly Graham:
Yes. And I really hope that people enjoyed what they've learned so far today. One of the things that I really love to bring to the surface whenever I talk to someone about finances or do a class or do a podcast is that I can tell you something that reaffirms information that you already know. But my challenge to you is actually put something to work in your finances today because the idea of making money is not new. The idea of managing money is not new, but yet we keep trying to feed or bring in more information. Again, that affirms what we already know, but we're not willing to put it into action. And that's the part that I really love to be able to help my clients do. I wanna be able to help my clients put it into action and actually see it come to fruition for themselves to so that they can have the life they desire.
Kimberly Graham:
So if you are interested in connecting more with me, I have some groups that would be really great for you. I have a group called 6 figure finances, learn to keep and manage your money. That's on Facebook. You're welcome to join me there. There are some questions that you will have to to answer to get into the group, but I would love for you to let me know that you found me from the Suzanne podcast. That would be amazing. And if you want to go check out my website, you can go check out my website at kg financial coach dotcom, and that's a great place to just kinda stalk me and get to know me and kinda see a lot more of my other testimonials and places that you can work with me. I hope you have a great one.
Kimberly Graham:
Feel free to friend me and and talk to me, and I can't wait to meet some
Suzanne Proksa:
of you. Excellent. Okay. Everybody reach out to Kim after this episode. So Kim, I always love, love, love to ask my guests to just reiterate their 2 or 3 takeaways that they want guests to have after being on the show. So can you think about and talk about what those 2 to 3 things would be for this episode that you would like the audience to make sure they write down in their notebooks and start working on today?
Kimberly Graham:
For sure. For sure. So I would say that if you are a beginner entrepreneur, don't wait until you make the amount of money that you feel like you should make before you start managing your money. Start immediately. If you're a person who is an established female entrepreneur and you're making that money, do not make it a last priority to to learn about your finances. You need to go ahead and make it a top priority to manage it because the more money you make, it does not make it easier to manage. It simply just enhances where the areas that are weak. So make sure that you are, you know, tackling that money mindset, tackling that management of where your money is going and paying yourself what you should be paying yourself because you work too hard to not know where your money is going.
Kimberly Graham:
Who wants to have a multimillion dollar empire and not have anything to show for it? I know I don't. I know you don't. So those are some of the biggest takeaways. Also, manage that money mindset. Be writing down those ideas, writing down when you notice that there's resistance to spending things, to saving for things, to money, to pricing out the way you wanna price them out. Really take notice of those money mindsets and challenge them. Right? Like, really talk to other people, surround yourself around people who will challenge your money mindset as well. Yeah.
Kimberly Graham:
I think those are really great takeaways already right there. So hopefully that was helpful to you all.
Suzanne Proksa:
Kim, thank you so much for being on the show today. Like I said in the beginning, money mindset is one of my favorite topics and really just anything around money, because it really is such a thing for so many people. Until you really start getting into this business, you often don't realize all of the things that go on around money. So I am so appreciative that you gave us your time today and your expertise. And I look so forward to seeing you again and and talking in the future. Yes.
Kimberly Graham:
Thank you so much for inviting me on the show. I had so much fun, and I really hope that the takeaways and the things that I mentioned here were helpful to some of your listeners. If it was, I would love to be able to hear more about it. And thank you so much again.
Suzanne Proksa:
I hope that you loved this episode. If you did, give me those shout outs, show me some love on iTunes, give me a rating, and, hey, if you wanna know where to find me, you can find me on pretty much all social media at Suzanne. That's s u z anneproxsa and you can also head over to my website suzanneprosa.com. Until then, we'll see you at the next episode and here is the parte music for you.
