#64: How to Find Your Real Number: Financial Clarity for Creatives

#64: How to Find Your Real Number: Financial Clarity for Creatives

In this episode of The Jeweler's View, host Courtney Gray speaks with Erin, founder of Hexagon Strategy Group, about the importance of financial planning for creatives. They discuss how to understand and manage personal and business expenses, emphasizing the value of creating a sustainable and fulfilling lifestyle. Erin shares resources including 'The Psychology of Money' by Morgan Housel, 'I Will Teach You to Be Rich' by Ramit Sethi, and 'Thriving with Adult ADHD' by Phil Bosier, as well as practical tips for incorporating financial discipline into daily routines. The episode concludes with an invitation to start tracking expenses and a promise of a follow-up discussion in the next episode.

00:00 Introduction to The Jeweler's View
00:48 Special Guest: Erin and Financial Security for Creatives
01:39 Erin's Background and Business Philosophy
03:09 Addressing Financial Challenges for Creatives
06:12 Practical Financial Advice and Resources
07:26 Creating a Financial Plan for Your Creative Business
13:09 Mindset and Consistency in Financial Planning
14:30 Conclusion and Next Steps

Personal and Business Finances_Simple Workbook

Erin White:

https://hexagongrp.com/

Ideation Boot Camp Interest Form

Book Recommendations:

 - The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

 -

Transcript

#64: How to Find Your Real Number: Financial Clarity for Creatives

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Jeweler's View. I'm Courtney Gray, metalsmith educator and creative business strategist. After 25 years in the jewelry industry, running one of the country's top metalsmithing schools, coaching artists, advising companies and organizations, and hosting interviews with some of the best in the craft.

I finally created the kind of support I wish I'd had from the start. This podcast is a part of that. Each week I share the lessons I had to learn the hard way so you can build a rhythm that supports your creative work, your values, and the life and business you actually want. Find tools, coaching and my transform course@courtneygrayarts.com and let's get to work. 

Courtney Gray: Hey there, and welcome back to The Jewelers View. This is Courtney Gray, and today I have a really special guest. I'm super excited to finally bring you on the show. Erin, .

I love hearing about your business and what you're [00:01:00] doing, and I thought we need to talk about financial security for creatives

We just avoid we wanna do the fun part.

Erin White: do the thing.

Courtney Gray: the numbers part,

unless it has to do with, ordering metal or something fun, and the other thing that I thought was so interesting is when Erin and I started talking realized that your mom is a jeweler

And that you're helping her with her business,

Erin White: Yes. And her name of her business,, I can shout her out.

Carletta White Jewelry,

she's had some tremendous success. She's been on the Smithsonian tour

Courtney Gray: that is amazing. I didn't know that she's

Erin White: Yeah.

Courtney Gray: success.

Erin White: Yeah. And I've helped her along her journey. All this time.

Courtney Gray: bet.

Erin White: I'm her business advisor.

Courtney Gray: that is so perfect.

So Erin is the founder of Hexagon Strategy Group, where she helps entrepreneurs scale with integrity and clarity through what she calls, and I find this really unique, the hospitality of business.

Erin White: So it's not just about hotels, restaurants, those things. It's about how any business can use hospitality [00:02:00] principles to excel and grow and scale with integrity.

Courtney Gray: Actually I think. in, like you're saying on the customer experience. What do they need?

And financials, we're gonna talk today.

What do we actually need to look at

and instead of panicking, when we look at those numbers and say, uhoh I'm drowning here. I'm not making enough.

I better add something else.

Nurturing like the low hanging fruit and saying,

get tightened up before I, it was so freaking hard for me, Erin.

Erin White: Yes. It's hard for a lot of us. It's hard for me,

and that's why I think teaching what you know, only what you know is so important, and that includes the lessons you've learned. Being vulnerable and this is why I'm overjoyed to do your podcast because, I think that's why we connected so much, because we try our best to be authentic and real.

Courtney Gray: It is so much quicker to make connection with everybody, with your customer, with your network, with yourself and your own journey.

Be willing to be [00:03:00] vulnerable and not be perfect at everything and be okay with that, 

Erin White: and the underpinning of all of that is when you wanna grow with integrity, that's how you do it.

Courtney Gray: Today we wanted to dive into the part that a lot of makers, I think avoid. We just tend to avoid it. And that's the financial side.

We don't think about these things until sometimes deeper into business, unless there's a true necessity.

And it's not like just a side gig. It's this is it.

Those two perspectives are different.

We wanna make this approachable and human. Digestible for many of us have a DHD, we're creatives. We're squirreled in a hundred directions.

Can we ground this for everybody today and make it accessible and sustainable look at?

Erin White: I come from a family of kind of I'll just say entrepreneurs. I think if you start anything, you're an entrepreneur. And to get by, to do things, to make things happen. A lot of people in my family either had hair salons. Own [00:04:00] law firm. My mother, back in the day, you couldn't get Santa Clause.

I know this probably sounds crazy, but you couldn't get black Santa Clauses. You couldn't get certain things that looked like you. And so my mother, she would get the porcelain from Dollar Tree, Santa Clauses and paint them and sell them, and angels too, and all sorts of things for the family in the neighborhood.

And she would sell those too. We all did something.

Don't complain. Make it

Courtney Gray: Don't complain. Make it.

Erin White: alright.

Courtney Gray: That's your new bumper sticker

Erin White: I like that. I need to jot that down.

Courtney Gray: you need a t-shirt,

so you work with a lot of entrepreneurs across all industries

I tend to work with a lot of creatives and jewelers specifically 'cause that's my world.

Erin White: right.

Courtney Gray: where I've been living for the last two decades plus.

What have you noticed about the unique challenges that creatives, face? Is there some common thread there?

Erin White: You, you said it earlier, they want to do the thing. The thing is what makes them happy. And my mom said it to me. [00:05:00] She said, listen I just wanna make jewelry, Erin. I'm tired of it. I don't wanna understand how to integrate my Shopify to Instagram. So I did it. I don't wanna. Understand how to set up this website, so I made it.

And I get that. , The one thing in common is that you want to do the thing. And so we have to figure out how do we make enough money to make sure that , you can stay in that creative space. How do we set up your business? And I'm bringing that up because it feeds directly into why you have to keep track of your finances and look at those things so you can be fulfilled and do the thing that you want to do, but also.

Be astute enough to check in to make sure things are running properly. That's the ideal. That's the perfect world.

Courtney Gray: If you don't have a bookkeeper, you don't have a financial advisor. This is a lot of times we're starting out with just the resources in the room,

need to look at who's in our orbit and who can help.

Situations. 'cause we're not gonna be good at everything. That's too much [00:06:00] expectation for ourselves

I should be able to do the marketing, the making do the thing. I

Erin White: No way. No one does.

Courtney Gray: the thing nobody can wear all of those hats successfully

sustainably.

 Resources do you have, Erin, that we could tap into, that might help us with the financials?

Erin White: . I have three books I wanna share today. The first, especially if you are money hesitant, we all have a money mindset that was given to us.

Especially how you grew up, whether you didn't have enough or whatever. This book here has helped me so much. It's called The Psychology of Money.

Morgan Housel , and I'm sure you'll link to this in your show notes, but as timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness.

That is the Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.

This is the first thing I think everybody should read the second. Book that has really helped me with my personal finances is I will teach you to be rich by Ramit Sayte [00:07:00] and I suggest that everybody follow him, follow his podcast. And then the last book. Is thriving with adult A DHD. By Phil Bosier.

Courtney Gray: Okay, so let's dig into this.

Your career.

You could go back and listen again when things seem up or. Same with the course that I do transform. It's meant to be a living, breathing experience.

You can't learn it all in six weeks. You can't learn it all in one year.

But let's rewind a little bit and talk about a jeweler or artist comes to you specifically maybe your mom and they

Erin White: Yeah.

Courtney Gray: I just can't see the profit yet, right?

Let's just start from there. Where do you start , what numbers do we need to be looking at?

Erin White: Yeah. And I'm a questioner, right? So the first thing I would ask them is why they don't think they're seeing the profit, in times of intense hardship or change, which is what I think a lot of people are feeling right now, [00:08:00] is you revert to how can you do things differently?

So the mother of necessity comes in and I'd say, how can you look at your business differently? This is before we get into any numbers of profit, because you may have to shift your business. To the point you made earlier, what does that look like? Is there an opportunity to create things and shift the mindset?

And this is what I help my clients with. I take a simple spreadsheet, and this is the hardest thing you'll ever do because this part is a little tedious. Get a glass of wine, get a beer, get some tea, get whatever, list all your personal expenses I'm talking about down to the degree, list them.

All right? And this goes to , the little bill you have. The Macy's credit card, your car insurance bill, YouTube, Netflix, any donations you make, boom. HOA water boom. Total it right that's your number. Then do the same thing with your business then you go back to your personal expenses and you say [00:09:00] the first top are like, how I live now, but how do you wanna live? Most of my clients don't ever put a vacation expense in there, ever.

What makes you happy? Go back through that list of bills and say, what makes me happy? , These are my life expenses. Do I wanna take a trip? Do I want to take a class? Do I wanna go to a conference? And then put all the stuff on how you want to live.

So for example, if you wanna buy a house next year, your current mortgage is say 1800, but you know where you wanna live or where you want your kid to go to school, it may be 3,500. Put that in there, right? And then you total that up. So you have what your now is and where you wanna be.

Okay? Two lines. That's it. You do the same things for business. What it is now, where I wanna go, oh, I wanna go to this conference. I've never been able to go. . If you always wanna go, you put that in there. Hotel, rental car, [00:10:00] and don't put the days in if you don't wanna stay at the days in. If you wanna stay at a nice way, how much does it cost? Put it in there. That's what we want to have. It may not be in our current expense list.

You take that, you look at what your revenue is that you're bringing in, how much do you have to make in order to. Have this particular life. And most people don't want private jets. Most people don't want like crazy things. They just want comfortability. So you put that in, you say, okay, this is my number.

So you don't even start with your pricing yet. You start with how you wanna live. Okay.

And then they say it's not even that much. It's not that much more the aha moment that I see in my client's faces, they're like, it's not even that much. I can do this.

So then you go back and you look at your products, your services, whatever it is that you do, and you say, okay, this is how much I currently price. Is there any room for growth? I just [00:11:00] want you to know how much you spend. It's good to know that in general, you don't have to track it after this, but it's good to know in general.

Because now your number informs what you do and you don't have to panic.

But really the whole exercise. When I do it with my clients, most of the time it's not even the numbers, it's them getting past the fear of doing it.

That's what I would say do.

It's literally four columns of numbers.

That you have. And then to your point about going back and checking, I recommend, depending on how much you sell or how often you sell, whatever your selling patterns are. I would say from week to month to quarter, but I think you should never go more than two weeks without looking at your money.

Courtney Gray: And that's how you choose to direct your energy. Once you know those numbers,

give you an example. I just met with an ongoing client who took transform, came out the other end and said, okay I'm really ready to do this.

To take it seriously. And one of the first exercises I had her do [00:12:00] similar was, what do you need to survive?

What are those numbers? And it's uncanny how often we don't just look at the baseline

, if we can muster up the guts to sit down and look at this, not gonna take that long. The anticipation always takes longer than the doing 

and you may have to change, like if you add a software, and

All online now there's $800 a month

Erin White: the $800 tells you how much you gotta sell

Courtney Gray: And anything on top of that becomes your profit. We gotta look at that baseline.

What's the baseline here?

And I love the idea of let's work in our vacations that is part of living.

Somebody said once, schedule in your vacation and work around it.

Erin White: So those are the types of things that we need to build in our personal list.

It's just expenses. It's an expense, it's an investment,

these are all investments into the life that I wanna live. And so I don't use the word bills

because Bills to your point, makes you catch your breath.

Courtney Gray: [00:13:00] We're gonna have to do two episodes here, Erin.

Erin White: Yeah.

Courtney Gray: And then I do wanna look at okay, how do we really break this down? We're gonna bring Erin back next week and we're gonna dig into this a little deeper. Okay. Because mindset is huge part of it. Getting away from the scarcity mindset that's ingrained in all of us. And we talk a lot about that on this show.

Erin White: I'm gonna do a template for your audience that they can copy.

Courtney Gray: That's awesome.

Consistency in looking at this, like creating this as a part of your new rhythm your ritual is to look at the numbers

let's start with something. That creates success.

Erin White: Yep.

Courtney Gray: feeling of this working for you, do the first part this week. Let's just invite Erin, what's our invitation this week to look at these numbers,

get a clear vision.

Erin White: Yes. So the invitation is to jot down your personal expenses. You'll see two tabs, your personal expenses, and then your business. That's when we can get into pricing and look at your product line and sometimes it may mean [00:14:00] cutting and focusing so.

Courtney Gray: Okay.

Erin's gonna gift us, with her spreadsheet to plug in some numbers. Look at these, and I'll provide the link for that in the show notes. And you can be directed to where that's gonna live.

I think it's very human to feel intimidated by looking at these financials, but make it, and not even financials, the investments.

I love that word. Okay, we're gonna

Erin White: Yeah.

Courtney Gray: No bills here. These are all investments in your life,

Erin White: Yeah, absolutely.

Courtney Gray: take a look at that and I'll see you next week, Erin.

Erin White: All right, perfect. Take care. 

Thanks for listening to The Jeweler's View. If today's episode gave you something to think about, consider sending it to a friend or share it on social and tag me at Courtney Gray Arts. You'll find tools, coaching resources, and the transform course@courtneygrayarts.com. , Remember you're not behind.

You're becoming exactly the kind of maker your business needs and that kind of depth. It takes time. I'll be [00:15:00] back next week, same time, same tough love, onward and upward. I.