Here’s something I found in my digging into ways of dealing with cash flow issues: (and a little infographic to make it easy to remember.) When you separate your cash into different buckets, it forces discipline. I pulled this from Profit First by Mike Michalowicz and other resources. They teach that when money comes in, you allocate portions to different accounts before you spend it: profit, taxes, owner pay, operating. What the research says: The Profit First system flips the normal formula (Sales − Expenses = Profit) to Sales − Profit = Expenses. That means you take profit first, then run your business with what’s left. They recommend using multiple bank accounts (buckets) so you always know what portion of your cash is profit, what’s for taxes, what’s for you, what’s for bills. Typical starting allocation: maybe 5-10% of revenue goes into profit first, then a chunk for taxes, then your owner pay, the rest is operating expenses. As you grow, you adjust those percentages. Here’s what you can start doing today in your business to make sure you’re not bleeding money and so it can run WITHOUT YOU: 1. Set up three separate accounts at minimum: Operating (for bills, supplies, day-to-day) Profit (set aside a % of every deposit) Tax (to cover your quarterly or annual tax bills) 2. Decide your percentages (even rough ones): e.g. 5-10% to profit, 10-20% or more to tax depending on your situation, rest to operating and owner pay. Doesn’t have to be perfect at first. 3. Each time money comes in, immediately split it into those accounts before spending. Get in the habit like clockwork. 4. Over time, track your numbers. If you find profit account is empty or tax account is short, you’ll see exactly where you priced too low or spent too much. If you don’t separate the money, it’s too easy to spend what you think you have. You end up working crazy hours, worrying about bills, and you don’t build reserves. When you do this splitting, you build breathing room, reserves, and the ability to step away (for a day, for a week) without everything falling apart. That’s part of building your business without you.

WITHOUT YOU Wednesday is all about turning your business into a machine. Here’s a quick check: If you disappeared for 2 weeks, what’s the FIRST thing in your business that would fall apart? Drop your answer below 👇

Every business owner starts with a dream. Maybe it’s money. Maybe it’s freedom. Maybe it’s family. So you step out on the adventure. You get the legal stuff done, buy tools, order product. And at first? It’s exciting but... Then comes the first pitfall: 🌲 The Silent Forest You’re shouting about your business but it feels like nobody can hear you. That’s the GET stage. And if you’re here, you’re not broken. This is part of the journey. Make it through, and you hit the next pitfall: 🐊 The Swamp of Chaos This is when you finally get customers… but now it’s madness. Everything's coming at you and it seems like the more you move the more you get sucked deeper... You’re answering calls on your break at work. Posting on lunch. Packaging orders at midnight. Dealing with problems while making dinner. It feels like you’re sinking... And sinking. The way through isn’t one big magic fix. It’s this: Every time something goes wrong, take a few extra minutes to make sure it doesn’t go wrong again. Write a step down. Save a response. Create a little system. Each step is like placing a stone in the swamp. And over time, those stones turn into a path. That’s how you move from Flintstone car to Ferrari. That’s how you build a business that runs WITHOUT YOU.

You’re probably wasting hours every week on jobs a simple tool could handle in minutes. That’s Flintstone car thinking. Feet through the floor, pushing with your own energy, when a machine could be doing the heavy lifting. Here’s an example: I’ve seen owners spend 2 hours chasing down unpaid invoices. That’s 2 hours they could have spent selling or serving customers. Or they’re answering the same customer questions 15 times a week, when a FAQ page or auto-responder could answer it once. Ferrari businesses don’t run on wasted time. They let tools do the grunt work so the owner can focus on profit work. Your challenge this week: Write down the 3 jobs that eat the most of your time. Ask: “Could a tool or simple system do this for me?” Replace just one of them with a tool. That’s one less place you’re using your own two feet to keep the car moving. And one more step toward building a Ferrari that runs WITHOUT YOU.

Every Wednesday we’re going to talk about how to build a business that runs WITHOUT YOU the next step once you can GET customers consistently. (From Business Law #2: A business should HELP customers (Profitably) by 1. Being a machine 2. that prints results 3. Without you holding it all together.) Here’s the deal. Business under $25k a month, usually feels like a Flintstone car. Your feet are sticking through the floor, and you’re the one pushing it to keep it moving. And the more customers that you get into the business? 🏋️ The heavier that car gets. It's exhausting. And it’s the reason most owners burn out before they ever really break through. The goal is to build a Ferrari. A machine that runs fast and smooth whether you’re behind the wheel or if you were to sell it to someone else is. So how do you get there? You start replacing “feet power” with systems. The easiest way is by writing down the jobs that happen over and over in your business. I call these PLAYS. A PLAY is just step-by-step instructions for how to do something right. When you write it once, you don’t have to explain it again. It makes it easy to hand off the job and still know it’ll get done right. Example: Instead of you answering every phone call differently, write a PLAY for: 1. How to answer 2. What to ask 3. What info to write down 4. How to wrap up the call Then you can have some else start taking those calls. Now even if you’re not there, the car keeps moving. Here’s your challenge this week: 👉 Pick one thing you do over and over. 📝 Write it out step-by-step like you’re showing someone how to do it tomorrow. 📂 Take that document and add it to a folder called "PLAYBOOK." And start doing that once a week for the tasks you're doing. This way you can start delegating easier when the time comes to do so. That’s your first upgrade. One step closer to Ferrari. One step closer to a business that runs WITHOUT YOU.