Check Your Credit
- Check for Flab: Review your accounts and dispute anything that isn’t correct. Call creditors and negotiate a settlement to pay off your debt or get on a payment plan.
- Flex your Muscles: Call your credit card company and ask for a credit increase, calculate what 1/3 of your available credit is, so you know what amount to never exceed in credit card spending, look at the number of credit inquiries and set a goal to have that be lower by the end of the year.
Know Your Ratios
- Check for Flab: Run your ratios to discover how you perform like a credit risk. If you are a Complete Controller client, ask your controller to look at your ratios on our reporting dashboard. Know what ratios banks prefer and set goals for improving yours.
- Flex your Muscles: Use those incredible ratios to build business credit, buy an asset in the business, check your Dunn & Bradstreet report to make sure they are attributing your new use of credit to your business. When your muscles get big, you can buy a building.
Build Your Savings
- Check for Flab: Look at your savings and determine whether they amount to at least three full months’ expenses. If you own a business, you should have three months savings for business expenses tucked away and three months savings for household expenses. Entrepreneurship is risky, and this is one way you can protect yourself in case of unplanned mayhem.
- Flex your Muscles: Look at establishing a cash benefit plan or 401(k) for your business so you can save even more. This doesn’t replace your three months expenses, which should always be liquid. When your muscles get big, begin thinking about self-insuring using a captive. It’s a great way to take a write-off on insurance and get the money back as dividends – now you’re playing with the big dogs.
Set Your Goals
- Check for Flab: Make sure you are not setting yourself up for failure. Make goals that are measurable and achievable. If you aren’t making progress toward your goals, recalibrate – take a step back and look at internal and external influences that may be getting in your way. Although personal and business goals can often be intertwined, it is vital to list them separately then look for contradictions between the two.
- Flex your Muscles: Set short term and long term goals and make sure to name the people or roles that will be involved in supporting each achievement. It is a team of various strengths that makes us strong. Consider training or mentorship, and a great place to start is Clifton Gallup Strengths Finders.
Chase Your Passion
- Check for Flab: We are stronger and more purposeful if we are chasing a greater good. Passion fuels us to get through the mire because we know that something great is brewing. Define your passion. You will be more effective and happier if you are determined to make meaning in everything you do.
- Flex your Muscles: As entrepreneurs, we can be leaders in our business, community, and families. Great leaders build up the people around them. Spot potential in others and make room for them to flex their muscles successfully. By fostering their growth and earned esteem, you will all become more passionate as a team.
Conclusion
Now that you have learned how to flex your financial muscles, you have to keep up with it so you don’t go back to the flab. You have to continue to check your credit, know your ratios, build your savings, set your goals, and chase your passions to keep your finances strong. Maintenance is equally as important as building to financial health.
About Complete Controller® – America’s Bookkeeping Experts Complete Controller is the Nation’s Leader in virtual bookkeeping, providing service to businesses and households alike. Utilizing Complete Controller’s technology, clients gain access to a cloud platform where their QuickBooks™️ file, critical financial documents, and back-office tools are hosted in an efficient SSO environment. Complete Controller’s team of certified US-based accounting professionals provide bookkeeping, record storage, performance reporting, and controller services including training, cash-flow management, budgeting and forecasting, process and controls advisement, and bill-pay. With flat-rate service plans, Complete Controller is the most cost-effective expert accounting solution for business, family-office, trusts, and households of any size or complexity.