422 : Anna Hill – Managing Debt and Cost of goods while selling on Amazon takes intention

amazon accounting

Our annual year end/new year restart episode where Anna helps us understand what “Best practices” she sees with her top clients. This business takes twists and turns and the very best are able to adapt as needed. Get your books in order so you are ready to take advantage of the market changes.

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Anna’s previous episodes:

Anna’s Group- Accounting we will go

Anna’s Quickbooks for Amazon Sellers training course- Amazon Accounting Simplified (You get a recommended chart of accounts, 30 day money back guarantee and the example CPA deep-dive walk through)

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Transcript:

Anna:                                   00:00                    My recommendation is to go slowly and work with intention because if this is going to be a business that’s healthy, there’s no rush and it is so easy to get into this mentality of I must buy this deal. It’s now or never, it’s Q4, there’ll never be another Q4 again. I need to go for it. The price, my tank, let me do this. And there’s this false sense of urgency I think that takes over and it’s almost like this panic feeling and try to remove emotion and is robotic about business decisions as possible. Don’t fall in love with your inventory. Don’t you know, fall for, I don’t want to say fall for it, but don’t be wooed by someone on,

Cool voice guy:                 00:39                    welcome to the e-commerce momentum podcast where we focus on the people, the products, and the process of e-commerce selling. Today. Here’s your host, Steven Peterson.

Stephen:                            00:53                    You know, I have a bunch of sponsors for the podcast and they’re all wonderful people, but this one stands out for me because, um, she so believes in what she’s doing. Um, a, she’s an e-commerce seller, okay? But she’s also a CPA. And I’m talking about Anna Hill. And, uh, when you think about your business, when she talks about her business, when she talks about the top performers that she has his clients and she’s got lots of clients and are all e-commerce sellers. Um, the, the number one thing is they know their numbers. And so you hear, you’re going to hear her say it, you’re going to hear me say it. And what’s key is that you actually can then pivot and adjust, um, as your business changes and evolves and it will change and evolve, you will not be in control of it. It’s going to change.

Stephen:                            01:37                    The marketplaces are going to change. And so the key is to get, uh, get control of it. So she offers a course, um, Amazon accounting simplified and I have a link, um, then she does pay me. So again, you know, don’t want to hide that, but, um, she includes a couple things with my link that she doesn’t include another’s. Let me just tell you about this again, she’s going to help you with a, an example of a recommended chart of accounts. Now think about that. What accounts do you need? And she’s going to give you the ones that most people are using the best of the best are using. Because again, you want to make it, I always say make it where you’re going to make decisions. That’s how deep you should go. In our case, we have warehouse services, so we have to go deeper in our chart of accounts.

Stephen:                            02:17                    Then maybe somebody else does, but, and maybe your business is a little different, but if it doesn’t need that, don’t waste your time. You’re not going to make decisions. It doesn’t help you. And so, uh, she recommends, uh, QuickBooks online, which is what we use. And uh, for me it’s phenomenal. Um, because I can use classes, I can use all these different tools and you can go deeper as you need, but she’s going to help you get that set up. The other thing that, what I really liked that she’s going to do is she’s stealing a CPA deep dive into an existing eCommerce business. One of her clients, and she’s going to show you what you can expect from your CPA. What is a deep dive, what they should be going through. And that’s rare to actually see what you should be getting. Then can compare what you’re getting from your tax professional.

Stephen:                            03:01                    And again, we don’t do our own taxes here either. Um, and so get monthly financial statements. She’s going to help you figure that out. And what I love about her courts is it’s a pause, rewind of dating myself using tape, but go back till you get it and then go forward. It’s not a, Oh my God, the course is going to end. I’m going to be out of it now. Hers is a lifetime membership. Also, they put you in a special, uh, Facebook group, private Facebook group where you can ask questions. Um, you can get, um, you know, you’ll get other feedback, but you can see other people asking questions. So you don’t feel so stupid when you’re like, wait, I wondered that too. Yeah, duh. Most people do. And that’s what, again, her heart is like a teacher. And so her course is the Amazon accounting simplified course.

Stephen:                            03:44                    And if you go to accounting, we will go.com, forward slash momentum click on that link, fill it out, you’ll get a 30 day money back guarantee. So you know, she changed that because she’s like Steve, some people start and then life happens and they can’t get to it. So I didn’t want him to have to run to finish it. Now give them a chance. Again, that’s the kind of person she is. And so if you’re looking to really get control of your business, if you’re looking for a way to really know your numbers, to know all the different things that really matter, and then get that prepared and boom, you can hand it right off to your tax person. Might matter of fact, my tax person signs into my, um, QuickBooks online account, which is awesome. I don’t think of anything. And they were able to finish the stuff right there and make entries and that kind of thing.

Stephen:                            04:31                    Um, and she’s going to help you get there. So, uh, accounting we will grow is Anna’s group, um, counting. We will grow.com forward slash momentum. We’ll get you to this link and check out this course again, 30 day money back guarantee. You’re going to get those two extra things, which is the recommended chart of accounts. Don’t get complicated. Keep it simple, stupid, right as they say. Um, this is an example of what you, what other sellers have used specifically in her business. And again, she’s a CPA and she’s also going to do that walkthrough. It’s really a deep dive so you can understand what each of those accounts mean and how, how, uh, what a CPA should be doing for you and going through your books and helping you understand what you need. So accounting, we will go.com, forward slash. Momentum. Welcome back to the e-commerce momentum podcast.

Stephen:                            05:19                    This is episode 422 Anna Hill. Yes. It’s that time a year, year end. Beginning of a new year. It’s my time to talk with Anna and his two accounting nerds. We’re S we’re still nervous. I mean it just comes across. You can hear it and you’re probably gonna laugh and say, Hmm. He’s definitely like talking about this stuff. But I’ll be honest with ya, I mean in the after call, cause we could talk for 10 minutes afterwards too, is we definitely build on each other because you know, you’ve seen so much over the top, over, over the years, you know, and what she’s got a great perspective cause she’s got hundreds of clients, so she seen the best and the worst. And so, um, it’s very to talk about what’s working, um, and also what’s working now, not necessarily what was working before because the world has changed. Uh, the accounting hasn’t, but you know, we get into specifics on cost of goods and debt and stuff like that.

Stephen:                            06:10                    That stuff is, and so it’s really important. Um, she does a great job and she has a course and I do pitch it at the end. Um, and it is a pitch. Uh, so she does pay me, so I don’t want to hide that. Uh, but if, if you’re thinking about, you know, really getting to know your numbers, um, I think it’s really worth listening to and considering. Um, and again, I caution new sellers. I’m not sure it’s right for you. Please. Um, I’m just not so sure. Um, so take a listen to see what you think, but reach out to me if I can help you in any way and of course join Anna’s group, um, and listen to her podcast, which we get into to also, let’s get into the podcast. All right, welcome back to the e-commerce momentum podcast. Very excited about by guest today because this is our annual thing.

Stephen:                            06:51                    It’s definitely become an annual thing where we sit and talk about closing out prior year and starting up the new year. And it’s funny, you know, I do a lot of speaking around and attend to end up speaking about accounting and bookkeeping and stuff like that. And I always see, I at least, I always have people come up to me and say, I’m struggling. I want to pull the trigger. I just don’t know where to start. Um, and I’m assuming our guest today is going to help us figure out how to start and a hell welcome back and a Hill.

Anna:                                   07:19                    Thank you for having me again this year. This has been our annual event and I look forward to it. And I think we’re going to have a lot of helpful discussion today. You know, I look forward to it

Stephen:                            07:28                    too because you say the same and we speak the same language. Um, cause we’re both nerds. Um, but it’s, it’s the truth. All right, so first let me say, and as a CPA, if you don’t know that, um, go back and listen to episode three 69 and you can get some of the backstory and you’ll hear what we talked about last year. But my CPA friend is also a e-commerce seller and has been for a long time. So you feel the pain, don’t you?

Anna:                                   07:51                    I do, I do. I felt the changes over many years and it really helps me connect with those. I’m trying to help by sharing my knowledge and it’s, it’s tough. It’s really tough. It’s tough and it’s getting tougher,

Stephen:                            08:03                    man. Maybe we shouldn’t say Clinton tougher cause I think it’s always been tough. Um, this is not the rainbow and unicorns four hour work week that we all thought we were going to get. Is it?

Anna:                                   08:12                    No, it’s not.

Stephen:                            08:13                    It stopped. It’s a job. I mean there is work to this, however, some are better at it than others. And um, you know, you, you’ve got a lot of clients and I’m sure you have some outlier clients who you just sit back and say, Holy smokes, they just,

Anna:                                   08:26                    it’s like magic. Correct. Oh, it’s truly, I think, gosh, how do they make it look so easy? It’s really amazing. It’s inspiring for sure. There are, there are people

Stephen:                            08:35                    well that just have that gift and with anything, I’m not that guy. Are you that lady?

Anna:                                   08:41                    No, I’m not that lady at all. But I do have an appreciation for it and I know that it’s possible and I’ve spent a lot of times thinking about what are the common traits of the people who do tend to make this look easier than it actually is. Well, name one, what do you,

Stephen:                            08:56                    what have you seen that you would say is one of those things that, you know, people will just, you can they have a spark or whatever that is? What’s that spark? Oh, it’s kind of funny, but they keep it simple. Oh,

Anna:                                   09:07                    they’re very focused. They have aisle. And we can talk more in detail about some of the East, they have separate bank account for all of their business stuff. They don’t blend business and personal funds. They’re not out there chasing shiny rocks. And you know, they may try new things, but they do it with intention, not because they think they’re missing out and they tend to be really good about turning in their documents on time and they always review numbers with me and it’s this attention to their business. I think that’s the common theme.

Stephen:                            09:37                    So it’s interesting you mentioned that they review numbers with you. How, how long, I mean these are, these are paid clients and Anna has lots of paid clients probably accepting some, so reach out to her about that. But how long does that take?

Anna:                                   09:50                    You know, some of them, um, I make a little, uh, video when I go over the financials and I send it to them and it’s a 10 minute long thing and they watch it. Other ones want to get on the phone with me and talk for an hour in detail and that’s fine. Um, but it’s, it really doesn’t have to be, again, keeping it simple, 10 minutes is literally enough.

Stephen:                            10:08                    And, and those outliers, those who are doing it best practice, maybe, I know you have to call them outliers. They’re doing best practice, right? They don’t have to be, they didn’t have to go to accounting school like us. They didn’t have to get all these fancy degrees, but they are paying attention. What are they paying attention to? I mean, what do you, what are, where are they focused on? Well, you know, that’s really interesting. And that brings up another very common trend among this group. It’s, they’re paying attention to debt specifically not carrying too much debt. Ooh, that’s a four letter word. Yes, it totally is. And it’s, it’s the difference between debt and getting in debt, if that makes sense. And I think it’s really important to know the difference. Okay. So we mentioned a bunch of pain points, um, and I’ve got a couple more and I think that’s where we should really go back and start at the beginning. Okay. So what’s the, you and I both talk a lot. What’s the number one thing we tell people, um, that they need to do for their business? Number one.

Anna:                                   11:08                    Number one. So simple. Please do it. Everyone please have a separate account for your business.

Stephen:                            11:15                    Okay, so a separate checking or saving. You could even do it through a savings account if you had to. I wouldn’t suggest it, but you could, you could even do it through a PayPal. Like if you were just an eBay person, I’ve seen people who just have a PayPal, like it’s like a debit card or a credit card, I guess it is. And you can buy and sell through there. And what’s great is all the money comes in less the fees and all your purchases go through there. Less the fees and at the end, guess what? That’s a profit or loss. Right.

Anna:                                   11:44                    I completely agree. And you know, I think, um, sometimes you hear the expression done is better than perfect and I think that’s a really good example of it. It’s separate account. The person knows their bottom line and it’s a great place to start. You know, you don’t have to overcomplicate everything and have 80 million accounts and track this, that and the other. And I think just a simple PayPal account that’s a business account is a, is a great example of how that can work. Really painless.

Stephen:                            12:10                    Yeah. I, I did a, uh, discussion, um, um, bookkeeping at a gay Liz B and Gary res, uh, uh, Amazon seller tribe conference last year and it was packed both times because it’s such a pain point for people. And my comments are always the same. Keep it simple. If you’re not going to make decisions, you do what’s necessary. I mean, of course there’s legal things you gotta do and you gotta have certain accounts. But if you’re not going to make decisions, you know, and I tell this story, I, I’m, you’re gonna laugh cause you heard it probably five times. Um, one of the companies I worked for who is out of business, um, great company, um, I was called in cause I was a CFO and uh, one of the properties and we are all the up and coming. CFOs were all there with the corporate CFO and the president.

Stephen:                            12:52                    And I remember the guy said to me, Steve, what do you think we should do to help reduce blah, blah, blah costs and accounting or whatever. And I’m like, you have 22,000 general ledger accounts and I’m not exaggerating. I swear to God, 22,000 and they were 23 digits long and each digit meant something. I mean, it was like you can drill down to the minuscule. Nobody did anything. Most of it was just fluff that somebody said, Oh, I want to know how much money we spent on number two pencils that are black as opposed to red, you know, whatever. Some stupid thing. And so they created this, all right, I’ll create another general electric account. Well, when you do that for 20 or 30 years, it gets unwieldy and you do nothing with it. So there was no decision making. Right? And eventually the company went out of business magically pride surprise because you couldn’t analyze any of that. You got paralyzed because it was so much information. Um, and it became challenging. Now my experience, you know, when we were talking about in the beginning and our pre-call, we were talking about challenges this year, I think cost of goods is one of the more challenging things of the business. Would you agree?

Anna:                                   13:53                    Indeed, absolutely. And you know, this is an inventory based business. It’s kind of the name of the game, but I think now more than ever, it’s really important to focus on that and have a really good understanding of it. Not just, Oh, what year end. I think I’ll calculate it for two axes, but an active knowledge of it on a monthly basis.

Stephen:                            14:12                    Well, I’ve been toying with inventory lab and scam. I’ve had scan power forever because I’m a, I’d love Chris green and Paul, I just love those guys and I’ve been with them forever. But I did. Everybody’s been trying to convince me to look at inventory lab for accounting too because they’re supposedly do it better. So I, I have both. Um, I see no difference. Um, this is Steve’s opinion, so, you know, and I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. I see no difference between the two. Um, my skin power can give me all the detailed reports I want. I can do all the expenses I want, but what it allows me to do is to dice down on, and an inventory lab does the same thing, but it allows you to dice down by source, by shopper, by, um, by

Stephen:                            14:52                    shipment to really dice down in there. However, some of that’s not useful. So we have went to a standard naming convention for pricing and all that stuff. Consistency of data now for untying years has given us the ability to really drill down and see what, what’s profitable or what’s not. Um, and to me, I mean, are you, tell me, is that what the best practices are doing additionally? I mean, does that, where they’re spending their time on cost of goods? Oh, I, I completely agree. And, and what I always try to explain to people, well, they get confused and tangled up with what’s the difference between one of those programs versus something like QuickBooks or zero. And what I tell people is think about scam power or inventory lab or Fetzer or you know, there’s a bunch of them out there as the inventory subledger.

Stephen:                            15:41                    That’s where the details of your inventory are kept. So you need to have a double entry accounting system in an ideal world, which would be a quick books or zero, but you need to have these programs in order to track the details of the inventory on an item by item basis. You need to know if you’re selling a pan, for example, how much you made on the pen, how many you sold when you sold them, you know, all of those kinds of things. And it’s really, really important. And QuickBooks is not going to give you that level of detail. They just, it’s impossible to get it. It’s not designed for that. Um, and it’s not going to interface with Amazon’s API. The other thing, uh, this is for my experience and I’m assuming you’re going to say the same thing, is for the big issue out there as IP issues.

Stephen:                            16:23                    Um, or, or, uh, you know, people’s claiming their counterfeit and stuff. So you have to justify. And so, uh, we had one, you know, we sell shoes and socks and all that kind of jazz. We all know that and we had an issue and so it was a date. Boom. I was able to go backwards in new skin power just like you could with inventory lab, find the exact date. And then both Anna and I are nerds when it comes to receipts, I was able to pull them up on, um, our uh, digital image, found it, uh, did a little clipping of it, circled it, send it off to Karen laugher who manage my account so they can send it in. But that is critical today cause you run the risk of losing your account. Correct? Oh, you do. And I will tell you another pro tip on the side.

Stephen:                            17:03                    Do not ignore that. Those do not ignore those warnings. I have one client who was able to do that, but unfortunately he ignored the notice from Amazon forever, a month and a half. And his suspension has been ongoing for about a month and a half. That’s just painful. Well, let’s get into painful. Let’s get into pain point number two, if he had none, I don’t want to pick on this poor person. I want to make them feel worse. But if they had debt, right? I mean no like crippling debt when you know, how about this, cause I mean I see a lot of people you know, familiar with Dave Ramsey and people are like, well you know, he’s talking about personal debt, how it’s evil and blah, blah blah. But for business debt it’s necessary to every one of your clients have business debt. Uh, not every one of them. I would say probably 80% of them do. There’s also some to it. Those

Anna:                                   17:49                    who may be don’t use debt is regularly may have more debt for Q for sourcing, if that’s an a time that they have more sales. So it’s not their go to way of buying inventory, but it’s there as a resource if they decide that they need it and it’s worth it. But I would say about 80% of my clients.

Stephen:                            18:07                    Okay. So 80% of your clients do out that percentage. What percentage are using a credit card for, or I guess where there’s limited um, interest. Um, okay. I was going to say, or are they doing credit lines where they’re guaranteed to pay interest and all that kind of jazz? So all of them are using credit cards. They’re using credit cards and experience wise, maybe up until this past year it’d be a better question. Um, how many of them had to pay interest during that period of time?

Anna:                                   18:39                    Oh gosh. I would say probably, um, probably 90% of them. No, no, no, no, no. I take that back probably about 70% of [inaudible].

Stephen:                            18:48                    Okay. That’s higher than I thought. That’s higher than I thought. So that means then there they really are a cash heavy, like you said, inventory. So there’s stock in stock and stock and carrying debt as a cost. Okay. So that, was that heavier in prior years than this year? Did you notice?

Anna:                                   19:03                    I th I think that there is more debt. Um, I think people have maybe fewer credit cards, but the balances are higher, if that makes sense. I’ve had one client in the past and he literally had 60 credit cards and I know it, and it was really 30 he had a card and his wife had a card. So I’ve seen less of that. But I have seen the dollar amount of debt growing. And what I’m talking about is the percent of debt as it relates to unsold inventory. And I hope I’m not getting into the weeds too much.

Stephen:                            19:33                    No, no, no, that’s fine. So your inventory evaluation, I got $100,000 of inventory sitting on the side. What’s, what’s a range that you as a CPA are looking for for healthy business?

Anna:                                   19:44                    Oh, you know, people ask me this all the time. And the answer of course is it depends. I can’t tell you,

Stephen:                            19:52                    well if you’re selling cars or if you’re selling, right, if you’re selling pens, right, it matters. Right?

Anna:                                   19:57                    Exactly. Exactly. But I, I, and of course I’m not your CPA, this is just a general rule of thumb, but I do know that the retail industry has generally got the, I’m sorry, the brick and mortar retail businesses have used the 30% rule of thumb for a long time. So if you had $100,000 of inventory, um, 30% debt on that is in general what the target was and that was seem to be air quote healthy.

Stephen:                            20:24                    And so you want to stay below that number all times, even slow times or good. Correct.

Anna:                                   20:32                    Yes. And again, it’s a personal, um, a personal issue because the whole point of this business is to meet your personal financial goals. And so if your personal financial goal is to sell your business in a couple of years, you may have a different debt to income. I’m sorry, debt to inventory ratio than others. The other thing that happens is pretty interesting to me. In general, those who have more unsold inventory have a lower percentage because people after a certain dollar amount threshold, they just don’t feel comfortable. So if you had $1 million of unsold inventory and you had $300,000 in debt, that’s a lot scarier than $100,000 of unsold inventory in $30,000 in debt. Either said absolute dollar idea.

Stephen:                            21:19                    Does that bring up a, I mean, is that a flag for a company when they start hitting that, they’ve got to sit back and say, am I buying the right inventory? Um, am I buying it at the right time? Or I saw somebody posting that they were able to go back and negotiate with their vendors and say, your minimum order quantity is way too high. I need smaller minimum order quantity in order for me to sustain my business.

Anna:                                   21:38                    Yeah, I mean, I do think that a business owner has to sit there and literally say, I have $300,000 in debt. How does that feel? Is that a risk I’m comfortable with? For some people that’s outrageous and intolerable. Other people say, you know what? I have sales that support this. I actually feel comfortable with a little bit more. Other people, you know at $10,000 five thousand one thousand that’s all I feel comfortable with, which is why you and I are always on our soapbox about knowing your numbers because you can’t have this thought process just by logging on to chase to find out how much you owe. I mean, you just can’t, there’s so much more to it than what’s my credit card bill.

Stephen:                            22:17                    You know, I, I make fun of my older son because we were down there over Christmas and got to see her grand babies and open the PO is unbelievable. It was, it was wonderful. Right? But I’m in his office and we’re chatting and he’s updating his net worth now. He’s 30 something, 30 maybe 33 34 and he’s updating his net worth like every month. He’s like, Oh yeah, we calculate. I’m like, I am so proud of your son. But you know, it’s funny when I look at them, they don’t have a marital issues related to money because they are so both on this, they know their numbers. We’re back to that. Right. They know that. When you were talking earlier about having those conference calls or, or just even the video you make with your client, these are the things that a C a good CPA is going to discuss with you, right? These are the kinds of things that you’re going to, um, who is it? Andy Stanley always calls him, got a guard rails, you know, about when he talks about marriage and stuff, you know, different guardrails you want to put around yourself. This is really a guardrail you could put around your business. Hey Steve, you’re approaching these levels. Um, this is something you want to pay attention to.

Anna:                                   23:23                    Yeah, Oh absolutely. And I think having that as a, um, you know, kind of a way to measure your business also like, okay, you know, the guard rail is 20% most of the year, but 30% in Q four or it’s 0% most of the year. And if you do a lot of Valentines stuff, 10% in that time period, you know, just kind of being aware and I just to make sure that people will understand what we’re talking about is you look at the total amount that you owe loans, Amazon loans, credit cards. That’s, that’s the debt we’re talking payroll, taxes, pay. Yes. Anything like that. Whatever you owe and include that. If you’ve gotten a loan from, you know, your rich uncle Fred, include that. What is the debt that you have on the inventory that is not sold, that’s inventory at your home and warehouse plus inventory that’s unsold at Amazon.

Stephen:                            24:15                    I will say it this way, is at the business close today. What checks are you going to have to write? Right? I mean that’s usually the way we used to look at it. That, I mean you owe this money, you’re not getting away with it. Right? I mean that’s real debt. I mean that’s not going away.

Anna:                                   24:28                    Right, exactly. And it’s just important to know that it’s, and without getting too much into financial statements, this is what is on the balance sheet and the balance sheet is I think just as important, if not more important than the profit and loss. And I don’t want to get too detailed, but this is why if you know your numbers, it’s so much more than what’s the balance in my bank account.

Stephen:                            24:49                    It really matters. Now, if we went back to the simple example of the person who you know has a, just a simple checking account, it’s a little different. I mean it is, it is different. But when you get into this accrual level of accounting, when you’re building a real larger business and you get into this sophistication, this stuff will haunt you forever. So it is so important to get control of it. Um, when you’re looking at other differences this year, um, when I, when I asked you about that before the call, that was it, you went immediately to debt that that was the place that you’re seeing. Is this a dangerous trend that you’re seeing? I mean, I, I mean to be honest, I’ve seen a whole bunch of people go out of business and walk away. Um, or every time I see on YouTube I get in these stupid feeds where people are selling pallets of unused. Um, have you seen these things? I don’t know why. Once you watch one, there’s a million feeding you. But it’s like I’m always thinking that’s somebodies inventory that it just breaks my heart that they’re losing. Cause they got, you know, they paid Amazon to get rid of it and now Amazon sells it and your stuff is out there. Somebody paid a lot of money for that. Right.

Anna:                                   25:55                    I know. And it had their heart and soul in it and they told her neighbors about it. And you know, there, there’s so much that’s, it is, it is hard to see because someone may actually be paying off debt on inventory that they don’t even, they can’t even sell anymore that they don’t even own.

Stephen:                            26:10                    Do you, I mean at what point, and I mean I know this is going to be one of the things you can’t really, because you’re not giving guidance. And I understand that. So understand that this is generic talk we’re talking about what, what do you suggest to people who were new or getting in this business? I mean, you know, do you give guidelines on or recommendations on, you know, how much money they should start the business with or it’s true, they just borrow it all and put it on a crutch cause you’ve heard those people. I started with nothing. I had a dollar, I got a $500 credit card in hand. Now I’m a millionaire and I’m driving a Lambert and I usually have a picture of a Lamborghini there and then they hit me with a course and they do sell course. So [inaudible] of course. What do you see or what, what’s your recommendation?

Anna:                                   26:48                    You know, my recommendation is to go slowly and work with intention because if this is going to be a business that’s healthy, there’s no rush and it is so easy to get into this mentality of I must buy this deal. It’s now or never. Um, its Q4 there’ll never be another Q4 again. I need to go for it. The price I tank, let me do this. And there’s this false sense of urgency I think that takes over and it’s almost like this panic feeling and try to remove emotion and is robotic about business decisions as possible. Don’t fall in love with your inventory. Don’t you know, fall for, I don’t want to say fall for but, but don’t be wooed by someone on Facebook posting. I have $2 million in sales because you don’t know anything else about what’s behind the curtain on that number. Try to be as emotionless as possible so that you can make a sound business decision emotion. As for when you have money saved in the bank, that’s when you should be emotional. If you should buy a garlic press or the meat cloth and things, that’s not a time to be emotion.

Stephen:                            27:50                    Have I told you my meat clust story? I probably did. I’m going to tell you again. So, um, there’s an uncle auction to us and um, it’s a, uh, it’s for businesses more so, right? It’s so I get you have to have a tax license to go and buy there or whatever. So anyway we go and uh, all of a sudden these Amazon returns are coming through and I’m talking pallets and pallets and the guy’s like, you want more? Every time you’d be like anybody want more? And I’m always like, do you mean that you’ve got containers of them sitting? I swear to God I kept thinking that way. But one of the items that came in was me claws and I never seen him cause it was always the joke when I started, you know, with PL it was always the thing, don’t tell me clause or, or silicone spatulas and all that kind of jazz because that was a hot thing. But the meat clause, I actually bought them and I paid, I swear to goodness 50 cents per and I ended up buying, I don’t know, I bought them just for a bunch of them just to have, you know, to give them away or whatever. And then I swear it almost like I got choked up inside cause I’m thinking whoever that was, I paid them 50 cents less 30% cause the auctioneer’s taken 30% from that Ana. That’s what that person made on their meet clause that they liquidated.

Anna:                                   28:58                    Oh my gosh. Does everyone know what a meat clause is? Sustain where you grow meat and then you, it’s like a a fake hand and you, you kind of like claw the meta pardon

Stephen:                            29:06                    bear claws, right? It’s kind of looks like bear claws. Right. And it actually, you know what, it reminded me of these, uh, these are plastic, but they are, they’re really good plastic, but they remind me of like brass knuckles, you know, how they like fit around. I’m like, Oh my God, it is, it looks like a cool, or back when we were kids, those Kung Fu movies that were cool. Yeah, it looks like one of those weapons they would be, but, but back to it, seriously, this was one of, Oh my gosh, 50 60 items that were coming through that auction that somebody has lost a fortune on. And my biggest fear is that they finance that and now they’re sitting there saying, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

Anna:                                   29:45                    Right? And, and that circles back around to what we first started talking about is how do you know it is and isn’t okay to to do. And it’s a diff decision for everyone. Everyone’s finances are different but it’s something that you have to do with intention. And if you say, I’m going to spend $10,000 on meet clause and if I have nothing left to show for it but $10,000 worth of debt and I’m okay, that’s a lot different decision then I’m to spend $10,000 on meat, Claus, Ash or hope I get my money back cause I don’t know what I’m going to do otherwise. Those are two very different scenarios and you must have that discussion with yourself, your business partner, your spouse, whatever, whoever is in your world financially, you have to sit down and have that decision. And I know deals pop up. Sometimes you do have to kind of strike while the iron is hot. But in general, if you want to be in this for the longterm, that is not a good place to offer it from is like making quick decisions.

Stephen:                            30:37                    The last thing I wanted to talk about today if we could is budgeting, um, planning maybe a better term because people get nervous. They hear that word budget, right? Don’t throw me there. Um, when, when you’re thinking about budgeting, what, when you look at the best practices, people can, I don’t want to call them outliers, the best practice because accounting hasn’t changed since you and I were kids, right? I mean it w you know, way before that it’s taxed goofy tax changes, but that’s political. But real accounting is exactly the same when I learned it in high school and you know, it’s the same. Oh yeah. Budgeting, planning. Um, my approach, you tell me what your approach is. I always suggest keep it simple. Again, if you’re not going to make decisions, why bother? Right. Doing that much. I start with expenses. I know what our payroll is going to be, right? Boom. We know how many people we have working here. We know what they get paid. We know what the tax is. Then we go down, we know what our rent is, we know what our utilities will be, and we just go through and build all that stuff. Um, what, what is the best practice people in your group doing?

Anna:                                   31:41                    You know, they’re doing exactly that. They’re in those, there’s the operating expenses, the expenses that it takes to operate the business and they are making a plan for that. Anything beyond that is something that they may choose to use for inventory or maybe put away for savings for, you know, some people like to have a couple of months savings for operating expenses in the bank just in case. So I think if you start by saying, this is what it costs me to operate my business, then after that, you know how much wiggle room you have to invest in inventory. Because Steven, think about this, if you can’t pay someone, does it matter that you just bought two pallets of the best deal ever,

Stephen:                            32:18                    right? Oh yeah. How do you look at them on Friday and say, Oh, but then look at the deal we got over there, but Oh, you’re not getting paid to write it, but man, we got those meat claws or shiny plastic and this is, it’d be goofy for people to hear this, but those are fixed costs, right? Those are standards, right? We know what our, where rent is going to be because they’re going to raise it to new year. Gonna raise it. I’m not happy about it, but they’re gonna. Right. But you know, you can plan for that. And the variable costs are the things, um, that you based on sales and stuff like that. I, I just think that that if people started there, open up a separate checking account and then even just on a spreadsheet, put in what they think they’re going, what their known expenses are going to be, that’s a place to start, at least in my opinion. Any different?

Anna:                                   33:02                    No, I completely agree. And you know, one thing to factor into that is how much you want to pay yourself. I think there’s a badge if you’re going to go talk to my wife, you, and I’ve been doing this for many years, so there’s this badge of honor about hustling. And I did take 1 cent out of the business, but think about it. We were saying earlier on the purpose of this is to meet your personal financial goals. Is your personal financial goal to not make any money? I don’t think so. And he may be temporary where you say, gosh, you know what, I’m going to have a very limited amount. But even if you pay yourself 100 bucks, something regular at first, that’s really, really important. And that’s, you are saying what is something you would tell someone who’s new? Be sure that you pay yourself and factor in what you want to work up to and make a plan for that. And that’s kind of the budgeting piece too.

Stephen:                            33:50                    I always say that, you know, I could go and work a greeting at Walmart and make more money. I don’t want to be in that any more. At this point in my life. I’m retired. I, I, you know, that’s not what I wanna do. The first stuff. I’m not that friendly. Second off, you know? Yeah. Seriously though, you want to think about like you say your goals, you know, so if you want to travel, if you want to do this, set a goal but then pay it and then work your way in it. We’ve been very fortunate. Um, we’ve been pretty rigid about you taking a raise each year. Now we’ve got four of us here now and so we’re all, Europe is getting a raise this year and we do profit sharing, which is very cool too, but that puts pressure that the business must perform.

Stephen:                            34:28                    And so let me tell you, you want to focus, you’d be responsible for somebody else’s paycheck. Um, it makes you a lot more focused. You know, I goof around, but I’m serious about, we know our business and we know what our budget is for 2020 and we’re going to be careful with that. So I recommend that too. And again, keep it simple though, right? Revenue expenses, profit, right? And if your expenses are X number of dollars and your revenue after cost of goods is going to be this and there’s a gap, you better figure that out or choose different expenses because that’s a problem. Have you seen people not pick a having to stop taking a paycheck because their business has suffered?

Anna:                                   35:07                    I have and sometimes it’s not even because their business has suffered. It’s, well maybe this is a different way of saying it, but it’s because they’ve made poor business decisions about what their expenses are and the number one thing I see is PPC pay per click advertising costs 100% see that over and over again where they say, well, my sales went up and I’ll say they did, but so did your advertising costs. So in the end you actually made less than if you hadn’t done the advertising in the first.

Stephen:                            35:34                    Yeah, unprofitable sales are not good, I guess if you’re trying to get established or whatever. We, we’ve done some private label and I always say they’re singles and doubles. We stocked out and isn’t an amazing, we didn’t make any money, but we stocked out. That’s not a good longterm business is it?

Anna:                                   35:49                    No, it’s not. That’s why you cannot run a business on sales. And I know that sales is a really important driver, but you know, please, please everyone. Remember, there’s so much more to it than increasing sales. You’re really running your business on your margin. What do you have left from sales after you pay for inventory? Your cost of goods sold that that’s what your operating expenses need to come from. And you can’t, you cannot say, well, if I increase my sales, my bottom line will increase telling you right now. That’s not what’s going to happen.

Stephen:                            36:22                    Um, the other thing that I would say that I see out there, um, and I know some brand owners, like, I mean, I personally friends with some brand owners who have amazing brands whose brands have been, uh, stopped for periods because of unfair practices. Well, you have no control over those unfair practices. I just read about somebody yesterday, they were talking about the legal counsel they have on staff because they have to defend their position every so often because it just keeps happening. It’s a recurring thing that if you don’t plan for that, if you don’t have a contingency for that, you will be out of business very, very quickly because they still want to get paid, don’t they? The debt people

Anna:                                   37:00                    do and you know what can I give some tough love? People gripe about this and I say, you are the one who chose to do business in this environment. That means you have a responsibility to be very real about what the constraints are. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m not saying it’s fair, but it’s really important if you’re selling on a platform, Amazon, eBay, whatever, you have to follow their rules and you may not like the rules and a lot of times they’re not fair and it’s frustrating for me to see really good clients, people, sellers not be treated fairly, but unfortunately this is the environment that we have chosen to do business in, which means you have to really, really stay on top of your numbers so you know what your risk is. And I don’t mean to be doom and gloom, but griping about it isn’t going to do any good. What does help is being prepared and being aware. And if something does happen, you say, well, you know what, at least I thought about that, I have a plan in place. Just like what you said

Stephen:                            37:53                    as the fancy CFO, I was, risk mitigation was a huge portion of our business and matter of fact, it was a declining business. So it became even more important. I mean literally, how close are you to a nuclear power plant? That was part of our inch. We were able to get a reduction on insurance. Um, honestly, I mean it was that detailed because you have to start, you know, you’re, you’re declining so you need to save money wherever. And so literally you’d get down into that risk, mitigate everything had to be mitigated. You had to plan for the worst because it was likely to happen. And, and by the way, most of those companies are a lot of business because of the industry died. But anyway, um, okay, so, and we didn’t do in gloom, everybody it, you know, again, let’s just start still on the call.

Stephen:                            38:32                    Yeah, yeah. Nobody. Here’s the thing, just go back the beginning. Please have a separate bank account. I mean it’s simple as Steve’s Amazon business, my bank will open up that account tomorrow. Steve’s Amazon business with my social security number tied to it. So it doesn’t even have to be a corporation or anything like that. That’s just a separate one. And then Amazon will deposit that money or eBay or we sell on a bunch of channels. They will all deposit it in there. And you know, yes, you get 10 99, so that’s a, I handle it to my CPA to do my taxes. I don’t do my own taxes anymore, but um, that’s easy. And then when we pay things, we pay it out of that account. That’s as simple as it gets. And it cost, I think it was like the check that the account was free, the checks, they’re getting to be a scam man.

Stephen:                            39:12                    They really rip you off on writing checks. Um, I still write checks. Yeah. I pay my rent for a warehouse by check and payroll. Um, I write payroll checks. There’s, but we do it. Oh, here’s a pro tip we pay monthly. We’re allowed to at our state. And that was what agreed upon. And that’s a pro tip to once a month payroll and it’s a good one. Um, anyway, but that’s it. And then it’s easy to reconcile. It’s all, it’s all kind of simple. That’s the starting place. Please go out there and do that. If you don’t have that, please just do it. If you need help, email me or email and we’ll, we’ll, we’ll encourage you. Um, we can, you can even have us on your cell phone as you’re walking in the bank and we can repeat you ask for this and say this is what, but seriously, just do something like, yeah, I do it to in a hot second.

Stephen:                            39:55                    And again, Steve’s Amazon account is a perfectly, uh, viable name or Steve’s eCommerce business. If you don’t want to use the word Amazon, that’s fine. Okay. That’s the place to start. Uh, the second big takeaway here is really start managing your cost of goods by really my opinion. Using a third party inventory system, like an inventory lab or a scan power on preference to skin power right now because again, I’ve measured the two and it works for me, but I’ve been using it for so long. I know diehard inventory lab people who just know it so well, they love that. So whatever you fit, do something. Um, but then also micro downed on your inventory to really, so you can make decisions on it. Put your pricing in or however the naming convention if you need help with that, reach out to some people. There’s some whole bunch of information out there in the, in the world webs, um, where you can then manage that inventory.

Stephen:                            40:44                    And then really the last thing that we talked about is debt. Managing your debt. Um, actually not the last thing. Uh, but managing your debt and get to that comfort level, which is Steve’s opinion is not much. I mean, we do use credit cards and we do carry a balance, but not a paid for balance. You know, we don’t carry interest, I guess I should say it that way. Right? So there’s that weird float or whatever, but that’s just their system. We don’t do that. Um, and paid early so you don’t ever have to dispute it. The other thing that we really spent time on is knowing financial statements. Now the reason I’m ending with that is because now I’m going to make Anna’s pitch for her cause she’s humble. She doesn’t like to, but it’s a fair, but it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s fair. And again, I would tell you, if you’re a new seller, please, this is not the right course for you.

Stephen:                            41:31                    I don’t think, my opinion, this is Steve’s opinion. If you’ve got a lot of money and you want to set up your business perfectly correctly, then spend the money because it’s worth it. But if you’re going to make it, you know, I mean I think you build into this, this my, my way of thinking, but you know, each person’s different, but you help people get their business really on QuickBooks online. I mean specifically it’s really quick books online. Correct. That’s your focus. Why, why have you chosen them? Um, cause there are other options now. There really weren’t. But why, why?

Anna:                                   42:03                    There are, there are many, there are many options and I have taught people how to use several different software solutions. But my experience is that people are easy. People learn QuickBooks online a thousand times more easily and efficiently than any of the other solutions. So it’s not my preference personally. It’s accounting, accounting. I don’t really care. But it’s what I have seen. People are able to grasp and understand and master the um, most efficiently in the least painfully.

Stephen:                            42:32                    Um, what I find, cause we use QuickBooks online too. Um, I had QuickBooks desktop. We now we use QuickBooks for our personal, believe it or not, it just hilarious. We still have it on our personal, uh, Oh we have QuickBooks. We even do. But um, I like, I like using classes and things cause we have a warehouse so we have warehouse services and things. Just different things you can get down to the level of detail. To me, that’s what I like you said, it’s so adaptable. When I think back to my world of accounting, which was 30 plus years, um, the sophisticated systems we had that now QuickBooks for, I don’t even know what it cost a month, 50 bucks a month or 100 bucks or whatever it costs. It’s so ridiculous. Oh, it’s low dollar. Oh, come on.

Anna:                                   43:11                    It’s nothing. It’s like, you know, stop it for McDonald’s, for a family. I mean, it’s nothing.

Stephen:                            43:17                    Oh my God. Now I feel embarrassed. I’m thinking it’s hundreds of dollars, but we used to pay thousands. Oh my God. That was just for updates every year and it was so complicated. Oh, that’s funny. Okay, so Anna offers a course. Um, it’s the Amazon simplified course. Is that the correct term?

Anna:                                   43:35                    Amazon accounting simplified. You can get through it multiple ways. I’ll let you get into that.

Stephen:                            43:40                    Yeah. Amazon accounting, simplified.com. Okay. So that’s how you get to her course. She runs a free group. Okay. Um, and it’s accounting. We will go correct. That’s a Facebook group and, but they want to make sure you’re real, so you have to request to get in it. Um, you don’t just let everybody in, right? I mean,

Anna:                                   43:56                    I do not, but I will tell you that I personally review each and every single request

Stephen:                            44:00                    and it’s a free group. It’s a place to answer, uh, to ask safe questions and you’ll get some answers. I mean, you’re not going to do detailed stuff. And I do see you chastising people sometimes or others chastising. I’m saying, Hey, you know that that’s just, you know, be careful of free advice you get on the internet, right. Without from a CPA because you do have to be cautious. Well, my brother in law bill said you can do this and he’s [inaudible] that’s not good places to get your advice. Right. I say almost all the time you refer to the IRS code, always see you posting

Stephen:                            44:32                    that stuff. Like you live in that, don’t you stop. It’s true. It’s true. You live in it.

Anna:                                   44:36                    I do. I know I do. But you know what I tell people, a lot of times someone will say, you need to ask a CPA. Well that’s true. But I think the group is really about research. You know, you want to be prepared and, and you know, Hey, can I expense a trip to Disney if I bring my family of five and I buy one mug to resell? Well, here’s the reason. In general that’s not true. I’m not saying that, you know, obviously that’s a no, but you know, there’s all kinds of questions people ask. And in general there’s usually a right answer, a legal answer, but it is not the place that you want. You want to not replace the CPA with it. It’s just to ask around what other people are doing. Learn best practices to run your business from an accounting perspective in those types of

Stephen:                            45:18                    intention means a lot. And when in that example, intention means a real lot, you know, I used to remember whenever he’d be like, okay, we’re at a business dinner. Okay, how’s your business? Good. Okay, good. We’re done. Now we met the requirement. Uh, I’m not sure that that’s true. I don’t think that that’s quite the, the plan for that. Okay. So, so what, what I’d like different, and you were talking about this this year versus if you had a course for a while, but what you’ve changed it, which I think is so smart, is that people come in kind of where you are, right? Not everybody can come in and be guns blazing and be an expert immediately. Correct.

Anna:                                   45:54                    It’s completely correct because a lot of people don’t even have any accounting experience and others maybe have had some accounting experience, but it’s designed for everyone to start where you are

Stephen:                            46:06                    and, and what I also like is that you can pause and rewind, you can pause and say, woo. Then you implement. That’s my advice is, you know, go through it. Okay. I think I understand it. Listen to it again. If you have to rewind it to get to that place to make sure you’re doing it correctly and then boom, implement into your business. The other thing that I would say is do not implement everything right away. It’s overwhelming.

Anna:                                   46:28                    No. [inaudible] it is overwhelming. I mean, even I wouldn’t want, if I were doing a client’s books from scratch, I would not be able to sit down and do it in one day. It’s just not possible. It’s not realistic. And you kind of get a little bit burned out. It’s like if you do a crossword puzzle, you step away and you come back and all of a sudden the pieces come together. Think of that like that.

Stephen:                            46:47                    Yeah. I think you, you get time to think things through in your head. You’re just mechanical before that. And then you get to go out and like, Oh, I, I’ve caught so many of my mistakes like hours later without even looking at anything. I’m always like, I think I did that wrong. I think for whatever reason, my brain didn’t sit right and it was like, huh. And then magically you go back and fix it. And then it’s like, wow, like the world got better. The clouds open and the sun beam down heard music. Okay. So the course is available. It’s accounting. We will go.com forward slash if you use momentum. Okay. And so, um, and I don’t want to hide anything from anybody. I always tell everybody, uh, and is a sponsor of my show. She pays me if you buy this course through my link.

Stephen:                            47:30                    Okay. But you don’t have to, if you take off the momentum, you don’t have to. But if you do, I would appreciate it. Help sponsor the podcast and I’ve asked Anna to, to give us a couple things. So first off, you’re going to get a free 30 day money back guarantee and I love where your heart is on this. Your heart is like Steve, what if they buy the course and used to be seven days and they can’t get to it because somebody gets sick, right? Or something happened. Life does your life happen in your world? Anna, I wish your does as it does in North. I know. And so, so you give them a full 30 days to evaluate it and if they, if they’re not, okay, you’ll give them the money back. I love that. The second thing that you’re going to get, um, is a recommended chart of accounts because I think this is a place where people get hung up.

Stephen:                            48:13                    What I love about your chart of accounts, how many lines is it? Do you remember? Oh gosh, probably about 25. That’s it. That’s it. That’s the most, again, when you’re managing your cost of goods, you’re managing it through a third party site, like an inventory lab or a skin power that’s, or, or like you said, Fetcher or even a spreadsheet’s fine too. That’s where you want to do the detailed work. You don’t want to do it at this high level, and so you don’t need a million accounts, subcategories and classes and all the rest of that jazz. Um, uh, but, uh, what I do love about again on QuickBooks though, is you can get more complicated cause we have a warehouse services, so we can pull a class out for that and I can actually see a profit and loss for that. So it’s pretty, pretty easy to do. Um, but you’re going to get that recommended chart of accounts. And then the other thing that you’re doing, which is very, very cool and I don’t think people, I think this is something that people would really be intimidated by, um, is you’re going to do a walkthrough of what a CPA would do with balance sheet and profit and loss and example correct

Anna:                                   49:15                    numbers, not of a specific client.

Stephen:                            49:19                    You’re not going to tell the client’s name but it’s real.

Anna:                                   49:21                    But it is, it is real. It’s real results and I’m literally gonna start from the very top of the balance sheet. Go see what the assets are, what that means. Explain each one then go down into the liability section. Talk about the difference between a short term liability, like a credit card and a long term liability, like a longer term loan. How to look at the specific numbers on the balance sheet and say if this was my balance sheet, I need to look at this versus this and I’m going to specifically show you all on the screen how to do that. And then I’m going to do the same thing with the profit and loss or the income statement. Start at the top revenue sales, you know all of those great things. Cost of good sold and [inaudible]. This is what I do with my clients, my most successful clients tell me over and over again it’s this particular exercise that I do with them that gives them the most value for my services and what’s really cool is once I show everyone how to do this, they can do it themselves, which is why I’m making this specifically and especially just for you in this detail.

Anna:                                   50:20                    It is in the course but at a very high level detail, but this walkthrough I’m doing is for you specifically Steven as a thank you for letting me do this podcast with you and I really want people, I think if they watch me in detail do this, are going to learn a lot and apply it to their own business.

Stephen:                            50:35                    I think it helps people put things in context. You’re going to be like, Oh, that’s what that is. Because a lot of it is, it’s Greek to a lot of people and I understand it. You know, it’s not like it’s easy for everyone. It’s not, but when you get the context around it, and I just think it’s so valuable, and again, you’re talking to somebody who an eCommerce seller, Anna is a seller, she sells stuff. I can’t tell you what, but it’s cool.

Anna:                                   50:57                    I can tell you it’s tablecloths and bedspreads from India. Whoo. Oh shit. And she puts pictures of it, which is very, the secret is out. Yeah. Big fan of keeping things simple. And I do this all in layman’s terms. I say, you may hear this word, but this is what it really means. Like a short term liability equals credit card. We all know what credit card is. So that’s what I think is so important about this.

Stephen:                            51:21                    Okay. So again, um, accounting, we will go, uh, dot com forward slash momentum. There’ll be a link there and you can just click through that link and that’ll get you in and they’ll get all that, all those goodies. Um, and again, she does pay me for that, so I don’t want to mislead anybody. Um, and if you’re uncomfortable with that, just go to accounting. We will go.com and you can just buy the course there if you’re interested. Um, this suggestion again is if you’re a newer seller, pause, you know, be careful before you jump into something like that cause that’s committed. Make sure you’re committed and then when you are, but please, no matter what, make sure you have your separate checking account to start or whatever account and then build into this and pause and rewind. I’m dating myself to the tape. Rewind backwards and watch it again and make sure you get it and then implement into your business and then keep it up. Keep it up.

Anna:                                   52:09                    Yes. That’s the whole thing. Follow through. And I think once you have the system in place, you’re going to find it’s really not that painful and it’s just going to become part of your monthly routine and it’s not going to be any big deal. Goodbye. Dread, goodbye. Stress.

Stephen:                            52:23                    Yeah. Yeah. You don’t worry about, Oh, it’s a key one. Oh, we’re waiting for the 10 90. I’m waiting for our 10 99. I’m excited. Like I can’t wait to get it so we can close our books. And we can start the new year. No, but we could, we have a big year plan and we have our budget ready. So it’s like, all right, I want to move past this so I can get into the next one. You know, and so I’m very excited about that. So if you would like to hear more from Anna, there’s a couple of ways. So accounting, we will go Facebook group, free group, go join. Oh I did, I forget to mention in your course you do get access to a private Facebook group where you’re allowed to ask specific questions, um, which is very cool too. So that is also included in there and I’ll have that on that landing page. Um, you get that 30 day money back guarantee. Um, you’ll get that recommended chart of accounts and then you’ll get the walkthroughs also, um, in addition. But you also have a podcast, young lady and I, the season one is over. You’re getting ready for season two. What can we expect this year?

Anna:                                   53:17                    Oh gosh. Season two. It’s so much fun. I have been doing a couple of things that I’ve done before, which is talking very high level, what you need to do. But I also go into a little bit more depth specifically related to questions that people ask me in my Facebook group all of the time. And it’s not like an FAQ kind of thing. But these questions are sort of related to what’s going on now in the business. And I think, you know, for example, the increase in advertising spend has been a hot topic lately. So I go into a lot of the current hot topics. So it’s not just a repeat of season one, but it is, you know, standard accounting information that you need for your eCommerce business plus specific discussion about what’s relevant now.

Stephen:                            53:58                    That’s why I love, uh, you know, doing seasons like that because you can ebb and flow as the eCommerce world ebbs and flows cause it’s gonna change. And guess what, Jeff Bezos is not calling you. He’s gonna change the business. It’s very cool. But it’s, again, this is from somebody who sells and she has, I don’t know, she’s had hundreds of clients. And so she’s seen the best. And I’m assuming that means you’ve probably seen some of the worst.

Anna:                                   54:22                    I can tell you what things that you really should avoid. You know what, actually, that’d be a really cool fog. That’s why don’t I do that. Not a doom and gloom, but I think it’d be really fun to do something like these are the things that if you find yourself doing these things, stop, pause and think. So I’m glad this came up.

Stephen:                            54:37                    Oh, that’s the name of the title. Stop, pause and think. I love it. I love that. So it’s the Amazon accounting podcast. That’s what it’s called, the Amazon accounting podcast. You’re everywhere. You’re on iTunes, you’re on every, you’re on every feed that I get. Um, I see your smiling face everywhere. Um, season one is out, season two is upcoming in January. Um, and you know, again, if you need help, okay, join in as a free group and you can see a lot of the questions that you have everybody else has. Most people have, I have questions. I mean, you know, you and I both went to accounting school. I still don’t understand everything or the terminology is different or the terminology used as, or what do they call that, colloquial, whatever that’s called that term. You know, where, where I don’t, I don’t know what they mean and I have to go look it up and so, uh, nobody knows it all.

Stephen:                            55:25                    Um, some think they do and I guess I’ve been accused of that from sometimes but do not. Yeah, I understand. Well, I uh, I’m very appreciative of you doing this. Um, and again, if you’re interested in, uh, more information, the Amazon accounting podcast where this is the kind of stuff that is talked about every single episode on how to run your eCommerce business and what I like, you’re open to other questions. Correct. That’s what you’re going to base on other episodes. Beautiful. Love it. Love it. Love it. Liquid. I thank you so much. I wish you nothing but success. Take care. You too. How cool was that? Um, I could talk to her. I mean that’s why I love doing it. I mean, there are a couple of people that I can just talk to like it just time flies because you know, it’s like we’re finished each other’s sentences because it’s, it’s just so common sense her approach.

Stephen:                            56:12                    And I said to her afterwards, she’s so reassuring cause you’re dealing with some pretty scary stuff sometimes and she just has that quiet confidence. That’s what I like to call it, a quiet confidence that you’re to her and she’s reassuring that Southern voice and just saying, yeah, Steve, it’ll be okay. Let’s get this done now. Buckle down, let’s get this done. And to me that’s what you’re looking for. So again, you know, please join our group. Um, accounting, we will go to free group. You can get a lot of tips. Just sit there and even if you’re just watching, you’re going to see questions that you had and it could reassure your answer or it could put doubt in your aunts what you thought was the answer, then that’s a good place to start, huh? Why are they doing it different than me? And a lot of times we have been able to reduce touchpoints or find better ways to do things because that’s the way we’ve always done it here. And so I see it in her group and I’m like, huh, I’m open to that. That’s a better idea. People are trying new things and it works. So I just think it’s just a great group. Accounting. We will go. E-commerce, momentum.com e-commerce, momentum.com take care.

Cool voice guy:                 57:12                    Thanks for listening to the e-commerce momentum podcast. All the links mentioned today can be found@incomersmomentum.com under this episode number, please remember to subscribe and like us on iTunes.

Stephen-Peterson

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