Episode 88: Financial Considerations for Consultants with Martin Holland
In this season of the Data Sleuth Podcast, join Leah Wietholter as she discusses the business of forensic accounting with successful professionals who have done just that! As part of this series, Workman Forensics and podcast guests are providing free resources and tools to accompany each episode to help you with your practice whether you’re just starting out or wanting to take it to the next level. Make sure to listen to the end of the episode to find out how to download! Lastly, during the last episode of the season, we are going to answer all of your questions - so if you have any questions about the business of forensic accounting, send them to Leah via YouTube, LinkedIn, or by emailing us at podcast@workmanforensics.com.
Today’s episode with Martin Holland is all about the importance of cash flow and profit when starting or growing a business in the field of forensic accounting. In this episode, Martin and Leah discuss:
Cash flow planning
How to determine pricing
The value of a business coach
Profit!
GUEST BIO
Martin Holland has been active in small business for 49 years. Prior to becoming a business coach in 2011, he helped start or reorganize eight small businesses. Two of them failed, he sold four of them, and still works closely with two.
A native of Norman, Ok, Martin earned a B.A. degree from Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska and a Masters in Business Administration degree from the University of Oklahoma. He has worked directly with over 500 (and counting) business owners to help them reduce stress and increase enjoyment through clarity of purpose, better family lives, more money, and more free time.
Martin works directly with clients throughout the U.S and in Canada. He was recently named the #1 business coach in Oklahoma City by Influencer Digest and recently published a book titled “The Profit Problem: They Say I Make Money, So Why Don’t I Have Any?” which shows business owners how to use financial information to make better decisions and more money.
Website: Anneal Business Coaching
LinkedIn: Martin Holland
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
To access the downloads discussed in this episode, visit: datasleuthpodcast.com
To learn more about the Investigation Game Education Edition, visit: workmanforensics.com/tig-educators
Order your copy of Leah’s book, Data Sleuth: Using Data in Forensic Accounting and Fraud Investigations today on Amazon!
CONNECT WITH WORKMAN FORENSICS
Youtube: @WorkmanForensics
Facebook: @wforensics
Twitter: @wforensics
Instagram: @wforensics
LinkedIn: @workmanforensics
Transcript
Leah Wietholter:
Hi. I'm Leah Wietholter, your CEO and founder of Workman Forensics in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And this is the Data Sleuth podcast. In this season of the Data Sleuth podcast, I'm discussing the business of forensic accounting with successful professionals who have done just that or they serve those who do. As part of this series, Workman Forensics and our guests are providing free resources and tools to accompany each episode's topic to help you with your practice, whether you're just starting out or wanting to take it to the next level. Make sure to listen to the end to find out how to download each one of these.
For the last episode of the year, Tracy Coenen and I are going to team up to answer all of your questions. So if you have any questions about the business of forensic accounting or even forensic accounting in general, send them in via YouTube, LinkedIn, or by emailing us at podcast@workmanforensics.com.
Today's episode with Martin Holland is all about cashflow, financial considerations, profitability, and even pricing, and the importance of all of these things for forensic accounting experts and consultants, and really any business. Before we get started though, let me tell you a little bit about Martin. Martin Holland has been active in small business for 49 years. Prior to becoming a business coach in 2011, he's helped start or reorganize eight small businesses. Two of them failed, he sold four of them, and still works closely with two. He's a native of Norman, Oklahoma and Martin earned a bachelor's degree from Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska, and a master's in business administration from the University of Oklahoma. He has worked directly with over 500 accounting business owners to help them reduce stress and increase enjoyment through clarity of purpose, better family lives, more money and more free time. Who doesn't want that? Martin works directly with clients throughout the US and Canada. He was recently named the number one business coach in Oklahoma City by Influencer Digest, and he recently published a book titled The Profit Problem: They Say I Make Money, So Why Don't I Have Any? Which shows business owners how to use financial information to make better decisions and more money. Hi Martin, thanks so much for joining me today on the Data Sleuth podcast and joining me for this episode.
Martin Holland:
Hi, Leah. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to it.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah. I've already introduced you to our listeners in my intro, but you were in executive management for businesses for several years, and then several years ago you started Anneal Business Coaching. What inspired you to start this business?
Martin Holland:
Well, I was in business management in a total of six different companies, and it was almost ... Let's see, it would've been 39 years, and therein lies the answer to question. We sold the companies. We sold four. Two of the six companies went broke, but sold four. Sold the last one and really did not want to do that again. Starting a business where you're raising capital, and ... That stuff's all really fun and exciting until it's not and I just didn't want to do that again. So maybe a little arrogantly, but I thought I've done a lot of stuff, maybe I could help people. So I heard about business coaching, which I hadn't heard before. I hadn't heard of it until I was looking for something. I actually bought a franchise, which came with a certification. That didn't work out for me. It's a fine organization, but it wasn't for me. But that helped me get started and off I went. And there's a little bit of difference between thinking you can help people create a highly profitable business that works without them and then actually doing it. So took a couple of years to learn how to do it and get better and better, and I hope to the point where I'm actually pretty good at it.
Leah Wietholter:
Now, remind me. I don't have this in my notes. The name of your podcast?
Martin Holland:
It's called The Cash Flow Contractor.
Leah Wietholter:
Okay. I should have said it. I had that right.
Martin Holland:
I think last Thursday was our 200th episode.
Leah Wietholter:
Oh, congratulations.
Martin Holland:
Yeah. So who would've guessed? Not I.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah. That's awesome. It's a great podcast. I had a lot of fun being a guest on it too.
Martin Holland:
Yeah. You were really great.
Leah Wietholter:
It's a great podcast. And through working with you on that podcast, a couple of conversations we've had, I know that you specialize in helping contractors. So I'm curious, why did you choose to focus on contractors and probably even before that, what is a contractor? What's your definition? What's your target market?
Martin Holland:
That's the question right there. Thank you for that. But to answer the first part of your question, my father was in manufacturing, and a lot of what I know, maybe all of what I know ultimately came from my father who was very much into financial management and efficiency and things like that. But he was a manufacturer. And then those companies that I had, two of them were manufacturers and two of them were contractors. And the reason I said it's a good question, what's a contractor, I don't really define it for myself as somebody who works on the contractual basis. I describe it as somebody who has a complex financial statements. And by that I mean typically a lot of current assets and current liabilities. And I'm not oversimplifying that, but you're not a retail store with a fixed margin and a fixed inventory.
You're doing things. You're making things, whether they're manufactured products or the results of your contract or a home builder. But you have a couple of opportunities. You have a lot of opportunities to do well, and they are, one is to raise your prices, obviously, but two is to become more efficient and control your variable costs, which is to me where almost all ... Not all. Most of the action is you can control your overhead. You can increase your prices by increasing your personability. Your offering is more than just a thing. It's a relationship with a buyer and a contracting relationship of trust, and they like your attitude and they like your presentation, and they'll pay for that too. So there's a lot to do in contracting, and it's all a lot of fun, and I think I understand it pretty well. So that enables me to talk with my clients with confidence from a place of experience.
Leah Wietholter:
Are any of your clients, whenever you're talking about contractors, are they people that have ... I'm not talking about an independent contractor. But they have a company where they provide services to somebody? So they're not necessarily manufacturing a widget.
Martin Holland:
Oh, well, now you touched on another one that's almost ... Yes. Straight up answer to that is yes, there are. If you're providing something ... Now, I'd like to see some variable costs in there or some current asset changes, which happens with accounts receivable, right?
Leah Wietholter:
Sure.
Martin Holland:
I didn't bring it up earlier, but included in that is healthcare.
Leah Wietholter:
Okay.
Martin Holland:
My wife has a 26 therapist pediatric therapy practice, and we pay the therapists on a per unit. We don't pay them a salary, we pay them per unit. So therefore we have very defined variable costs. We have a very finite margin that's hard to move. And so we operate 100% on margins and breakeven. That's what we talk about. I'm a CFO. She has a board of directors. We meet every Tuesday. They all talk margins and breakeven, and how can we get the variable cost down, which is hard. We don't have the opportunity with insurance-based payments to just go raise our prices. So we have to be efficient, have to get more units in a day without running the therapists off. It's really a lot of fun. So yes, they're service all the way to medical services.
Leah Wietholter:
This is so interesting to me because this is not the point of this podcast, but maybe we need to do another one where it's a more advanced conversation, but I am currently in that process looking at within my own business, how can I do all the things you just described. But I'm going to move ahead because we have limited time on this one.
Martin Holland:
We've jump off. Yeah, sure.
Leah Wietholter:
Okay. So whenever you get a client in your coaching business, a new client, what are some of those first things that you start looking for? And you covered several of them, I think, but ...
Martin Holland:
Well, I'll tell you really quickly, and I'll keep it short. But part of what I had to do those first years as coaching is figure out my protocol, my construct, my way of looking at something and dealing with something without having to remember everything every time. And it's this. I say that every business has four critical functions, four fundamentals. And they are leadership, they are marketing and sales, they are production, which is delivering whatever it was you sold, and they are administration. And administration for my clients is I describe as all the things they had never even heard of when they started their business. It's bookkeeping, it's finance, it's HR, it's IT, it's corporate governance, it's taxation, it's insurance, it's this BOI that we just got hit with, benefit ownership. What the hell is that? It's that stuff. And what I make a point to clients is I'm going to say nobody ... Surely somebody has somewhere.
But house builders don't go broke because they can't build a house. Pediatric practice doesn't go broke because they don't know how to be therapists. Pediatric contractors don't go broke because they don't know how to do what they're doing. They go broke for one of the other reasons. Leadership issue, conflict issue, lack of planning. They go broke because of poor marketing and sales. They go broke because they don't keep books. They don't know how to price things. They don't know what breakeven is. They don't have the right insurance. So they don't ever go broke really, because they can't do the thing that they do.
And so when I start with somebody, always what we're doing is we're cycling through those four areas. Where's the weakness? Where's the thing that if we change that, if we fix it, start doing it, stop doing it, do it better, whatever it is, we'll have the greatest impact and we work on that thing. And after we've reached a certain level of improvement ... Well, I'm always scoping. Where's something that's more important? Maybe I can build like crazy, but I can't sell. Maybe I can sell crazy, but I don't have any leads. Maybe I get leads and I sell like crazy, but I can't produce. Maybe I run out of cash. Maybe I can't hire good people. Maybe I get good people and they leave. What is it? And we're always taking one thing and working on that and then going to the next one. And it never ever stops because you can always, always get better.
Leah Wietholter:
I agree.
Martin Holland:
That's how I work with it.
Leah Wietholter:
Okay. So the focus of this podcast season for us is about the business of forensic accounting. I run into so many people who are saying ... Maybe they're in internal audit, public accounting, something, and they say, oh my gosh, I want to do what you're doing, Leah. So how do I do this? So what we're trying to break down in every episode are just the different things to consider and really breaking down what you just described. So for today's episode, I wanted to really talk about this financial component of the business. And so the next few questions I have for you, if you can tell us how you decided it in your own business or what you've seen work. Because you've worked with so many different businesses, I just think this will be a really interesting conversation. First of all, when you started your business or when you see other people starting their businesses, how do you decide what to charge?
Martin Holland:
Yeah. I read that question. You asked that question somewhere. And really the last two I've started, one helping my wife start her business in this coaching business. Her business was decided because we're reimbursed by insurance at certain rates, and you can't really do much about that. A little bit you can. On me I started with a franchise and I met a lot of people who were coaches, and I just said, oh, that's what they charge, that's what I'll charge. And honestly, that's not the way to do it because I defined myself at that time. And there are guys who do what I do and they charge tens of multiples of times what I do. And I'm going, huh, well, how did I get over here? But that's into the psychology. That's into the leadership mindset stuff of being in business. But those are maybe not the answers that I give to my clients when they come in.
My first question ... I gave you the four areas of business. I have an absolute favorite. I think you may know what it is. It's financial statements. It's knowing how to use your books. You don't have to know how to keep books. You have to know how to use them. And among the first questions when I ask contractors ... I have a series of little talks called Bidding With Intent. Say, what do you have to bid? What margins? What's your capacity to do work this month or year, but month? What do you have to make as gross profit margin to pay your bills? What do you have to make to pay your bills plus your debt service? Pay your bills plus your debt service plus some free cash flow to move forward. People don't even know what I'm talking about when I bring these things up. So they are out there winging it.
This is what I observe. And listen, I love, love, love my clients, but it's just where the world is. At least in my world. They just are winging it. What do I think it's going to take to get that job? No, no, no, no, no, no. Because if you're bidding at a loss ... Everybody knows what the contractor death spiral is. You bid a job to get it, you didn't get enough money, so you need to sell another one to get enough money to finish the last one. Pretty soon the local TV station is knocking on your door and calling you a criminal, and you're not. You're just a really bad manager. So you have to have an idea of what it takes. And for me, that is what is a breakeven? What do I have to sell to breakeven? And of course, we're not in business to breakeven. And make a reasonable profit on top of that.
And that's what you have to do. And one of the things I like about numbers and facts as much as they are facts laid out, is, no, I don't want to charge that much. Well, let me tell you what's going to happen If you don't. You're going to go broke and you're not just going to go broke by sitting on the beach with your toes in the sand drinking beer. You're going to go broke and maybe lose your house and your truck and your savings and everything else. So let's take time to figure out what you have to charge to meet your goals. And very seldom do people do that, but that's an exercise I work with everybody right away.
Leah Wietholter:
I have to go through this exercise at least once a year. I have a team. So I need to see, are we ... And I don't know. I feel like every year we end up adding a software we didn't have the year before and so I need to look at, am I still making money? Am I still hitting that profit? One thing you talk about that I thought of this story when I first started out from my dining room table, I thought, well, in public accounting, they were billing me out at $110 an hour. And this was 15, 16 years ago. And so I thought, I don't have all this overhead. I'm just going to charge $65 an hour just to get some work. I was 26 years old. I did need some people to take a chance on me.
So I said, I'm going to start out at $65 an hour, and it worked. But then I remember the first time someone didn't pay my bill and I was not getting paid on that bill. I didn't have enough margin in that $65 an hour. It was fine if I was a hundred percent collectible, but once I didn't collect, now I'm in a cash flow crunch. So then I started increasing. And I remember I went to 85. Anyway, in the expert world, finally an attorney said, I'm going to give you a raise. You need to increase your rates so that people don't laugh when you say your rates on the stand. So that got me over a certain level. But not collecting from a client because I didn't have good billing practices at the time, but not collecting from a client and only charging what I needed, created quite the problem.
Martin Holland:
Two quick comments on that. I have a little story in my book. I make the case that your price has nothing to do with your cost. Okay. Now it does because you have to charge more than your variable cost, otherwise you lose more making the sale than you do if you didn't make the sale. But I'm not trying to talk people into going low.
Leah Wietholter:
That's true.
Martin Holland:
My metaphor for that story is if I find a three carat diamond ring in the parking lot, and of course I make an effort to find the owner, but I can't.
Leah Wietholter:
Obviously.
Martin Holland:
Will I sell that for a dollar because my acquisition cost was low? Heck no. It's a three carat diamond ring. So what are you worth and how do you find that out? I'll give you a story real quickly. I've got an attorney client. There you go. I got three attorney clients. Not all contractors, but when I met him, he was coming off a corporate job. He couldn't stand it. Real smart guy. He is real smart. Really like him. 40 years old guy. Started off and he said, I got to talk to you. Something's not working here. What do you charge? $200 an hour. I said, man, you're going to 350 where I'm walking out the door. And I said, right now. Right now. And he said, well all lose all ... I said, you're going to 350 or I'm out of here. Now, his clients probably didn't want to hear me say that, but anyway, that's what I said. He called me that afternoon. And he signed up a case at $350 who walked in the door rando and wanted this matter handled. He's now at 450 and he's never ever had a client mention that. Now maybe he's lost some clients we don't know about, but never had anybody mention it. If he's going to go to 6,000, he'll probably get a lot fewer clients. But if there's any merit there, he might get one or two that come because he's 6,000
People, don't believe. But you're willing to try ... Well, your story, we're doing 65 because that's what I need. Why not try it? I don't know where the ceiling is, but why not try it? The next guy that walks in. I'm going to be $200 an hour more. That's why I'm going to tell him or her. And they walk in and laugh at you, spill a coke on your desk and walk out. You go, oh, well, that didn't work. But maybe it did and then pretty soon you're thinking $600 an hour, that's cheap.
Leah Wietholter:
Right. Right. Eventually, that's right. Yeah. All right. So I want to dive into this more, but we're going to take a quick break.
Speaker 3:
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Leah Wietholter:
Welcome back to my conversation with Martin. So Martin, I remember when I was sitting at my dining room table, I'm charging $65 an hour, It had taken me three months to get my first case, and I got a retainer check from a client. And I called my attorney because I didn't have any other mentors or anything at the time, and I just said, what do I do with this check? How long is this going to last me? Now I take a retainer as a deposit, so it goes in a completely different account. I do this totally different. But at the beginning I would work towards the retainer. So that would pay me, right?
Martin Holland:
You had a liability account out there.
Leah Wietholter:
But I would actually apply it to my current hours. And I just remember thinking, man, when I had a job four months ago, I got a paycheck every two weeks. I haven't had a paycheck. I've just been working odd jobs. Now I have an actual check for my business I've started. What do I do with this? And how long is it going to be until I get my next one? And so I'm curious if you have coached clients through this or if you remember, how do you go from collecting that first check and making some decisions to set you up for success?
Martin Holland:
Well, every smaller client has gone through that that I've worked with. Some clients I get ... I've got 250 million sales clients. They're not having issues with their bookkeeping. Actually they were, but never mind. But yeah. That answer of when's the next one coming? And the answer is, I don't know. But I tell you, to increase the probabilities you need to get out there and get after it. And I like to see that. I don't enjoy suffering, but I like to see that put on them because that's where you decide if you're suited for business or not. If you can hang in there, get that. And by the way, I just have to say this, I love small business owners. I love them. They are the source of all temporal wealth. They are. Everything else is paid by a profit, a share of their profit. Anyway, I won't go ... But I love that. But if you're suited to do it, you have to go through that.
And literally some of the ones I'm talking about, do you realize you need to have a checking account. So I didn't know really where you were going to go with that question because once what to charge and what do I do with this check? But the next question is literally what do I do with it? Do I have a checking account and is it the name of my little LLC? Am I registered with the state? Whatever it is. But yeah. I think probably most of the people who get that first check, as I think through people I've been around, it's really thrilling to them. It might be a little scary, but it's really thrilling. Somebody actually paid me and I get to keep the money. That's validation. Hey, if I did it once, maybe I can do it again.
But I will tell you this, two of my companies, we started from scratch, scratch, scratch, actually more than that. But two of them, that manufacturing went pretty good size. People look back at me in both cases. One other guy and me. A different guy each time. But me being constant. People say, how did you do it? How did you do it? We built machines that sold for $200,000 and they were welded together and assemble, and we did all that. We did the selling. How did you do it? And my honest answer is, I don't know.
Leah Wietholter:
Oh no, that's not what we want to hear Martin.
Martin Holland:
Well, the answer is you got to get up in the morning, get after it and do what you know you got to do. So that's what we did. But to say, oh, this happened and I made this chess move and that happened, and then it was check made over here and we cashed. It didn't work that way. It was like, what do we got to do today? Always had the goal in mind, always knew where we were trying to go, always knew what the next step would be if and when we could afford it. So we did those things. But literally, I spent a lot of years ... I passed up on a lot of investments I could have made as a younger man because I was convinced in these little startup companies I was doing ... My next paycheck was probably going to be my last one. In May I will have been in business for 50 years, and you want to guess how many paychecks I missed in 50 years, Leah?
Leah Wietholter:
None.
Martin Holland:
I'm going to give you a hint.
Leah Wietholter:
That's awesome.
Martin Holland:
0.0. But my attitude, I was scared and I passed some things up. So anyway, yeah. I think having that fear and that just put it in the bank and see how long it lasts and get another one is just something you got to go through.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah. I will say that one thing I started doing ... And I think from a previous conversation, we both enjoyed this book, the Profit First book.
Martin Holland:
Oh yeah.
Leah Wietholter:
I don't know how to pronounce Mike's last name.
Martin Holland:
Michalowicz.
Leah Wietholter:
There we go. Michalowicz.
Martin Holland:
We had him on our podcast. Yeah.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah. So I've done a variation of it. I don't follow it exactly, but once I started just having a couple different bank accounts that off the top, they go towards different things and Donald Miller talks about this too. And deciding what those are. For me, there's a percentage that comes out of every check that we receive that goes towards improving our data sleuth tools. So that's my reinvestment. There's a percentage that might go to taxes or a percentage that goes for profit. But just going ahead and starting that practice, even with that first check. Setting aside savings, just to start building up that savings for any downturns just to help manage that cash flow.
Martin Holland:
That's the appropriate answer. Obviously not my flippant sufferer answer.
Leah Wietholter:
No. But you're right. You still just have to get out every day. You can't stop now.
Martin Holland:
One thing, people, when they do that ... Michalowicz is very specific, and I also do ... Have been doing for a long time. I only have three accounts. I have operating, I have savings, and I have a tax account. My savings account can never go down unless I buy an asset.
Leah Wietholter:
Oh, I like that.
Martin Holland:
So that's my rule. I can't put it back into operating. So the point being that if somebody listening is inspired to do that, from your good advice and me agreeing with you, Hey, I'm going to do that. They have a real tension to go out there and go, wow, I'm going to put 50,000 in savings, then I got ... No put 500 or 100 and never bring it back. Have that check valve theory. It can go over, but it can't ever come back. Of course, if you're in dire straits, it could because you still have it. Yeah. That's a really good advice.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah. I'll adjust the percentages every year or maybe change how I'm doing something, but just starting off with even ... think in my data sleuth reinvestment, it's like 2%. I just take 2% and put it in there. But whenever we need to improve something, I have the cash to pay for it because that's a top priority for us. Well, we'll get to the resources here in a second. But what are some common symptoms that you've seen whenever a business is struggling with cashflow that just tells you immediately they are not profitable?
Martin Holland:
Well, it seemed a little circular reasoning here, but they never have any cash. They'll come in and say, man, I'm working. I had a really good year this year, but it seems like I had more money last year. This could also be indications of fraud. I have a new client starting tomorrow actually, and he walked in, he been in business 13 years and he said, I've always done really well, but this year ... He acquired a company. So it grew his sales a bunch. He said, but this year is the first time I had to go get a line of credit, put $90,000 into my business.
Leah Wietholter:
Interesting.
Martin Holland:
I said, well, I can't say with certainty because maybe he's got a bunch of receivables or bought some equipment or something, but we got to look at it and make sure first and foremost, that you're not actually losing money, meaning spending more in expenses than you're taking in as revenue. But it'll be that unease. They're twisty. They're desperate for sales. They'll come in and I got to get that sale, they'll discount, which of course is part of the death spiral. But they'll discount whatever to get the sale because they got to have the cash. So I don't know if that's helpful to say, but they come in and they're always complaining about cash and inability ... I'm falling behind on my bills. It didn't used to be this way. Seems like it is now. Almost universally. They do not have good books, so we're really having a hard time constructing something to teach them from, other than just looking at bank statements.
Or they'll have some secondary ... Not financial, but some House Pro or Jobber or some app for contractors that will keep track of their accounts receivable because they do the billing from there. But QuickBooks doesn't know anything about that, and they don't know anything about the liabilities because that's not done in ... So anyway, they're just confused. Trying to run off their memories of payables and receivables and their banking apps, and they're thrilled when the bank app has a big balance in it, but they don't realize that payroll hasn't come out yet. Anyway, just chaos. But it usually centers around literally them complaining about their inability to meet their obligations.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah. That's a really good point for ... I'm just continuously thinking back to 14 years ago when I first got ... Or 13 years ago when I first got started. It was so uncomfortable to make that call to make sure that my clients were paying their bills. But if I don't do it, I am not going to have cash. And not even that, I'm not going to be profitable at all. And it's that profit and the cash flow that keeps us going. I think it's one thing if I need to use a line of credit to maybe develop something new. That's a whole nother conversation when lines of credit can be helpful. But if I'm having to use a line of credit just because I'm not collecting, that's such an easy solution. And when you're in business for yourself and providing consulting services ... In the world of forensic accounting, you're having these conversations with clients and you know so much about their financial situation, by the way, and then they don't pay your bill it seems like now we're opposing each other, but I'm supposed to be on your same side.
So I have tried to now any follow-up on bills is coming through my executive assistant rather through me. And I did that pretty early on just to try to provide some separation. And then if they're just not paying, then I'll get involved, but at least there's some sort of separation.
Martin Holland:
Lots of things to say about that. One, I'm going to plug a lady's book. Jan Reeves, R-E-E-V-E-S, Get Paid! She's from New Zealand. It's a simple little book and it's just some policies and procedures that you put in and you just normalize it. I called you to see if you got my invoice, because I call every time to see if you got my invoice. Does it look right? Did I send it to the right department?
Leah Wietholter:
That's good.
Martin Holland:
Thanks. Hey, how's your day? How's your grand baby? Did they get over COVID? Just normal. Then there's a second thing that I use with my contractors, and you're talking about being a service provider. You're a contractor. I call it a positioning document. You can have your engagement letter, which is a contract, well, I guess it is. But you can have a positioning document. And you know from your experience, the things that you're likely to encounter where things go awry with a client.
So you put them right in this thing. Just 10 items maybe. And the first one is me. My obligations to you, I will return your call. My office will return your call within 24 hours. Boom. Non-negotiable. I'm going to do it. You go through those things. What you do, and then what I expect from you. You, you'll pay my bill within 10 days of date of receipt or understand that we will no longer work on the file until we've had payment or a reason. You put that in there day one. Everybody's feeling good and the project's going ... You turn it around and you go down each bullet point and have those conversations.
Leah Wietholter:
That's good.
Martin Holland:
You just normalize it. Heck yeah, I'm calling you. You didn't pay me, man. My baby needs a new pair of shoes. I got to get paid. And it's the freakout. And a lot of times ... Well, Jan, Reeves makes the point that, number one, the assumption that they're not paying you because they don't want to is probably not true.
Leah Wietholter:
Oh, that's good.
Martin Holland:
And a lot of times it's due to an error or an oversight that needs to be fixed on the invoice or got laid on the bottom. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I didn't know we hadn't paid that. Or they say, we don't have the cash. I say, well, can you pay half of it?
Leah Wietholter:
Right.
Martin Holland:
Right.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah, that's a really-
Martin Holland:
Can I take your card and ... And just normalize it.
Leah Wietholter:
Those discussions have definitely been helpful in the past, but I like the idea of the sheet. And in our process, if somebody's following the data sleuth process in their business, one of our steps is creating a case plan, and we're already going to talk to the client about, these are everything ... These are all the things we're going to do. But that would be a simple place to incorporate, but this is also what we expect. All right. So before we wrap up, I would like to learn a little bit more and our listeners as well, just about how a business coaching program works.
Martin Holland:
Okay. Well, that's great. Usually approached by people who just want to do better. Sometimes it's because of pain. Sometimes it's because they're working a lot of hours and maybe not you're not paid enough for that. Sometimes they want to prepare a business for sale. But whatever their motivation, they come in, they'd like somebody to work with them. I work with clients all different ways. I meet with them every week some. Some I meet with every other week, some I meet with once a month. But we always are following those four areas that I talked about earlier, cycling through those. And then we're concentrating mainly on one thing at a time. And a simple way to think about it is if you took a year and divided it into four quarters, we would take the first quarter and say, what's a skill you really need to pick up?
I need to understand financial statements. Say, okay, for this quarter we're going to empathize ... Empathize. Emphasize that, and we're going to watch YouTube videos. We're going to read books. We're going to go to webinars. There's so many resources available to us that we'll concentrate. At the end of three months you will know more than you did when you started. The next thing might be time management skills, or it might be organizational skills, or it might be something understanding how to hire and keep good people. But we're always working on one thing, trying to get better and better and better incrementally.
Leah Wietholter:
That's awesome. And to have that accountability in place. Wisdom plus accountability at the same time. I think that would be really, really valuable. So with every episode, our guests and or Workman Forensics are providing downloads available to our listeners. Can you tell us about the download that you're going to be providing?
Martin Holland:
Yeah. I have one called the Advisor and Mentor Checklist. A lot of the things that ambush people in the three areas that are not production ambush them because they knew nothing about it. I formed my LLC on a website and I'm in business in Oklahoma. How hard could it be? Well, the advisors and mentors, usually a young company can't hire these people, but CPAs, bankers, lawyers, HR experts, a good insurance agent is a fantastic-
Leah Wietholter:
That's true.
Martin Holland:
I didn't say it. CPA is ... A bookkeeper being different than a CPA in that they're the day-to-day. You need that. I just keep on going. Your peers, a marketing expert, people who can help you with sales techniques, leadership gurus, where you can go pay attention to what it takes to be a leader and learn from that. All of those things matter. So I compiled just basically a list and say, Hey, think about these people. If you don't have these people, at least in your Rolodex ... Which I guess ages me. In your smartphone, then you're not fully fleshed out and you're probably have some serious gaps.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah. That's great. I'm also going to be providing a download for this episode going back to what we were talking about of having those different bank accounts and apportioning our revenue. And this is just a cash flow worksheet, a spreadsheet that I actually got from working a receivership with a contract CFO, and I've put my own spin on it over the years, but I'm also going to be-
Martin Holland:
Send it to me too. I love it.
Leah Wietholter:
Okay. I will. I will. You can share it with others too. All right, Martin, if our listeners would like to get in touch with you, we've got your website in the show notes and stuff, but what's the best way to connect with you?
Martin Holland:
Email Martin at Martin@annealbc.com. Anneal bravo charlie.com. Fine to put my phone out there, but it's hard to get me by phone usually.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah. Same here.
Martin Holland:
Email's the best way.
Leah Wietholter:
Okay. Well, great. Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
Martin Holland:
You're welcome. Thank you. It's a blast.
Leah Wietholter:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Data Sleuth podcast. The resources discussed in today's episode are available at datasleuthpodcast.com, also available in the show notes. If you have any questions you would like answered in the Q&A episode of this season, make sure to send them to podcast@workmanforensics.com or the Workman Forensics YouTube page, or the Workman Forensics LinkedIn page. The Data Sleuth podcast is a production of Workman Forensics. Thank you for listening.
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