182: Fall In Love With Your Numbers By Starting Small with Ciara Stockeland

Andrea Liebross: Welcome to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, Andrea Liebross. Each week, I focus on the systems, strategy, and big thinking you need to CEO your business and life to the next level. Are you ready? Let's go.

Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the Time to Level Up Podcast. Today, we have a repeat guest. I think this might be the third time that we've recorded together. Ciara Stockeland is here today and she is the Inventory Genius.

She works with business owners who have inventory and helps them create profit in their businesses despite the fact that they have inventory that sometimes feels hard to manage.

I'm really just going to let us dig right into this episode. What I love about Ciara is that she and I think a lot alike in terms of profit, she comes at it from a very tactical standpoint. I come at it from, it's hopefully some tactics, definitely not as deep as she does, but also with the mindset issue. We always have really great conversations. This one is no different. So sit back, buckle up, and listen in to my conversation with Ciara.

Hey, my friends, welcome back to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I am thrilled to have back, I believe, for a third time, I think, Ciara Stockeland. We've recorded several episodes together in the past.

And I've been on her podcast. She is the Inventory Genius. I love that phrase together, the Inventory Genius. She helps business owners not just get a handle on their inventory, but get a handle on their numbers and creating some profit in their business, and she is back.

We share some clients too now, which is super fun. Here we go. Are we ready? Buckle up. We're going to have a great conversation, we always do, we don't plan it. I'm going to be honest, we don't really plan out too much, we just sort of talk, which I think makes this super fun.

Ciara Stockeland: It's like a morning show. I feel like it's like the vibe of an old-fashioned morning show on a country radio station.

Andrea Liebross: Welcome, Ciara. You're back.

Ciara Stockeland: Thanks for having me again.

Andrea Liebross: Here's what we wanted to talk about today. We wanted to talk about creating some urgency in your business. I think with entrepreneurs, there's a healthy balance between patience and urgency. I think oftentimes we fall back on the patience piece a little too much, we become passive, and we kind of slack off. Ciara, what's your take on that?

Ciara Stockeland: Yeah, what we tend to do is we get “patient” with the things we don't want to tackle, and we get urgent with the fun stuff, right?

Andrea Liebross: Right.

Ciara Stockeland: I'm going to get super urgent with, “I've got to get my social media in order and I've got to be posting every day and I have to be doing all the things or I really need to hire people,” or whatever that task is that seems a little more interesting and fun.

Then we say, “Okay, I'm not going to dial into the checking account because I just don't want to look at it. It'll fix itself. I'll just run another event. I'll have another sale.” We put that urgency off. I have been really ramping up here with anyone and everyone who will listen to me about their financial health in their business.

I would say—I wish I had a figure for this, I don’t—but a very, very high percentage of entrepreneurs have massive financial issues. Either a lot of debt, maybe they have no debt, but they have zero idea what's happening with their money. It's coming in and out so fast, like a raging river. They don't pay themselves. They're way overspending on things. They're not maximizing profitability. And if we have all of those buckets, I would say almost, not a hundred percent.

Andrea Liebross: Yes, we include all those pieces.

Ciara Stockeland: Yes, all those things. I just want entrepreneurs to know that there's no luxury, we don't have the luxury of waiting anymore. You've got to get your financial house in order.

Andrea Liebross: A hundred percent. That's true. If you include all the not paying yourself kind of things, not looking at the profit, 100%. So this is where I would get pushed back, “I just can't add anything else. I'm really just operating here on no sleep. I have 52 other things going on in my life, let alone my business. You're telling me now I have to do something right now today? I don't know if I have the bandwidth.” What would you say to that?

Ciara Stockeland: First of all, start really small and understand that the reason you don't have the bandwidth is most often tied to the financials. A lot of people will hire me because, “I have a lot of debt, Ciara,” or “All the sales are coming in, where's all my cash going?” This is one right now because it's tax season, “Oh, my goodness, I owe so much money in taxes. It says I made money last year, I have no money, what is happening to my business? Why do I owe the government a bunch of money? I don't even take a paycheck.”

Andrea Liebross: I got a call exactly like that yesterday.

Ciara Stockeland: It's the thing, yeah, “Because it's like my PnL shows that I made a big profit. I don't have $100,000 in my checking account, but I owe taxes, what's going on?”

That's the conversation that comes my direction. But when I start to dig into their business, a lot of times we don't have really good financials or we're not looking at data, but it's often tied to the other things that are actually creating the no bandwidth.

We're mismanaging people. We're just handing out raises to make people happy. We're hiring people because we think that'll fix it. We're creating a bunch of marketing, which is then creating a bunch of sales, which then creates a bunch of work for us, except we don't know the true profitability tied to those sales.

So I help people just stop, like you do, slow down for a second, let's just take a breath, and let's choose one number to fall in love with.

Andrea Liebross: Oh, I love this. That would be great to have said, one number to fall in love with.

Ciara Stockeland: Just one, yeah. And I say when you fall in love, what does that look like? Well, you want to be with that person, you want to learn everything about them, you want to understand them inside and out.

We choose one number to fall in love with, maybe that's your margin. What is margin? Who are you? Who are you, this person I'm going to fall in love with? What is margin? Where does it come from? How can I control it? What could I do to change it? We just focus on that one number.

Then as we get more comfortable, that creates confidence, and then we choose another number or something naturally comes out of that conversation or that deep dive into that number.

It's not, you suddenly, "Oh, now we're asking you to become an accountant or a bookkeeper." No, we’re not. We're just saying, "Let's choose one number. Let's focus on it and see how that number is tied to overworking bad hours, no profit, whatever it's tied to that’s creating the no bandwidth feeling in your life.”

Andrea Liebross: Okay, good. I would go back and say, “All of your feelings, you're feeling overwhelmed, out of control. How is that all tied to the margin number?”

Ciara Stockeland: Yeah.

Andrea Liebross: Okay. What have you seen happen when someone does fall in love with one number?

Ciara Stockeland: A lot of complexity is eliminated. I'm working with a client right now that has multiple locations. She's such a sweetheart. When I did my interview, and my consult call with her about joining the program, she told me all of the things and said, “I've never told anyone this stuff before, but I have never told my husband. Nobody knows the financial situation the business is in. From the outside looking in, it looks wildly successful.”

She's like, “I am so stressed out. I feel like a fraud.” She's like, “Will you take me?” I said, “Absolutely. I love messes. Let's go for it." That's what you talk about because I know what she can do if she listens. I have the belief that, “Yeah, we'll fix it.” She does it because she's never been able to get out of this on her own.

I took her on. We met together for the first day. She told me more stuff. She's like, "Are you going to fire me?" I said, “Absolutely not. No, I love it, let's go, let's fix the mess.”

What I see is when we just start to untangle everything that's going on and how it's tied to the numbers, we can lay them out in front and say, “Okay, this is what we're going to focus on first.” For her, it actually isn't her margin. We're just decluttering expenses. She's really, really heavy on the operating expense side because of all of this stuff she has going on.

But it's hard to get those things up. I've got a location that's like eating the profitability of the entire company but what will happen if I close it? What would people think if I just gave it more time? All the things.

Andrea Liebross: Maybe I need to be more patient.

Ciara Stockeland: Oh, yeah, just give it a little bit more time. And I said, “Okay, sure we can. Let's write down what it costs you every month to keep it open.” So we write that down and I said, “Okay, so let's write down what you're making there. Then let's do the math.” She's like, “Oh,” and I said, “So you can keep it open. It's just going to cost you X amount every month. If you want to pay for that, sure. Or we have the opportunity to take control of that.” It's just breaking things down and really putting it in black and white, choosing that number, for her, it's operating expenses to focus on, get really familiar with that.

What I've seen—which was what your question is—is that the mind begins to untangle itself and we get a little room to just think and breathe and vision for ourselves like, “What we truly want in our business.” Which is not three locations in different states and multiple employees and all the stress.

Andrea Liebross: Okay, so that looks like something in my brain. A lot of times I talk about having expansive thinking. When I say expansive, I mean, what if you had space? You're out in a field and you have this space. I don't mean expansive with three locations and three states because you could think, “Oh, that's expansive too.”

Ciara Stockeland: Yeah, it is, but in a different way.

Andrea Liebross: It's really coming back to giving yourself margin, literally and figuratively. Giving yourself that margin. I think when we do that, it always pays off. It never—and we were talking about this earlier—never doesn't pay off. I've never seen it not pay off.

Ciara Stockeland: I'll give you another example on a number. This also is not margin with this client. I'm working with her in a fractional CFO role. We started together in the mastermind and we just needed so much more time.

I'm like, “I need time with you, there's just a lot going on.” Now, her business, wildly successful and profitable, but she was like, “I hate it, Ciara. I am so trapped. I feel this is chaotic. People are always asking me for money.” She just needed help.

I meet with them weekly. I meet with their team. We look at financial strategies. We've built their entire budget systems. Our focus is sales. With them, they had all the sales, but they were coming from so many different products. So they only sell in one way.

They don't have multiple locations, but so many different products. They're like, “Oh, we have the opportunity to sell more of this. Should we do Facebook ads?” I said, “Okay, sure, we could market that. But let's look at your product lines.”

They have about five product lines. They're fairly simple, but within that simplicity is a lot of complexity. If we look at their product lines, one of the product lines is making up 80% of the revenue. Why would we then go to the bottom four and try to get those to create more revenue? Could we lean in and double down on the one that's already making 80% of the revenue and all of the profitability for the business and just increase the sales there?

Andrea Liebross: Yeah.

Ciara Stockeland: That's obviously your avatar, that's your sweet spot. That's the work we've been doing with them. I keep telling them, “We're just slowing everything down.” I said, “Every decision, you have to ask me.”

That's part of the CFO, “You are not allowed to spend money on anything without telling me first because I want you to slow it down.” They were just getting so fast at decision-making that it was creating chaos.

Andrea Liebross: Okay, that's just the WILD goals. So Ciara and I, just before we were recording this episode, we recorded an episode for her podcast and we talked a little bit about WILD goals, but we're going to talk more about it. Anyway, the L in WILD goals, is Let it be easy.

Ciara Stockeland: Oh, my goodness, look at us just making our way through your acronyms.

Andrea Liebross: Right, so when you said, “If you've already got 80% of your business coming from one--

Ciara Stockeland: They hold the market in this area. Why would we even try the other things?

Andrea Liebross: I don't know, interesting, isn't it? But her brain is going to, “Oh, but I gotta get better at these four little things.”

Ciara Stockeland: Yes, because if I made this amazing, couldn't I make those things amazing? Maybe.

Andrea Liebross: Yes. You totally could.

Ciara Stockeland: But that would cost you in distraction time.

Andrea Liebross: Distraction time, I love that.

Ciara Stockeland: I've been talking to my clients about that too. You have to put a number on distraction. Distraction is very expensive.

Andrea Liebross: It is expensive. Distraction time is very expensive. Time, money, and brain power, and people, those are your most valuable resources. There is an element of, “Do you want to use the resource of time on distraction time?”

Ciara Stockeland: Yeah, it's expensive.

Andrea Liebross: It is expensive. It costs you something. Okay, this is so good. The person who wants to keep adding things to their business, when does it pay off to add something?

Ciara Stockeland: I think it pays to add something when what you're doing already works really well, is very highly profitable, and you have systems, processes, and people to run it. I can't think of one client right now that's at that point.

That takes a while to get to that point. We love to jump the gun because we're entrepreneurial and founders and entrepreneurs are very like, “Opportunity, but I could do that. Oh, this is working now, I'm selling this stuff. I'm going to open another location. I'm going to add more people. I'm going to bring in another,” that comes easy for us.

Andrea Liebross: Yes.

Ciara Stockeland: But slowing down, it really has to be at a point where it's completely profitable and completely boring. It's just so rhythmic.

Andrea Liebross: Maybe you just hit on something. Maybe entrepreneurs are adding things because of the excitement factor or the interest factor. We're not doing it because it's a smart decision. We're just doing it because it's an exciting decision and it looks enticing.

Ciara Stockeland: Yeah. I think the opportunity—I know this is how I was—the opportunity was always in the top line. I could always say, “Oh, if I XYZ, and I did that times XYZ, I could make X amount more money,” which we probably could or we probably can. What we are not good at is everything underneath that.

So what I help entrepreneurs look at is like, “Yes, you could make and you probably will make another $100,000 a year doing this. But it is going to cost you all of this underneath and distraction is real and there's a cost that's real. Not only will it cost you what we put down on paper, another employee, another warehouse, all the things, it will cost you the time that you're not going to be spending on what's already working.”

That revenue might come down or that profitability might come down. Now you have two things that are semi-profitable or one that is not profitable at all, and that's what happens.

Before you add, you have to make sure that the other revenue stream is so profitable and is working so well, all of the SOPs, and all of those things are in place that it can stand alone so that you can afford the distraction of starting something else.

Andrea Liebross: Hmm, it's interesting because those distractions, the distraction of starting something else, oftentimes appear or you have that urgency feeling like, “I've got to grab that opportunity or that distraction—if we're going to call it that—right now or else I'm going to miss it.

Ciara Stockeland: Yes. Then they say, “Okay, so what would happen if you missed it?” Well.

Andrea Liebross: Nothing. Sometimes someone else might grab it.

Ciara Stockeland: What if they do?

Andrea Liebross: I'm just going to hear the things I hear. Someone else might grab it. It's the season. If I don't carry snowsuits in September and I only start carrying them in April, that's that's dumb. I'm going to miss the season. I hear that sometimes. This is a good one, “I promised so and so, that by January I would have that in the store.” And if you don't, what's going to happen?

Ciara Stockeland: Have you taken a deposit on that because, how many times have I heard, “Oh my goodness, where’s my source?” If you only carried, and then I would go carry it and like, “Oh, hello, where did you all go? Because I added an entire men's section, because you said you'd buy men's. Now you're not here.”

Andrea Liebross: Right, yeah. Our brain is really good at coming up with ways to support—this is one of my favorite things—our brain's always great at coming up with evidence to support whatever we want to think about it. Whatever we want it to support.

“Adding this in is a great idea,” so it's coming up with all of the great reasons why it's a great idea. It also could come up with evidence of why this is not a great idea. You're just not giving those two things equal airtime. Yeah. Anything that feels urgent, I would say give equal airtime to it, the possibility that it's not urgent or not something you should do.

Ciara Stockeland: I’d like to say too, I think something that I really learned, I love this age—I don't know about you, but I love it—I just feel so much more calm and seasoned in life.

Andrea Liebross: Yes, we're old by the way.

Ciara Stockeland: We’re so old but here's the nice thing, it's because I've done some things so wrong and I've paid the price for those mistakes. I would say perceived failure because I think failure is a perception, as long as you learn from it, it's not.

Andrea Liebross: There's either winning or learning, there's no failing.

Ciara Stockeland: Yeah, there's no failing, it's perceived failure, it's what you think people will think.

Andrea Liebross: Right.

Ciara Stockeland: So when I look at things that I've done wrong, the mistakes I've made, but how I've learned from them, I just love the season of life that I'm in now, when I can say, “I absolutely could do that.”

I would probably be really good at it, but I don't need to do it just because I can do it. It’s like with my coaching business, there are lots of opportunities for me to coach in all sorts of different ways, and I'd probably be great, but do I need to do it? No. Should I do it? I don't know. I mean, just because I can.

That's what I want to encourage the listeners, work on that in your mind, just slowing down and acknowledging like, “Absolutely, I'm really talented. Absolutely, I could wholesale and retail.” [inaudiblep] But just because I can, or I'm requested to, doesn't mean that I have to or I should. What does that look like?

Andrea Liebross: It's interesting, when you said this season of life, like we're seasoned, so next door, we moved into this new house, and next door, there are little teeny kids. Alyssa—she doesn't listen to this podcast—she is on the driveway all afternoon, usually with the three and the one-year-old.

They have like the cozy coupe car going in. I can see her bringing snacks out. I just go back to, “I know so much more than she does.”

Ciara Stockeland: Yes, I wish I knew some of these things.

Andrea Liebross: Yes, I wish I knew. Things that feel very urgent to her, like, “I've got to get them enrolled in soccer or else the three-year-old soccer career is going to be over,” you and I both know that's not urgent, they're going to be okay if they're not in soccer.

But it's the same feeling. So no matter what age you are, go back—I just thought about this—a great exercise is to go back 10 years and tell your 10-year-old self or 10-years-ago self, “What do you wish they knew then that they didn't know?”

That's a great way to also counteract that urgency factor. What do you wish your 10-year-old 10-years-ago self knew? Probably it's not important to go to soccer or whatever.

Ciara Stockeland: Yeah, it doesn't matter. When I sold the franchise brand to one of my franchisees and that whole thing unraveled in a way that I had never dreamed, and so I was like, "Well, that was pretty horrible. Here's what I had envisioned for my business life. Here's what actually happened. How did I get here? What do I do with this?” one of the observations I made is I ran like a chicken with my head cut off all the time, 24/7.

Emails, I would answer, because I thought, "Okay, if the customer asks, I will be the best customer service, I will answer whenever." I was always doing all the things and it didn't produce the results I wanted anyway.

Why on earth? I'm not doing it that way again. When I built the next business, the one that I sold, I thought, “I'm just going to do it differently. I'm going to work nine to five. I don't want to get up stinking early. I'm not going to answer emails till the next day, people can wait. I'm not working on Sundays, people can wait.”

Guess what? That business was profitable. In 18 months, I sold it and I think we just had that urgency that we tell ourselves we have to have or we need to do in order to succeed, a lot of times it’s either brought on by the culture, by our customers, by our team, there's like lots of facets, but the numbers help clarify those things and that's why I like to bring people back to the numbers and the data.

They think numbers are boring, not sexy, and super dry, but the numbers actually give you decision-making power, which is very sexy.

Andrea Liebross: It is. Decision-making power. As we wrap up, there are so many things we can keep talking about, but as we wrap up, is there anything you want the listeners to walk away with?

Ciara Stockeland: Yeah. I would love everyone who's listening to really know that I do not believe you are too far gone. I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs that are like, "Ciara, I'm literally in $500,000 of debt. My house is mortgaged,” whatever the story is, and they feel so far gone, “This can never be fixed.” I just don't believe that.

I've seen crazy messes fixed. I've seen so much financial freedom come to people if you're willing to put the work in, slow it down, and focus on the right work, not just busy work. I just want people to know that there's nothing that's too messy, we can fix it.

The fix might not look like you're anticipating it to look, but it can be fixed. I just want people to have that hope because it can feel very hopeless and alone when you are living it.

Andrea Liebross: I love that. Okay. All right, my friends. Are you ready for my speed round of questions, Ciara? I didn't prepare you.

Ciara Stockeland: Oh, boy, okay.

Andrea Liebross: We're going to do the speed round. This totally shifts gears. Three things in your refrigerator right now.

Ciara Stockeland: Oh, boy. Ketchup, chicken that I need to throw out, and orange juice.

Andrea Liebross: Three things in your car

Ciara Stockeland: A charger, Clorox wipes, and my sunglasses.

Andrea Liebross: I love it. Here's the most heartfelt one. How do you want to be remembered by? If someone says, “That's Ciara, she was…” What do you think? How would you finish the sentence?

Ciara Stockeland: Here comes the tears. I want people to know that I really care. I think there are a lot of people that promise entrepreneurs help, and they don't care. I really want you to win.

I know what it's like to feel alone, and to feel completely ruined, and to feel like such a fraud. The outside looking in keeps telling you how awesome you are behind the scenes you're like, "I'm a mess and I can't get out of this. I'm so stuck." I know what that feels like and I really, truly care.

If all my clients showed up to my funeral one day, I would just be so happy if they're all like, "You know what, she saw us. She cared.”

Andrea Liebross: I think that's why you and I get along so well because I would probably say a version of that same exact thing.

Ciara Stockeland: Yeah. Would you cry when you say it?

Andrea Liebross: I don't know if I’d cry.

Ciara Stockeland: I could be so weepy.

Andrea Liebross: But we care, we care about you all out there. We really do. We believe in you more than you believe in yourself.

Ciara Stockeland: Because we know the potential of where you can be. And we know that you can't see that because we know what it's like to not be able to see that for ourselves. Just wanting people to know that I don't just say you can do it, I know you can do it.

Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm, yes, that's true, we're not just saying these things, we know you can do it, that's totally true.

Ciara Stockeland: Yeah.

Andrea Liebross: On that note, I will leave you. So listeners, Ciara, where can they find you?

Ciara Stockeland: My website, ciarastockeland.com, all the things are on the site.

Andrea Liebross: All the things. Okay, and that will definitely be in the show notes. I'll also link the other episodes that we have done together. I think I'm going to put together a little Spotify playlist too, which will make it easy to just binge on Ciara and Andrea together.

If this episode will help someone else, please make sure you go share it and let them know that there's more of this on both of our podcasts, Ciara has a podcast as well, Inventory Genius, go listen to those.

My friends, if you want help, if you even just want someone on your side, reach out because we will be, both of us, will be on your side. All right, my friends, until next time, remember this is the time to level up. There is no better time than right now, but you don't have to be urgent about it. You can be urgent. You don't have to be urgent. Decide what you want to be urgent about because really right now is the time. Okay, see ya.

My friends, what did you think of that? I urge you to go check out all that Ciara offers because she really is a wealth of information to those of you who do have inventory and it's always important to manage your mind around the fact that you do have inventory.

Sometimes I hear my clients say, "Oh, I've got inventory, I'm in debt." But those are assets. You've just purchased things to help you grow your business moving forward. You couldn't operate your business if you didn't have inventory. Is it really debt?

Go explore what she has to say. She's got a book out there, she's got a podcast, and learn a little bit more about it. Until next time, remember, now is your time to think bigger and level up yourself and your business. There's been no better time. See you soon.

Hey, listening to podcasts is great. But you also have to do something to kick your business up a notch. You need to take some action, right? So go to andreaslinks.com and take the quiz. I guarantee you'll walk away knowing exactly what your next best step is to level up.