Practical tips to start your business out on the right foot with Dawnette Palmore

No Mercy Business Podcast with Emily A Woodruff

15-11-2022 • 18 minutes

Dawnette Palmore is the founder and owner of Your Money On Purpose Coaching where she empowers professional and entrepreneurial women who make great money but don't know where it goes to gain control of their finances without sacrificing their lifestyle so they can live a financially stress-free life. Dawnette is committed to helping women to thrive in their business and life instead of just surviving.

Through her own mistakes with money, she discovered how to keep vision focused instead of budget focused which has allowed her to get out of debt, save and invest in her future all while enjoying the things she loves.

Since 2015 Dawnette has empowered hundreds of women to create a thriving and profitable business, live their life on their terms and be at peace with their money. When she is not empowering other women, she can be found spending time with her family and friends.

https://www.instagram.com/yourmoneyonpurpose/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/yourmoneyonpurpose/

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Unknown Speaker  00:02

Well, hello, everyone. Thank you so much for being here for another week of the No Mercy business podcast. This is your host Emily Woodruff. And I am super excited to have done at Palmer with me today. Donna, why don't you go ahead and tell us about your business?

Unknown Speaker  00:17

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be on this call. And so, like you said, my name is Dawn at Palomar. And I am the owner and founder of your money on purpose coaching. And what I do is I empower women entrepreneurs and professionals, to hopefully you can edit this out, just lost my train of thought. Okay, I empower professional and entrepreneur women to gain clarity, control and confidence with their money, so they can run a thriving business, live a financially stress free life without sacrificing what is important to them. Awesome.

Unknown Speaker  01:00

So what why do you think that female entrepreneurs need a money? Coach?

Unknown Speaker  01:06

That is a great question. And something I always recommend is that we get wise counsel around us, right expecially as business owners, these are people like tax professionals, we obviously need someone to help us with the tax code, because it's forever changing and what we can we can we need an insurance broker, you know, to make sure that we're being covered properly. Coaches, so there's many coaches, we have like business coaches to make sure that we have our systems and processes in place. And, you know, thinking about any other type of coach or professional that pertains to your industry type. And then we have money coaches, and you would hire a money coach to help you become wealthy, and to continue to increase that wealth. And our businesses are our greatest source to create that wealth. Coaches also help you to talk through things, sometimes you just need to bounce things off of people and really talk through and get an unbiased opinion or view of, of whatever it is situation you're in or decision you need to make. They also hold you accountable. So those are really important aspects to have around you and thinking about a client last year, having a coach she grew her business by 97%.

Unknown Speaker  02:31

Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing.

Unknown Speaker  02:35

Right? So it really does make a difference because coaches can help you focus in on what's important, what's going to be bring growth to your business, which is what we're all trying to do.

Unknown Speaker  02:47

Yeah, no, that's great. How did you start to get involved in in this realm of work?

Unknown Speaker  02:54

So seven years ago, I started my business. And before that, I have been a small business owner myself for over, gosh, it's been 22 ish years now. Okay. You know, we can get caught up in the day to day we do get caught up in the day to day just, you know, family life, all this stuff. And we were making really great money. But we were always like, when money came in, it was great, but when it was it, you know, when we're waiting for the check to come in, we're freaking out. Yeah, cause stress it cause relationship problems, because not only are we married, but we're in business together.

Unknown Speaker  03:31

Right. Right.

Unknown Speaker  03:33

We had a double whammy Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  03:36

Why love my husband, but we can never

Unknown Speaker  03:41

it's a tough situation. It's so you know, just getting you know, one day I just got tired of it. I was like I've had enough we should be a long more in our financial life in our relationship. And so I began to do some research on what can we do I mean, I It feels so overwhelming to think about finances and all the things that we need to do in the first place. You know, we have Okay, we got to pay our bills. Well, that's a given. Kids need to go to college we need you know, birthdays and holidays and, and in a business on top of it and trying to just figure all that out. And I just felt really overwhelmed. So I found a system and process that brought me hope. And I was like, I gotta share this with people because we need to be able to see oh, I can do this step by step by step. I don't have to do everything all at once. It's great. Then I burst my company, which was I had it originally was proverbs financial coaching. And the last few months I just rebranded and now it's your money on purpose coaching.

Unknown Speaker  04:43

Great. That's really neat. So what about why don't you share about some of the bigger mistakes or like common mistakes that you see entrepreneurs making with their money?

Unknown Speaker  04:54

So one of the biggest which I know it's the biggest because I did it Is commingling our business and personal finances. That is one of the biggest things I see that happened or is happening.

Unknown Speaker  05:10

I agree 100% I have a handful of friends and clients that have just always kept their money together. And I'm like, how do you function? It doesn't make any sense to me. Like my brain just does not work that way. There's no way for me to feel like I have peace or clarity on how my business is doing. If it's intertwined with with my other finances, there's just no way.

Unknown Speaker  05:37

And that exactly, no, totally 100% What you just said, no peace or clarity.

Unknown Speaker  05:44

Yeah, like, I just I can't handle things like that. I need to know. I'm very analytical. I'm very, like, cut and dry. I don't want to have to piecemeal through things I want to know. Every second how much is my business? You know, and that's great for

Unknown Speaker  06:00

you. Yeah. Yeah, I think what happens is, you know, maybe we started it as a little side hustle, or we were just making a little bit of money. Yeah. And then it just started growing and growing. And again, especially with women we met, we wear so many hats. And we're juggling so many things at once that we just think, okay, I'll get to it later. Okay, I'll get to it later, or a fine, and we never get to it because we're trying to do all these other things. And I think that's, that's really what happens. It's not something we do intentionally.

Unknown Speaker  06:35

Totally agree. I got a little lag here. Sorry. It's raining where? The internet's not great. Where are you? I'm in Michigan. Where are you at?

Unknown Speaker  06:44

Okay, I'm in California. Okay, so it's nice. Oh, yeah. This week, it's supposed to be, you know, in our 80s. So last week, we had thunder and lightning storms.

Unknown Speaker  06:56

Well, it snowed yesterday. So Michiganders are pretty happy right now.

Unknown Speaker  07:04

A little bit early for that.

Unknown Speaker  07:06

It is we're not happy. Well, great. Um, so what about some, some practical tips that you can suggest to our listeners to get on the right foot and, you know, start things out the right way?

Unknown Speaker  07:19

Yeah, so I always say, and this is so important, even when we're starting business. And I think again, we just get caught up in starting the business, getting it going. And then life happens is really to go back to our why. And evaluate why we started our business. What we're trying to accomplish with our business, you know, did we start it for extra income? Did do we want to quit our nine to five? And, and, you know, time freedom. I mean, that's huge for us. Right? Yeah, think about that, and why we started and then focus on making a plan. That's great. Really, right? The, the secret sauce, right and in anything, right, that's where it should be starting. But it will give us more of that clarity, that confidence and that peace moving forward in our business, and even in our personal lives. And so what do we have to do? We got to start with our personal because when we're commingling these things, if we start with our personal finances, you know, getting on a plan with that being more intentional with our money, where is it going? Where we want it to go? And what is our lifestyle really costing us? And we really need to look at that. Do we need to make some changes? We need to have honest, honest conversations with ourselves. And when we do that, that we know what what our business needs to pay us, because we need to get that. Yeah, we need to be paid. Yeah. That's screaming, right. We ended up running our personal expenses through our business or vice versa. And so we think we're really not making money. So if we go back, start with our Y, get our, our personal finances in order, and then do the same thing in our business. And just ask ourselves, you know, these questions, what does it keep to keep our doors open? Right? If we brought nothing in? What does our business still have going to cost to run? Right? And, and again, that includes paying yourself right, so not just, you know, our everyday business expenses, but what is our you know, our financial responsibility to ourselves? Yeah, costing as well.

Unknown Speaker  09:35

There's a lot of people that forget that, like you leave your nine to five, you leave your traditional job. And you think that it only costs the management the, the what's the word that I'm looking for the overhead fees to run your business? Yes. Yeah. But it's, it's definitely got to include you on your payroll because Why did you leave your job in the first place because you could be more profitable somewhere else, being your own boss, your nine to five wouldn't have forgotten to pay you. You wouldn't be struggling to do this, that you would never be in the situation in your regular job. Why is it even on the table? For you in your business to not get a check?

Unknown Speaker  10:15

Exactly. And if your nine to five didn't pay, you wouldn't stay?

Unknown Speaker  10:18

Right. Right. I could talk about that for days. You know, the boundaries that people place between a traditional workplace and in the flexibility they give themselves in their own small business. That's a whole sermon.

Unknown Speaker  10:36

It truly is. And we're really doing a disservice to ourselves and to our business and to our families and our purpose. Yeah, we don't run our business like a business and become thinking, Okay, this is a business and we need to run it as so.

Unknown Speaker  10:53

Yeah. I had somebody on earlier this summer, and she said that exact thing. Well, I said, What is what is the day in the life of you as a small business owner? What does that look like? She said, Well, I run my business, like a business. And that was so profound to me. I try to run my business as a business, but just to hear it put so plainly, like that changed the way that I looked at things. And I loved it. I loved it.

Unknown Speaker  11:21

Yeah. And we forget to do that. You're right. We do. And and it really is that simple.

Unknown Speaker  11:27

Yeah, we try to overcomplicate things so much. And it's just it's not that hard. You know, I mean, there's hard things I'm not not displacing Matt. But yeah,

Unknown Speaker  11:38

yeah. You need to, you know, take a step back. And, and like you said, remember why we went into business and what we're trying to accomplish and, and that pain ourselves, you know, you hear it from all, you know, the financial gurus to pay yourself first. Yeah, that is paying yourself first. Yeah, we need to keep the door open. But we also need to keep food on the table. Yeah, we're not doing that, we're not going to be able to keep the doors open. And it's, it goes hand in hand. And that's why I always say go start back with your why. And then get your personal finances in order, so you know what your lifestyle is costing you. And then you can go move into your business and know what your business needs to keep the doors open. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  12:22

it's like the the airplane analogy, you know, that if, if you're an emergency, the oxygen back drops down, it's written on the instructions, 15 different times, put it on yourself, first, you have to take care of yourself, before you can take care of someone else. And I don't know what it is about Americans and you know, taking care of ourselves in this self hatred. I know that self love is really popular right now. But it's really because self hatred is so popular, and is so imminent. And I don't know why we lower ourselves to all these different bars that we shouldn't ever, we shouldn't ever be at, you know, we have to take care of ourselves before we can care for others. So that like statement,

Unknown Speaker  13:11

no, no. 1,000%. And I think it goes back to, you know, what does self care look like? Yeah, I mean, I've been told for so long not to be selfish, you know, putting everybody before us. And I think it's almost become natural for us to put everything before us. Yeah, before ourselves. And then we're trying to pour from an empty cup at a business on top of it. And we can't function that way any more. It's not. It's not working. And so we really have to take a step back and and reassure women that, you know, self care, putting ourselves first paying ourselves first is not selfish, right? Actually, when we don't do that we're, we're doing a disservice to the people that we love. So I think we just need to rewire and rethink the way that we have been programmed. Yeah. And it's been a slow process, but we're getting there.

Unknown Speaker  14:12

I think we're on the right path.

Unknown Speaker  14:15

We are on the right path.

Unknown Speaker  14:17

That's great. Well, what are Are there any other things that our listeners should know about you and your business? Or what's something you would want to leave them

Unknown Speaker  14:23

with? So one thing that I think is important that sets me apart, I would say two things, but one of them is that I don't offer a cookie cutter process. I really teach my clients how to do value based spending. And that's again, taking a step back what is my why what is important to me, and then creating a plan from there. Because we don't want to give up what's important to us and nor should we. And then, you know, also, I do spending plans based on yearly spending and Not monthly. So this really gives us a better picture of what life is costing us. And when what I mean by that is, you know, we think, Okay, we have these monthly bills, and that's it, then I have all this leftover, I don't have this leftover or whatever. But look at the whole picture. We spend throughout the year we spend on things like insurance, sometimes that's a monthly expense. Sometimes it's once a year or every six months. We have property taxes, business taxes, we have events, holidays, memberships, I mean licenses, and we can go on a whole rest with that. So when we take a step back and look at that picture, then we can actually plan for those things in advance. And that will give us a foundation of what we're spending throughout the year, make it come into a monthly spending. So we're setting aside, we're doing what I call a short term savings. Then we know from there what we need to make or what we have left over so that we could reach our other goals. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  16:07

That's great. That's great. Well, thank you so much for being here if you want to share where our listeners can connect with you online.

Unknown Speaker  16:16

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I always have fun. I love to make money, a fun topic. And I really want to take the taboo out of money so that we can open those conversations, but you can find me you know it all the places that Instagram LinkedIn, YouTube, it's your money on purpose. You My website is all your money on purpose.com. And you just type that in. I'll pop up.

Unknown Speaker  16:42

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. It was great to have you today.

Unknown Speaker  16:45

Yeah, you as well. Thank you so much. I had a great time. Thanks.



Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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