(uplifting music)
- Hi, I'm Keri Murphy, and welcome to Spotlight,
where we showcase amazing entrepreneurs and their stories.
And if you're an entrepreneur,
you're probably someone who loves what you do,
you have a big mission and purpose in the world,
but there might be an area
that you shy away from just a little bit.
And that is your numbers.
Well, not anymore.
Not after today's Spotlight interview
with CEO, business owner, number extraordinaire,
accountant Chantal Shuts.
Chantal, thank you so much for joining us today.
- Thank you.
- You know, we were just having this conversation.
How you know, if you're a woman in business
it's a preconceived notion
that you're just not good at numbers.
- Yeah. - Right?
But that's not true.
- No, it's absolutely not true.
- So when you work with women,
I know you work with men too.
What is that thing that you find so often
around the belief around numbers?
- I think what I find most often
is women have been conditioned to think
that they're not good at their numbers.
And they're really good at what they do in their business
and someone else will take care of that.
- Right.
- My husband will take care of that.
Or my son will take care of that.
Or somebody will take care of that.
- Somebody will take care of that.
- Somebody will take care of the numbers.
Yeah. - Yeah.
But a lot of times, they're not taken care of.
And that's why sadly, eight out of 10 businesses fail,
I think.
It's not because you're not good at what you do
but it's simply because you don't understand the numbers.
- Absolutely.
- And so Chantal, you actually work with business owners
on understanding the story that their numbers tell.
So tell us a little bit about
the storytelling around numbers.
- Right.
So I spent a lot of years auditing
in order to become a charter accountant,
and in that time, I started to recognize
that the stories within people's businesses
were really telling us like what had happened
and helping us forecast
what would be happening in the future.
So I, instead of thinking of them as numbers
and scary things, I started thinking of them
about like stories.
- And that's great, cause when you can understand that
then you make better decisions.
- Absolutely. - Right?
You can go out there and get the financing that you need,
the marketing decisions, the team.
But when you ignore them, or shove them under the rug,
like so many people do,
like you find yourself in a pickle.
In a really tough spot.
- Yeah.
- And so you are someone who has again,
you've been the CEO of businesses,
you own Cloud 9 Nail and Spa,
what have you learned through that time
of wearing so many hats?
By the way, the fact that you are a chartered accountant
and an entrepreneur,
you're an anomaly all in yourself
that you love numbers and you're creative.
But what has that taught you,
wearing all those hats?
- One of the most important things
I've learned in that process
is that we have to be looking at the numbers.
We have to break down that fear.
Not only the fear of looking at the numbers,
but the fear of what good numbers mean.
We're not bad people because we make money in our business.
- Right.
- In fact, that's a good thing.
- You wanna make money.
- You wanna make money.
It's almost like people think numbers are a mystery.
And they really aren't a mystery.
They are just a picture of what's already happened.
And there's so many ways that you can look at numbers
and that, for me, makes things really exciting.
- I love your excitement around numbers too.
Because I mean, you didn't always have this excitement?
- No.
- So a little birdie told me,
you didn't make it through 11th grade math the first time.
- No I didn't make it through grade 11 math the first time.
And I squeezed by the second time.
I think there was just not an expectation
as a girl and I don't like to generalize
but I just think there is an expectation
that I didn't need to be good at math.
I also believed I didn't need math in my life.
I figured that's what a calculator's for.
In that same year, I was doing terribly in English.
But my grade 11 English teacher
showed up at my house to have a meeting with my parents
to say what's going on.
My grade 11 math teacher, not so much.
- Right, so it's just like societal
that I think we say, oh women don't have to be good at math.
Right?
Or we can't be.
Which we absolutely can be good.
- Absolutely.
- And when you understand your numbers
like we talked about, it is exciting.
And you get different results.
- And it's fun.
- And it's fun.
Don't you want her on your team,
like show us the fun.
So tell us a little bit about the story
of when you and your husband,
who is also a certified accountant,
were trying to get funding.
Cause it really was about the story.
- Yeah.
- That you presented.
- Yeah, so we approached our bank to get some money.
We wanted to invest in a business.
And we got the email back that said denied.
And so my husband let me know
and I thought, who are they sayin' no to?
- Do they know who they're talking to?
- Absolutely.
Do they know who we are?
- Cause you're both like great earners at that point.
- Yeah.
We both were chartered accountants,
we had two children,
we had just bought our second home.
And we had a great financial outlook,
so you know, I said to him,
okay, here's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna print out our resumes
and we're gonna print out our five year plan,
we're gonna print out you know,
just who we are and what we're doing
and why we want this money.
And we're gonna go to the bank.
And we're gonna meet with the manager.
And we're gonna interview the people in the bank
and decide who we want to work with,
rather than letting them just shuffle us off
to whoever had some space in their calendar.
- Which is a very different approach.
That's much more empowering.
- Absolutely
- We're going to choose who's going to work with us.
- Absolutely.
And I think that was on a Monday,
and by Friday we had the money that we wanted.
- Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
And it was just by how you presented the numbers.
- Absolutely.
It was having the proper communication,
knowing the information they were looking for,
and being able to present it in a way that they understood.
- Okay, now you said something that had me a little uneasy
which was a five year plan.
(laughing)
- Oh yeah, five year plan.
- Is that something that you actually help people create?
Do you help them actually put the story together
so they can go out there
and get what they need to grow their businesses?
- Yeah, there's two seasons of thought on that right now
in terms of do you need a five year plan
and do you not?
I believe you do.
But I also think it's most important
to understand what's happening right here.
And to also understand the trends within your business.
So for us personally, the trend was that
our income was accelerating
and we had made good decisions.
- So let's show that.
- Exactly, let's show that.
But absolutely, I mean, if you own a business
and you know you wanna grow it,
you need a five year plan.
Cause you need to know where you're pointing,
where you're going.
- Right, right.
Where you're trying to get to.
- And you need to be able to look back
and look forward and compare what's happening
in both places to know that you're on track.
- Okay, Chantal, for those of us who are business owners
and someone's watching and they're saying
this sounds great, but I don't even know where to begin
when it comes to my numbers.
What are a couple good pointers you can give us.
- Right.
When I work with a lot of women entrepreneurs
one of the first things I find that is missing
is a good book keeper.
Often I hear, oh but my book keeper only charges $15
and that sounds like a good rate.
And it's my brother's cousin's best friend's
dog's sister's cousin or something like that.
Okay, that is not how we find a book keeper.
And we don't decided that a book keeper is great
because they don't cost us a lot of money.
- Right.
That's so true.
- Having an inexperienced book keeper
can end up costing you a lot more
than doing it properly the first time.
- And as someone who did auditing,
you know that probably better than most.
- I do.
And I help people hire book keepers
just for that reason.
And then the second thing I think
is you know being able to sit down
and decide what are the numbers that we need to look at.
Either daily, or weekly, or monthly,
because every business doesn't need to look
at the same numbers.
- It's really understanding what numbers are important.
- Exactly.
Understanding what's driving your business.
And on a daily basis what is important to see
that what's going on.
- So one of the things
that you are really passionate about too
when it comes to numbers is the team
that surrounds you when looking at those.
- Absolutely.
- Why is team so relevant to our numbers
and our bottom line?
- So I like to explain it this way,
numbers don't just happen into an accounting system.
So the numbers, like I said, they tell you a picture,
they paint a picture for you.
- Sure.
- That picture is made up of a variety
of different processes,
and people that are doing certain tasks
to arrive at a destination,
which is the balance sheet and profit and loss statement.
So it's important to understand
who is responsible for what rules within the company,
and what things they may or may not be doing
that may be missing you or costing you money.
Understanding their mindset.
And understanding you know,
are they bought into the culture
and the vision of the organization,
cause weak culture and weak vision
absolutely shines through in a set of financial statements.
So really getting to the heart of the business,
which is the people.
- Oh that's good.
And our chuckle was about,
she's Canadian, so it's processes,
so she's really working on her American processes.
Apples, apples, okay.
So Chantal, when someone comes to you,
what is one of the first things you do
and how do you help really increase their bottom line
when it comes to numbers?
- So the first thing I do, like I said,
is to make sure that they have a good book keeper.
And then we look at their financial statements
assuming that they have some.
If they don't, that's you know,
- You can take out that box of receipts.
- We work on helping them get there.
I don't do the book keeping myself,
but I'll help them get that done.
And looking at the trends
that exist within their organization,
whether they're a one person entity
or they've got 20 employees.
Or in some cases, I've worked with companies
that have 200 employees.
And then looking at what are other organizations
within your sector doing?
So what are some of the benchmarks?
So for example, in a service based business
you should be netting a 20% bottom line.
So every dollar that you make,
you should be keeping 20 cents of that.
After you pay all your expenses.
So we look at some of those key ratios
and we start developing the story.
- Thank you, Chantal.
I mean it's such great information.
I know you might not think numbers is sexy
and it's something you need to look at
but when you have a business
that is so important to you
and you're committed to making a difference,
and money is just a barometer of the impact
that you're having in the world.
And we don't wanna work for free, right?
We wanna be able to do good,
and be good, and have a life of freedom and substance.
So if someone wants to learn more
about how you can support their vision
and really understanding their numbers,
how do they do that?
- They can simply go to my website.
It's powerinnumbers.ca, not .com, .ca.
And they can fill out the form
to have the 30 minute free consult with me.
- And it's absolutely free?
- Absolutely free.
- And you help them understand their numbers,
and what's next?
- Well maybe not in 30 minutes,
but we definitely get started to see where they're at
and we can create a bit of a plan
to look at a go forward.
- Love it.
Well you know, one of the things
I really admire about you, Chantal,
is that you might have like skirted through 11th grade math
but you have a love for helping people
really understand numbers.
The power of numbers.
You help businesses grow, raise money,
you own companies,
and you're just so trustworthy and relatable.
And I think when it comes to numbers,
there's such a fear and a guilt
around not doing it right
that you're such a wonderful person to work with
and I'm so excited for people to get to know you better
and work with you.
So that they can really step into those numbers
and make a bigger profit
and impact and all that good stuff.
So again, go to powerinnumbers.ca.
And if you liked this interview,
and you're inspired to get those numbers under control,
please share it with someone
and post your comments,
because we love to hear from you.
Keep doing your best work in the world.
And as always, remember to keep dreaming it,
living it, and being it.
Until next time.
(uplifting music)
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