Episode 531: How To Build A Profitable 7-Figure Business With Ease with Octavia Conner

EBT531 – Octavia Conner

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported. 

Megan Porta  00:37

Oh, the topic of taxes and money and profits and all of that good stuff. It’s a good topic to have in your mind if you are profitable, but if your business is not profitable, it can be a really hard topic to discuss. Octavia Connor joins me in this interview she is from Say Yes to Profits. She is a financial and tax strategist who helps a lot of small business owners. I know this can be a really uncomfortable topic to talk about. But please listen to this episode is so good. So filled with gems and so much information that you are going to be able to implement in your business right now. And start seeing more profits. Octavia talks through ways that you can identify some of those financial leaks in your business and fix them. She also talks through a way of determining what your overall financial health of your business is. And pivoting based on what you find. This is one of the best conversations I’ve had about creating a profitable business. Oh, I forgot to mention that she gives us some strategies about how to save on our taxes so you’re not paying so much on your taxes every year. Tune in listen to the entire thing. I think you’re going to love it. It is episode number 531 sponsored by RankIQ. 

Sponsor  02:00

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Megan Porta  03:31

Octavia Conner stands as an esteemed financial and tax strategist, celebrated best-selling author of two books, accomplished speaker, and the visionary proprietor of not one but three successful enterprises: Say Yes To Profits, Her CEO Space, and Octavia’s Helping Hands Inc.

With notable mentions in Forbes and prominent features in Essence, Fox Five News, Portia TV, Fox Soul, ENSPIRE Magazine, Voyage ATL, Authority Magazine, Intuit, and numerous other esteemed platforms, Octavia’s unwavering mission is to eradicate small business failure and create wealthy entrepreneurs.

Recognized as one of the top 50 accountants in North America for two consecutive years, Octavia boasts a remarkable history of guiding more than 90% of her clients to achieve remarkable growth ranging from 30% to a staggering 350% within just 12 months, all while saving over 55% in business taxes.

Octavia Conner isn’t merely a financial and tax strategist; with over 20 years of accounting and finance experience, she is the go-to Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for entrepreneurs or small business owners seeking to streamline their finances and pave the way for generational wealth through their business’s success.

Megan Porta  04:47

Octavia, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. How are you doing? 

Octavia Conner  04:53

I am doing well. Megan, thank you so much for having me. 

Megan Porta  04:57

Yes, I’m very excited to chat about profits and how we can be profitable in our businesses. First, though, do you have a fun fact to share with us? A

Octavia Conner  05:07

fun fact? Well, believe it or not, I was just made a grandma.

Megan Porta  05:13

Oh, congratulations.

Octavia Conner  05:15

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I have a little baby a little while a little grand son. I’m still getting used to saying that. But I have a little grandson. 

Megan Porta  05:25

Oh, my goodness. So my, my boys are older. I mean, not older, like they’re not adults, but they’re 13 and 17. So I’m a far out of that baby stage and I just swoon over babies lately. I see them and I’m like, Oh, they’re so adorable. So I’m kind of jealous.

Octavia Conner  05:43

Yes, yes. Yes. A fuzzy fat, chubby little butterball and I just I just love him. I could just eat him up.

Megan Porta  05:53

I love it so much. Oh, great. Thank you for sharing that super exciting time in your life. Right? Okay, today, Octavio, we are going to talk about profitability. This is something that is very important, because we can really spend so much money on many different things in our businesses, there are so many different parts to throw money at. Would you mind starting by just giving us a little bit of a rundown on your business and how you got interested in profitability? And anything that you feel is relevant?

Octavia Conner  06:26

Yes, yes. Yes, absolutely. So, as you mentioned, the name of my company is Say Yes to Profits. And I started this company after climbing the corporate ladder, I was a CFO for a billion dollar pharmaceutical company. And I just kind of got to the point where I really honestly didn’t want to be there anymore. I really felt like there was more creativity in the numbers then they were utilizing at the company. And so I had helped that company grow to such a large level, I was like, I could do this for small business owners and be able to provide that customized service and more support to them. And I decided to honestly take the leap of faith and jump out there and start my business. And that’s what happened. But we went through a struggling stage where I left my corporate job. And then about 12 months later I call it my broke, busted, disgusted period where I had $152 negative in my account and a lot of things were going on. And I realized after starting over that it took more than just bookkeeping and taxes to build and scale a profitable business. And so after starting over and going back to corporate America, I came back out again for the second time, about 14 months later, as a multi six figure business and a signature system, which at the time, I didn’t know it was a signature anything. I just knew I had to do something to take my business to a profitable level. And so after I realized that work, I started using that same system, in my company with my clients. And as they say the rest is history.

Megan Porta  08:13

Oh my gosh, what a great story. I love that you saw that in your corporate job that you were helping them so immensely and that you needed to bring that to other people and small businesses and entrepreneurs. That’s so cool that you took that leap, because I’m sure that was kind of scary, right? 

Octavia Conner  08:30

Absolutely, absolutely. That was very scary. It was scary. But I was very passionate as well. And so I, you know, turn that fear into, if it’s something that is making me afraid, and I kind of live by this, if it’s something that’s making me afraid, depending on what it is I’m gonna go towards the fear instead of away from it. Because I think my next level of something is beyond that fear. But I have to face the fear to get there. So that was my same thought process. Those 11 years ago.

Megan Porta  09:02

Oh, I’m glad that you face that fear. I think that’s so true. We tend to want to run from the fear but training ourselves to go into it can provide such a such a benefit in so many ways. So you help small businesses now, do you help a lot of entrepreneurs or what kinds of small businesses do you mainly help?

Octavia Conner  09:22

Typically we work with service-based entrepreneurs that are earning multi six figures. And so a lot of times they’re earning around 250,000 plus in annual gross revenue. And so they’ve reached a point in business where their business is growing and they know how to earn the revenue. However, they are having periods where cash may be few and far between. They are not clear on their finances because maybe their system is either not there or it’s not giving them the data that they need to make strategic decisions. And then you have those that have reached a certain level, maybe multi six or multi seven figures, but they’ve experienced their first huge tax bill. And they’re like, What is going on? Why am I here? And who can who can help me? That’s where we come in. 

Megan Porta  10:15

Okay, I just experienced this and 2023. My business has grown quite a bit in the past couple of years. And I was shocked at the amount of money. Oh, my gosh, the tax thing is, is a pain point for me. So I’m really excited to chat with you today. Maybe you can help relieve some of that pain for me? It can be overwhelming. Because yes, we know we need to pay taxes, right. But when you start to grow, your tax bill also grows.

Octavia Conner 10:44

Exactly, exactly. And if you are not implementing the tax strategies for your business for you, then a lot of business owners pay more in taxes than they really should like it like it is said that on average, a small business owner overpay in taxes anywhere between $11,000 and $15,000 per tax time, and I always ask business owners, no matter what you’re earning multi six, multi seven, even multi eight figures. If you could have an extra 11 to $15,000 in your business, wouldn’t you want it to be in your business instead of paying it to the IRS if you legally and ethically don’t have to, right? 

Megan Porta  11:33

Yes. Okay, why is that? Why are we overpaying 11 to $15,000

Octavia Conner  11:38

Because a lot of times small business owners are not implementing tax strategy, right? Oftentimes, they’re waiting until tax time to think about taxes. And so they are avoiding it throughout the year. And that is the worst thing that you can do. Especially if you are a business that have crossed at a minimum, the six figure mark, you should be implementing a tax strategy at the beginning of the year. And then throughout the year, you’re checking your progress, and you’re making sure that you’re using the tax code rules and regulations to your advantage, and not waiting until the end of the year to think about taxes because honestly, by then it’s too late.

Megan Porta  12:25

What is the tax strategy entail? Is this just something where you check in with your CPA quarterly or what? Yeah, what do you mean by tax strategy?

Octavia Conner  12:34

That’s a great question. So the way that we provide tax strategy and tax planning is that when a client comes on board, we take them through this entire signature system, right? One of the modules in the system is the plan. So we look at their previous year tax returns, we project what their business will be at the end of the current year, we look at their personal tax filings, because that plays a role into it as well. And then we identify tax deductions that they can take. So for example, if they have kids, right, they can hire their kids, they can hire their kids this year, actually, and pay them up to $14,600. And take that as a tax deduction. If they work from home, they can take up to in some cases, I always have to say speak with your tax accountant, but in some cases, up to almost $15,000 in one year for the home office deduction. And so what we do, is we look at their entire financial situation, their entire financial position, and identify the exact tax strategies that will allow them to pay the smallest legal amount possible.

Megan Porta  13:52

Yeah, these are things that are not widely known. I don’t think I did recently learn about the kid deduction, which is kind of mind blowing. Right? Like, that’s, that’s a significant amount of money. So is that per kid for the 14 600? Okay. And that can be for anything the kid does to help the business or how do you define how they’re working?

Octavia Conner 14:16

So I always recommend, if you’re gonna hire your your child or your kids to do anything, give them a job you would give someone else so using myself, for example, I have four babies. My son now is 23 years old. He’s the one that just had the baby, right? So he’s 23. However, my son has been working for me since he was maybe 13, 14. Somewhere around in those numbers, maybe younger. And so what he does even now to this day, a lot of the editing when we have different events, he’s the person that does the editing and the videos and things like that. My daughter, my daughter is 20 she’s been working for me since she was about 16. And so I have hired her to do the bookkeeping for the company. This summer, she started a Tiktok for the company, and we have a lot of funny Dancing Crazy Tiktoks She directed those, she edited them, she uploaded them. So these are things I would have hired someone else to do, right, like a social media manager, a videographer, I would have hired someone else to do but because I have kids, I have them do it. And then I can take a tax deduction. And if they are below a certain age, they are not required to pay FICA, which is Social Security and Medicare taxes as well. 

Megan Porta  15:40

Oh, that’s so key. And is it? Is that below age? 18? Yes. Okay, amazing. And you framed it so well, anything you are offloading to other people outsourcing your kids can do too potentially and that that provides an array of options, because there are so many things that we outsource. So that right, there’s great, and then I was going to say, also, for me, I found I can lose out on tax benefits by just not keeping good books like my if my bookkeeping is bad in a year, than I don’t identify all of the expenses that I’ve made, and that sort of thing. So how important is bookkeeping, in your perspective? 

Octavia Conner  16:21

Oh, it is the foundation of your company, I always say you’re either going to operate on solid ground or shaky ground as a business owner. If you’re operating on shaky ground, nine times out of 10 your bookkeeping is not in order, you are not clear where you stand financially, because you are unable to pull your financial records and be back be able to identify key numbers, right? Those key numbers and being able to understand your financials and having the clarity that you need comes directly from bookkeeping.

Megan Porta  16:56

Yes. Do you have a certain place you recommend people do their bookkeeping or does it not matter? Like can you just do a Google sheet and that’s sufficient. 

Octavia Conner  16:59

So I highly recommend using an accounting system, there are several out there, I recommend using an accounting system because you want to be able to easily look back at your data if you’re maintaining it on a consistent basis. I also highly recommend that you either hire a bookkeeper or hire like a CFO firm like us, that also does the bookkeeping as well, so that you as the owner can take your time and use it to scale the business, but also have the confidence in knowing that your bookkeeping is in order and in compliance with the IRS. The worst thing that a business owner can do is you open an accounting system and they start entering the data in the accounting system. If they don’t have the experience, the knowledge and the expertise no matter how user-friendly some accounting systems, try to make their platform seem you want to have the training and support because one thing wrong. I say like this garbage in equals garbage out. So if you answer things wrong, that’s exactly the results you’re gonna get. But if you hire an expert, now you should have someone on your team that can do it for you while you grow your business. 

Megan Porta  18:25

So well said.

Sponsor  18:28

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Megan Porta  19:59

If somebody is listening, and they’re just like, I don’t know, what is my financial health? Like? Is the state of my business doomed? Or am I in good standing? How do we identify that? How do we even know where we stand? 

Octavia Conner  20:11

Oh, this is a really great question. So a couple of ways. One, do you have three to six months of operating capital saved? Right now. If you do not have three to six months of operating capital saved in your business, and I don’t know another pandemic comes or you lose your top client, how long can you survive? Right? So that’s one of the first things having at least three to six months of operating capital. The next thing someone wants to think about if you are, in particular, a service based business, and the majority of your income, or revenue comes from one client, like one client, you’re earning 50%, or, or 50%, or more of your monthly revenue from that client, you’re in a danger zone. Because if anything happens with that client, then that is going to impact your business in a large way. And it could be in a negative way, if you are a product based business, let’s say one product earns the most money in your company, right? The same way as a service-based business. That is a danger zone. So you want to diversify your revenue streams to make sure that you have more than one way that you’re earning money. Because if you’re only earning money from one avenue, that is too close to none. So those are two ways. 

Octavia Conner  21:37

Another would be previous tax history. If you’ve received a high tax bill in the past, I want you to really question why? Is this reasonable? Or am I missing something? And and I have not worked with a client in 11 years where they wasn’t missing something when they had a high tax bill, not everyone is not going to pay zero? Right? The more you are, the more the IRS expects you to pay. But you may be paying too much even steel. And so you want to look at that and look at that very closely. 

Megan Porta  22:09

Is there a certain percentage that most small businesses kind of fall within as far as what kind of taxes they pay? 

Octavia Conner  22:17

Well, there is not a certain percentage, but I highly recommend that you save at least 30% of your earnings in an account for tax purposes. But there’s not a certain percentage, right? Because you can have new business owners or business owners that’s been in business for 10, 12, 20 years, and they may be at a different revenue level. But if you save on average, at least 30%, you’re more than likely be covered either way, and then some most likely, exactly, exactly. So then you can take that money and put it back in your business because you didn’t have to pay taxes, or you can save it for the next tax time. 

Megan Porta  22:59

Okay, I’m wondering if you have any advice about those little things, those little leaky things that can kind of drain our accounts in our businesses? How do we stand against those things?

Octavia Conner  23:12

All this is one of my favorite subjects to discuss. So I recommend all businesses do what I call a profit audits. And this is where you focus on finding the profit leaks, right? And so the way that you find the profit leaves, well, first, let me take a step back. Profit leaves are those things that you may be paying for that the money is going out of your business unnecessarily, and you’re not receiving a return on your investment. Profit leaks are also ways that you’re leaving money on the table. So so it could be either way. Okay. And so the first profit leak strategy is to pull all of the ways money has left your company over the last three to six months, categorize them. And then ask yourself one question is this needed to operate my business for each lined items. So for example, just just so we can really get a visual of this, let’s say over the last three to six months, you’ve spent money on advertising, on accounting, on rent, on office supplies on meals, and so you list all of those and the amounts that you’ve spent. And then you ask yourself, Is this needed to operate my business? You can only say one of three things. Yes, it’s needed. No, it is not needed. or Yes, it’s needed, but it could be lower. So everything that could be lower, you’re gonna lower it. Everything that you say no to, you’re gonna stop spending money in that area immediately because every penny saved is a penny earned, right or every penny earned is a penny saved. So now you’re saving that so now that can go to your capital reserve. where you’re now saving three to six months. Okay, that’s one thing.

Megan Porta  25:05

So really inspecting every category, which goes back to good bookkeeping, if you’re if you don’t have good bookkeeping, you cannot inspect every category because you don’t know what’s going on. 

Octavia Conner  25:15

Exactly. Yes, yes. 

Megan Porta  25:17

Okay, so it all plays together. Do you have any other strategies for just finding those pitfalls and helping them out a little bit?

Octavia Conner  25:26

Yes, yes, yes. So another thing I would recommend, or another strategy is reviewing your pricing. A lot of business owners, their products and services are not priced for profit. Most times, they’re priced based on their competitors instead of price based on the value they bring to the table and the benefits that they offer. And so if you find yourself having to secure a client or make a sale, but before the money can really be deposited into your bank account, in your mind, you’re spending it or it’s already gone. Or you’re just feeling like no matter how much I earn, it never seems to be enough. And cash is few and far between, you may have a pricing problem that you need to revisit, and make sure your services and products are priced for profit. And the way that you do that is making sure that you have a profit margin included in your price or a significant markup if you are a product based business.

Megan Porta  26:33

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, that’s kind of next level, I feel like riot thinking through all of that the pricing and the product margins, how do you figure out what that would be the product or the margin. 

Octavia Conner  26:45

A good number to start with, if at all possible, honestly, across the board. And this is just, this is just my opinion, from, you know, my years of experience as an accountant, a good number would be around 30%. Because if your prices have included the cost to operate your business, right, you’ve already covered the cost, the direct cost, the labor costs, for example, and then you add 30%. On top of that, when you really look at this, what this means is that the money comes in, you cover all of your costs, and now you still have 30% more to save. So yeah, I always say a good number to start would be around 30%. Another thing you want to do is look at the market and see what the market can afford, but not based your price on that because the market that you are researching may only be able to afford a smaller amount. And so then you have to go back to the table and ask yourself, Do I need to find more high level clients so that I can offer the products and services at the rate in which I desire and the high level clients will be able to afford the price and the 30% markup or profit margin. Also,

Octavia Conner  26:45

good number to start with, if at all possible, honestly, across the board. And this is just, this is just my opinion, from, you know, my years of experience as an accountant, a good number would be around 30%. Because if your prices have included the cost to operate your business, right, you’ve already covered the cost, the direct cost, the labor costs, for example, and then you add 30%. On top of that, when you really look at this, what this means is that the money comes in, you cover all of your costs, and now you still have 30% more to save. So yeah, I always say a good number to start would be around 30%. Another thing you want to do is look at the market and see what the market can afford, but not based your price on that because the market that you are researching may only be able to afford a smaller amount. And so then you have to go back to the table and ask yourself, Do I need to find more high level clients so that I can offer the products and services at the rate in which I desire and the high level clients will be able to afford the price and the 30% markup or profit margin. 

Megan Porta  27:57

Also, something I learned the hard way along the lines of margins is if you are using a payment processor, that takes a percentage too. So for the first two or so years that I was using, you know, Stripe or Paypal or whatever, I was losing money because it took I think it’s like 3%. And then I realized, Oh, I probably need to raise my pricing to accommodate for that. So that’s something else to think about. 

Octavia Conner  28:24

Yes, absolutely. Those are one of the profit leaks. So when we do the profit leaks exercise with our clients, we have specific ones that we focus on first, to see if they’re using these items in their business. And if so we want to help them either eliminate them or reduce them. And that merchant fee, that is one of the top ones that we focus on first,

Megan Porta  28:48

Okay, anything else for identifying those leaks and helping them out?

Octavia Conner  28:53

I would definitely say it definitely goes back to the accounting system. Because let’s say you have your accounting system set up and it’s up to date, you can pull your profit and loss statement over the last three to six months, and then go line by line. Again, looking at everything and seeing the fluctuation of your numbers, and seeing if this fluctuation is accurate, or if you have underlying problems that you may not have realized. But you need an accounting system, a bookkeeping system that will produce accurate financials in order to do that.

Megan Porta  29:34

Well said. So you mentioned a little bit ago about this idea of like, I’m never ahead. I’m always just you know, getting by. It’s just like the money that comes in just seems to be never enough. So what do you recommend for that? Like if we want to start being profitable? Do we start saving money in a separate account? What are your thoughts about how to get started with that?

Octavia Conner  29:59

Absolutely. So I highly recommend that everyone creates a savings account, we call it different things here at Say Yes to Profits we have, our clients create an account that we call financial peace. And we have an allocated amount that they are to save in that account with each payment. So if they receive a payment on Tuesday, and their allocated amount is 20%, or 30%, when that payment comes in, they immediately transferred into their financial peace account. Others call it a profit account, it doesn’t really matter what you call the account, what matters the most is that you use it for its purpose. And so this account is for you to save money, and not touch it unless there are no other options or you’ve exhausted all possibilities. But you want to build the habit of saving, saving, saving aggressively. And then once you reach a certain amount, again, three to six months of operating capital, you want to look into investing and using compound interest accounts, to now make your money work for you.

Megan Porta  31:07

It’s such a simple concept, right? Just like save and then invest. But it really does make you exercise some intentionality, yes. Because it can be so easy to dip into that savings and just be like, well, I just need new tires for my car or whatever. But yeah, do you have advice for that just being really stringent with it? Because I do think that’s super important.

Octavia Conner  31:28

Yes, I agree with you. 100%. I think it starts with changing your money mindset. Oftentimes, entrepreneurs have to go through a process of understanding that one, it is your fiscal responsibility to build a profitable business, if you are an entrepreneur. Now that is my belief, right. That is our Savior’s belief. But I always say if you want to have an impact on the world, you have to have money to have an impact no matter what type of business that you’re in. And so that means you have to be intentional about following a profit plan, not just a business plan. But a plan that actually is going to lead you to say yes to profits and business. And honestly, that plan, not only consist of pricing your services for profit and creating a budget for your company, but it also consists of you as the owner gaining control of your money, gaining control of your finances, because when you don’t control your money, it will absolutely control you by having you do things like lower your price in the middle of a sales call, because you desperately need that next dollar. 

Megan Porta  32:40

Yeah, there’s so much piled into this. But for me, where it started really making a difference was just paying attention to exactly what I was spending and exactly what was coming in. And that got the ball rolling for me to start being really profitable, it can be really as simple as that, like you, your bookkeeping has to be a really solid place, a solid track record of what you’re spending in what you are receiving. Right, and then from there, you can start thinking about these other things like saving and investing and some of the others and tax strategies as well. And other things you’ve talked about. Anything else that we’ve missed that you really wanted to touch on before we start saying goodbye Octavia?

Octavia Conner  33:23

I would say, just making sure. So when a client come into our space, we take them through like a signature system, right. And we start with that plan, as I talked about earlier. And then also the next step is projections. A lot of business owners operate reactively instead of proactively. So it’s very important that you project the future. Today, right. And so, you may be listening to this episode right now, look next week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, seven weeks, 13 weeks from now, and identify how much money you expect to come in how much money you expect to go out each week. And then spot those weeks where cash is few and far between. And when you’re doing it in advance and you’re being proactive with it, and you spot those things. Now you’ve placed yourself in a powerful position to prevent any of the cashflow challenges and profit challenges. You’ve placed yourself in that powerful position so that those things do not occur, and you can fix them now. So I would definitely say plan, project performance, watch your key metrics, and then position your business to definitely operate from power. And in that position, you’re building wealth. So those are the things I will leave everyone with as far as thinking about their finances and their business. 

Megan Porta  34:45

Such an important topic. Thank you so much for joining me today and for bringing this to the table. We appreciate you and all of the value you shared. Thank you so much, Octavia. Do you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration to leave us with today?

Octavia Conner  34:58

Yes, I would just definitely say if you have a passion if you have a goal a desire of vision or dream, no matter what comes your way every business goes through ebbs and flows. Keep pushing keep going, until your vision, your goal your desire or your dreams become a reality and thank you so much Megan, for having me on your show. 

Megan Porta  35:19

Oh, it was an honor and pleasure. We’ll put together a show notes page for you Octavia. If anyone wants to go look at those headed to eatblog talk.com/sayyestoprofits. Tell everyone where they can find you Octavia and mentioned any freebies or anything else that you have to offer?

Octavia Conner  35:38

Yes, so everyone can find me at Octavia Connor C F O and that’s Connor with an ER on Instagram. I’m normally on there every day. I also have a video episode that I put put up each week on YouTube and so that’s at Octavia Connor as well. And then of course say yes to profits.com which is our website and for all of your wonderful listeners. I have a free gift for everyone. If you go to say yestoprofits.com/eatblogtalk there is a free financial gifts for you a financial checklist, toolkit that you can use to really take your company to the next level. So again, it’s a yestoprofits.com/eatblogtalk.

Megan Porta  36:23

Oh, awesome. I’m so glad you put that together. I hope a lot of people go check that out. Thanks again Octavia, so much for this and thank you for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

Outro  36:36

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the blog talk. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you posted it to your social media feed and stories. I will see you next time.