Hello. Welcome back to the blog. I don't know if I've told you because you can't see this, but I got a fancy new mic. Actually, it was sent to me by my great friend Eve. She wasn't using it, and I wanted an extra mic because I'm developing this content creation room in my office. But it's so good and the cool thing is, I can hold it in my hand. So I feel like a real pop star. Anything Back to the episode. So today, and I have a lot from The Diary of A to share with you.
But I think we need to talk a little bit about money. Money, money, money. And a little bit about cash flow.
Because one thing that I'm doing in my business today and constantly at the moment is checking, checking, checking my cash flow. It's something that people don't talk about as well. Accountants talk about it. Do you know how many years I've had accountants bang on at me about cash grab? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And not paying attention. And now is quite honestly something that I do every single day, at least every other week. And a lot of the time at the moment.
Let me take you back a few bits. Cash flow is kind of like the opposite of counting. It's the. Of doing a book. It's like the projection. So it's like looking forwards. So what I like to do in my business is I have a cash flow where I look at my projections and the targets that I want to hit, and then I see if I've hit them and I say if I'm sticking to it like it helps with my budgeting, helps with everything. So basically I'll be like, okay, for the month of April, for example. And my projections for this month were this, this, this what I actually spent was this, this, this. And it helps me keep on track with my finances and keep on checking my targets and make sure that I'm hitting things because the horrible thing I don't know if anyone like a few people listening will be limited, few people listening a bit more.
So try to listen to a few people. Be VAT registered. You won't. But what I experience in the past year and a half, year and a half is going back registered. Am I in LTD company? Which is where when you go back, did you have to be earning quite me on this 85,000 in one calendar year? I should have compared a long time ago, but I only just had and at that point I had an accountant who was like, Let's go for it. And I decided right from the get go with Clue that I would go for engagement registered. But my God, that bites him in the ass. It's so tricky to navigate that. And I think one of the things that's important to say when it comes to having a clue, like let me say clue is a very like it's kind of in my mind, it's equivalent of bricks and mortar.
I create a service. That service costs money and I sell that service and I have you know, premises and fixed costs and variable costs that go into creating the clothing. But within Galloway's Ltd, which has agency under it and digital products and consultancy. You don't really have any vegetable expenses. And so as soon as that kind of company hits that, my God, it's expensive because if you think about it, as soon as you go over around seven grand a month, it's like 7100 or so per month. It's going to cost you £14,000 in VAT just to operate unless you have expenses that are ratable. And there's a lot of things online a lot a lot of people listening to this will be kind of more online businesses than a lot of things. The online space that are either not registered software that's not registered in the UK or people, you know, who aren't VAT registered.
Like I love supporting small businesses, but small businesses are generally not registered, which means I'm kind of got the VAT on my shoulders instead of having the VAT, you know, being able to take of the VAT. So it genuinely does cost me a lot of money, in fact. And so as soon as that kind of happened, I was like, oh, like I need to really make sure that when it comes to Clue, I'm not making that mistake Now, handily. Clue, like I said, is a very vegetable business. Like most of the expenses have VAT in them. The things I pay for have gotten a lot of the clients that I work with. Inclu expect clue to be vat just because they also want to claim the VAT back and things, but that means that I have learned from my ways. Like I'll be honest, it is still like I'm still clawing on the you know, because you get, you get stung with VAT, you get stung with corporation tax, you get stung with self-assessment tax, you get stung with pay. Once you've got employees, like I feel like I am bleeding money to the government.
It is visceral. And so with clue like insurance companies are quite stable. Yes. It's expensive to run in terms of rocket attacks. You know HMRC from that kind of perspective. But it does what it does and so I thought I would clue myself in. I will not start on the back foot. I'll start on good foot. And it's not registered. Yeah, sure, but it's not hit the VAT threshold in a like a full calendar year. It's not like on projections by the way, like vastly like, even like I know I'm projected to, but I'm not there yet. I've got a full calendar year trading it, so I don't have to register yet. And so but it is very trusted.
But that means that every single expense that I do is really taken care of. And that's something that I'm doing all the time. It's something that you don't see on the outside. I don't really talk about it a lot. On the inside of us is reality. You only see like, especially in Clue, like you'll see the cool videoing and you'll see the cool like, you know, signing people on the fact that we're fully booked, we check you any silly books and you see all the inquiries coming in, you'll see all the fun ness.
But what you won't see is me every other week or so, sitting down and going through the expense to the fine tooth comb because of the nature of clue. It costs me people to make that service happen. So it's not just consultancy, it's not just my brain like it costs me for every person that sign out a clue and it costs me in videographer costs, it cost me and photography costs it cost me in graphic design costs, it cost me in premises, fixed costs, it costs me in producers hours, it cost me in creative directors hours, it costs me makeup, it cost me in food, it costs me in location fees, all these things like as soon as someone signs up, it cost me an editors if they've gone for the edited version, but it costs me all these payments. Assuming that person signed up right? So I need to make sure that after all of those expenses, number one, the taxes. But site number two, that I have money put aside for me. And number three, that there is profit because the company needs to grow and there's enough money in here for fixed costs or any like things that I want to do moving forwards.
Now I was about to say I'm not that maths driven. I mean let me give you a bit context. I got an I must GCSE and then I went and did Maths A-levels and I got a, I was sat next to a beautiful boy, I did not concentrate, I had a lot going on to be fair in sixth form. So it wasn't just that you know, that was when I was made homeless. So I have a lot of things going on anyway. I'm not I wouldn't say I'm naturally massively talented, and when I did Business Magic Marketing University, we did sit down and do cash is one of the modules. So I've seen it before. I'm used to it, but I never, ever understood it.
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But it is the I find it is the most useful tool and I know it's really, really boring and I know it's something that your accountants talk to you about all the time, but it really for me, it really is honestly the most useful tool because in my mind, you know, I've really got a hunter. And so CLU was set up as a separate company and I love Cliff and I'm going to go around with Blue in some arguments with CLU being the resource strain that it is and the, the time that it takes and everything, there's no point in me continuing to run if it is not profitable from the get go. You know, I have to be quite ruthless with these things and everyone should be really ruthless with these things. I think that that's the difference between when you're pushing on a hobby or pushing on building a business and it's okay, you know, to build a business that's just going to pay your wage and pay your, you know, your costs and maybe give you a little bit at the end of the day for development.
But that's not the way that I want to run CLU. And if CLU is going to continue to be worth my time, I have to be a brutal bitch with it and a brutal bitch for the finances of it. So we're in a situation at the moment where I need to hire in more people and we had a fantastic editor. He's decided to put his notice in and because he's been offered a job which is double the salary and it's close to him and he's like it's going to be a fantastic opportunity for him. So that's a kind of lovingly let go, like go do the thing kind of thing. But from my point of view, I'm now in this situation where I can rethink my costs a little bit.
And so, like I said, like I have quite high staff costs because I, I employ my people in full. What I'm doing with CLU and the amount of content we need to churn out in the quantity of time that we have, like it's three months of content, free days like it, it is a vast churn of stuff. It's much better for me to employ people than it is to work freelance because I need people who are focused solely on this company to be able to churn out and work flexibly and rightly just for the company.
So I'm in this core position now where I can reevaluate where the expenses are going and try and get creative with trying to get as much resources as possible for my money. Now this means that we're a little bit kind of bouncing around a little bit with bodies like people in the company. We also on the flip side, have lots of people that want to work for CLU, which is also really, really cool.
But again, I have to balance out my money like we are a start up company and as much as the money's flowing in, I have to be able to see CLU hit its targets and hit that cash flow that I've projected. I have to make sure that I'm keeping my costs under control, which means that as much as I would lost to pay and bring in some of like top quality, really highly experienced editors from like anywhere in the country, I have to balance also getting in people who are a little bit, you know, a bit green around the ears and training them up because this happens a lot in startup companies like especially because I'm not funded. If I was funded, then could I have the flexibility to be able to go for it with the hiring process and then claw back over time? But I don't have any funding to put into place, so I have to go the opposite way. So I have to look at it as I'm going to invest in people long term rather than investing in the experience.
Now, that's not to say I don't have experienced people in my team, but they are not the kind of like ten years plus experience in video editing type of people. They have experience and there more people who are interested in it. And I like to invest in people who are like interested in the scale, interested in the discipline, willing to learn and have great ambitions and are willing to just get stuck in with anyone who has a clue that the client who's listening. Just because people say, Well, don't worry, he's not going to the end of July. And we have a whole training process set up for other people that come in. And we also have three other editors who work for the company currently. So it's not going to affect the work of the production of the content that we do for people.
But because this is inside of us is really yes, it here. And just get honest with you, you know, share the behind the scenes of what's really going on. So in my mind, I'm sat here with this dilemma now, like, do I hire another person on the same rate as the editor who's outgoing, which is like a it's a fair wage and it's a very flexible working decision.
So we work four days a week and we also close on Easter, close in August, close at Christmas, so that my staff can enjoy a lot of time off because I like to think we work hard. But we play hard too. It doesn't affect. It's all worked out in advance. It doesn't affect the client's delivery at all. And this is the kind of thing I would be asking you if I was at a mastermind. I'm not. I was a mastermind last year. And what about and I'm not in the last line anymore. So it's kind of thing I will put out to the podcasting world. Now, do I spend that budget that I had for the head editor on another person similarly scaled to come in and do kind of like a full time role, or because we're a startup and things are moving so quickly, do I divvy that budget up and get in one person who's interested in doing an apprenticeship, who they would be full time, but an apprenticeship is, you don't pay them a full wage because you're also paying for their university or college fees. Do I do that and get someone who's totally unskilled but willing to learn and doing an apprenticeship so they're going to be upskilled in the job? And another part timer who does have experience? Well, do I go for a full time personnel?
As I said out loud, I think what I'm probably going to do is divvy up, divvy up and get a couple of people just so that I'm spreading my liabilities. Because the nature of the company is so fast paced and because I don't know, I don't want to put all my eggs into one person, you know what I mean? But that's the kind of thing that I'm going over and over again at the moment in the company. And because we're a fully booked place sitting here thinking, okay, now we're fully booked, like let's play. Like how can we get more money into the company without bringing in more clients, which is another question that people have to ask themselves when they're running businesses.
And if you're listening to this, you're in the online world and so you're probably very, very used to this. It's like leveraged income when you have assets, you have a thing and you leverage that income to make sure that you can make more income on it. So one of the things that I need to get a regular on actually, like I keep saying, is I have this office and the back room is a content creation hub, which I'm sat in right now and the front room offices, but nobody uses it.
Like I come in and use a couple members and stock image. But with such a flexible team that generally like there's not many of us, sometimes someone here or there might be one person here, but there's enough space here to accommodate So five working people and as content creation, how about the back? So I need to get a big loan on getting this rented out so that people can I can leverage the income of the asset I have and make more money in the company that will go into bringing in profit for the company, bringing in money to pay the staff, but not making increased the strain I have in my current resources like i.e. people. So at the moment I'm going around and around like that. Now, often this is where someone ask the question a couple of weeks ago in the Sunday episode like, Is it worth having two businesses? Is it stressful? This is where your head starts to get stretched.
Because I had one business being Louise Ltd, which operates as a hunter, and I had a key service in it called the agency that I've been running successfully for four years. Over and over again, I might have released odd ones on the top of that, but actually when it comes down to it, you know, there wasn't any need for proper cash flow things because it was the same money over and over again. I was getting very comfortable to it, but I'm very used to it and didn't have premises, didn't really have fixed costs, had variable costs, had staff and everything.
And the only kind of question, if I didn't have a clue, the only question I'd be asking myself would be like, okay, cool, how can we again still how we add more money into the company? That was always like my question, my question, my question. But there wasn't this kind of pressure to compete with fixed and variable costs that were happening all the time.
Now, I've added glue on the top like I said before, is a very separate legal and financially and legally it's a very separate company, so I don't run them interchangeably. I don't push money in between the two companies. Our very separate. But it means that my brain is being stretched in different ways like having to properly employ people, properly put people through pension schemes. I was brought in like a financial director into the company. Well, in like an office, I have to now really, really consult cash flow and keep on top of budgeting and all these things that you know when you stop company when I start up clue, you know, I started up clear because I saw so many incredible, incredible entrepreneurs that just deserve to be seen properly and their content is not what you sit and you think, okay, I'm going to stop any company because I am going to enjoy sitting and doing budgeting and cash flow every week.
Yay! Or I'm going to sit and have to stretch my mind and think about, okay, well, how do I maximize on the current resources I have whilst keeping costs down? It might sound very I don't know. The word is inexperienced, I guess maybe for me to be talking about this because I've known my businesses have always been well cut from the bar, I suppose, but they were like one off events.
I've never had to sit and think about these kind of things in a business. Or maybe I have had to, but just haven't because it's always been okay. Edgy of me to say, I don't know. But if you were to open up my diary at the moment, like in the inside of us is reality having a life that you would see that a lot of it is full of maths, trying to work things out in different ways, trying to decide what the best decision is, trying to decide what best decision is long term, how I can actually increase my investment in my current resources I have.
But I can really say why people get funding for businesses. It would make it a lot easier to think, you know, somebody came and dropped 50 grand and was like, Here you go play, you know, and you have to give them shares in the company that over time, you know, basically you pay that 50 grand back. I was anyway, then I wouldn't be sitting and thinking I'd have the space to be able to run the company, a market company. But the moment I feel like I'm not marketing the company effectively enough because I'm being burdened down by these decisions now, what I want to do is get these employment and resource decisions off of my mind so that from September we can run with it.
So at the time of recording this, it is early May. I can't believe it may really come with me already. So like I said, we closed as a company, both companies closed in August. It's very important to me that we do that. One of the big company sources is flexibility and respecting people's work life balance. So we are closed in August for four weeks.
So we've got May, June and July to work through in the company. Now I have a producer that's coming to start in the company in September. That's going to be fantastic because that's going to take a huge amount of work, as is my play at the moment. For me, fulfilling the producer role in Clue and the creative director role, essentially the founder, the producer, the creative director, it's it takes about 60% of my working week away from me producers role if they're not sure is someone who will liaise with client client clone tell liaise with clientele and they will put together the shoot day they will put together the timings.
Yes. So they liaise with clients, put together, shoot days, attend shoot days, attend planning days, liaise with the suppliers and the videographers and stuff, keep on top of the client communication to keep on top of the client delivery and what we also do include is we work through and manage a whole portfolio of location relationships so that we can use really cool locations for our content shoots and then we kind of nurture relationships with them while we vacation, we shoot content for them and, and that also needs to manage as well.
So the producers role is going to be all of those things. Creative directors role is looking at the client, bringing together a client brief, bringing together a client vision and making sure that that's captured and that's what's communicated in the final delivery. I'm also doing that as well, and that will continue to be me once the producer comes on board. But hopefully you can see like a lot of the kind of day to day opening of play will be taken off by the producers. So we have a producer starting in September now, that producer will be on a full time good wage because that is basically the management and the running of the company is done by the producer.
So then we've got May, June and July to get through really. And then August we take a break. So I have if I want to bring on an apprentice as well, generally because they do friendships during school years that will have to be done before September. And then I'll be able to bring on a couple of people. Then we have a break for August, like there's just a load of moving parts till September and then as of September, hopefully I'll be able to step back, balance, say our staff to budgets still have to look through the cash flow and things, but hopefully I won't have to kind of keep on top of the balances happening.
Then I can really, really, really focus on bringing more money into the company. I can't even tell you how frustrating it is to know, to actually know the actual physical ways that I can bring money into the company but not have the physical time in the day to do it. Actually, you probably do. I see, because I have these conversations with my clients all the time in my agency. So people will be like, I know what I need to do, but I'm not doing it. And I'm always like, Why don't you just do it? Like, why don't you just do the things you need to do to make money for a company? And they're always like, But I don't have the time. And I can hear myself saying that God, silly me.
Oh my God, I just need to pull my finger. How has it taken me 25 minutes of a podcast to sit and realize you just have to work at the weekend for a little while? Because to be able to bring more money into the company, basically I need to change the website round so that it's bookable, set the like. Insurance wise and legally wise. The space is already set up for full coworking content creation, hiring of the space. Oh, come on, let's do this. Okay, Still listening. 26 minutes in. You make sure that I get this done, okay? So that I stop having to feel so pressured about balancing.
Like I will still continue to balance the budget. Yes. If you're listening financially directly, yes, I will balance. But yeah, I mean, like resource wise people wise by September we should be all good. But until then, I am balancing like a month to go. And if you're doing the same thing, I feel for you. I feel for you. But try and sit and think about the ways you can bring money. How can you leverage what you're doing already? My God. I know what I need to do. I just need to do it. Okay, I'm going to sign off because I've got stuff to do. Now, if you're listening to the podcast and you feel like that's me, just know that you're not in a position. And if you also think you listen because you're like, You know what? That's fucking out there as well.
Please know that you're not alone. Get a good accountant. Also get Monzo. I have to say. Maybe I should try and get sponsored my monzo. Monzo is fantastic because what you can do if you have a business account with Monzo is it automatically strips off a percentage of your income and puts in a pot for you that you can lock and next sure away so that you don't use your tax money in your business. Cash money. It's been a bloody lifesaver. So I do that.
Well, watch this space. You'll be seeing some other things coming out that you're able to buy. And so have a lovely, lovely week. And if you're balancing shit like I am, I feel you.
If you have any further questions or want to have a chat just head over to my instagram IngeHunter, and drop me a DM.
Inge x
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