358 - Being in business requires you to be in the business of being a grown-up

Unf*ck Your Biz With Braden

On today's episode of the podcast I'm talking about how running a business is a lot like putting on our grown-up pants.

It's a difficult, but necessary topic to address. If we're going to reach our goals, both business and personal, that require us to do things we don't want to do.

Grab the Quarterly Tax chapter for free from my book, Unf*ck Your Biz at notavglaw.com/358

Quarterly taxes are a prime example of things we need to learn and have to pay, even if we don't want to. We find in working with clients that even if you are hiring us to unf*ck your biz, there are parts of your business you still need to be doing and keeping track of, whether or not you hire someone to help.

While there's no rules out there on how to be a grown up, there are rules on how to run a business. Businesses require paperwork. No matter how many people you hire, most of the mail is still going to be ending up in your inbox, meaning you need to know how to handle it - what is your responsibility and what needs to get passed on to the professionals you're hiring? If you can't afford to hire professionals yet, you need to know how to handle it.

You also need to know what professionals are going to be able to handle for you and what they aren't. For example, we had a student come to us who owed four years of back franchise taxes. They had filed on LegalZoom who isn't the best about keeping people up to date on compliance requirements. Same with filing LLCs in different states if you moved. Even if you hire someone to do this for you, no one will know you've moved unless you've proactively told them. No one is going to care more about your business than you do.

How can taking ownership over the thing you don't want to do positively impact your business and mindset? If you take ownership over your business from a legal perspective, it's going to help you know when to file the forms related to your LLC and avoid potential legal pitfalls.

If you ever have legal issues, you or your business are going to be the ones to get sued. It sounds like a harsh statement but if you or someone who works for you makes a mistake, you'll be the one to get sued, not your lawyer or whoever you relied on to file for you. Same if you have intellectual property issues. Ignorance of someone's business name or ignorance about a law is never a defense so you need to be proactive.

From a financial perspective, similar to the whole if you get sued thing, when it comes to your tax return, the ONLY person for your tax return, tax bill, penalties, fees, etc. is you. You're the only one because you signed the tax return. At a minimum, you need to know what your tax obligations are, how you owe tax, how their business income is calculated and how to read a basic tax return. You need to at least be able to skim it and know if it makes sense or not.

When it comes to hiring someone, you're the person responsible for handing over all the financial documents. We have this issues over and over again. We can't do your bookkeeping if you don't give us your bank statements. We can't read your statements if they're co-mingled between personal and business expenses.

We also need to put our grown-up pants on when it comes to knowing your numbers. You're the one who is making key decisions, like when to invest, when to save, when to do a new launch, when to hire, get a business loan, etc. These are all numbers-driven decisions. You should be able to look at your financial statements, know how much cash you have in the bank, how much revenue you have coming in, when your next big expenses are, etc. to decipher what you need to be doing in your business. Even if you have someone crunching the numbers for you, it's your responsibility to review those numbers.

If you haven't launched your business yet, ask yourself if you want to do these things or if a hobby would be a better alternative. I know these sounds scary, but I would not trade the freedom by business provides me for not having to do these things any day.

Put on your grown-up pants and download the Quarterly Tax chapter from my book, Unf*ck Your Biz at notavglaw.com/358