Let's pause for a moment and step away from the world of wealth building. Because Wendy Brookhouse isn't just a master of financial clarity, she's also a seasoned podcaster. Her show, The Real Bottom Line, now in its fourth season, is filled with conversations about what it really takes to succeed in business. One of the main themes of her podcast is talking about her eight pivotal drivers of business triumph. They were all very interesting. And although geared towards ambitious, growth orientated entrepreneurs, it turns out these themes are helpful for everyone. But, of course, my first question was, why eight? Not three, not five, not ten. So we talked a little bit about the fact that you have a podcast. So before we go more in-depth about money, I really wanna talk a little bit about that part of what you do. What was your motivation to start the podcast?

It was such an interesting thing that kinda fell in my lap. I had I had been going to this, session a marketing guy had been putting on, and he had morphed into doing interviews on the Fridays. And so then he decided he was gonna shut it down. He said, anyone who wants to take over can. And I thought about it, and I go, I'll take over the Fridays and interview people, and I'll make it a a podcast. My first forty episodes were live with people in the room being able to ask questions at a certain point. And then we had to shut that down because it was so hard to get really good people only at seven AM eastern on Fridays. Mhmm. You know? I am surprised at the number of people who, I must have used up a lot of social capital, Amy. Hey. You're in Toronto. Wanna get up early and come on my podcast?

Congratulations for doing it live. That is an impressive feat. I mean Mhmm. We we're recording live, but it's not it is not live. If I mess up, which happens all the time, I reask the question. I mean, that's a whole different way of approaching it, so good for you.

Yeah. Well, we yeah. So we did about we're about twenty five percent of our episodes are at that level now. So yeah.

Good for you. That's exciting.

But it's fun.

And then you just turned it more into a more traditional podcast so that you could probably, match other people's schedules because that the scheduling is the thing.

Absolutely. Yeah. I don't have a specific day or time. It's almost like, hey. Pick a time on my calendar. Let's go. And the thing that made it so easy for me to do, Amy, was that I had a a team in behind me to do all the editing, to do all the posting, to do all the things so that I was, it doesn't take up a ton of my time other than the actual interview and a few minutes after type thing.

Right. When you get to talk to people, which is so much fun. I know. That's one of my favorite parts.

Well, I I find people fascinating, and I'm all I'm so curious about, hey. Why'd you do that? How'd you do that? Tell me more. So I quite enjoyed the interview process.

And then so your podcast focuses on eight pivotal drivers of business triumph. How did you come up with eight drivers?

So it when we talked about the how do I help business owners, make a valuable company so that it can be sell, well, the the program I use for that is based on eight drivers. Right? So things like, how involved were you as an owner? Could you take three weeks off? You know, what is your marketing? Do you have a moat around it? Like, how differentiated are you in the marketplace? How is your cash flow? How are you in terms of concentration around your clients, employees, and suppliers. Right? Because those can all affect your value. So we talk about that, but I also like to talk about, what did you learn along the way? What it what what do you do that other entrepreneurs could learn from in terms of your technical expertise? All of those pieces play in. And then when we're talking about business sales and things of that nature, it's like, tell us about the process. What surprised you? What did you learn about yourself? Where how much did it cost you? You know? These are the things when you think about a business owner selling their business, the vast majority of them are gonna get one shot

at this.

Right? And depending on how much this is important for the life after work, you wanna get it right.

Oh, I like that. So do you mostly talk to people that have sold or in process of selling a business?

No. I've talked to all kinds of folks. Yeah. So that has been my focus, I'd say, about two thirds I wanna talk about, one third, two thirds. And then the rest are just like, hey, you do really cool stuff. Let's talk about that.

Of course. Of course. Now selling businesses, is that a big piece of what you do?

I help you understand the value of it, more so, and I might set you up with the right people to help you execute on that and helping understand. I use the term reverse engineering a lot. So that if we have built a financial plan and we know your business needs to the sales proceeds need to add up to this to make sure your plan works. Let's reverse engineer. And then, okay, this is what the value needs to be. Here's where it is now. How are we gonna get you there?

So then you're not connecting them with buyer potential buyers necessarily?

Not necessarily. But if I know someone, I'll hook you up. Yeah. I tell everyone my unique ability is I connect people in dots. So Oh,

I like that.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, we can help them with that side. We can also do the insurances and the investments. So it's a beautiful kind of gets you a quarterback who can understand all the, again, all the assets you're dealing with.

So let's talk a little bit more about the money side then. It's no surprise that money is one of life's biggest stressors. Why do you think that is? Is it always about not having enough, or are there other factors?

I think there's other factors. We'll go back to that mindset piece a little bit, Amy. And, also, you know, when we go into a room and I'm doing a presentation, I'll sometimes ask this question. How many of you learned about money in school? The number of times that people put up a hand is so small, so they haven't learned about it. And what they have learned if they did learn about it, it's not necessarily the parents having overt conversations. Did they argue about money? Did they ever talk about money? Did, you know, was a lot of kids raised in entrepreneurial backgrounds? They saw the seesaw of up and down money. So all of these things have taught them about money in a different way. Then we can flat factor in, oh, wow. I'm successful. I should know this. So there's some judgment on themselves there, like we talked about. And so how can we unwind that and say, you are where you are, and that is a hundred percent okay. Let's just work over time to get you to where you need to be in terms of knowledge, understanding. You know, I'll do a plan with people, and I'll go, here's what we're doing, fully explained. And then I'll say, I don't expect this to stick. Oh. You know? Parts of it will, parts of it won't. And that's okay. We will go over it every time in full until it does.

That really takes the pressure off, doesn't it? Because sometimes when you get a plan as an entrepreneur and or even anywhere else, you feel like, oh, I have to accomplish every bullet point on this plan, and what happens if I don't?

And I have to deep have a deep understanding of everything, and I and I should understand it and da da da. So, hey, give yourself some space. Right? And for those of us who are listening, who are not driving the financial bus and they're looking out the back window, part of what I say too is, listen, you don't necessarily have to take over driving the bus, but there may come a day you have to. So let's just move you up a little bit a seat every couple of time we meet. If you move up one seat, before you know it, you're behind the driver, still looking out the window, but you're ready to take over if necessary.

Well, that education piece is so important. Well, I like when you draw the emotional piece into it because money is so very emotional. You also emphasize focusing on behavior around money rather than just money itself. So why is that distinction important?

Well, I think of it as this way. One is kinda like how you were raised. The other is kinda how your brain works. So for example, I have a risk tolerance questionnaire that, brings in behavioral elements to it. So, some of the things that may affect you are, for example, loss aversion. Are you someone who is more concerned about how much you lose versus how much you gain and does that impact your decisions and what should you change? What is your future orientation? There's also anchoring, which is really about what piece of information did you see first that now anchors what you believe? Okay? So, there's a bunch of different things that can play into that, and so how can I Again, that's another tool I use to bring that awareness piece up with some suggested behavior changes? Hey, if this happens, here are some questions you may wanna ask before you make a decision.

So that's interesting, the risk tolerance. So you talked a little bit about the bus and moving up a seat. If you're at the back of the bus and you don't know anything because you weren't able to access the information, and that can happen in a variety of ways, how can you determine your risk tolerance?

Oh, well, one of the big questions I use so I found the, in the investment side of pieces, the traditional risk tolerance, is a little bit more logically based than emotionally based. But how I turned it into an emotional based question is they all that almost every risk tolerance I've seen has a question about how much long term or how much short term decline in the value could you accept. Right? Mhmm. So what I have people do in that question, when I used to ask it, I'd go, can you close your eyes for a second? And I'd go, okay, you have a hundred thousand dollars. Tell me when the squirming in your stomach gets bad. Okay? Tell me that part. Your hundred thousand is now worth ninety five thousand, ninety thousand, eighty five thousand. Right? And then they tell me the number, and that that helps me a lot because it's the it's an it's a physical visceral reaction that is probably more indicative than, oh, yeah. I could take a five percent no problem, but it's really fifteen.

Right. That's an interesting way to approach it. So we talked about behavior in our brains and what we learned from our parents. Can you and I'm assuming you can. So I guess the better question is, how can you change your perception of money?

I think about talking about it, spending more time with it, because the more you do so, for example, you know, I I wrote a I actually have a guide called the couple's guide to money.

Oh, that sounds like something everybody should read. Right.

Well, one of the things I recommend is if in couples, and you could do this yourself too, is every week, have a conversation with yourself. Hey. What did I do this week that I'm really proud of with my money? Two, what is something I could have done maybe a bit differently, and how would I approach that next time? And how am I doing versus my goals? That type of stuff. Just having those conversations because the the more time you talk about it, the less of a hold that emotional strand has on it. Right? Because what the ultimate goal is is money is a tool. Money is a tool. But because of how we were raised, how our brain works, all the pressures we have on a day to day basis, it's become emotional. Right? It's the elephant in the room that we never talk about. So how can we start talking about it? Those three questions we talked about, Amy, before, I feel are a great way to talk about money without talking about your specific situation.

And that's important because it's hard to talk about money without people feel like they don't wanna talk about their specific situation, but it would be good to talk about it.

Yeah.

And we do that with other things. We're general. There there's general understanding, so it's a good segue to talk about money without having to be specific.

Absolutely. And if you have a bunch of friends, start a start an investment club. Right? And each of you has to go research something and bring it to the table and say, here's why I like this. You start learning just through that activity. Right?

It's a great idea. I like that. That's pretty good. So far, Wendy has guided us through an idea that feels both radical and refreshingly simple. Money isn't the goal. It's the tool, a means to get to where you wanna go. I was curious, as the world drifts towards a cashless future, is cash still king? Does it make a difference if we tap our credit card or hand over a crisp twenty dollar bill to pay for something? At first glance, it doesn't seem so, but studies have shown that when we pay with a credit card, we spend twenty to twenty five percent more than if we're using cash. The physical act of handing over bills forces us to confront the weight of what we're giving up. Tap your card or your phone, and the transaction becomes almost invisible. The pain of parting with money is dulled. How can we protect ourselves from this psychological trap? When you talked about money as a tool, I'm curious what you think about, you know, we don't use a lot of physical money anymore. And sometimes people say, oh, that's that's bad. We should. Is it because it's a tool, is it necessary, or is it just a tool we have to adapt to? I mean, younger people that may not have a lot of experience with money, is that important or not important?

Yeah. I'm gonna fall in favor of the of the cash camp wherever possible. It's something else, like, if you only have twenty dollars in your bank account or you have twenty dollars in your hand, k, and you go up to Starbucks to buy that latte, and you're handing over your last twenty for two days to buy a six dollar thing. It's a visceral it's a different response than if I just tap and go. Couple other things about, some research that has been done about how our brain makes decisions about money can change depending on the methodology we use to pay. Okay? So it has been proven that if you use credit cards, you will probably may have a different way of deciding what to buy, number one. Number two, you'll probably spend twenty to twenty five percent more than if you were using cash.

I can see that.

Right. Yeah. Yes. So that's kinda why when we go back to my one number, we've kind of set that line in the sand, and that's the number you monitor over everything else. And that helps you stay in line whatever methodology you use. So we even have an app that helps with that so that people can kinda know where they are because we're not we don't care what you buy. We just care that you're in the number.

Oh, yeah. I like that.

Yeah.

So the catch is, though, many places are going cashless, so that's a problem. Right?

Oh, I know. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That was very traumatic for me, so that's why I made them made the app because I knew we had to come up with a way to help people, you know, be proactive as opposed to reactive. Right? When you hear about tracking of goals, you know, being proactive means you make the decision before you make this the spend versus, oh, I got my statement, and look where I spent my money. That's a little more reactive. Right?

You can't fix it then, or you can't make a different decision than

this day. Yeah.

Yeah. So we talked a little bit about the purse this is sort of the personal side, and you mentioned how you help businesses. So I kinda wanna talk about how those come together. So how do personal biases and generational lessons, which we've talked about, about money influence the way an entrepreneur runs their business or handles financial decisions in their company?

I I see it coming in a couple of places. First off, it may be how do you plan for growth. Right? So, you know, if you're looking at the academic models, a lot of times using debt or someone else's money can help you grow faster. If you have a very anti debt mentality, you may not make that decision. Right? So you may slow your growth. The second place I see it is in pricing because we may feel like we're using self reference criteria. We are making judgments on what the value of our stuff is by how we feel about money versus what the value is to the end client. So that may affect how you ask for money, how you follow-up on your receivables. Right? There can be a bunch of places that that can come into play.

So that's interesting. Yeah. So the our personal view of money definitely can influence our businesses, especially if we're entrepreneurs, obviously, and we are responsible for

that Absolutely.

That sort of piece of it. So when an entrepreneur is developing a new idea or product, that's the kind of the fun stage before you actually do anything. You think about it, and you dream about it, and all those things. How long can they focus on the creative process before financial considerations need to be prioritized?

Oh. Yeah. So when I get to people, most of the times, they already have the idea kind of solidified, and maybe they're already selling it. So I'll look at it from that angle for you. So what I will do when I blend these two plans together, first off, your ideal personal life costs so much money. Right? So what is the after tax money that your life needs to be run? Now we can go over to the business and go, what does your business need to do to give you that money? So that way, we can work our way up about taxes and expenses and cost of goods sold and all bunch of things, and then we can come up to your revenue line. Okay? Now we know, oh, you need to get bring this much revenue in. Now we can break it down by what products and services are you selling to do that. And in particularly on the service side, we'll look at a few things. We'll look at capacity, margin, and this one's weird, joy. Right? Because there's no sense in your mo the thing you have to sell the most is something that sucks your soul out of you. Right? So let's not do that. So let's figure out the balance of that piece. And what's fascinating is I think we overestimate how much time we have for delivery as entrepreneurs. So we have that that con that creates a container. If it's just you or you have a team or let's just look at what the owner's contribution is to those things. Right? So, oh, we sell this, and I have to put two hours of it in. Okay. Good. So that means, already, if you have all these other competing priorities for your time, we now have a cap on how many of those you can sell based on your on your capacity. Makes sense?

Yeah. It does.

And then we can also start looking at the money side. Okay. If you're gonna sell this many of those, they have to be priced at this for you to hit your targets. Is that is that gonna work?

Right. Is can the market sustain that?

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that's very that's a great way of of approaching it because it's for all the emotion and things we've talked about, it's very logical, and I I I I appreciate it. It's a good way to look at it.

Yeah. Because we are taught a lot to separate our business and our our personal, but yet we have to come in and blend them for a while before we for planning purposes, they need to be blended, and then we can pull them back apart again for tracking and everything else.

Yeah. For tracking. But, I mean, as an entrepreneur, everything's blended. I mean, you talk about how the kids see it, and that's how you know, some sometimes you don't work on Tuesday afternoon, but you work on Saturday afternoon instead. And and the money is the same. It's all the same all over the place merged together. It's very difficult to separate as an entrepreneur.

Yep.

And so when you started your company Mhmm. Was it like that where you were doing most of it, and then how did you scale?

Yeah. It's interesting. So, I've gone through periods where I've had a lot of staff, and now I'm down into a period where I don't have a ton of staff. So what I have done is, with my eye on the goal of, hey. I wanna create something that's scalable. I want something that's bigger than just me, and I wanna have a team that can do the actual technical stuff, not just the customer service and the marketing and things like that. So as I did that, I am I'm in beta right now for a new prod, a new product for lack of a better word because I haven't gone to the creative side yet we're calling it fixed fee investing okay so what was happening in the industry I'm in they call it fee for service for the investment part, a lot of them, a lot of advisors. And what that typically is is a percentage of your assets that you're paying. Right? So that can vary from it's typically one percent, sometimes as high as one point two, and if you're very, very wealthy, it's lower than one. Right? So what where my cognitive dissonance was coming in. If you had five hundred thousand dollars of money, your adviser may be getting five thousand dollars And then you have a million dollars of money, and your adviser's getting ten thousand dollars of money. And maybe they're worth ten thousand. I don't know. But I'm like, is there an incremental five thousand dollars of value? Mhmm. And that's where I was having my dissonance. So that's why I said, I'm gonna have a fixed fee package. So whether you have a business or don't have a business or you have a really complex business, I'm gonna have fixed fees in there that will be my part of helping manage your money or in the sense of, I have a portfolio manager that makes the final decisions, but I'm in the strategy side of it. I'm in the strategy of, hey, we should be putting money in your TFSA, or we should have a holdco and save in there. Like, I'm helping with that strategy piece, helping to identify how much needs to be in each bucket, and then I have a portfolio manager that's the rest. So I have my fixed fee broken out, and then I have, there's a small platform fee, and there's some embedded fees. But we're very clear about what those are. And I'll give you an example. On a million dollar portfolio I just analyzed, I'm saving that business owner. I think it's about thirteen thousand a year or something ridiculous.

Wow. That's a huge number.

Yeah. It's it's huge. Right? So that adds up real quick and may make life after or work come faster.

Yes. Well, there's that. That's right.

Right. So it all ties together, but it's about a dis here's what you get. Here's the level of service. Here's the number of meetings we're gonna have. Mhmm. And being very clear about that so that it's very transparent because I want people to get value for their money, but know what that

is. Well, your transparency is a differentiator for starters, I would say. In your industry, yes. Yeah. That's, lay people struggle with that, I think, myself included.

Well, it's true, right? Because, even though some of it has been broken out, some of it hasn't. And then to know how to actually look at your statement and go, here's how how much I'm paying and all that type of stuff. It can be hard. And then coming back to is am I getting value for that money?

Right. Exactly. So overall then, what advice would you give entrepreneurs looking to build sustainable wealth while pursuing their passions?

Well, we'll go back to that old adage. Make sure you're paying yourself first. The number of, entrepreneurs who are do not have their paycheck or their way of getting paid automated, the number of them that look at their personal bank account and go, I need to pay myself something and move it over. You know what I mean? Like, so systematize that part, but also know what do you need to be saving and where to ensure that you're gonna get to the finish line someday or having a good end game. And you don't have to work to your ninety unless you want to.

Right. Of course. Second career or whatever you like. Yeah. But I always hear pay yourself first. I'm curious. Does that always mean a physical paycheck or can that be in other ways?

It can be in other ways. What I'm when I say pay yourself first, so that means, just make sure you are getting a regular, reliable form of compensation from your business. I, you know, it used to be dividends were so much more tax efficient. They're not really that much more tax efficient anymore, so can you go on payroll and have that automated so that your taxes are all paid, etcetera, etcetera? And automating that, I mean, every time I have no matter if I have only one employee, I am always got a payroll company doing the work so that it's automated in the background. Again, automate what you can, And making sure you know how much you need to invest in addition to everything else is important as well because there's your expenses, but then how can I put my future money in there too?

Well, that's all been very good advice. I really appreciate you taking the time to take us through the personal side, the emotional side, the business side, and from an entrepreneur perspective too because not a lot of people are in that particular space. And I say it's niche, but it's really not because many of us so many people are entrepreneurs, but maybe they don't know that there's help available for them specifically.

And don't leave it so late. I think that there's a fallacy that I have to have everything perfect before I talk to someone. And the analogy I use is if you broke your arm, would you wait for it to heal before you went to the doctor?

No.

No. So, you know, call us. Call someone you could trust because they're gonna have seen whatever you're struggling with ten times over and have a very fast way out

of it compared to you struggling to figure it out. Well, I think that's a very succinct way to encompass everything we've talked about today. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Amy. It was a pleasure chatting with you today.

Voices of Leadership is part of the Bespoke Productions Hub network of independent podcasters. If you are interested in partnering with us as a sponsor or if you have a podcast of your own, please visit bespoke productions hub dot com for more information. This episode is hosted, produced, and edited by me, Amy Schluter.