BILLY RYAN
“What I gained by being a more profitable business is so much more than the cost of the course.”
“I've been hairdressing now for 20 years. We currently have two salons and I've been involved in running and managing salons for the last 15 years.
The management side of the business has always been my thing, but the financial side of running the business isn’t something that comes naturally to me and I knew it was something that I needed to get better at.
Like all businesses our expenses constantly go up and in the past my way of dealing with that was always to focus on increasing our revenue. And fortunately, we've always been able to do that which helps.
But recently we were getting to the point where inflation and general cost of living increases were rising and so our expenses continued going up but our weekly takings had become stagnant. And I didn't quite have the clarity about what I needed to do next.
Because I’d previously read Antony’s books and had completed the Super Stylist and the Salon Management course I knew what the Money course format would be like and that it would be a good investment. So making the decision to do the ‘Money course’ was very timely because I knew I needed to make some changes.
The first thing I learnt from the course was how to bring all the data that I have in my business together and organise it so that I had clarity on how my business was actually doing financially.
Like most salon owners I already have all the information recorded, I have a salon computer system that records all the revenue, I have an accounting software system that records the expenses, but trying to navigate all of that data using the different software systems was very difficult.
What I learned from the Money course was how to bring all that data together and then organise it in a way that was quick and easy for me to understand.
Being more organised made a big impact and enabled me to use the benchmarking template within the course, so that I could compare my expenses and my income plus a profit target against industry benchmarks.
However the most important thing that I learned on the Money course was that I have to take responsibility for the financial data that I have.
Before I did the course, one of my frustrations was with my accountant because I was expecting them to give me the data that I needed like a cashflow forecast. But what I didn't realise was that I could do that myself, I just needed to learn how!
Learning to understand and implement the cash flow forecast has had the most impact on my business. It's given me the tools that I need, so that I know what's going on and I don’t have to rely on other people who actually can't necessarily do it to the detail that I need.
Now I have the cashflow forecast open on my laptop all the time and I regularly update it. That probably takes me about an hour a week for both salons but the advantage is that now I know for the next 12 weeks, what's coming in and what's going out. It's not a hundred percent accurate, but it certainly gives me more of an idea than what I previously had.
Before the Money course I was too reliant on my accountant for that information. But now I take responsibility for that myself, and just that one thing has given me the ability to predict what is going to happen over the next three months and in doing so has given me more clarity and removed some of the anxiety when it comes to making the right business decisions.
When it comes to fitting the course in around my lifestyle, I really like that it is delivered in different formats. So, it’s not a case of just sitting down and watching the course, I can either watch a video or listen to the audio. And as I'm very much a person who learns on the go I will listen to things when I'm driving or walking and being able to listen to the content whilst I'm doing other things is a real plus for me.
I just want to say is thank you for the course, it's really helped me. Before I did the course, I was having massive anxiety, wondering what I was going to do, because the business wasn’t always looking good. And that's why I was so motivated to get through the course quickly because I needed a solution and I needed to make changes quickly.
The clarity the course gave me just empowered me to make the right decisions. And now I feel so much better. The anxiety is gone and even if the numbers aren't looking good at least I know, and I feel in control, and even if things are challenging I know that if I work hard and I do the right things then I can overcome it.
But when you don't know what it is that's wrong, you feel helpless. So having the clarity from having worked through the course has really helped.
So if you're thinking of doing the Money course, but you're sitting on the fence, I would recommend that you go ahead and do it because what you're going to gain from it makes the cost of the course insignificant in comparison to the longer term benefits that I have managed to get.
What I have saved by sorting out our expenditure, and then gained by being a more profitable business is so much more than the cost of the course”.
