Today's Guest

Stephen King is the Founder & CEO of GrowthForce and a highly energetic and motivational business leader, entrepreneur, and speaker. Steve has a passion for helping businesses and nonprofits reach their growth potential. Steve’s experience with accounting system design, technology development, and management services spans over three decades. Steve shared the insights he’s learned about the key difference between business owners that are living the American Dream and those struggling to survive.

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Episode Summary

GrowthForce is an outsourced accounting partner that provides dedicated bookkeepers, staff accountants, controllers, and CFOs to non-profits and small businesses that use QuickBooks. Most of the time people come to us because they’re frustrated that they’re working hard but still worried about cash flow because finances aren’t their core competency. That is where we come in and take those back-office accounting tasks off the business owner's hands and not only do it better but for less than the cost of hiring one accountant.

Early on in my career, I spent 7 years at Ernst and Young where I worked on accounting system design. What I learned was the value of how to leverage data to make better decisions. The challenge we see is the majority of businesses use QuickBooks like they would a checkbook. They are writing checks, accepting money from customers, paying payroll, and producing the standard financial statements to figure out how much they owe in taxes. But they aren’t using their accounting system to make key business decisions like what price should I set. We decided to focus our efforts on the customers that use QuickBooks. Because 88% of the market uses it as a checkbook and not as a management reporting system.

Most businesses struggle with cash flow and over my 36-year career I’ve been a CPA through 8 recessions. When I look back at all the companies I’ve helped the difference between the successful ones and those that struggle is pricing. Not having enough cash flow is always a result of improper pricing. Every job you do or widget you produce has to cover its share of overhead and generate a profit. Profit is what creates cash flow and cash flow is what allows you to live the American Dream we all want. If you can solve the pricing problem you will be on your way to living the life you want.

The biggest problem I see most small businesses struggle with when it comes to pricing is between the ears. They ask themselves if they are worth it and that is where most small business owners get stuck, self-doubt creeps in and you have to do the hard mental work to get to the point where you realize you are worth it. I recommend professional organizations like Vistage where you can talk to and meet with other entrepreneurs. What you will quickly realize is every entrepreneur at some point had to overcome the mental block of pricing and their self-worth.

Resources Shared

• GrowthForce
• Vistage Worldwide
• Thryv
  

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