With Pam Prior, a bestselling author, speaker, and a virtual CFO for 20 years, finance becomes less of a headache and more of an empowering tool. With over three decades of executive experience, she has worked with Fortune 50 companies, private equity start-ups, and today’s top influencers, bringing financial clarity to business owners across North America. Pam is known for her ability to simplify complex financial concepts, ensuring entrepreneurs understand their numbers without getting lost in accounting jargon.

Beyond her financial expertise, Pam has a passion for making finance fun and accessible. Whether she’s delivering engaging keynotes, coaching business owners, or offering straightforward tools to help them take control of their cash flow, her mission is clear: to eliminate fear around finances and help entrepreneurs thrive. Pam’s approach is practical, energetic, and results-driven—giving businesses the financial confidence they need to scale and succeed.

Join us in our conversation as Pam breaks down the importance of financial mindset and the practical steps entrepreneurs can take to manage their money with confidence. She shares insights on separating personal and business finances, setting up an LLC, and using “business levers” to forecast and make informed decisions. Tune in to hear Pam’s inspiring journey, her strategies for overcoming financial shame, and her expert advice on building wealth for both personal and business success.

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Takeaways & quotes you don’t want to miss from this episode:

• What are the four barriers that keep the entrepreneurs from looking at their finances?
• How childhood experiences shape money beliefs
• “Finance should be fun, not scary…”
• The importance of financial forecasting.
• What is the key to financial control?

“Entrepreneurs are often afraid of their numbers because they think finance is about math. But it’s not about math—it’s about understanding the story of your business and making informed decisions.”

-Pam Prior

Check out these highlights:

• 04:31 Pam’s favorite thing to work on with her clients.
• 13:20 How shame about money keeps entrepreneurs stuck.
• 15:16 Pam shares how she got interested in finance…
• 20:43 What are the most common financial mistakes entrepreneurs make?
• 46:54 Listen to Pam’s final takeaway for the listeners…

How to get in touch with Pam on Social Media:

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below:

GGGB Intro  00:00

Here’s what you get on today’s episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business®…

Pam Prior  00:04

I want to be rich does not make you a bad person in any way. It gives you the ability to influence more a wider and wider swath of the world. Quite frankly, the more money, time and energy you have, the more you can do the good that you want to do in the world. So it’s actually the opposite of selfish.

GGGB Intro  00:23

The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell  00:51

Alrighty, welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell,The Legal Website Warrior®. Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business®. I am super excited to welcome you to another episode today, and today’s topic is essential for everyone. I think you cannot have enough conversations about finances, about money, about you know, where it fits in our life, where it fits in our values, how we do it better. So a huge welcome to Pam Prior.

Pam Prior  01:25

Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to have the conversation today.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:29

Well, I know. And we just met yesterday, which is so funny, because we realized in looking at our calendars, I was on Pam’s show yesterday, where I’m like, Oh, we get to see you tomorrow too. See you tomorrow!

Pam Prior  01:42

It’s not something you say to somebody you don’t generally talk to all the time, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:45

I know, so I feel lucky I get to hang out with Pam two days in a row. For those of you that don’t know, Pam, so we’ve actually overlapped a couple times, I would say, in our journey. And we’ve got, I think, plenty of people in common, but we’ve had several people introduce us directly, and a big shout out to the most recent one, Brian Bogert. And actually, Brian’s been on my show. He’s got his own podcast. Will link, excellent. Yeah, yeah, we’ll link to Brian as well. And then also a shoutout to our mutual friend, Melissa Mosher, who’s here in the Seattle area, and she was the one who originally connected us. And I think it’s been a handful of years.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:46

It has. And like I said, you have confounded my mind map of relationships, because I have to have two arrows into your box, and that’s very tricky.

Heather Pearce Campbell  02:28

Oh my gosh, I would be in big trouble if I did the Mind Map thing. Because so many people that I meet, we’ve got like, 10 ways a Sunday that we know each other. Yeah, I know. So I love that. Actually, it’s super fun, and it really makes the you know, at least the business and the entrepreneurial world that we serve, feel a lot smaller, which for me, is fun for those of you that don’t know Pam, so Pam Prior provides comprehensive services to help businesses thrive, including virtual CFO services for expert financial guidance, accurate bookkeeping for better decision making, personalized finance and business coaching, and she has a supportive membership community with tailored resources. So Pam is a little bit of a conundrum, I think, in her space, because first of all, you fit across a variety of areas and ways that you can support people, right? You don’t just live in the finance box, right? And I think it’s interesting that so often when I talk to other I’ll call them professional advisors, right? People that are a licensed professional, how often our advice ends up branching out into other categories.

Pam Prior  03:54

So many things, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell  03:57

I mean, even in the context of my own practice, how often I’m getting into conversations about how to communicate effectively, how to remap business systems, so that they are supportive of and vice versa, so that legal is not only supportive of business systems, but business systems support the legal integration as well. Right? And I’m sure in your own business, you’ve developed those additional areas of expertise. What are the favorite things that you work with your clients on?

Pam Prior  04:31

Truthfully and weirdly, the favorite thing is mindset. It’s not the thing we work on the most, but it is critical for every client, for us to get underneath where they are in their their mindset journey. A lot of times, when I talk on stage, I lead with sort of the four things that tend to keep entrepreneurs from looking at their finances. And two of them are very psychologically based, and two of them are very technical. So you know, the first one is shame, right? So everybody’s got some element of shame around their finances. And you know, no matter how big the room is, no matter how successful the entrepreneurs, everybody’s got an embarrassing money story. So I try and find out sort of where they are on that spectrum, so that we can make sure that they know they’re in a non judgment zone. And we can get through that. Because until you break through that, you can’t get to the second sort of psychological barrier, which is overwhelm, like once you kind of go, and this is, can’t feel alone in this journey, once you break through that and go, Oh, crap, you know, yeah, this is what I’ve created for myself. Now, sometimes it’s great and they don’t know it. Other times, there’s some stuff that needs fixing, but then you need to be there for the overwhelm, right? And that’s the other thing that keeps entrepreneurs from dealing with the finances. They don’t even know what questions to ask, because we’re never taught this stuff, not taught it in high school. We’re not taught it in college, not taught it on the streets, like we’re running businesses, and we were never taught this. But then the very kind of tactical practical problems are, you know, your numbers are meant to tell a story of your business in your language, and the two tactical things are to make sure that the numbers are in context, which is really important. In other words, they’ve got to be worth your time to look at. So you got shame, you got overwhelmed, you got time. You’ve got to be worth your time to look at. And if they’re not telling your story, then they’re not worth your time. And so those are kind of the very practical things that we need to put in place for it. I think that the benefit that most people will get out of their finances that they never expect is confidence in their decision making, and that’s really what we’re striving for there.

Heather Pearce Campbell  06:52

Well, I love your attachment of money and finances to story, because absolutely and my question is, is it? Is it that most people need help telling a different story, or is it that their money and finances need to be organized in a way so that they understand what the story is?

Pam Prior  07:14

Bingo, it’s the second now, when I say, there is the Money Story thing, right? We all have our own money story, and that’s something that it’s important that we understand we’re going to work with a client so that we can help bring things up in a way that will work for them. But when I say your numbers need to tell your story, basically what I mean is that when you look at your numbers, or, even more importantly, when somebody else is hearing you tell the story of your business, and then you give them the numbers of your business that you’re comfortable as the owner, that the numbers are telling the same story you told. And I kind of think of the numbers as sort of the virtual representation of what’s physically happening in the business, the product moving, or the coaching happening, or the publishing going on. You should be able to look at the numbers and follow and go, oh yeah, that’s where I spend the money. That’s where I make the money. Here’s what’s left over. Here’s my how quickly I get cash. And then when that connection’s made for an entrepreneur, and they understand that it’s about the story, not about the numbers, and they detach from that math thing that they’re connected to, it’s like the world opens up for them. It’s just awesome.

Heather Pearce Campbell  08:19

And is it the math piece that’s part of what keeps people stuck around looking at their numbers?

Pam Prior  08:25

Yeah, they think that they there’s no typical entrepreneur. They’re all crazy, which is what I love about them, right? We’re them. We are them. We’ve met the enemy, and it’s us. So yes, a lot of the story is I hate math. Other of the story is, I’m no good with money. Other stories people have are, I’ll never make enough money. Money doesn’t grow on trees, all that, all that crap that got piled into us before we were seven, and could start to filter it out. You know, we’ve set our upper limit. And so a lot of times what we’ll be doing at first is not so much like nothing in the business needs to be fixed, except that the entrepreneur needs to believe they can make more money. And that’s often mindset work that we have to attack first.

Heather Pearce Campbell  09:16

And is it mindset work that deals with identity? So for example, I think so many of the folks who do mindset work, what they’re really talking about is the i conversation, who am I? Right? You’re not going to do a new behavior till you see yourself as a person that does that new behavior. Why is money such a tricky one when it comes to that identity conversation?

Pam Prior  09:44

I’m going to give you a little bit of a story about that if you’ve got the time, because I think this might help people. So we have all have an upper limit and a lower limit. We have an upper limit above which when we make more money than that. We immediately come right back down into the comfort zone. And we have a lower limit that we know we’re never going to get below, because all of us have set what that is. It may be different for all of us, but we’ve all set that I am not going to, in some cases, live in my car again, in some cases, you know, not be able to put food on the table for my kids, whatever it might be. There’s a lower and there’s an upper and they are in us. The thing is, they were all determined, in a large part, in our first seven years of life, when all we heard was from the people around us who were keeping us alive. We didn’t, you know, of course, we’re listening to them, and we didn’t have the capability to filter. So what I did, at one point, somebody, a coach, a really good coach, said to me, what’s your first memory of money? And I’m like, Well, I can tell you this, but I can’t tell anybody else I was a thief. I stole money as a kid, from like seven to 10 years old. And long, long, long story short, I went back and figured out how much money I had stolen in that two year little bank robbery spree of mine, and I got shocked out of it, because I was accused of stealing something I didn’t steal. And I thought, Okay, this is not a good business to be in, but I clearly carried it with me with a lot of shame for a long time, because I was 55 before somebody said to me, what was your first money through? So I went back and figured out how much money I’d stolen, and if I had invested in in the Dow Jones in the 1970s when I stole it, what would it be worth now? And it came out to be within $10,000 of the salary I’d capped at in corporate. I kid you not. And not only that, I had since left corporate and was working in my own business, and it it was where my revenue was capped in my business, and there was no reason from a business standpoint for it to be capped there. So my coach said to me, Pam, you’re going to go on Facebook and confess your sins. You’re going to tell them you were a little thief. I’m like, No, I can’t do that. I have clients. I’m a CFO if they find us out. And I realized how much shame I had about it, like the worst thing you could do with me before was doubt my integrity. And I always wondered why I had such a hair trigger about that, and it was all tied to this. So I went on Facebook, and I did my little story, and I closed the thing, and I was scared to look at it for a couple days. When I looked it was the biggest ho hum you’d ever imagine. The only kind of comment that was I got was my sister said, you can pay me back now at that rate, and I and that, let it go. I would tell you, in a week, I had four more clients at the door. I busted through that ceiling, and from there it doubled, then it doubled again, and it was just gone. So was that? Is that a change in behavior? No, but it was the recognition that there was something other than me controlling where I was, and that just proved it to me. So I’ve been so passionate about that that I often take like I’m not a psychologist, I’m not even a money therapist. I’m a freaking CFO, but I’m a CFO who’s been through some stuff, and I know how much my mind trapped me. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  13:06

Yeah. Well, the thing that I think is so interesting about that shame conversation is that I think the trickiest part of shame is that it takes that issue or topic underground. Yeah, right.

Pam Prior  13:20

And you don’t know how how insidious it is, then.

Heather Pearce Campbell  13:25

Right. Well, I remember reading an article one time that talked about, like, money and sexuality, or body you know, body shame, body sexuality stuff being like the two most shame burdened conversations. And I thought, Oh my gosh. Like two things that are so identified to people’s concept of not only like who they are. And the interesting thing about money is it’s like, I think it’s less about who you are, but literally, more about how much am I valued in the world? How much do people love for me? Am I worth this? Yeah, it really is about that, like self worth conversation, and that is, I think, such a hard one for people to really get at the root of.

Pam Prior  14:14

It really is, there’s so much guilt about building wealth. And one of the things that I like to tell people is, look, if you know how to do this, and you have a certain amount of good you want to do in the world, quite frankly, the more money, time and energy you have, the more you can do the good that you want to do in the world. So it’s actually the opposite of selfish to want wealth and and getting ourselves past the shame of wanting wealth like to be I will literally say I want to be rich. Does not make you a bad person in any way. It gives you the ability to influence more a wider and wider swath of the world.

Heather Pearce Campbell  14:52

Right? Absolutely no. And I think that that money conversation, the identity conversation, it evolves right? People hit new limits and new ceilings. Where in your path, looking backwards, did money become the thing that you wanted to focus on? 

Pam Prior  15:16

Interestingly, this actually goes back to the same time period my dad was an accountant at DuPont, and ultimately became a controller at DuPont. We’ve talked before. He died relatively young, but he was a finance guy, and in his home office, like he worked at work, but he also had an office at home. I have one of those little kid desks in there that sat behind him. I can still picture it. And he used to give me work to do, you know, things to staple numbers, to add that kind of stuff. And that was a really important time for him and I, so that certainly got inside me and and he died not too long after that. But then in high school, they offered accounting for the very first time, my junior year, and they gave you this, like shrink wrapped box that had all these journals, and it was still handwritten stuff. And it like, had you opened it up and it smelled like a library, and it had a pen that you could use and a pencil that you could use. And like, it was this pre packaged awesome thing. I’m the geek who loves filling out forms, right? So I had so much fun with that my junior year and senior year, I like, even entered the Delaware accounting competition. If you can believe there was such a thing, and it, I was destined. I went straight to college. Did it work? Did it? I just I’ve always loved everything about it. And I think you know what I like about it. Unlike law, there’s always an answer, right? If there’s this balanced equation that you manage with. And no matter what, it still has to be balanced. So like, I know I’m always going to get to an answer. So I think there’s something weirdly psychological about that, for me.

Heather Pearce Campbell  16:50

Interesting, that like getting to completion. And, you know, and I think all of us, regardless of the work that we do, right? It’s about solving problems and helping clients get to an answer, right? So, yeah, interesting. So it seems like it’s maybe not really completely about the numbers. For you, it’s not like you were like a math geek or, you know?

Pam Prior  17:14

Yeah, it was the the container, I think, and the way it all works together, and then now, you know, and it’s very solvable. I know I can talk to anybody and whatever their situation is, I can get them a balanced set of books, and I can get them confidence in their numbers. And being able to walk into any kind of a situation with that certainty, you know, gives me the ability to do a lot more, I think, than I otherwise could. So that’s kind of cool, too. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  17:40

I love that. I mean even just the phrase confidence with your numbers, right? A lot of people are going to be like, there’s no such thing. Not there yet. Yeah, where is I always…

Pam Prior  17:50

I always tell anybody I talk to, and particularly clients, that by the time you’re done, you’re going to say finance is fun, and inevitably, at the beginning that, like, Pam, you’re smoking crack. Don’t even say it again. Just get to work. But almost 21, every one of them, at one point, has said, wow, this really is fun. You see your business in a whole new way. It opens up so many more possibilities when you just have these few things in place and can all of a sudden rely on your bank account without having to look at your bank account every day.

Heather Pearce Campbell  18:24

Where do you get people started when you’re talking with somebody for the first time and they’re not in the land of finances fun? How do you get them moving the right direction? Walk us through a couple parts of your process that tend to be really eye opening for clients.

Pam Prior  18:40

Yeah. So the first thing we do, and we do this actually, before we even take somebody on as a client, we have an initial conversation where we get a good feel for where their mindset is and where their business is. So that from that point, I know there are certain modules or things that always have to be in place to get to the end game. So I figure out which of theirs are missing or need to be repaired or modified or whatever in that initial conversation, to know, oh, yeah, okay, this is the steps we’re going to take. But I also figure out how they think, how they talk, how they communicate, and make sure that they’ve got a healthy respect for the fact that finances are important to their business, even if they don’t like them, even if they’re scared of them, even if they don’t really know what’s going on, they’ve recognized, Hey, I’ve crossed this line to say I know this matters, and I’m willing to dive in and deal with it once I know that, then I let them realize that it’s not going to be hard. We’re going to do it together. We’re going to do it at their pace. I run alongside them to get their momentum, and then we configure everything to all this other module stuff that’s happening behind the scenes to support that. So that’s kind of the trick to sort of help people understand. This is an integrated answer. This isn’t some CFO or bookkeeper coming at you and saying, here’s how you have to look at your numbers. No, I want to make the numbers tell yourself or your way.

Heather Pearce Campbell  20:02

What do you find, from the standpoint of, and I’m sure, like, I do, there’s a map generally that I follow with clients, right? There’s key parts, there’s a way, pieces that have to be in place. That’s right? And from a legal perspective, it’s interesting, because I think people get so afraid of even looking, because they’re like, oh, it’s like, opening Pandora’s box. That’s how they feel about it. Like, oh, I don’t even, what do I start with? I don’t even want to look in that box. Yeah, yeah. And I’m like, Really, it’s not that hard. There is a map. It’s there is an order of priority, right? What do you find are some of the key elements in your map that are often missing in clients?

Pam Prior  20:43

Yeah. So the biggest ones usually, and this goes for tiny businesses, and quite honestly, eight figure businesses. One is people are still blending their personal and their business accounts like they only have one account, and they’re running their business and their personal out of it, and no shame, no judgment, but it’s just one of the things we want to do is take that apart. One of the main reasons we want to take that want to take that apart is because, right now, you’re putting a lot of money into your business. We want to be able to very clearly see the day that that business starts putting money into you, right? And there’s all sorts of other legal reasons. And once that is isolated, that’s sort of the first step. If that’s not done, that’s what has to be done. Once that’s isolated, then you have all the data you need to tell that story’s business. So you go from there to a bookkeeping system, and the bookkeeping system takes it and creates the story. And then you make sure that the reports that that bookkeeping system creates show the story that way, that the business owner understands it. And then we make sure, once everybody’s on board with that, we start dealing with the biggest thing that’s going to benefit them the most, which is forecasting. So future casting, I call it, they’re able to say, Okay, here’s where I can hire, here’s much I can spend, here’s when I can scale, here’s what my prices should be. All of a sudden, there’s this whole infrastructure in place where they don’t have to do it from their gut anymore. Yeah, you know.

Heather Pearce Campbell  22:01

Well, and they’re not like, scraping together the pieces each time and trying to cobble numbers together when they don’t have, like, a very comprehensive story.

Pam Prior  22:10

Having to get into really expensive debt just because they didn’t realize it was gonna take a little longer than they thought for something to happen or not getting into debt when it would be healthy to do so, you know, not having the confidence to say, Oh yeah, I can borrow that money for three months, because I can see that on the fourth month it turns around. You know, those kind of things it. You know, the game shoots and ladders Canada. I think they call it Snakes and Ladders Canada, which is just gross. But you know what finance does to music, gets you to the bottom of the ladders and helps you avoid the shoots. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  22:43

A good analogy. So I want to get to the forecasting piece, because I think that sounds really fun.

Pam Prior  22:49

The city finance is fun. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  22:51

I mean, boom, you heard it here, folks, you heard it here? Well, it’s so fun when people, I think it’s like, even on the legal side, when things start to coalesce, and they go, oh, like it can be this way and not that way. It canactually help me make better, more informed decisions about my business. So a couple things on that, you know, one, I’m still fascinated by this point that you said about just separating personal and business finances. I see it all the time in my clients businesses as well. And you can, you know, share your feedback. But my first feedback always is like, look, you know, and I think the statistics in the United States, the statistics are that 60% fully 60% of small business owners are sole proprietors. Haven’t even set up a legal entity for their business, right? I mean, there was a whole conversation flying around online. It’s so scary, even in on the legal side, about whether it’s malpractice to even work for people who are sole proprietors without getting them to set up that LLC, right? So if you’re a sole proprietor, I hope you’re listening. It is not it’s for your own and depending on what state you’re in, I mean, there are plenty of states in the nation that it’s still like $50 to set up an LLC like it is not outrageous, folks. I mean, some are more than that. For sure, probably average is going to be two to $300 then you, yeah, then you’ve got states like California, New York, it might be 800 or 1000 because you’ve got the Franchise Tax licensing board, right? So there’s very there are differences, but still, even 1000 bucks to get your business going the right direction, that is still a no brainer. It’s still a no brainer. And then, you know, simply setting up a set of business bank accounts, getting a credit card, whether you have to start even with a credit card in your own name that you just assign to your business, yeah, I literally, I have sticker. On my cards, because I’ve got two legal entities, and then obviously my personal stuff, and they are all tracked differently, like, this is Pearce law. This is my second business entity, and then individual, and that one thing alone, if you do that, it will make your reporting, your tracking, I mean, just clear up a host of problems, taxes, your taxes…

Pam Prior  25:24

The time you have to spend manually pulling it apart in order to file your taxes, even if you’re a sole proprietor. And you know, I don’t recommend it, just because we do live in such a litigious society, being an LLC number one. And again, this is not legal advice, because I’m not qualified to give legal advice.

Heather Pearce Campbell  25:41

I’m not either on a podcast. So this is just us having a conversation.

Pam Prior  25:45

Conversation is, you know that LLC keeps your money, keeps anybody away from any money outside of the LLC, and people sue over the stupidest things in this country. And it’s just one of those things you can do to protect yourself right out of the gate that could save you money down the road, but this is like anything, like insurance, like it, security, like finances. This is the things we do last and unfortunately, what happens is we tend to do them when we’re in a panic and something’s gone wrong. So to the extent that you know, my kind of mission in the world is to convince entrepreneurs that this isn’t as scary as it looks. And if you get out ahead of it, not only can you eliminate all those risks, but you can set yourself up for better exits when you sell your business, easier to scale when you scale your business, making sure that you’re making the best use of the money you do have in the business, and, most importantly, that you’re tying it to your personal financial goals separately, right? We want this business paying you. That’s the whole point.

Heather Pearce Campbell  26:45

oh my gosh. There’s a guy, Brad Martineau, of tax.

Pam Prior  26:50

There’s another one. I love him. He gave me the term that I ended up getting trademarked. Oh, for a profit map, profit concierge. Profit concierge is the one he gave me. He came, Oh, I love it at an event that we were just talking in the hallway. I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Heather Pearce Campbell  27:05

No, no, a huge shout out to Brad, yeah, and I’ll actually link to his episode on here, because what you just said that very end point about making sure this is all tied to your personal goals, your personal life plan, he had something called the return document that he mentioned on my podcast. And I think, like I said, I’ll go find his episode and we’ll link to it, like, yes, where he’s like, email me and just reference this episode and I will give you this document for free. I mean, if you don’t know Brad, I would say, pop over, you know, right now and get that he’s brilliant. We’re in both. 

Pam Prior  27:44

He’s not selling you anything. He’s just committed to helping people, 

Heather Pearce Campbell  27:48

yeah, and he’s a guy that if you’ve ever participated in any of his services or whatever, talk about, like, systems and tight, like, just the tightest customer experience, and, you know, step by step process the whole way. So his business is really something to just observe and learn from. But anyways, that point of the return document was the big why, in your personal why, at life of, why are you spending this time and effort and money to build this thing over here. Like, what is it doing for you? Right? Because, yeah, we need a mission in the world. We all need to be doing meaningful work. And it’s not a charity. It’s not a volunteer job. It’s not a like, you know, you should be creating it in a way that elevates your own life, your own ability to make the kind of impact. And that doesn’t mean even impact through your business or through your clients. It could be impact in your family, impact in your community, right? Whatever that means to you. It’s a big conversation. 

Pam Prior  28:59

Yep, it is a big conversation. I love it, and you’re just spot on. It circles back to it’s okay to be wealthy and and just understand your your why, and everything is, everything all ties together. And that’s such an important piece that Ryan Dice, who also knows Brad, was telling me at a recent event that he his wife basically said to him at one point like they were making all the money in the world and you know, but he wasn’t going to the kids soccer games and he wasn’t doing whatever. And she said to him, Look, you can keep doing what you’re doing, but I will not let you kid yourself and say you’re doing it for the family anymore. And his Why was his wife and kids, and it really kind of caught him by the collar, and he went, Whoa, you’re right. I’ve got to adjust this. So it’s one of those things people run into over and over in this crazy entrepreneurial world.

Heather Pearce Campbell  29:55

Well, that’s right, and I think entrepreneurship can be a slippery slope from the SAM. Point that people start to either concede some of their time, or start to, you know, invest in ways that they had not planned, investing in their own business. And then pretty soon, you’re like, the the frog that has boiled yourself in a pot of hot water. And you’re like, What the hell am I doing here? You know, right? Yeah, you did it. You can jump out. 

Pam Prior  30:20

And at that point you can’t jump out of you think, you can’t jump out, but yeah, and I will say you’re never totally trapped. I know it always feels like you are when you’re in that situation. That’s why we need each other to kind of help us see through those tough times. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  30:36

All right, let’s pause for a moment and hear from today’s sponsor. Are you an entrepreneur who is on track to make a million or more in revenue this year in your business? If so, your business is likely facing a host of legal issues that are right for support. And if you are like so many of my clients at this level, you are likely tired of taking unnecessary risks and a DIY approach to legal support in your business. You’re ready to tackle the mess of legal documents, six legal gaps that you have. You want to take care of your IP, your clients, your business, and avoid unnecessary conflict and risk in the process. If this is you, and beyond just being an entrepreneur, you are a catalyst and are committed to your mission and your impact in the world. I invite you to get in touch. You could be a fit for my catalyst club, a small business legal support program that I designed for my high level clients. Just like you, you can find out more at legalwebsitewarrior.com. Just click on the Work with Me tab to learn more about the catalyst club and other ways that I support my clients, a fabulous group of world changing entrepreneurs, I might add, you’ve done the initial legwork in your business. And now you want to soar. And you know that you can only go as high and as far as your legal foundation lets you go. So get in touch today, hop over to legalwebsitewarrior.com, click on the Work with Me tab. And if you have any questions, get in touch through the Contact link on my site, I look forward to connecting it would be a joy to support you on your path.

Heather Pearce Campbell  32:19

Well, you mentioned a business coach, right? I’ve hired multiple business coaches. I’m working with one now that I’ve been working with for the past year, year and a half, and he’s brilliant, and I love him, and I can’t, honestly imagine now, like, you know, the coming days without him being on my calendar every two weeks, and that role of having somebody outside your business helping you look at things in a new way and like, what? What more important conversation, from the standpoint of, you know, how is my business doing? Right? Is there than money as a reflection of, are your systems working? Is your client? You know your client process story, that’s right. And so I love the reframe around story. I love the reframe around helping people understand numbers, not for the sake of getting good at math, but for understanding that relationship of, how do we do this better. How do I make it easier for myself? And how do I make decisions moving forward that improve the scenario for everybody? Right? So getting to the future, casting my favorite part, right? Talk to us about what that looks like with some of your clients who reach that point and realize, like, oh my gosh, I now have this information that helps me make these decisions moving forward.

Pam Prior  33:46

Yeah. The cool thing about that in my business is that’s the place where you can start to have fun and make a real difference, that that they can start to look, feel and see and and everybody it needs that. Like, that’s the same for everyone. But what really happens is, once you have all that data so that it’s actually telling the story of your business, now we just drop it into a model and go, Okay, this tells us the story of the business. So what it also tells us is, what are all of our business levers? And an example of a business lever, you have, price, you have, how much you sell, you have, whether you’re a commodity or whether you’re white glove, you have what you spend for sales and marketing. You have whether you’re going to be one on one or major like so many business levers, well, your financials become really meaningful when you go, okay, what are the levers that affect each of those lines? Right? So now let’s say I have 10 levers and a forecast model. We build those levers and we say, Okay, now we can look at all the different scenarios we might want to look with if I pull these four levers and these five up, what happens if I pull these two now and those four later, what happens? And you can then start to plan and most notably. You can make sure that you’re building wealth in your business, so that over time, it is increasing in in its ability to generate cash. And you can make sure that you use other people’s money when it makes sense to use other people’s money. And you can know, for example, when do you hire? Are my prices high enough? You know? Oh my gosh, my margins shrinking. I need to what I’m going to go buy these in bulk now. So what does that do to my pricing? All of those questions. Now that’s like this little game board where you can just toggle the things and go, oh, there’s what happens. And then, sure enough, now you’ve got something that you can look at in context. Because now let’s say we close the actual month. Now we compare it to what we thought was going to happen, not to judge ourselves or say we overspend or we understand, but since everything there is connected to a business lever, it’s very easy to say, Oh, if I’m over in this, that business lever did better than I thought it was going to. If I’m under in this, ooh, that business lever, maybe I pulled it too soon, like it gives you actionable steps to take every single month on target towards this goal. Two goals, really, as I see it. One is to keep your tax advisor informed of how much money you’re going to be making, so that you can adjust strategies that way. But the second is so that you whatever your long term financial goal is, both to take money out of the business today, but also to exit it potentially someday, and get three or four times that we tie that all in, and it ties right back down to here are my quarterly goals. Here are my monthly goals. Here’s how I know if I’m on track or not.

Heather Pearce Campbell  36:37

So when you are talking about business levers. Are you looking with your clients at things like pricing, cost of goods sold, number of leads in their business like are you’re getting into the the nitty gritty?

Pam Prior  36:52

What are they getting back on their advertising? What are they paying their their employees? What are they paying their their contractors? How many contractors do they have? How many employees do they have? Do we allow for increases every year? Do we allow for bonuses and profit sharing, all of those things that entrepreneurs kind of want to do, and sometimes jump in and do before they know, like there’s a way to do profit sharing with your employees that also benefits you to the tune of 110 grand for tax purposes. This is not tax advice, but you know, you start to see some things you just never could see before. I look at a forecast as like putting binoculars on you actually can point them up at the the target, whatever your goal is up there, and it’ll just it doesn’t mean you’re going to go a straight line. None of us go a straight line, but it kind of sets that, that field of vision that you know you’re going to stay within at that point, and that can make sure you’re still on track and humming towards that goal. And if that goal moves, you shift. But it’s flexible, but it’s still something, it just, it’s like white Windex on the window all of a sudden.

Heather Pearce Campbell  37:57

Oh, I love that, right? Oh my gosh, being somebody who every well, quarterly, I have my window guy come and clean all my windows and like it, like, immediately prior to that point, there’s always that point where I reach like, Oh my gosh. Like, these windows, I’m gonna, like, I can’t even look through them if there’s any amount of light on the outside, because I’m just getting so frustrated. Like, I have a dog who I know and I think you have a dog too, three of them. I was really gonna say I heard a bark the other day, so I’m assuming it was a dog when we went, when we went to adopt our Maggie. She was a COVID puppy, like so many out there, because we spent the first year and a half of COVID Walking the neighborhood and visiting everybody else’s dogs, right? I was home with two kids, and we’re kind of going nuts, and so we go to the Humane Society one day, just out of the blue, my husband knew he was in trouble. He was not for a dog adoption. I will tell you that I am the daughter of a veterinarian and owned two dogs prior that overlapped a little bit with my kids. They became kind of Geriatric when my kids were both pretty young. And then, you know, we both dogs passed, and we went for about five years without a dog, mostly because my husband had PTSD from the overlap of young kids and geriatric dogs. But I get that, yeah, it’s a lot. It’s a lot. So we go to the Humane Society and we’re looking at dogs. And, you know, Phil likes dogs. This is the funny thing is, he’s like, Oh, come over here and look at this one. And he thought it was super cute. And I walk over, and I’m not even kidding, it jumps like, six feet in the air, like, eye level with me, back down. I was like, nope. I turned around. Not like, this is not the dog for us. It was just, I could too much, too much, right? And so I’m continuing to walk around the dogs that we were actually there to see got adopted already. There was one puppy that we had seen on their site, but did not look like a puppy on the site. Looked like an old like an old dog, old, kind of wrinkly. You know, not cute dog. And when we got there in person, I was like, Oh, this is a puppy, and she’s cute, like, that was a super weird picture. And I got in, I made the mistake of getting in, you know, it’s not, it’s not like a kennel, because it’s open air, clear up to the ceiling. But got in her container with her, and that was the end of it, I knew if we yeah, we turned around and walked out of there. The next family in line was going to be walking away with this puppy, and there were like two literally right behind us waiting to meet her. Oh, it was like we literally had 10 minutes to make the decision, like, while we were with her and introducing her to the kids and so Anyways, long story short, we bring her home. Maggie’s now two and a half. And how high do you think Maggie can jump six feet, eight feet from a standing position like roof of our house, like she is so athletic. And so our glass window from, I mean sliding glass door, not glass window, sliding glass door from top to bottom. Dog nose. Oh. Dog nose. Dog feet, mud. Fit everything. 

Pam Prior  41:11

I love it. That’s hysterical. That is the best dog story yet. Oh my gosh, for me, I want this one. I want this one.

Heather Pearce Campbell  41:23

Oh my gosh, I’m gonna send you. Pam, after this, I’m gonna send you a YouTube short. My son posted this short of Maggie jumping eight feet into the air repeatedly, and within days, it got, like, I don’t know, 540 views, which for him, he was obsessed with, like, how do you get views on YouTube? And he just about flipped out. And I was like, of course, it’s our eight foot jumping dog that did it for you. Unbelievable. So back to the clear windows. Yes, the analogy is so good, because the difference between trying to operate a business without clear windows, like, oh, it’s the it really is the worst. And I think there’s probably another analogy that is that I use in my work that I bet is really similar in yours. I once had a client tell me, after we completed a whole bunch of work together, he said, Wow, this is like, putting down, I can’t remember, he said 40 pound or 50 pound backpack that I didn’t know I was carrying around. Yes, yeah. And there, there’s, like, some element of those topics that we know we need to address, that we just keep tolerating, you know, subpar performance on or or not a full commitment to that once we handle them and we understand them, and we have those clear windows that we can look through, we’re like, Oh my gosh. Why did I wait so long to do this? 

Pam Prior  42:54

The big example for me was it and cybersecurity. I did not realize how worried I was about it until I got it taken care of. Because, I mean, we have a lot of people’s financial information, so I’m like, it was always in the back of my head, and probably about only. I was only two years into my business when I met and and hired the guy who does it for me now. And now, I don’t even have to think about it like I know that if somebody clicks on something by accident, that within 30 seconds, my system will be locked down and we’ll know any strangers that are inside it. I mean, it’s like the amount of relief I got from that that I didn’t even realize was about something I didn’t realize had been bothering me. Yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell  43:36

Oh, isn’t that amazing? Yeah, that is well, and I’m like, in my head, I’m like, oh, maybe we need to link to your cyber security guy as well, because there’s other people out there.

Pam Prior  43:45

Absolutely, I’ll be glad to introduce you to him. He’s amazing. And he has a very cool, sort of, not even sort of, he’s a very cool lead magnet right now that at the very least gets you for totally free security for your passwords and stuff in a whole new, higher quality, better way that’s not exposed, like LastPass and one password are, I’ll definitely connect you. Heather, you’ll you’ll love him. He’s an awesome guy.

Heather Pearce Campbell  44:11

No, I would love that. I’m sure that I have clients that need him. Okay, well, Pam, this has been so fun. I know you are a wealth of information and resources. I know that people are going to be thinking, Okay, where do I go connect with Pam? And by the way, the caveat is, and I tell people this all the time, it’s okay if you don’t love socials, if you don’t show up there, but if you do, let us know where you like to connect. Or, you know, if you just prefer people go through your website tell us where you are and how people can find you, as

Heather Pearce Campbell  44:45

And by the way you said s, as in Sam, I for a second I’m really wishing that your name is Pam Sam Prior.

Pam Prior  44:45

My family tells me, Geez, you’re everywhere. Pam, so I am everywhere on social as Pam, s prior, so it’s P, A, M, S as in Sam, P, R, I, O, R, so that’s on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, some other Tiktok. I think on Tiktok, I’m Pam Prior, but everything else Pam S. Prior, and…

Pam Prior  45:20

I kind of do now too. I kind of do now too, but so so everyone, and plus, I have two podcasts. One is called the Cash Flow Podcast, where you can find your host Heather on one of our upcoming episodes, probably dropping next week, by the way. Woo hoo. Another cash flow that I do with my wife called, She said, She said, just for fun and grins, and then my website is pamprior.com so awesome. As my family says, can’t escape me.

Heather Pearce Campbell  45:48

Right? You can’t not find you. Okay? Well, that’s a good way to be. We will share links over to Pam’s website to both of your podcasts. Absolutely. That sounds like a blast. I love that She said, She said.

Pam Prior  46:01

And I do want to rename it, but my team won’t let me. I want to rename it. I’m right. She’s wrong, but they’re not letting me…

Heather Pearce Campbell  46:08

I mean, that could be a tagline. I see that. I mean, that’s right. You can do I support taglines. So folks pop over to the show notes page, legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast, find Pam Prior’s episode, where you can find all of the links we just referenced, and we will link over to your socials as well. Pam, it’s so much fun to get to know you. I’ve really enjoyed our conversations the last couple days, and I’m really looking forward to being in touch before we go. I would love to hear you, and you can end it any way you want, a favorite quote, a final takeaway, an action step you would love the audience to take. What would you leave with our listeners today?

Pam Prior  46:54

I would say just going back to something we that we talked about on I’m going to give you give you two. One is on the sort of tactical side, and one is the mindset side. And it’s going to circle back to things we already talked about. The first thing I would suggest as a takeaway is go ahead and do the exercise. Think about your first exposure. The first thing you remember about your exposure to money. What was it? Was it picking up a coin off the ground and your arm said, don’t touch that. It’s dirty. Was it step over a penny? Was it money doesn’t grow on trees like think about your very first exposure to when you understood money, and just do a little exercise to see how that may be influencing how you think about money today. And then the second thing I’d suggest is, if you are still running your business out of your personal bank account, you don’t even have, I mean, I do want you to set up an LLC. That is the right thing to do. No, this is not advice, but at the very least before you, even before you do that, you can just set up a second bank account. It can be a second personal bank account, but start keeping track of things separately. You can always send money back and forth between the accounts, but if you’re serious about your business, it’s time to do that. Yeah, absolutely.

Heather Pearce Campbell  48:00

 Pam, so great to know you. I’m super happy to introduce you to my audience and to send some people your way. I really look forward to being in touch and just I’m so appreciative that you took the time to join us today. 

Pam Prior  48:13

I appreciate the invitation and so grateful to talk to your audience. I hope everybody has a great week. Awesome.

GGGB Outro  48:20

Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways, links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more, see the show notes which can be found at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us too. Keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.