Let's Talk with Leaha & Rhonda

Unknown Speaker 0:00
The following is a paid program sponsored by Crawford management group and smart time consultants. Please be advised that the voices and opinions you may hear do not necessarily represent the views of K, u and v Las Vegas, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Unknown Speaker 0:25
Hi, this is Leah Crawford. And I'm Rhonda Nolan.

Unknown Speaker 0:28
Welcome to the let's talk with Lee and Rhonda show.

Unknown Speaker 0:31
We're here for you and we're ready to go. Let's do it. Good morning. Las Vegas. Morning. Happy Saturday. Have you been out for your morning walk yet? You know, it's time to exercise before you go to your job and have fun.

Unknown Speaker 0:52
Yeah, you know, well, you know, you could take their walk at 5am Yeah, you do not walk at 5am and you but it's but walk in does a walking does a body good. It does walking, walking does the mind good? Does the mind read the mind? Amazing? Yes, it um, not only just walking, it's a simple walk, you know, maybe a couple miles, maybe one two miles, three, four times a week.

Unknown Speaker 1:16
Yes. entrepreneurs and business managers and owners, you still have to exercise you need to free your mind. You need to get up early and go for a walk in your neighborhood or your at your neighborhood park or ride your bike or hit the gym if you feel like it, you know, for about 30 minutes to an hour. But entrepreneurs need to release the stress. And that's one of the ways to do it

Unknown Speaker 1:37
is the walk walking workout. I remember one time I was doing yoga for a minute. Sure hot yoga, hot yoga. And it was 30 minutes from my house. So it was the lead getting up early in the morning. Getting to the studio. So we're talking about maybe a three hour debacle in the morning from 430 till about 730. But what I can tell you is when I was doing it consistently, the clarity, the peace of mind and the ride there was one thing and then when I'm driving home, you know people are getting ready to go to work. So what's more traffic out there but that early morning drive when there's no one out there is quiet. Not a lot going on. It was it was peaceful then in the yoga studio, then driving home even though everybody else was speaking I was still going my pace and get home, sit down, get dressed to start my day is peaceful.

Unknown Speaker 2:31
You need it as entrepreneur because we have so many different hats that we wear and we have so much on our plates. Sometimes we just need to you release and that's a great way of releasing without doing anything that's you know, not good for your body.

Unknown Speaker 2:44
Right and walking. Yeah, walking, walking, ride, bike riding bikes, jogging, whatever your pleasure is. We were even doing yoga in the park in Summerlin on Sundays. Oh, wow. So yeah, we are a group of girlfriends and we were going to the park in Summerlin and parks apps. Oh my god. Absolutely. Gorgeous. Because you see the mountains in the background, you got soccer players this year. And we just put brought out a laptop and we started Nomis Nain, in the middle of the park. And I was oh my god, it was it was actually fun. But today we're gonna we're gonna talk about some different because there are more grants out there because we are not out of COVID we are not, we're not rematch, we're not. And we're not going to be we're not. And I will we will mark the number of Missy. That's that's 12 1314 1516 we in the 16 months, 1617

Unknown Speaker 3:33
months we are and according to news articles, the people now that are getting sick with COVID or people who have not been vaccinated. And that's causing a big problem, especially with this new variant that has come over from whatever country it came from. We're in trouble again, we're going to be in trouble again. So I just tell everybody, just wear your mask and wash your hands and try to stay as safe as you possibly can. Until we can get past all this stuff. Because what we don't want to have happen is we don't want to shut back down again. Because that was not fun. For entrepreneurs, or consumers.

Unknown Speaker 4:08
It was it was scary. At first. It was scary at first. It was scary. I say it to me it was bittersweet. It was bittersweet because I it was bitter in that I thought I didn't know what was going on. It was sweet because I really got to sit down, spend some time with my daughter spend some time with my family, that we were always rushing past each other. But we really got to spend some quality time together. So I actually I you know, it was bittersweet for me.

Unknown Speaker 4:33
I mean, that part was good. And I enjoyed that. Well, yeah, I know you enjoyed that part. All of my friends was families enjoy that part. But for us entrepreneurs, who had to close our businesses and didn't have any income and then had to deal with it was scary. That was the scary that was to deal with all the rigmarole and ends for some of us who are not computer literate, you know, just having a hard time trying to fill out those applications to get monies and grants, you know, to keep the lights on and whatnot. It was rough,

Unknown Speaker 4:59
but what I did Teach me though was when we do start operating again, putting that emergency fund up, right, saving money, right saving money,

Unknown Speaker 5:09
if your business is back, and you are making money, you're being profitable, and you're making money just like it was before COVID hit, one of the lessons you should have learned is saving to say, well,

Unknown Speaker 5:20
you know what, let's talk about that, though. Because when you have a business, right, and this is the model that I learned some time ago, and it's about breaking the percentages of your money down, and training yourself to save as an entrepreneur, because as an entrepreneur, you don't have a 401, you don't necessarily have a pension plan, right, you have to basically save for your retirement, save, save for whatever it is that you want to do. All right, the money that you're making it, you have to find out what the advantages are. And I was I'm reading a book, and I love to read, I love to read, and a guy was he had this simple formula. And I'm like, if you follow this simple formula, you can start to see how you can save money. So what he did was he took $10,000, so you earn $10,000 A month as an entrepreneur, right? Because we get our money before taxes, you would take 50% of that, for all of your expenses in your office so that that'd be $5,000, right, and this is the ultimate plan. And then you would take another $1,000, put that aside for taxes, right. And you will put another $1,000 aside to pay yourself, right, because that's 10%. And the numbers can change, right. And then you will put another 1000 for a savings. I'm sorry, another 2000 for savings. And then it was another lesson 56789. And the last 1000 was like an emergency fund. But what I found was, you were you were taking the first 5000 to 50% of whatever you're earning. And that's the amount of what your expenses should be. So when you had to figure out what your budget was you, you were budgeting off of this. And if you were doing this plan knew you were follow it this way. But if you were doing this plan, and you're already in business, and you have bad habits, you would just take the percentages down. So with the 10,000, because you were operating as you're operating, you will take maybe 80% of your operating expenses until you're able to budget to get those expenses down or increase the money to fit with you know, within still save the money for taxes, operating expenditures, your savings accounts, because it's different things that you have to have in place. And what I found when I started doing it, probably about three years ago, saw the difference became more frugal, because I understood I only have this amount of money to spend, right. So I know I have to my rent. I know I'm in negotiating my rent, I know I need my rent to be X amount of dollars. So if the rent is more than that, that's not where I need to be right? I need to be somewhere that fits in it, right? Employees payroll very important. Figuring out okay, so how much can I afford to play pay people? And how do I get creative with it? So do I offer incentives? If we do this amount per month, and we can you get this bonus, but this is your base, and then it can be bonuses, supplies, negotiating stuff is gonna say, Oh, you buy it. Right? Right. So you just you just become more frugal and watching how you spend your money. And with the savings watching the savings grow.

Unknown Speaker 8:30
That's so true. That's one of the things I learned. First of all, is I started back saved me again, as you know, one of my goals last year was to buy a house. So I started saving for that. And I've met that goal. So I'm very happy about that. The next thing was is building my savings back up, you will build on my 401 K back up, put money back in. So really this last year and a half has helped me in that department of the savings department

Unknown Speaker 8:51
one Oh, that's a good idea. I want to bring the person on here to talk about that. Because what is your number? Yeah, what is your retirement number? And having those conversations even as an entrepreneur? What is your retirement number? And how do you back into the age from the age you want to retire? And how do you how do you get there? You know, what does that look like? You know, have you as entrepreneur? Have you written your life plan? Right? And what does that look like? And then just to see, are you accomplishing this by being an entrepreneur because people sometimes even though you work hard as an entrepreneur, you manage your time right for you, you are in more control of your time you are you are more control, you know, you have well you have more control over your time. Correct. But what do you do with it?

Unknown Speaker 9:32
You have to use it wisely. Like I applaud all the people for the last year and a half who decided to go back to school or to get a certificate to expand their education so they could expand their business. You had to go back and learn new tricks

Unknown Speaker 9:44
learn and you want let's talk about that though, right? Because even even with that, talking about industries and stuff, so most industries have some type of trade organization or some society and being a member of those two Trade Organization society so that you're networking around people that are doing what you're doing, because it's valuable information, because it's not a thing where we're in competition. We're complementing exactly, because there's enough money in the business out there for everybody to really, you know, so how can all of us How can everybody,

Unknown Speaker 10:19
basically, as an entrepreneur, you need to be on top of your game. So you should always take a class, okay? Always at all, if there's a new certificate, or a new anything in the field that you're in, you should absolutely take that class, you know, get that certificate, you should go join a professional group. You know, if you're a marketer, then you want to be the American Association of marketers, you know, if you're an engineer, you want to be in the engineering group, you know, whatever business that you're and count where you're right, if you're an accountant, you want

Unknown Speaker 10:47
to be, you know, in that group, in our in our state, so because we have a State Society, right. And those national societies, you learn a lot, because when I tell you, I told they have, they put on stuff all the time, and you can go to whatever you're interested in, because that's how new information hits the market, a lot of times are due to trade organizations. And at these

Unknown Speaker 11:08
conferences, they typically have every year, they have extra learning, they have extra education classes that you can take, you know, especially if you're in a position where you have to have any certifications, or licensing and things of that nature can say education units, does actually have continuing education units. So you want to make sure you're part of that. You want to make sure you go to these events to find people like you and other cities who do the same thing you do. So you can find out what are they doing? This is working well for them. And can that work for me in my marketplace, right?

Unknown Speaker 11:33
And what's best practices and what's the best? Exactly.

Unknown Speaker 11:36
So you have to talk to other people, especially if you don't have a mentor. So if you don't have a mentor in the business that you're in, to help kind of guide you and run things by then you need to go to these, these events where there are like minded people that you can talk to, or build a relationship and build relationships. Exactly.

Unknown Speaker 11:55
Rhonda, let me be an entrepreneur, it is bat tourism, by fire. In a baptism by fire. And I when I said that, when I first heard when I first heard that about 15 years ago, I don't like baptism by fire, but I can't be he is real. Because being an entrepreneur, the anxiety sometimes that you feel because especially if you're coming from a place where you're used to getting a paycheck, right? Every week, twice a month, twice every other week, you know, you, you're used to getting this paycheck. And now sometimes you're eating chicken, sometimes you eat in the feathers. That's right, you know, and sometimes you want to know what you're just not gonna eat. That's right. And how do you handle the anxiety of that, on and on, I don't know, being an entrepreneur now for for a very long time, because I want to age myself again. But being an entrepreneur for a very long time, learning how to deal with the ebbs and the flows. So that now it's just the flow. That's just the flow. And it's consistent. Consistency, consistency, and, but also knowing that I can live off of this amount of money and be okay. Right, and having a savings account that says, you know, I'm not touching my savings. No, not yet. Why

Unknown Speaker 13:14
to build it, what people have to learn, and I had to learn this is to stop living beyond my means. What does that mean? What does that mean? What does that mean? That means that if I made $10,000 a month, but I was spending $15,000 a month, I was living above my means. That means I was putting stuff on credit cards, and financing things that I absolutely could not pay for because I didn't make enough money.

Unknown Speaker 13:38
What things were you what them What things are you are you are you financing, are you you know, then let's talk about other things.

Unknown Speaker 13:45
Other things I was financing. Oh, would you mind? Would you buy in bunches a berry for what? Maybe traveling to? Sorry, place? For what? For nothing for what? So basically, we have to watch how you spend your

Unknown Speaker 14:02
money. But even that though, like having a mentor and I remember one of my mentors telling me that and she beautiful, beautiful wardrobe. Actually absolutely fabulous. But what she said was, you're right. I didn't buy this all at one time. This is years of you know, of doing it and she told me about the purse fun. And she said you know work and she knew she liked nice horses. So she would put X amount of dollars aside every month in her purse font. And when it got to a certain dollar amount, she would treat herself and go by

Unknown Speaker 14:38
her purse, and you absolutely should treat yourself so I'm not saying don't treat you right, right. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that depending on what your goals are. So let me explain when I was in my 20s My goal was to look cute at all the events so I did a lot of shopping at a lot of high price stores. Okay, because that's what I wanted to do. Then at a certain point I woke up and decided okay, that was fun, but that's not fulfilling me anymore. I need a house. So No, I'm gonna stop doing all of that spending at all decent stores. And that same money I was using to buy clothes and shoes and handbags, I decided to put it in a savings account to save for a house. And so once I received once I bought my first house, I was like, Okay, go will accomplish. And then I started, you know, doing other things I wanted to do. But what that means is it even in business, if you're thinking about expanding your business and opening up another office, in per Rumped, or in Summerlin, or anywhere in United States, you have to save before you do it, or you have to put the right systems in place, you just don't jump out there and do it, you have to make sure your money is correct, personally, and for business. And what we learned from the last year and a half is that we probably need to have about a year of operating expenses saved in the bank. So that if something happens like this, again, we are able to keep our business afloat. What do you think about that? Leah? I love

Unknown Speaker 15:51
it. Because when you are talking about what does what does your life look like? So if you know your monthly expenses are $10,000 a month, your savings account should be 120,000. If you know your personal household expenses. And when I talk about personal I'll talk about the basis with personal household expenses, meaning your mortgage, your utility bills, whatever work you have to have done around the house, whether it's the lawn or the pool, or whatever, you know, adding all that stuff up, and food, some basic knees, maybe buy yourself a little something. What is that per month? And if it's the say it's $4,000 a month, so $4,000 a month. So your your clothing, food shelter, all taken care of $4,000 a month, multiply that times 12. That's that's 48,000. How do you get to that 48,000 state if it's 10,000, and your business is 120,000? So together, you need 168,000? How do you get there? Because we the numbers might sound large, if you know that those are the numbers, you know, cuz the numbers could be smaller, you know, it could be 2000. So your 2000 times 12 months is 24,000. How do you get that $24,000 saved? And you have to plan it? That's right, you have to plan it. And when you plan it, you plan it and you start doing right because for me, I sit down with a financial advisor at least three times a year. And five years ago, when someone asked me do you need a financial planner? I said no, but it hit don't that's not what you do live, right. That's not what you do. Stay in your lane. So you got to build your squad around you with people that that do different things. I know I don't do marketing. I have a marketing degree. I don't do marketing. You know, I call one a professional, you know, like, my, I was talking to the woman that does my nails. And she was talking about you know how she was doing. She's had some problems with her tax stuff or whatever, what have you I said, Well, why are you doing it? That's not what you do. Right? Go paid a professional that that's what they do. Because I can sit home and play with my nails. That ain't gonna look like you. You did it. It wasn't like somebody was playing with it. Right? So you playing with your I mean playing with your stuff. That's why you paid a professional when you can hold the professional accountable, because you don't spend all day thinking about your tech stuff. Right? I spend all day just looking at tech stuff. That's all I do. Right? So I might see something that you necessarily wouldn't doesn't mean that you don't know, because I want to have a conversation with you. But Rhonda, I you know, I agree, I totally agree with you.

Unknown Speaker 18:21
Yeah, we have to do it. And like I've always said many times, if you're a small business owner, you have to have your professionals help you with your business. That means your attorneys, your accountants, your bookkeepers, your marketing consultants, you have to have those people look at the president, the president has a cabinet, a cabinet cabinet of 10 or 12 advisors that

Unknown Speaker 18:43
have staff that works know who they are, and they all have a staff that work for them. Right. And each one of the staff members probably has an assistant right, so you're talking about a good 100 People that have some kind of insight on what's going on with this decision. And I that's what I mean, you who's your team? Who's your squad? Who is your squad as entrepreneur who is your squad, who's that attorney that that you can call who's that marketing person that you can call who's who's your accountant, that you can call and talk to your banker who's your and key because and very important, right? Because with banking, I know for me it works having good banking relationships, because it's easy when you can call the bank and, and you need I needed checks for a certain account and I've just called a banker Hey, yo, can you order me some checks? Alright, Leah, thank you. Or you know, just shoot a simple email and you get a response, not a tomorrow? No, not I'll get back to you or you want to send something on my email, you know, having that relationship,

Unknown Speaker 19:41
get to know your bank manager, get to know your bank tellers, get to know everyone who works in the bank. Because at the end of the day, you will need them for something or something you may not even know but you will need them so it would behoove you to be nice to those people because you never know.

Unknown Speaker 19:56
Yeah, no, I have a good you know, have a good relationship with the bank. In, we're actually with several banks and just having just half an account just being able to conversate having good relate, you haven't given your

Unknown Speaker 20:06
chamber of commerce, if you're if your business is part of your chamber of commerce, get to know the people get to know the President get to know the, the office managers get to know the program managers get to know all of them. Because if something happens, you can pick up the phone and call them and they can help you. How about your network? Is your net worth best? Right?

Unknown Speaker 20:24
How about that? Right? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 20:27
that's right. Oh, that makes sense. And I'll tell you a little story last year when all this stuff popped off, I bank with Chase Bank, and I could not figure out why I couldn't get my PPP loan application done through them. And I've been banking with them for a very, very long time. So when I couldn't get what I needed from them, I went to my chamber of commerce, and spoke to my My Account Manager, if you will, that's not the right name. But anyway, spoke to my person from the Chamber of Commerce and said, Hey, I'm having a problem at this bank, you know, getting this taken care of. And they were like, well, that particular bank is not looking to help small, small, small businesses, they're looking to help big businesses, because that's how they make money. Right? Fine. He says, well, here, here's who you call. So he gave me someone's name at the SBA to call to help me. And that person helps me, they sent me over to a bank that could help me that will happen to be a credit union and everything got worked out. But again, who's in your network, who is who was in your network who was in your network, you I called the head of SBA here in Nevada, and he gave me someone, a company to go to and make it happen. So you just have to know people, you just have to know who to call. So that means you have to network. Jack can't stay on my silo, you can not stay at your silo, I can't stay in my silo can not stay in your silo. But the silo is comfortable, got a big TV it is and it probably a nice couch and everything else. However, you cannot grow your business. By staying in your silo. You have to network with people, you have to meet people, you have to get out there. You have to support other businesses. That's how you win. It's really very simple.

Unknown Speaker 21:54
It seems so complicated. I mean, we got to talk to people, you'd have to talk to people talk to the people,

Unknown Speaker 21:58
and you have to be nice to the people to the people to the people.

Unknown Speaker 22:02
Got to be nice to the people. All right. Well, Rhonda, I am Lea Crawford, this is

Unknown Speaker 22:07
Rhonda Nolan, you've been listening to Let's Talk with Leah and Rhonda. And we've had a fantastic conversation with you today. But anyway, I want to leave you with a little bit information. Go ahead. There's some new grants that have come out. And if you have a business and the city of Las Vegas, there's a new grant if you're a nonprofit, or if you're a business that puts together programs that help people, it is called the city of Las Vegas American rescue grant program. Okay, and so if If you received a pet grant last year, and you went to zoom grants.gov, this is where you would go to fill out the pre application. So in this pre application, they ask you about your organization, and what programs you are you are working on right now, and maybe some programs you want to put in the future. So you have to go to www dot Las Vegas nevada.gov/arp. And you have to August 13, to put in your pre application. And there, they have about $130 million to give out. And you can get a grant up to $50,000 for your organization. Did you hear me people $50,000 I'm sure that'll help some of the nonprofits out there. And I'm sure that'll help some of the other businesses that help in the community. So for more information, go to Las Vegas, nevada.gov, AARP to check it out. Again, it is the American rescue planning grant. And if you have yourself together, you should go there fill out the pre application. They're taking pre applications until August 13. But they probably won't give the final approvals to later on this year and give out the money to December but now's the time.

Unknown Speaker 23:43
Love it. Okay. And but you have to be in the city limits.

Unknown Speaker 23:47
Your business has to be in the city of Las Vegas City Limits. So if you have the Las Vegas business license, correct, if you have a Las Vegas, Las Vegas business license, you qualify for this particular loan

Unknown Speaker 23:58
or grant grant. Okay. It's not a grant. Right. Okay. So we got to be strategic and figuring out how we get these for profit businesses to qualify. Right this money. That's right. That's right. Hmm. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 24:10
So interesting. I was pretty excited to hear about that. They rolled that program out on Tuesday. And I've been telling, you know, different groups and organizations about it. So I'm kind of happy about it, because there are still some business out there that had 100%. And if you're a business or nonprofit, that's not 100%.

Unknown Speaker 24:24
That's not what that Grant says, though.

Unknown Speaker 24:27
Well, yeah. Well, if you Yes, it is. Because you could have a business, right? Where you have a program that you're helping people, but maybe your funding fell through. So you still need funding to work said programs. That's what this is about. This is what this is about. This is for businesses that are helping the community that need funding. These are for nonprofits that need funding,

Unknown Speaker 24:50
that's nonprofits. But she said for its for also for profit business for

Unknown Speaker 24:52
profit. So your business has to be something that helps the community because there are for profit businesses to do things within community in the small business community and in the community period

Unknown Speaker 25:03
definer, for me helped me to understand that helped me I mean, not because it sounds good, but I just I just need help connecting the dots on that one. Because as a as a, because what it sounds like and I could be I mean, I just I just need to understand how to connect the dots. or explain to me what type of business.

Unknown Speaker 25:19
The key areas being considered are nonprofit support, affordable housing, business assistance and public assistance. Business applicants must be physically located within the city of Las Vegas, jurors, jurisdiction, nonprofits, go ahead, nonprofits located outside of the city block Las Vegas jurisdiction. But providing services within the city are also eligible to determine your business or nonprofit is located in the city of Las Vegas. Visit www Las Vegas nevada.gov.

Unknown Speaker 25:47
Okay, so I'm listening to the criteria and I just need to and and you know what, that's a phone call, because I need to understand because if you are, because the funds are for, for profit businesses and nonprofit businesses, and if I'm a nail salon, I'm not back at 100% capacity. Right. But by the way, this is written I'm in the city of Las Vegas, I don't qualify for the grant, you do that? Based on the application they're based off. And I guess that's you do not that's this part, right. That's an I guess, expand more because I understand nonprofits because they are offering services, they might have lost funding, but the reality of it is a lot of the monies that were out there were for small business owners, the small business owners. So I would I would ask because how if I am a nail salon, if I am a restaurant, even though there are other monies out there now for restaurants, because they just started funding the grants Porter, I mean, the idols for restaurants. I'm a restaurant, I can't open back up doesn't mean I'm not I'm not giving food packages to I mean to people. I am this is my business. I'm servicing them because of capacity limits because of all these things. I can't, I can't I'm not this is not for

Unknown Speaker 27:04
you, unless you had a nonprofit arm to your business. Right. But

Unknown Speaker 27:07
again, I'm gonna sit here I get this is not for

Unknown Speaker 27:10
you. This is for a special segment of nonprofits and businesses right now. Now, they may have something a little later down the line, right they did last year, at the end of the year, they had the pet sprint, right. And they tried to give as many small businesses as they could at least $10,000. They might do that towards the end of the year. But right now, the the focus is on nonprofits and businesses that are serving the community

Unknown Speaker 27:30
that I serve. And that's why I said to find businesses that the server for profit businesses that are serving the community, I'm sure that there's an explanation out there. I just want to understand what it is. Got it. All right. Well, Rhonda Rhonda Rhonda, again, again, we came once or twice this month. That was

Unknown Speaker 27:44
good. Yeah, we did. Oh, lovely to be able to talk to our fellow business people also today. Also, if you have a chance today or sometime this weekend, go back to the sba.gov. And there is a a talk that's that happened on Thursday with a president vice president Harris and the SBA. And his topic is getting back on track, getting yourself together to get your business back on track and it'd be profitable. So today is Saturday and the event already happened. You could go to sba.gov and watch the webinar and it gives you some interesting information on help. Educational wise to get your business and yourself back on track.

Unknown Speaker 28:26
All right now well until

Unknown Speaker 28:28
next month. Until next month, peace and blessings Peace and blessings wear your mask wash your hands and be safe by Las Vegas goodbye.

Unknown Speaker 28:42
You have been listening to a paid program sponsored by Crawford management group and smart time consultants. Please be advised that the voices and opinions you heard do not necessarily represent the views of K u and v Las Vegas, the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai