The Email Library
Updated Whenever I Remember
Thoughts on the Y Combinator email that’s floating around
The economy hasn't been stellar these last few years. We've had to deal with the COVID pandemic, constantly changing regulations, the entire world suddenly working from home (and, many clients/vendors not being prepared for it), confusing grant applications, and...
What to look for in a Profit & Loss report
Accountants and finance people love going on about how important your financial reports are and how much can be learned by regularly reviewing them. And, that's true. You can learn a lot about your business just by taking a regular look at your numbers. You can learn...
Throwback ⏰: Proactively look for surprise expenses to improve your long-term cash flow
Proactively managing cash flow is more than just enforcing payment terms, delaying your cash outflows, and building a tiny emergency fund. You should also actively look for potential cash flow problems and proactively plan for them. Because, surprise expenses that...
Throwback ⏰: Numbers lie like a dog
Mark Twain famously said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics," meaning you can manipulate statistics to prove just about anything. That's also true for every number you see out there. Every report, every graph, and every tax return can...
Throwback ⏰: Keep a running ‘progress & goals document’ so you can more easily look back on your growth
True growth is incredibly slow. It's a series of marginal improvements over a long enough period of time until you finally become proficient or successful. For example, they say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert (which is debatable, but this is just an...
Throwback ⏰: Pick 3 business metrics to focus on – then ignore the rest
There's a near-endless supply of business metrics to choose from. Every single software now includes some sorta metrics dashboard. There's financial metrics, operating metrics, marketing metrics, sales metrics, project metrics, human resources metrics, metric metrics,...
Consider your clients Bill Pay process when sending invoices
Bill Pay and Accounts Payable are usually the most disorganized part of any small business's finances. It's the last piece of the financial puzzle that businesses work on. And, there's rarely a legit process other than just throwing expenses on the business card. Even...
Make paying invoices easier for your clients
Friction slows things down. That's true in physics, your car's brake pads, and small business cash flow. All those seemingly little annoyances and difficulties clients put up with, while paying your invoices, create friction and opportunities for your clients to pause...
Be realistic with your cash flow goals. It’ll never be perfect.
Sporadic and unhealthy cash flow makes running a business even more stressful than it already is. Instead of focusing on client work or strategic decisions, you'll be distracted by making payroll, paying next month's rent, and moving enough money around to make do....
Hiring an employee isn’t always the answer to business overwhelm
For all my yapping about profit, cash flow, and small business finance, I still do a lot of tax work. Business tax, personal tax, catch-up accounting, the works. So, you could definitely say this is a busy time of year for me. But, in a way, I'm lucky. I know tax...
How to intentionally review financial reports
Financial reports are the bee's knees. They give you a solid, big-picture understanding of all the little financial details and moving pieces in your business. Then, from there, you can start making educated decisions, working on problem areas, and improving your...
What to do after ranking your clients
This is the third email in a series on ranking clients. Check out the previous issues: How to rank your clients and What you can learn from ranking your clients. If you enjoyed this series, feel free to share it! You can learn a lot from ranking your clients....
Trust but verify (aka how to spot check a Profit & Loss report)
Profit & Loss reports are one of the most common small business financial reports. They are relatively easy to understand, can be generated with a few clicks in your accounting software, and are the starting point for your financial decisions, tax returns, bank...
Invoicing starts during the sale and client onboarding
Invoicing is usually an afterthought in many small businesses. It's seen as a simple formality like getting a receipt at the store. And, sending an invoice is nothing more than the very last step in getting paid (short of cashing them checksss 🤑). You just...
Review your project profitability to learn better pricing
Profitable project pricing is unassumingly difficult. You need to accurately do client discovery, assess the scope, plan employee capacity/labor, figure out how much overhead and direct expenses will cost you, and build some profit into your proposal, all while...
Test your client-facing tech (instead of assuming it works)
Technology is great and can be an absolute gamechanger,... until it isn't. Then, there's all sorts of frustrating little hiccups, glitches, and weird UI bugs where the software that you bought to make your life easier, now makes your life much much harder. And, when...
Writing a mission statement that doesn’t suck
Traditional, structured business plans usually include business descriptions, SWOT analyses, market research, financial projections, and various strategic breakdowns (eg sales strategy, marketing strategy, etc). And, at the veryyy beginning, in the executive summary,...
Reader question: “How can I intelligently cut back my recurring software subscriptions?”
It seems like everything is a subscription nowadays. You used to buy software once, use it for 3+ years, then maybeee buy an upgrade if you really needed it. Now, you gotta pay a subscription fee every month just to keep the software running. And, all those little...
Systemize your invoicing to prevent mistakes and improve your cash flow
Invoicing is a core aspect of small service business cash flow. It's how you let clients know what they owe, how they should pay you, and how long they have to pay you. Without invoicing, you wouldn't get paid and money wouldn't flow into your business (which is...
Things to consider when setting revenue-based goals
Basic revenue and profit targets are some of the most common business goals. They're straightforward, unpretentious, and easy to make. They don't need any fancy software to track or assess progress. And, you can keep them as simple as a sticky note on your screen, a...
How to constructively think about your business without totally ruining the holidays
Great business planning (and New Year's resolution-ing) involves a lot of intentionality, self-reflection (on both yourself and your business), and reviewing business stats (like financials, CRM data, etc). You need to take a hard look at your business, what's...
Late fees aren’t the answer to your cash flow problem
Every business owner has been burned by a late payment (or even nonpayment) before. You followed up, sent emails, and left voicemails, but your client was still full of excuses and the payment was late. And, while you were still upset with your client, you may've...
Systemize your owners’ bonuses for more predictable cash flow
There's a variety of reasons why you may've become an entrepreneur and started your own business. You might've wanted a better work/life balance, more flexibility, to be your own boss, you were laid off, etc. But, money is always part of the equation. (You have bills...
Getting more value out of a SWOT analysis
Everyone's first experience with a SWOT analysis is terrible. It's typically your first real exposure to business strategy and you just don't have enough experience in your business yet (because you're a business student, new entrepreneur, new to business...
The symptoms of disorganized cash distributions (and how to correct them)
Small business cash flow is an incredibly complex topic with lots of nuances. Every single aspect of your business impacts your cash flow. That's what makes rooting out the core cause of your cash flow issues and fixing them such a difficult process. It can take...