Episode 305 | Dondrea Owens of The Creatives CFO
Today Dannie and Caitlyn are talking with Dondrea Owens of The Creatives CFO.
We believe in accessible content and that anyone who wants to learn from this content should be able to. In order to support this, we’ve had every episode of Season 4 transcribed. The transcriptions are available at the bottom of every episode blog post.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:
How to balance both a thriving a side hustle and thriving kids.
Learning how to ask for help and the best ways to do it.
How to let go of someone’s contract without hurting your business or your health.
The importance of telling your clients some of the new skills that you are learning.
FOLLOW YOUR HOSTS: D Website | D Instagram // C Website | C Instagram
Episode Transcript
Caitlyn Allen: [00:00:21] Hey guys, welcome back to a, another episode of the side hustle gal podcast. If you can't tell, this is not Dannie. I am so excited to be announcing who our guest is today because it's one of my. Favorite clients. Not that I have a favorite client at all, but one of my favorite entrepreneurs in the creative entrepreneur space. So Dondrea Owens is here today of the creative CFO. Um, and we're so excited to chat with you dondrea.
Dondrea Owens: [00:00:54] I'm excited to chat with you both too.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:00:57] Yay. Okay, so let's get started. How about you tell us a little bit about you, about your business and, um, how you identify as a side hustler or have identified as a side hustler.
Dondrea Owens: [00:01:09] Okay. Cool. So like you said, my name is Dondrea. Um, I have a business call, the creative CFO where I help creatives and small business owners really get to know their numbers, um, and be able to grow them as well. So I got started. Working with creatives, because I say I used to be one, but I still am one at heart. Um, but I used to design wedding invitations and I did a little bit of small business branding as well, um, back in the day, about three, four years ago. And so I found that I really love the creative community. You know, I loved everyones enthusiasm for business and coming from an accounting background. I didn't see how the two could merge until a friend showed me. Um, she, uh, kinda told a wedding planner what I did, um, as a day job and we figured out how I could help her get her books current for the previous year. And from there it was just me recognizing, Hey, I can merge these two worlds and still have fun and do that thing that I'm good at professionally.
So that's how the creative CFO came to be. Um, what else as a side hustle? So I had my first business as a side hustle, uh, doing the wedding invitations, and it was quite interesting. Um, as you know, being in public accounting, it has its busy seasons. And so January through April, every year, I'm pretty much.
It was pretty much unavailable to people because we'd work, you know, 60 to 70 hour weeks. But I still had time to do that side hustle because it was something that I enjoyed and it didn't really feel like work. So I would be up late at night, I'd find time on weekends, and this was all pre kids. So it was kind of easy to do that. Um, there were times that I had my husband at a print shop with me, like doing stuff. So. It was all hands on deck just to like make that happen. So I understand completely beside hustle life.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:03:06] Now, here's a good question for you. Does having kids and running a business just one or the other ever feel like a side hustle to you?
Dondrea Owens: [00:03:15] Oh my gosh. At any given time. Yeah. So when I'm feeling like the guilt, um, the kids can feel like a side hustle, you know? So if I'm working a lot and you know, clients need things or I'm catching up on work or whatever. Yeah, they kind of take a little bit of a backseat and they're okay with that. You know, they're always around. That's one thing I can say. I very much exposed them to the business, but yeah, and then when things are busy with them or they're home from school, then I'm like sneaking time away and they're making sure that I'm, they keep me accountable to the time that I spend with them versus the business.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:03:55] And how do you feel the balance of, or how have you really focused on the balance of being a mom, but also being a business owner and, um, giving enough time to both pieces? How do you feel like that has evolved and do you feel like you've found that balance yet?
Dondrea Owens: [00:04:17] You know, I think it's one of those things that's always either up or down, and I'm never 50 50 in both places, and I'm okay with that now. There was a time where I wasn't okay with that, but now it's. Learning that I can ask for help, you know?
So that all of my balls, as I say, all of my balls, stay in the air. You know, I have you on my team, you know, some weeks I'm calling you every day, and then some weeks I'm kind of quiet and you're checking on me to see what's going on. You know? And the same thing with the kids. Sometimes I'm really hands on.
I'm like. Best mom ever, mom of the week, I'm at the school, you know, I'm doing everything right. And that's on that side. And then sometimes I've got up, you know, I'm sending up smoke signals for somebody to come and help me pack lunches and get the kids off to school on time and stuff. So it's finding that balance has meant asking for help when I need it. And understanding very clearly what that help looks like, so that I can communicate that. And you know, that is something that I'm always working on.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:05:18] Yeah. I feel like the reason why I'm asking a lot of these mompreneur questions is because we haven't had many moms here talking about owning and running a full grown business. That's not been a side hustle. So it's. Not to like take away from the business owner side of things. It's just, I, I can't imagine, as I was saying in another episode, how people can balance both having children, having a significant other and running a business. It's just, it literally is mind boggling. I still don't know how you do it.
Um, but I think the next. The thing that I really want to talk about is asking for help. I think a lot of side hustlers really, really struggle with asking for help, um, and just buying all of the courses or consuming all of the content. Instead of saying, Hey, you know, Dannie, I know you run a marketing business. We're friends like, I don't want to use you. In a, in a bad way. What can I give you that you can give me in return? So I can ask for help in a certain scenario? Um, how, how has asking for help really influenced your business?
Dondrea Owens: [00:06:28] Oh, wow. So I've been able to grow way faster and with less stress is what I found because I know what doing it alone looks like. And that's me wearing a bunch of hats. It's posted notes all over my desk. It's, you know. It is, it is the riff Raff of, of just being a business owner. Um, but asking for help and being clear on what that help looks like and, and also being clear when you don't know what you need. You know, it's having lots of conversations with people. I can't tell you how many consultations I had, um, with people to just say, Hey. These are the issues that I'm having. What is it that you do and how could you, how would you approach this? How would you help me solve this problem? And figuring out is this a good fit or not? You know, some of my best hires have been.
Getting people to tell me where it is that they really Excel and what they do best. And then me saying, okay, you could help me. You know, it's not been in the courses that I've bought. While those courses were great for like an introduction, that is, if I took, actually took the course and applied it, you know, cause that's a whole thing too. Um, finding the time to learn a new skillset or, you know, dig yourself out while still learning how to dig yourself out. Like that's just. It can. Yeah. It can make you feel pretty often the business, but yeah. I would say that's been it.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:07:52] So I'm, I'm curious, it sounds like the, you've, you've hired a number of people and probably had to terminate relationships with some too. Yeah. What advice would you give to the entrepreneur who is. Hanging on to someone for too long that they should have terminated a contract with is considering Irish good buying on a relationship. I just like phasing out the number of hours they assign that person. Um. How, how, what advice would you give so that that entrepreneur could be a grown up about, right.
Dondrea Owens: [00:08:35] Okay. So this has been a lesson that I learned really well in 2019 um, to prior to 2019 I was very non-confrontational and I would have done what you just mentioned. It'd be a gradual. A gradual decline in hours and the sneaking away and all of those things. Um, but what I've learned is that people value honesty.
And so do I. So to just be really clear and say, Hey, this isn't working out for me, and here's why. Here's what I, where I think you've really excelled, but this is actually what I need. And I don't believe that, you know, this is going to be a good relationship going forward as it pertains to the word. And it says nothing about how I view them as a person or anything like that. I've just realized that my needs are different and it's okay, you know, for me to get what I need to actually run the business. Um, we're not buying friendships and holding hands and dating and all of these things. It is a real business relationship. And so. Changing the way that I viewed that in the past has been really helpful.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:09:48] I'm on for the record. I like being friends with you though. I'm just kidding.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:09:55] I'm, I'm also curious to what, and I think Caitlin's experienced a lot of this over the past couple of years. What do you do when you have someone that's working for you that is. Amazingly talented and skilled at what they do, but they've grown beyond that. But you don't like, maybe you don't want to fire them or switch to a new person.
How do you, the more, the longer that you're in business, how do you grow the people that work with you? Because it's a lot different than a managerial role in a corporate company where you can offer them a promotion.
Dondrea Owens: [00:10:32] Right. Um, so I. Tend to, and Caitlyn can tell you this for sure. I throw things at her. And just see what sticks sometimes.
And so in most cases she rises to the occasion and I'm just like, Hey, would you like to do this going forward? And this is where I kind of see you positioned in the business. We just did this at our retreat. Um, which she kind of, you know, pushed me to have like a retreat so we could really dive deeper into the business.
But in one of those sessions, we sat down and kind of mapped out what roles we see people doing in the business. Now, at this time, you know, we're doing a lot of roles, but I gave her the opportunity to tell me where she saw herself. And then I told her where I saw her, and hopefully somewhere in there we can merge the two of those and come up with a really good position and roles and responsibilities and things like that.
Um, but again, you know, people grow their experience and sometimes they're willing to take on more, but you'll never know unless you ask and like have that conversation, you know, so I could be so used to her. Used to her doing graphics and scheduling social media, that that's all I ever asked her to do.
And she's growing a whole different set of skills behind the scenes that could be helpful to me, you know? So it's just being in constant communication about, you know, what they're working on, how they feel about it, and where they see ourselves going.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:11:55] Yes to the side hustlers out there. If you are growing, if you are taking courses and you're learning new things and you're offering new skill sets that you're not currently offering to some of the clients you're working with, tell them like, tell them if you, there's no point of hoarding your knowledge and being better about getting paid menial.
Dollars for skills that you could be offering your clients. Um, and yeah, it is really scary when you're like, yo, I don't want to do social media scheduling it $10 an hour anymore. I want to be paid $40 an hour and project manage your, your whole system or something like that. Like that can seem really scary, but you're in that team already and you know, potentially what your. Client needs and you might be able to rise to that occasion. So if you don't ask or if you don't say anything, then yoke, your client will never know. So there was my TEDx talk,
Dondrea Owens: [00:12:55] Seriously though, because we look at it, I would hate to lose someone who I enjoy working with because they outgrew the position and I had no idea. That they have had outgrown it, you know? So, um, so yeah, it's important because I don't want to lose that, that knowledge base, you know, someone who knows my business really well.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:13:14] So what has been a mistake that you made in your business, either at the beginning or in the last year or so that you feel like, um, if you could tell the world it would be a better place?
Dondrea Owens: [00:13:28] Um. I wouldn't necessarily call it a mistake, but. I wish I had adopted like systems and processes a whole lot sooner than I did. I was anti process checklist, all of that because I came from that background, you know, public accounting. Um, the teams that I was on had, we had checklists for everything. We had dates that things were received, dates that things were sending out, and.
I understood the value of it to some degree, but I didn't know how much that would even benefit me in my smaller business until I didn't have those things. And then you could not hold me back from creating checklists and trackers and templates and everything to save time. Um, so that's one thing. It's, it's creating those systems and processes and really sitting down to think through what it is that you do. Every single time with the client. Um, and figuring out how you can automate that. Because once you do that, you get into a whole different realm of thinking about how to provide value to your clients.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:14:32] Um, I mean, as you build those systems and processes and your business, just in general, what has been, something that you've learned about yourself as you've, you know, went from a solo preneur to growing a team? What have you learned.
Dondrea Owens: [00:14:50] Um, that they're like being a one woman show. That's not a badge of honor. You know, I used to think that when I started my own business that it was just going to be me and I was going to do it all in. That was my definition of superwoman, and that has changed so much and I'm fine with giving someone else credit now. You know? Um, and I think that comes with building a team and having help and understanding that I'm so much better when I have some people keeping me accountable and helping me check things off the list, helping me check in on clients and things like that, that I'm okay with saying. Hey, it's not just me. There was a team of people and I give you all credit because you helped me make it happen, you know? So I would say that's been the biggest shift, and that even surprised me. But yeah.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:15:40] So I'm, I'm curious, and it sounds like you might have some pretty clear thoughts on this. Can you run a business that functions in highs and lows in terms of time that it takes you to do things? I mean, tax season is hell season and the rest of the year is a little bit better. How do you. Set those expectations with clients cause I bet there's something we could learn from you. And setting expectations, especially in those busy seasons.
Dondrea Owens: [00:16:12] Oh yes. Okay. So it's an area where we're still growing, but constant communication. I keep going back to that. So whether it's an email to say. Hey, we're currently working on your account and we expect to have X, Y, Z to you, and three days or a due date. Um, it's also letting them know when we need things from them. It's just. Mainly being available because sometimes our clients just need to know that we're on top of whatever it is. They might not even, you know, need, whatever the particular thing is today, but they just need to know that we're there. We have them in mind, and we're going to get back to them.
And I will say that's been the thing that's . Really been our saving grace because you know, as we've been growing and putting these systems and processes in place, you know, we've dropped the ball in some areas, like on delivery times. Um, even just, just by our standards. It's not been that we've not delivered to a client when they really needed something, but it's been that we didn't hold true to the deadline we gave ourselves.
But when clients reach out to us. We are there, you know, we're answering your emails, answering boxers, text messages if need be. Um, we always make ourselves available for them and I think that goes, has gone a long way for us.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:17:26] Well, and another thing too, I would add in there is making sure that our expectations of what their deliverables to us are as well.
Um. I think something that we forget as business owners is we need to put the expectation out to the person that we're working for, what our expert, what we need from them to do our job efficiently. Um, and I think that can go for anyone who's running a business at all. You, you have to make sure you're telling your client what you need to.
Complete the job. So that's, I think that's another area that we don't think about as well.
Dondrea Owens: [00:18:06] Yeah.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:18:07] Okay. So I have to ask the where we're talking to the money person, what are two or three investments or purchases that people try to deduct all of the time, but are not actually deductible slash maybe also not good investments for your business?
Dondrea Owens: [00:18:28] Right. Oh my gosh. Okay, so a huge one. And I get this a lot because we do work with a couple of influencers. Um, clothing is a huge one. Um, and it's such a great, well, you know what, it's not a grey area. Clothing is typically not deductible. Um, unless you have like your company's logo on it or something to that degree where it becomes advertising and marketing, it's not deductible.
Or if it's a uniform that you have to wear. Then, okay, that's deductible, but getting an outfit, because you're going to go to a conference later this month. Not deductible. I'm getting a swimsuit because you're going to go take some photos on the beach and put them on your Instagram. Not deductible, but there are some instances where you could deduct.
So say, um, you are doing that photo shoot. Let's, let's say I would give you this example. You're a wedding planner and you are doing a style shoot. Um, and you know, you bring in a lot of vendors for that, and it's the whole setup. If you rent a dress from rent the runway, that actually is deductible. Yeah, you just need to keep your photos, keep your receipts and all of those things and say, this was as part of that style, shoot, this was an advertising effort.
Um, and then it is, but most of the things that you see being deducted typically aren't. Um, there are some instances, like for brand partnerships. Um, and that becomes a gray area. Um, let's say you have some sort of agreement with Fabletics or you're getting a partnership with them or something like that.
And so, you know, you have things that you send my purchase or that they give you huge discounts on, or they send you free merchandise. Then we're getting into that gray area where we just have to examine it, case by case. Um, but yeah, just your random mudstone sex forever 21 purchases. No girl, they're not deductible.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:20:28] So that chanel now bag for Instagram.
Dondrea Owens: [00:20:33] No, it is not. You know, we have to think about these investments as things that are revenue generating and that Chanel bag is not revenue-generating. It can hold the money, but it's not revenue generating.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:20:46] I think this is a good one for entrepreneurs too, because I, before I had a better understanding, I would have tried to make the case that since a significant portion of my revenue came from speaking, but like, heck yes. The clothes that I wear over and over and over again on the stage are tax deductible, but. Yeah. Wait, no.
Dondrea Owens: [00:21:06] Now you might want to get like your, your logo. Since I was a little emblem on that.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:21:12] There you go. There you go. I'll wear like a or a nice blouse and get it . There you go. Oh, that's too funny. Um, that's a good one though.
That's a good. Call out, and especially so these episodes will go live during tax season. And I know that it's something that we all have to think about, especially as our business grows. Like what things are we missing? What things are we treading? Way too close to that questionable.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:21:48] Yeah. And I feel like, Oh, I was going to say, I feel like those people who are like trying to hack your like business finance or like if you talk business on Friday and you talk business on Monday, then you can deduct to the whole weekend travel plans. Like they shouldn't be trying to hack your business like taxes like he come on.
Dondrea Owens: [00:22:11] I think there's a common misconception. That you should try and write off your entire life's expenses in the business and it's just not. And I want to provide. An example of, or, or a scenario to kind of think through. So you're in a business to actually make money, not to deduct expenses.
So I tell people, I've had the question, should I attend this conference in Paris and take this trip and I can write it off in the business and I'll be, I'll owe less than taxes. And so when we look at the cost of this trip, it's $10,000 and I say the most you'll pay on that $10,000 is we'll say about three grand.
So 30% tax, right? You'll play, you'll pay three grand. That means you could have had $7,000 in your pocket. Is it worth that? You know? Because those are the types of questions that you really need to be able to answer. I would prefer to have $7,000 in my pocket. I'll pay the IRS that three but what I will not do is attend this conference in Paris for 10 grand.
That is not going to deliver what it said it was delivered just for the sake of saving Taxes Oh and Taxes
Caitlyn Allen: [00:23:24] Oh, and I want to ask one last question before we wrap up. What is a tax tip? Do you have a tax one, one or two, whatever. How old is does?
Dondrea Owens: [00:23:35] I will say that the one thing that I found that makes taxes really easy. The year, and we are doing catch-up bookkeeping for an entire year. And so with that. There's a lot of stress about what they might owe. Um, there's a lot of recordkeeping that hasn't been done. So sometimes they don't remember expenses, particularly if they haven't been using a business account count to do it from.
So like a business checking account, they've got to go back and look through personal bank statements and things like that to try and remember. What they spent money on. You've lose deductions that way because you can't prove them. You don't remember them, you know? They're just missing in action. So that's the best advice I could really give is to just do your bookkeeping throughout the year so that you have a clear view.
And then also that kind of leads into you being able to pay estimated taxes throughout the year because that is going to significantly reduce your liability at the end of the year. So between those two things I've seen that alleviate a lot of stress for, for business owners. Um, and I've also seen it make a huge difference, um, with some of my clients who are more conservative, you know, I've seen them be able to take bonuses because, you know, they've paid those estimated taxes.
We get to the end of the year and we've actually overestimated a little bit and now they've got money in their pocket and they are sitting pretty going into the next year. So it's those, those two things that I would recommend most.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:25:00] Yes. If I've learned anything as being a business owner, it's saving. I don't care what you do, take 30% off the top of every single penny you make, because I promise you, if you put that into a savings account, like it might hurt at the beginning, but at the end of the year when you have $7,000 that you've. You know, seven, however much money you've paid into estimated taxes, and you still have money left in that savings account, and you get to take that as an owner's draw with tax free. Pretty much. It's the best feeling ever, so it's worth it.
Dondrea Owens: [00:25:38] Yeah, I agree with you.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:25:40] Well, thank you so much for hanging out today. I feel like I've even learned something new. Um, Caitlin knows I used to work at H and R block, and while that doesn't make me a CPA, Oh, got some experience. Yeah. You guy learned some new stuff today. So, um, I would love to know where folks can hang out with you online and continue to follow along with your story.
Dondrea Owens: [00:26:04] Okay. I spend most of my time, uh, on Instagram. I'm at the creative CFO. Um, and then also on my website, the creative cfo.com. We are restarting our newsletter, um, or by the time this airs, we will have restarted the newsletter. So sign up for that and um, let's get some tips and chicks and also get some behind the scenes action.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:26:26] Thank you so much.
Dondrea Owens: [00:26:28] Thank you for having me. This has been fun.