I’m sure many of you will be spending time with your friends and family this Thanksgiving. I will be doing the same. I’m headed to PA to be with my parents, grandma, and my brother and his wife for some relaxation and great food : )
I love this time of year as it really reminds me to reflect on all that I am grateful for in my life. Over the years, I have come to realize the power of gratitude in creating a happy life. I was recently gifted a beautiful pink leather journal which has now become my gratitude journal. I make sure to open it every morning and write down one thing that I was so grateful for in the past 24 hours and WHY. I believe connecting with the “why” is so important because it allows me to truly understand and appreciate the joy of that moment which has a lasting positive effect.
Last month I met one of my favorite teaching assistants from Harvard after many years. His name is Shawn Achor and he has now become a well-known speaker and author on the topic of “happiness.” He shared that in his research he has learned that only 10% of peoples’ happiness is determined by their circumstances and 90% by the way they perceive the world. So this Thanksgiving and going forward, let us make efforts to perceive the world from a place of gratitude and let us enjoy the ripple effects of happiness this will create for us!
This is the most exciting time to be alive! The technology shift taking place today will dramatically change the way we live our lives for the better. With the availability of exponentially growing technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, sensors, biometrics, the internet of things just to name a few we are able to enhance not just our everyday lives, but our businesses and the world.
As we speak, 3 billion people are connected via the power of the internet but if Google or Facebook have their way, by 2025, that number will expand to include every human being on the planet. Solar and wind energy are now the same price and in some cases cheaper than coal providing social, environmental and economic benefits. Cancer and disease are making strides towards being non-existent with new developments in genetic editing, stem cell research and cancer immunotherapy. We are extending human life with genetic engineering and blood therapies and are on our way to make 100 the new 60 : )
I can go on about autonomous vehicles, flying cars and drones, artificial intelligence and space exploration and colonization. The amount of societal, business and social progress being made by technology today is astounding. I personally get really excited about the same rapid pace of change and advancement taking place in financial services. Banking for the last 100 years really hasn’t changed much but as of late the industry has been going through a much needed shift. From the growth in digital banking, to the advancements in payments, (Venmo, PayPal, Zelle, Apple/Samsung Pay) and personal finance management tools (using AI, predicative analytics), to the creation of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and initial coin offerings just to name a few. The financial world as we know it is becoming easier to navigate and more convenient and value additive for the customer.
So how will this shift affect you? How will this technological revolution allow you to not only survive but thrive in this new world? We’ve seen how the internet boom of the late 1990’s created millionaires and billionaires but more importantly it changed the way we communicate and access information. This is another one of those special moments where we can decide to be players and seize the moment or spectators and accept what spare change is given to us. I once heard that if you are given an opportunity of a lifetime, you must take advantage of it within the lifetime of the opportunity. Seize this moment! Learn, unlearn, and relearn, and figure out how what you are passionate about aligns with these new technological advances and can benefit both your business and the world. Don’t just sit on the sidelines. Get involved, get excited and take advantage of this once in a 100 year opportunity!!
Are you looking for some advice about how to grow your business? We have two tips that you might want to consider. Designer Jay Godfrey, the founder and CEO of JayGodfrey, and I (Luvleen Sidhu, the co-founder and president of BankMobile), share why you should set daily goals for yourself and the importance of having a customer acquisition strategy.
This CEO Proved Her Leadership, Growing Employees from Handfuls to Hundreds
Dreaming big is fine, delivering big is hard. This Successful CEO shares her secrets.
By Kevin Daum
Inc. 500 entrepreneur and best-selling author@KevinJDaum
Silicon Valley has its successes, but is rampant with many more failures. You know the story. A tech startup with tons of promise gets funding, grows like gangbusters, and then promptly and epically collapses. Often, it’s due to poor management by the CEO/Founder. These entrepreneurs may have had great products, but they lacked the ability to manage surging growth. Truly great leaders see through the chaos of rapid expansion and change.
Even an impeccable educational pedigree – Harvard and Wharton – could not fully prepare YPO member Luvleen Sidhu for the demands of being the CEO during astronomical growth. Inspired by her own bad experiences with traditional banks, Sidhu began BankMobile in her living room as the country’s first fee-free, all-digital bank. She aspired to attract 25,000 customers in the first year, and met her target fourfold!
It’s only been three years since the launch of BankMobile, yet, now with hundreds of employees, Sidhu has already made it the largest, fastest-growing digital bank in the industry, generating $75 million in annual revenues and opening 350,000 accounts per year. This kind of dramatic growth is a dream come true for many entrepreneurs, but it comes with its own set of unique challenges for the CEO. Sidhu is proving herself more than competent. Here is her advice to navigate your company through the storm of growth:
1. Go Within and Sit Still
Being a CEO is hard enough when the company is well-established and stable. When a business is experiencing rapid growth, the job is even more difficult, and the CEO has to find a way to maintain balance in life and in work. “With the many things that are thrown my way on a daily basis, my meditation and chanting routine help me stay focused in order to make the best decisions. It’s a chance to really align with my goals and what resonates with my heart personally and professionally,” says Sidhu. CEOs need to be grateful for the present moment and the opportunities that come, however pressure-packed. A centered, calm CEO makes rational decisions, not emotional ones that can slow growth as quickly as it started.
2. Master Your Internal and External Environments
When a business experiences growth as rapidly as BankMobile, it is often a disruptor in an existing industry. It is important for disruptor companies to keep their disruptor attitude. Sidhu recalls the words of Peter Diamandis: “You must disrupt yourself, or someone else will.” Sidhu is highly aware of her own industry. “On almost a daily basis, I assess what our strengths are, what makes us different from other fintech companies, and how to use these differences to create exponential growth. I also assess what threats currently exist in the marketplace and how to mitigate those risks.” Make sure you are constantly challenging yourself and the norms of your industry, because the business environment is fiercely competitive. You weren’t the first disruptor, and you certainly won’t be the last.
3. Find the Right People to Lead
Every leader needs a strong team for support, particularly in times of change. “Creating and implementing strategy starts at the top,” explains Sidhu. “If management isn’t fully committed to our plan of action, it will be almost impossible for them to share the company’s vision with their teams.” Sidhu is particularly a fan of Jim Collin’s best-selling book Good to Great, which advises “getting the right people on the bus in the right seats.” Having management buy-in from the very beginning on the vision for the company is a critical part of success. If there isn’t a process to find the right people before rapid growth, it will be nearly impossible to implement during the chaos of growth.
4. Create the Right Company Culture
Success also requires the right culture at every level of the company. Sidhu warns, “If employees don’t feel empowered or motivated at work, that will bleed into the type of products and services we produce and how we interact with our customers.” The solution, she says, is creating a culture that is “empowering, inclusive, and transparent.” Culture rot can quickly ruin a company, even one with good people and good products. And in a company where growth is rapid, culture rot can spread twice as fast.
5. Be Willing to Learn, Unlearn, and Relearn
When entrepreneurs meet with success, they can become isolated and set in their ways. Sidhu warns against complacency and over-confidence. “In many instances, my obstacles came by way of something that I thought I already knew. Never believe that you know it all. Change happens rapidly and constantly, so staying open to learning, unlearning, and re-learning is an important part of leadership.” With the right attitude, failure becomes an opportunity for betterment. Avoid clinging to your own preconceived notions or to how it’s usually done. This adaptability is particularly important when your company is growing fast.
6. Keep the Team Focused on the Big Picture
Sidhu likes to invoke Friedrich Nietzsche on the importance of focus: “The most basic form of human stupidity is forgetting what we are trying to accomplish.” The CEO of an expanding company is inundated with competing responsibilities, and it’s easy to lose sight of your goals. “With so many moving parts in running a business, it is easy to get lost in the day. It is important to have focus and never forget the big picture,” says Sidhu. “What is our why? How are our daily tasks helping to achieve our mission?” Don’t micromanage, but make sure you know that your management team is on the big tasks. What gets lost in the beginning of your company’s growth phase is difficult to resurrect later, so make sure your priorities are always in line.
7. If a Door Closes, Open Another One
When your company encounters a problem – and it will – look outside your industry’s box for a solution. BankMobile and other digital neobanks were struggling to acquire customers, and Sidhu wanted BankMobile’s solution to differentiate it from the competition. “Most of these banks were struggling with customer acquisition. We struggled for a short time as well trying to figure out our direct to consumer strategy, but then we figured out the secret sauce: distribution partners and white label banking.” Instead of using traditional, expensive, brick-and-mortar banking models of attracting clients, BankMobile went to the customers, finding banking partners with a built-in customer base in need of services. Don’t feel hemmed in by what your competitors are doing. Instead, intentionally try to do it differently and better. Treat every challenge as an opportunity, and you will constantly open yourself to new avenues for business and new relationships.
How She Got There: Luvleen Sidhu, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer of BankMobile
Name: Luvleen Sidhu Job Title and Description: Co-Founder and Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer of BankMobile Website:www.BankMobile.com
What inspired you to start BankMobile?
Luvleen Sidhu: I remember opening my first bank account and I had to go into the bank branch and I waited there for 20-25 minutes. In terms of the line and the process it took to really open up the account, I just remember it being a completely frustrating, useless sort of use of my time—not really [that] great of an experience. On top of that, I remember asking her, “What other products and services do you recommend for me?” I was a college student at that time. She handed me this flyer that had a list of all their products and services on it and she was like, “Here you go. Take a look at this.” It just kind of opened my eyes to, number one, how antiquated and frustrating the experience is when you try to open a bank and deal with a bank. Number two, there’s zero customization or personalization. She just handed me a list of all the products that didn’t include anything customized to where I was in life. Three, understanding this industry more and more, I learned that it’s really unethical the sorts of fees that are being charged to people. Americans are being charged almost 32 billion dollars every year, and that’s just in overdraft fees. That’s more than what they spend on buying vegetables, three times more than what America spends on breast and lung cancer research. There are 68 million Americans [that] are underbanked and don’t have access to traditional finance services. The personal experience, plus this opportunity for the need of Americans to have access to affordable financial services, given that everything in life has a financial component and you really can’t succeed until you’re on a solid financial footing. Those are some of the things that got me inspired, got me excited about this opportunity to really transform this industry.
What does your current job entail? Is there such a thing as a typical day?
LS: One thing that I’m constantly focused on is how do we build our customer base. Number two, how do we get current customers to be very excited and loyal, and feel that we’re providing for them with a “wow experience.” That’s our mission. A typical day is really focused on what sort of marketing experience can we try to get people to know BankMobile, get excited about BankMobile. That includes everything from digital advertising to launching campus ambassador programs. Last September, we did grassroots marketing to street fairs in New York City, email campaigns and developed membership strategies because people might have the inertia to open an account even though they’re frustrated with their banking experience. So developing an easy, midway step like giving an email address and getting to know us so we can send educational finance content and learn what we’re about. It’s really about continuing to innovate to get people to know about BankMobile since we’re new, and get people excited about what we’re doing. Also, as the Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, I kind of hit on the marketing side; but the strategy is why did we come into business? Our mission is to make banking fee-free. We’re the first bank in the country with absolutely no fees. Number two, effortless. Number three, financially empowering. What from a strategy point in terms of the products, services, technology and strategic partnerships can do to really get us toward fulfilling those missions? That’s what I work on, on a day-to-day basis.
What is the best part of your job?
LS: I would feel that, to me, it seems really, I guess, cliché—but when I meditate. I meditate every day, and it’s a chance to really align with my goals and what resonates with my heart as a person. At the most basic level, my goal in life is to be happy and to make others happy as well. When you translate that into my professional life, the way that I move on that purpose is by creating this company and building this company that is truly going to get people to be on solid financial footing so they can achieve their own dreams and feel that joy in their own life. I’d say the best part of my job is going back to our core mission of making people financially empowered and helping people get to where they want to be in life so they can feel fulfilled and happy at the end of the day. Getting your finances sorted and being on a solid financial footing is the basis to be able to springboard and do that.
Who is one person who changed your professional life for the better?
LS: My dad and I work together. We’re co-founders. He’s actually a veteran banker, a seasoned banker as he ran a bank called Sovereign Bank that was bought by Santander for 17 years. He really knows the banking space very well. I, being a millennial myself, tech-savvy, and understanding the needs and demographics of this generation—which is the largest generation, and going to be the most profitable over time. Our powers combined have really helped in setting BankMobile with where we are today with over 100,000 customers after just one year in business. He helps me on an everyday basis not just by helping me understand banking better, and this world that we’re in, but also just being a better leader. I have the opportunity to lead a team while I’m here, and learning from him that so much of leadership is actually emotional intelligence. How do we manage our emotions? How do we manage our relationships? How do we empower those that we work with? How do we inspire our customers? Through his experience in life so far, I really am able to learn from him these techniques that make me a better leader and a better businesswoman.
What is one mistake you made along the way and what did you learn from it?
LS: Personally, I’ve actually dealt with a lot of chronic pain. I really let it spiral out of control where I didn’t deal with it for months and months. It became very painful. It’s something I’ve been battling with for 6 years now. The mistake I made was not taking care of my body and my health, and not prioritizing that. What I’ve learned from that experience and healing myself is that it’s so important to be healthy—your mind and your body, and to take accountability for that, and to be in balance. Once you heal your mind and body and pay attention to taking care of yourself, you have the balance and groundedness to really excel in all aspects of your life including the professional aspect. That was a huge learning for me that I needed to focus on basics to excel everywhere in my life, especially BankMobile.
What has been the most surreal moment of your career thus far?
LS: I would say that when we started on January 14, 2015, we made a public announcement to our investors and publicly on the street that we would have 25,000 BankMobile accounts after one year of being in business. For us, this is already a stretch goal because if you look historically at the growth that banks see after being open for only five years, they only have 1,500 accounts. We were thinking of multiples of this when we put out our goal of 25,000. So, really, a surreal moment for me was being able to get over 100,000 accounts in just a year. Not only were we able to achieve our goal that was already really a high bar but exceeded exponentially. To me, that just showed me that when you are driven by a passion or a mission that is greater than just profitability and being a successful business, but more driven by changing people’s lives and having a bigger purpose, the other things in terms of accounts and profitability sort of follow. Having that in our mission was the driving force behind our growth.
What advice would you give to a 20-something with similar aspirations?
LS: I would say, as boring as it sounds, it’s so important to never give up. I feel that there’s so many times in life, whether it’s in your personal life or your professional, when you’re at a low point. It’s so easy to feel defeated, to feel hopeless and to not push forward. I feel that the biggest gift in life is this change in philosophy in life that I’ve had is to feel happier, wiser and stronger—mentally and physically. If you are on a mission for moving forward, moving your life forward in every way that you can each day and never giving up, that would be the most powerful lesson and I believe nothing can stop you with that attitude.
As of late, there has been an awakening where more people are open to trying spiritual practices in order to improve their lives. Whether it’s meditation, yoga, saying affirmations, or just believing in the law of attraction, spirituality is not as taboo as it once was. But when it comes to your finances, can we use these same principles to help us manage money better? I say yes! The following are five spiritual practices that can help you with your finances.
1. Make Peace With Your Money
Deepak Chopra says in his book The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, “Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask yourself if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.” This is important to apply to your money because your upbringing can affect how you deal with your finances. Do you have a scarcity mentality that is making you a money hoarder or has your money history made you a shopaholic? Whatever your money personality is, you must make peace with it and let go of any habits that are not contributing to your journey towards financial freedom. Take a moment to write down the money messages that you’ve heard coming up, reflect on what you’ve done right so far with your money, and identify the places where you have opportunities to improve. No matter the mistakes you have made, make peace with them. Forgive yourself for what was, accept what is, and begin to move in the right direction today. Letting go of the past is the best first step to creating a brighter financial future, and brighter future in general.
2. Visualize Your Abundance
The law of attraction teaches us that if we want to reach our goals, then visualization is where we should begin. By visualizing your dreams, you teach your brain to tap into the inner resources that you need to make them a reality. It allows you to see your dreams in your mind’s eye in order to accept and believe that you deserve them, and it allows you to stay positive, which will help you to stay on track to be successful in the long run. Visualizing your abundance can help you with your finances in the same way. When you can see yourself with enough money to comfortably reach all of your obligations, then it allows your brain to tap into your inner resources to make that real. When you can see your money goals achieved in your mind’s eye, you can begin to feel the way you would when they actually come to fruition, which will help you attract those outcomes faster. Also, visualizing your abundance will keep you in a positive space with your money, which will eventually attract more money to you.
3. Set Your Money Intentions
In the spiritual world, your intention is everything. If you want to manifest goodness in your life, then you first have to be intentional. As Bryant McGill once said, “Every journey begins with the first step of articulating the intention, and then becoming the intention.” What you intend for your money will have an impact on how you choose to use your money. Do you want to save more? Do you want to start a new business? Do you want to get out of debt? All of these are intentions that need to be set before you can begin making a money goal a reality. Once your intentions are set, the subsequent actions that you must take become easier to figure out.
4. Show Gratitude For Your Money
The Hawaiian Huna tradition has seven principles of life, and the third principle, “Makia,” says, “Energy flows where attention goes.” Whether good or bad, whatever you focus on the most is what you will continue to see in your life. By showing gratitude, you are telling whatever you are praising that, yes, you want more of it. Bless your money! Show it gratitude! Every penny, nickel, and dime of it. Don’t take what you have for granted and appreciate that you have it, even if you would prefer more. As Oprah Winfrey once said, “The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” Apply that to your money and you will begin to notice an increasingly positive flow. Even if we look at this from a practical perspective, showing gratitude for your money will also guide where you spend your money. Those who are grateful for things will be more likely to take care of them and not be wasteful, which in turn will help you save more money.
5. Treat Other People’s Money as You Want Yours to Be Treated
The Law of Karma says, “For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.” Simply put, that means what goes around comes around. If you put out negative energy in thought, word, or action, that negative energy will come back to you. As it relates to your money, you must realize that when you are borrowing money, whether it’s from a person or a bank, you are being trusted with these funds and there is an expectation that you will honor your word. Just like you would want your money returned to you if you lent it out, this is what others are expecting as well. As you do right with others, this same energy will come back to you.
There are other spiritual laws that can apply to your money such as giving to receive, which can be activated by sharing your wealth or the Law of Allowance, which says that you should be open to allowing others to treat you.
We all know that the key to success in anything is focus and discipline. And while we do our best to stay focused, it is becoming more and more difficult to do so without some type of distraction getting in our way. Whether it’s work/life balance, social media, coworkers, news, gossip, Beyoncé, or Kim Kardashian, it seems that our brains can’t get a break to do what they know they need to do. The following are 10 ways to stay focused in a world full of distractions.
1. Put Your To-Dos in Writing
Many times, we allow our priorities to fall by the wayside because we don’t fully realize how much is on our plate. If we knew from the very start what our workload was, we would spend less time allowing distractions to distract us. It is important that you put your to-dos in writing. Break down your day so you know what needs to be done by when and so that your to-dos don’t sneak up on you.
2. Use Your Phone to Keep You Honest With Time
Even if you have your to-dos in writing, you may still find yourself distracted by other things. In that case, use your phone to set up reminders throughout the day so you know if you are on time with your deliverables or not. If half the day is over and you are not done with half of your to-dos, then it’s time to pick up the speed a little.
3. Unplug Completely
Most distractions come from online sources like email and social media. Regain some focus by going completely offline until you’ve completely finished the most important or difficult items on your to-do list. Enlist a partner to help you with this just in case there are emergencies. List your partner as a backup or include them in an auto-reply so if something really needs your attention, they can come get you.
4. Turn Off Notifications
If unplugging completely is not possible, try turning off notifications. Many times, the alerts are what distract us the most and kill our groove. Turn off notifications so that you are not distracted by that Instagram comment or Facebook tag.
5. Take a Break
Being bored with what you’re doing or doing something for an extended period of time can really take a toll on your focus. Instead of trying to power through, take a break to reinvigorate your mind. Go for a stroll outside, do some push-ups, or simply stand up and do a lap around your office. You’ll be surprised at how much a break can help you gain more clarity.
6. Listen to Music
I’m not sure of the exact science related to listening to music, but I work alongside quite a few incredible people who do so on the daily because it helps them focus their minds. Some swear by classical music (like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) to focus their minds, and others lean more toward chill electronic (like Odesza). For me, however, I tend to find myself listening to a slower Top 40 Hits track when I need to focus. (In fact, I’m listening to Shawn Mendes’s “Treat You Better” as I type this.) It’s really just a matter of finding the genre that works the best for you. And no matter what style of music you choose, be sure to use headphones so that while you focus, you also signal to others that you are not available to chat.
7. Give Yourself More to Do
I know what you’re thinking: how can having more to do make me focus better? Actually, it’s not really giving you more to do but taking your big to-do list and breaking it down into smaller parts. When you are having a hard time focusing, smaller tasks help you concentrate and trick you into believing you are accomplishing a lot. It’s also very motivating when you’re able to continuously cross items off your list.
8. Log Off of Social Media Sites
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat are all addictive. Instead of giving yourself easy access to the distraction, log off of these sites so that you are intentional about what time you spend on social media. Sometimes the lack of easy access can serve as a great tool for better concentration.
9. Make Focus a Team Effort
Coworkers can sometimes serve as the biggest distraction throughout the day, and ignoring them or asking them to leave you alone might not be the best social thing to do. So instead of being reactive to their distraction, make sure they know ahead of time that you need uninterrupted time. Also, use headphones (even if you are not listening to anything) while you travel throughout the office. This can greatly decrease the stop-and-chats in the hallway.
10. Meditate and Stay Centered
Lastly, try meditation. Sometimes quieting the mind and getting centered can give your brain the boost it needs to get your job done. The great thing about meditation is that you can do it from anywhere. All you need to do is count your breath or repeat your mantra. Meditation done the right way can sometimes be better than taking a nap, and all you need is 10-20 minutes. Not to mention, meditation and money may also have a connection to help you improve your finances.
Starting a business is not an easy task. It requires a lot of hard work, dedication, sleepless nights, caffeine, patience, guts, perseverance, and did I mention sleepless nights? Despite that, the reward of your business becoming successful is well worth all the blood, sweat, and tears that you had to put in — especially if your business serves a social mission. Aside from all of the sweat equity that has to go into a new startup, one of the key ingredients to success is staying lean.
“What is a lean startup?” you may ask. It is a scientific methodology of running a business that builds a product or service that meets the needs of customers in such a way that the business doesn’t require a large amount of money to be successful. If we use this same methodology to run our household finances, then our odds of success increase exponentially. The following are five ways to manage your finances like a successful startup.
1. Rely on the Numbers
Running a lean startup goes beyond the opinion of what you think works or theories of what could work and instead relies on evidence. You test your product or service in small capacities, and you observe how it is received by the outside world. This allows you to know in real time what works and what doesn’t. Once you have proven your concept, you can now begin to scale your business. As it relates to your household finances, it is important to rely on the numbers instead of opinions and theories. Instead of guessing about where your money is going, where it is being spent, etc., use a budget worksheet to know exactly where your money is being allocated. Once you observe and identify your spending, you can begin to scale your finances to focus on items that matter most.
2. Fail as Fast as Possible
Failure isn’t failure when you fail, instead it becomes failure when you give up. Using the lean startup methodology, the sooner you can figure out (at a small scale) what doesn’t work in your business, the better off you’ll be. This allows you to weed out all of the possible losing scenarios until you are left with the winner. This can translate into your personal finances because as a household you may be dealing with multiple money personalities or old money messages that no longer serve you. As you fail as fast as possible, you will realize what parts of your money management techniques you have to tweak or get rid of. The faster you can make that happen, the sooner you can begin to enjoy your financial freedom.
3. Make It a Team Effort
The lean startup approach is never just about the executives in the C-suite. Instead, it involves everyone including the janitor and the mailperson. When all of your employees are invested in the success of the company, then everyone will do their part to achieve the goals that are set forth. There is never an attitude of “this is not my job” because everyone understands the cliché that says, “It takes teamwork to make the dream work.” When you transfer this attitude into your household finances, it allows you to manage your money successfully because you are involving everyone who can potentially play a role. Whether it’s your significant other, family, or friends, involving them in your financial goals will help steer them away from distracting you in a different direction.
4. Hire Slow, Train Fast
In the book From Good to Great, Jim Collins talks about getting the right people into the right seats on the bus, which means you must make sure that you have the right employees in the right positions in order for your business to get to the next level. This is also true when running a lean startup. Instead of hiring outside help, a lean startup will access its current talent pool and figure out who it can cross-train for any necessary vacant positions. This can be applied to your finances by making sure that before you hire help and dish out any money, you see if what needs to be done can be done in-house or learned by someone. More tangible examples are dry cleaning vs. laundry and eating out vs. cooking. Both former examples produce added costs, while the latter can be accomplished at a fraction of the cost. Adopting this mentality can truly decrease discretionary spending, which can leave more cash for savings or retirement.
5. Communicate Often
Lastly, communication can be extremely helpful as you run your household finances like a successful startup. In any successful business, there are often quarterly, monthly, weekly, and even daily meetings to ensure that everyone stays on the same page. It isn’t possible for a startup to run efficiently and lean if some people are going right and others are going left. Everyone should be marching to the same beat. This also rings true when it comes to your personal finances. Are you married and practicing financial monogamy? Do you have children? What about a boyfriend or girlfriend? Or a roommate? No matter what your situation is, communicating on a consistent basis with anyone who is involved with the finances is imperative. Having a weekly or monthly budget meeting is ideal, but in the same breath, everyone should be on the same page around financial goals and aspirations. Once you move as one, you can begin to financially win as one. As I said earlier — teamwork makes the dream work!
Ihad a chat with Finovate’s Strategy Director, Lisa Moyle at FinovateFall 2017 about the disruption that the traditional banking sector is experiencing. For more about FinovateFall, click here: https://goo.gl/X5J3HT#Finovate.
