BIRD WILLIAMS: You’re listening to Bird Means Business Episode 27. 

Hello, hello. Welcome to the Bird Means Business podcast. I'm so happy that you are here today. We are talking money. And we've kind of had a theme with money this month in May. We've talked about bookkeeping and payroll and taxes. And if I'm honest. I don't know. Money excites me. And that can I guess sound really bad or maybe it's not supposed to be bad but for some reason, it feels bad to me to say. I get excited by money. And not just having money and what you can do with it. But really how you can make it grow and how you can get really strategic around it helping you reach your ultimate goals in life. And I've really always had a fascination with money. My mom says as a kid, my grandmother gave me this like old-school coin purse, and I was obsessed. I carried it around with me everywhere. Put all my little coins in there. I’m thinking, actually, of a story where I would give my younger sister a penny. And I would tell her the penny was better because it was bigger than the dime. And so I would I take all the dimes and give her all the pennies. I mean that's just terrible. Gosh! I hope it didn't, like, yeah. Character issue, as a kid. But I mean I was always obsessed with like just ways to make money. I would have my friends’ parents like pay $5 for our little performance we would have after our sleepover when they came to pick up their daughter. Like, hey, before you leave. We have a performance where you have to pay five bucks to watch our rendition of Whitney Houston's whatever. I had like a good jewelry company as a kid. You know, I’d make all this jewelry and then sell it, like force people to buy it from me. Like my aunts and stuff. And always like selling baked goods at their church. It was just something that was kind of in me. And there was always this interest with money in business. 

So as you can imagine, when it came time for me to hire a financial planner, I was so excited. And I knew it would be a financial investment. But it was one I was so excited to make because up to this point, I had like basic budget. We had finally started budgeting, my husband and I. But I knew I needed more. I didn't know how much I needed to put aside every month for my kids’ college. I didn't know how much money to put aside for retirement, which is especially important when you own a business because you don't have a company that's, you know, providing a 401k. You are the company that's supposed to be providing some kind of retirement benefit for yourself or at least thinking about it. And then I knew that there were so many different tax strategies and, you know different things that I just did not know. And I wanted to have a professional with experience really guide me through that process. And that is who Helen Ngo is to me. She is me and Terry's personal financial planner. And oh my goodness. I could not have imagined, what was I think three years ago, when we connected. And we started working together, that we’d even have the relationship we have today. She's truly one of the smartest people I know, and she's also just really generous with her time and effort. She goes over and above. And I'm just really honored to have her here on the pod today. 

So first I'll start off by just giving you some background. Helen Ngo is a certified financial planner, and she's also the CEO and founder of Capital Benchmark Partners. With over a decade of experience in investment management and running her own financial planning firm, Helen has unlocked the key to financial freedom that most people get wrong. As an expert in personal finance and helping women create more wealth for themselves, she's often sought after to speak at women's leadership conferences, universities, and fortune 500 companies. Her insights have been featured internationally in well-known publications such as CNBC, Forbes, NerdWallet, CBS Money, and Investor's Business Daily. In October of last year, 2019, she was featured in Atlanta's Best Self Magazine as one of the 10 women entrepreneurs who successfully built their businesses from the ground up. Yes! I love that. What a boss bio. Like I said you are in for a treat. She even has a free resource that you'll hear more about that you can go and download and get started with really securing financial freedom for you and for your business and your life. Okay, let's just go ahead and jump right into the interview. 

Helen, I'm so so so excited to have you on the pod today. I know that so many will glean a lot from what you have to share. You are one of the smartest people I know. And I'm just really happy and honored to have you here. 

HELEN NGO: Aw, thank you so much.

BIRD: I know it's kind of crazy how we met. I listened to the Brown Ambition podcast. And one of the hosts, Mandy, talked about her personal financial planner, and never said your name. She just shared how she found you and I went the same route. I ended up finding the same person. And that was what, three years ago, two years ago? 

HELEN: You were like, eight months pregnant with your second kid.

BIRD: Yes. Yes. 

HELEN: And we met in Houston. I remember when you walked in, I was like, Oh my gosh. 

BIRD: Yes, very pregnant. 

HELEN: Yeah, you were very pregnant. So I think I would assess how long we've known each other based on when your kid was born. Your second one.

BIRD: Yep, he's about to be 2. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Well, I want you to kind of share the story of your entrepreneurial journey. Like where you started and kind of how you got to where you are today. 

HELEN: Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say I've always been interested in personal finance. It really started back in college when I thought I was going to be a dentist. That was the initial plan, was for me to be a dentist. And really I wanted to be a dentist because versus a doctor. One, I grew up in an Asian household. You only had two choices. Either become a doctor or a lawyer. There's no other career that they revere. And so when I took all of those science classes I just remember thinking like oh my god, I would never make it. Like this is horrible. This is so boring to me. So I went on this path and I took a lot of different personality tests. And that's how I got into like I knew I was really good at math. So then I declared my major. And you know I went through trouble telling my parents, figuring that I was going to be disappointing them that I didn't want to be a dentist anymore. But really I wanted to be a dentist because I wanted to own a business. Even from then, I knew because my mom was an entrepreneur. She owned a nail salon for 12 years and was running it successfully. And I started to look and thought about, like, okay, I want to be just like my mom. I can't believe I'm saying that now, cause back then, in terms of being in my early twenties, I didn't want to be like my mom. She works too much.

And now here I am working 12, 14 hour days. Even on the weekends. But anyways. So I got into personal finance because I was like okay, how do I make money? How does the stock market work? You know once I graduate, what do I do with my money? And then I found out that you can actually make money by giving other people personal financial advice too. And so that's how I looked into that career. That's how I found out about being a stockbroker. And so I thought that was the only track to get on. And then I also considered my parents’ situation too as immigrants. They came over. My dad had a 401k. And then when ‘08 hit, he pulled everything out because he thought, oh well I don't want to lose any more of my money. And they didn't really understand it at the time. But you know just being able to help my parents out like, there's no such thing as financial planning or hiring of financial consultants in Vietnam, which is where I came from. In our household, it's like, cash is king. You hoard as much as possible. And that's it. There's no such thing as retirement. You just work until basically you die and hope that your kids will take care of you. That's like a typical Asian household financial plan with the older generation obviously. So that was really the driver of why I got into personal finance, was to be able to help my parents out on a personal level. But also, I want to educate myself and how can I make it into a career of educating others with their personal money and planning so they can become wealthy and be stable, unlike my parents. My siblings and I are having to step in to take care of them financially. I take it very personally. So that's really my backdrop. 

I started out as a stockbroker. I did that for five or six years. And then I decided to open up my own independent financial planning practice in 2013 because I wanted to work with more women. In our industry, there's only like 10% women are financial planners. And there's like even fewer minority women. And so I saw that there's an advantage there to work with and specialize with that group, especially for those who are also solo entrepreneurs as well. That's how I got to where I am today. And I wanted more autonomy. I wanted to control who I worked with. 

I love what you brought up about your mom being an entrepreneur. How do you think that's kind of shaped you? I know that you shared that it was tough growing up because she was always working, and then now here you are. I ask because, well, I'm an entrepreneur. I have kids. And I'm always really conscious about them seeing me on my laptop all the time. Even now, you know, recording. They had to leave to go to the park with their dad. And just making sure that there's some balance there. But also I think a lot of it has inspired you to work hard and it taught you the value of that and what it meant to build something. So what would you say around that?

HELEN: You know, I resented her working so much until I became an adult and worked myself and saw the value of what money can afford. Looking back, you know, again, we came to America with nothing. We used to live on food stamps the very first few years of our lives. We went from living in a two-bedroom, one-bath house, about 800 square feet. The five of us, me, my two siblings, and my mom and dad. To living in a much larger home where they were able to afford private school for me, bought three new cars for each of us. So my sister got a new car when she went to college. I got a new car when I turned 16. Then they afforded my brother a new car. So just looking back and seeing how we came from zero to her and my father being able to provide for us all, all came from her tenacity of coming home at 10 o'clock every day for 12 years to provide. I appreciate that now, where she literally came from nothing, in order to provide a livelihood for us. I don't know you know when I have my first child, even watching my nieces and nephews, I'm like, will they know the value. Will they know the history of what work is like and the value of putting in your time to have what they even have? Like they're growing up so differently than I am, or than I did you know. So that's one of the biggest lessons. I just watched. I'm like oh my god, she missed a lot of my school activities and like my plays and stuff like that. And I resented her for so long. I was like, you know you only buy me stuff and you never are there for me and like those fun times that you know it's like all those major milestones but it's because she was working to provide for five people. That's hard.

BIRD: Yeah, so hard. Wow. What strength. That's amazing.

HELEN: So now as a business owner myself, I really admire that, looking back. I have much more respect and gratitude for where we came from, and how far she came in her own life, and providing, you know, a livelihood for us here in the United States.

BIRD: Yes, that's an incredible story, Helen. I love that. So you work with other people's money. And you see a lot of different scenarios and situations I imagine. What is one of the biggest mistakes that you see when it comes to people managing their money, be it personal finances or business finances? What do you see as like are some common mistakes?

HELEN: Common mistakes consistently. So usually people come to me thinking that they have a money problem but they really have a habit or an organizational problem within the systems in which they manage their personal finances or their business finances. And I hear the statement often, “Oh I'm really bad with money.” Or, “Oh I'm a bad spender.” It’s because you're a bad spender. There's no such thing as being bad with money. You just have bad habits and money happens to be part of the tool that you're misusing. So that's not a money problem. You're not really broke. I work with all sorts of clients, and I'll tell you, there are clients who are making like $600,000 and have nothing to show for it, versus my client who's making $75,000 a year, and their net worth is much higher than what my six-figure income earners are doing. So, to me, just because you make more money, doesn't necessarily mean on the books, you're any more successful than somebody else who's making 10 times less than you. So I have learned to appreciate, and take everybody's quote-unquote exterior success with a grain of salt. Because I always asked myself, okay he's driving a Mercedes. I wonder how much he borrowed in order to get in it at the end of the day. It's not about how much you make. It's about how much you keep. So even as a business owner. If you're making a million dollars but it costs you $900,000 to make a million dollars. But really you're making the same amount of money as the person who made $200,000 and spent 100 grand. You'd get the same amount. So, that is like the backend and the advantage I have of seeing other people's finances so I treat everybody the same. I don't care how much money you make, every single person that walks in, I treat them the exact same way, because we all have that common problem of not realizing that it's not a money problem that they really have. It's one of the two or both. It’s a systems problem. They're not operating their household efficiently, like setting up their accounts for automatic contributions to their savings account. Or they set up the wrong account. Or they're not communicating with their spouse or partner about money in a very open manner and so money is just going out all over the place and they have no idea of where it's really being allocated and they're not spending with intention behind every single dollar. Not only just budgeting but just like, why am I spending $1,000 on groceries and really paying attention and auditing, what it is that's driving that behavior versus focusing on, you know, oh, I know we spend $1,000 on groceries. I'm going to try to cut it out by 100 Okay $100 worth of what though, in your grocery bill? Is that your alcohol budget? Is that your fruits and vegetable budget? I mean when we sit down with clients, we do a complete audit of their spending and savings and tax planning, because that's part of the system too that people forget, is the tax planning part of things.

BIRD: Right and that is so key. And I mean I remember when we sat down, you know, a few years ago, it was exactly that. And when we launched our business, we honestly didn't budget, or really track our finances in any way. And it was something I knew we should do. It was that we didn't. And honestly, there was a lot. At that time I had no job, and Terry was leaving his job so we could launch this business so I was thinking we don't have any money anyway. We don't need a budget, you know, that was a lie. We should have known what was coming in and what was going out even.  Because when we finally sat down to do a budget, we were spending like $900 a month eating out. And Helen, I tell you I about passed out. Like we had no idea. Eating out even included coffee. Like basically anything other than groceries and it was just so much coffee, so many like random Chick-Fil-A this and that. And that changed the game for me. And ever since then I've told people like, just know what's coming in and going out and track it because once we were able to do that we got to cut it in half just having the awareness that that was something that was even happening. 

HELEN: Yeah, I think the first step is awareness, and coming to terms with your reality. I mean, most people, I ask them, like how much do you spend. And all they give me is their utility bills because those are fixed expenses. They don't track their behavioral spending that's costing them the most. 

BIRD: And it is the thing that you can actually affect because, all the fixed expenses. You got to pay your utility bill, your mortgage, or rent? But you change you know your eating out or your personal care or, you know, Those types of things.

HELEN: And in regards to just starting a business because you asked about that. When you start making money in your business, you have to stay on top of how you direct every single dollar and how you reinvest back into your business. So regardless if you want to or not, it's a necessity that you pay attention to your business revenue, and how you allocate those dollars too on top of your personal allocation of those dollars.

BIRD: Yeah, I was actually going to ask about that when it comes to, and I kind of hesitate to ask this question because I don't want it to be kind of an excuse for people to not start a business. But when it comes to launching a business, what do you think needs to be solid in your personal life first? And again, when we launched our business we weren't even budgeting. We didn't have an emergency savings. We had credit card debt. So it's not so much like checking the box before I can start, because I don't want people to convince themselves that they have to wait. But what would be like some solid tips if people are like okay I'm getting ready to launch this business, but I want to make sure that I'm personally secure. What does that look like?

HELEN: You know, Ashley. I have a two-part answer to that. Not everybody should be an entrepreneur, period. I think that it's over glamorized. They look at me, they look at you, and they're like wow, Helen can go on vacation. Wow, Ashley can control her own time. I want to be my own boss. But are you able to say no to yourself when you want to sleep an extra hour but really you need to get up? That is hard. Are you able to give yourself permission to raise your rates and give yourself a raise? Or do you have the tenacity and grit to do whatever it takes, legally, of course, to make money in order for your business to survive? I don't see anything wrong with working for a company or being number two or number three. Or if you are using money as a measure of your financial success or your success in general in your career, you don't have to be an entrepreneur to do that. I know you're hungry. Some people are just better off getting their paycheck and being consistent. Because let me tell you. You're going to work harder than anybody else if you want to run your own business. Period. I really don't believe in that whole four-hour workweek thing, you know. Like, you gotta put your time in. And you have to understand what compromise is like. You can't live your nine to five life as a business owner. It doesn't translate over like that. 

BIRD: I love that you put that out because I wholeheartedly agree that there's an entrepreneurial mindset you have to have in order to be able to make it. And I have this checklist.  It's “Ready, Set, Launch - The First 10 Steps of Launching Your Business” and that's number one. It's like you have to get your mind right because you can have all the plans and your packages and pricing and your website. But if you don't have, like you said, the tenacity and grit to push through those moments that are tough, to say no to friends, cool, fun things that you'd love to do, but you have to do with whatever you need to do in your business. Really it's selflessness for several years. You know as you grow your team and your business. If you're not willing to do that then don't waste the resources and time and money, and your energy to start something that you won't be able to really see through because it is really tough. So I 100% agree. 

HELEN: Yeah, I meet some quote-unquote entrepreneurs, and I'm like you really shouldn't be owning a business. Like you are terrible business owner. You have no idea what you are doing. I got one question recently and, you know, now that we're working through COVID and Corona quarantine stuff. I get questions like, I haven't been generating any money, can I apply for PPP the loan? I'm like if you haven't applied, you're not making any money what loan are they gonna give you. You don’t have any proof of income. You don't even understand the basics of owning a business. And people think, owning a business is just glamorous and you put your stuff on social media and you get to travel and have autonomy. You do have autonomy in terms of making decisions. But you got to be intelligent. Owning a business is about creating economic opportunity, not just for yourself, but for the people you are serving, and eventually be able to provide jobs for people too. And that requires making money. Like do you understand that? That you have to make money in order to survive. I don't think everybody has that mindset of when they come in. They choose to spend, spend, spend, on technology, or whatever else, instead of worrying about the acquisition of clients. And it's not just about raising capital and venture money. That doesn't prove any cash flow. That just proves that you're a good salesperson who sold an idea and somebody gave you money. But nobody's still buying your product at the end of the day.

BIRD: Absolutely. So yeah, going into it, you saying part one. The first step is making sure that this is something you're willing to work toward and is actually a viable business is something that when you crunch the numbers, it could work.

HELEN: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. My other number two is make sure your relationships are healthy Before you start. I just looked back and reflect on, like when I started my business, my husband now, he and I were just dating. And had I been in a horrible relationship and I just being in business for myself for the last seven years. I thank God I have somebody who's supportive, during this entire journey. Because if I didn't, it would have made the experience so much worse. Terry your spouse, he's very supportive. He built your home studio on your birthday.

BIRD: Yes! Oh gosh. He has done so much. He is great with names. He's come up with the names for everything. And he's just super positive and encouraging. I mean right now he has the boys while I'm doing this. And we have to do a lot of that tag-teaming. I 100% think that relationships, and not even just like a spouse or partner, but even your friends. I know that whenever we launched The League. I had friends that were my friends from, like, literally, kids four years old, who just went MIA. And they weren't supportive. They didn't come to the launch party. They were creating all this drama and it was very strange and honestly really tough because they were my friends, my whole life. And I asked why would you want to support me? I've supported you. And it took years to kind of get over that. But basically what I realized was that not everyone is in your life forever. There's some people in your life for seasons. And some people can't go to the next level, your next level. And you have to be okay with that. And it doesn't have to mean that you have to resent them or have beef, because I'm not about that. But it means that you have to say, okay, well that was great. That was a beautiful season, a beautiful friendship. But they're not going to be able to go with me to the next level. So, relationships are huge.

HELEN: Oh, huge, like you know, my friends who were working in corporate. They couldn't understand my new lifestyle. They were doubting me. Wow, what do you do? Even my parents, my mom's like, you left your 401k and health insurance and your comfortable salary back to start from zero and you're moving back in with us, are you crazy? I mean that those are like crucial conversations and relationships. That's what I'm talking about. Like not everybody is made out to be an entrepreneur. If you can't get through those conversations. It's hard because you are going to feel lonely. And then you're going to start doubting yourself. So having good healthy personal relationships, as well as, professional ones, who push you to that next level and make you feel as though you can sustain and be in business for yourself. Those are the people you should be surrounding yourself with from the get-go. 

BIRD: Gosh, I cannot agree more. That's so so important. Such a good thing to bring up. You already have imposter syndrome, as an entrepreneur. So you don't need people telling you, “What? Are you sure you could do that?” I don't know. So, yeah, who you surround yourself with is so key. 

When you go back and you think about Helen in 2013 when you were doing all of this, what is like the one piece of advice that you would give yourself like if you knew then what you know now? What would be the one thing you would tell yourself kind of going into launching your business moving from corporate, all of that?

HELEN: I wish I had done more online marketing back then. I’ll tell you how I built my business. I used to cold-call. 

BIRD: Wow. That’s amazing.

HELEN: I dialed 300 numbers a day, and I tried to get at least 10 appointments, and close out the day. I didn't have any money to count. So all I could do is count how many people I talked to in a day, right. So I did that for about a year and a half. I built my business that way. And I also cold walked, meaning I took my business card. I made some flyers and brochures. And I went door to door and literally, knocking, trying to evangelize my financial message to everybody. That's like the best analogy I can use. Like just spreading my own religion, financial religion. And that's how I built my business the first year and a half to two years. And I really wish, looking back, I wish I had taken advantage of YouTube, back then, before it blew up to today. I wish I had taken advantage of Facebook back then and blogging too which is a huge thing for SEO purposes. I really didn't start online marketing until about maybe four years ago. I could see the seeds of it. So it's more obvious nowadays because everybody's online now and doing business online. But that is the one piece I wish I had honed in on the most in terms of taking advantage of those opportunities.

BIRD: Yeah, I think that's a great takeaway for people, something that it's so prevalent now but really investing there and it's free, which is awesome. A lot of it you know like with The League, it was a brick and mortar. So we didn't do much like online marketing in terms of like ads or even like an email marketing campaign. People just would come experience and it was mostly word of mouth. But social media was huge. Instagram is probably the second most like referrals or ways people get into our business. So it wasn't until I launched for Bird Williams Consulting that I even started really looking into online marketing and it's super powerful. So, especially if you have an online business. It's something that you should definitely, you know, focus on. It’s crucial. Awesome. 

Well, I want to understand a little bit about how you help entrepreneurs navigate their personal and business financials, like while they're running a business, with what you do.

HELEN: Yeah, so we specialize in Retirement Planning and Investment Management so on the business side of things. We coordinate a lot with our clients’ CPAs to set up retirement plans for them. And a lot of people don't understand that we help them open up their 401k’s. But first, we do the personal planning side for the business owner, determining okay, you need to put away x dollar amount. But we're going to take advantage of you owning a business and create a retirement plan for your business so you get the tax deduction and save for your personal retirement at the same time while having, you know, some golden handcuffs in place if you have employees to retain them. That's a very technical explanation but that basically where we come in, and what we do for our small business clients, is really helping them bridge, because I don't view financial planning, especially if you're a business owner as two separate things. Your personal feeds into your business and vice versa. So what can we set up in both in your business that will benefit you personally as well? So if you want to save for retirement, that's like a huge one that we address. Setting up the appropriate retirement accounts for tax planning purposes and for business expenses. But also, would you rather put away $1,000, a month into your business's retirement account or give it to Uncle Sam, or the IRS, I should say. 

BIRD: Yeah, and that was, you know, my favorite part of working with you and still working with you is that like when I came to you I could figure out okay how to pay off my debt. Like, snowball or avalanche. That whole thing. I could figure out like, you know, I need to be putting something aside for savings. But you were so much more strategic with like this is the exact number you need to transfer into this account for your kids’ college. Like you did that calculation to know what we would need in the future and then, okay, this is how much you have put away every month for that. This is how much you have to put away every month for your emergency savings and for your retirement. And again as business owners, you kind of forget about the fact that you don't have retirement. Like you can't just be. We didn't have anything going on and we needed to be thoughtful around making sure that our future self will thank us for what we're doing now in terms of being diligent and saving so that there's something there. And I love the process of working with you. It was super detailed and thorough. And it wasn't just, you know, throwing stuff at it. 

HELEN: Yeah it's not just about budgeting. I mean anybody can do budgeting. More about you have these tools and resources. How do we take advantage of it. And you just mentioned something very crucial there's like, you know, yes, I think a lot of your audience is like new business owners. They're five, four years into it. I think about now, the longer I work for myself about building a legacy. How do I utilize my business to create longer term wealth for myself and my family? And for the next generation too. And part of that is being able to use tools such as retirement accounts to leverage in order to build that for yourself and for your teammates too. 

BIRD: Yes, absolutely. That's amazing. Fun! You're awesome, like seriously. You want to talk a little bit about the freebies that we have linked in the show notes?

HELEN: Sure, sure. So I create every single year a new financial calendar and checklist. So every single month, I lay out who you need to talk to, and what you need to check in with yourself personally. in regards to your personal finances. And then I list out all of the tax deadlines for personal and business on there. And all the different financial planning topics you need to address throughout the year. So it's just a two-page document. So yeah, it's very useful and you can print it out and put on your fridge or it’s PDF format so you just go to my website and download it for free.

BIRD: Awesome. That's amazing. So I want to do this fun lightning round where I'll just ask just a few questions. And it's just quick. It’s simple questions. So, we'll get started. Phone call or text?

HELEN: Phone call. 

BIRD: Okay. Favorite season of the year.

HELEN: Fall.

BIRD: Ooh, mine too. Big party or small gathering.

HELEN: Big party.

BIRD: Oh nice. What about your dream vacation spot.

HELEN: Oh I love hiking, so I would go back to Alberta, Canada.

BIRD: Ooh, you know, recently we went to Sedona and it was amazing. 

HELEN: Yes! 

BIRD: And last one.  I think I might know the answer. Ocean or mountains? 

HELEN: Mountains. 

BIRD: Yep! 

HELEN: How did you know? Well, I just kind of gave you a hint.

BIRD: You said hiking. Terry, oh gosh, we should take a couples trip because he's all about it. We went to Sedona. I mean my body was, I had never hiked that much. It was a lot of fun, that was super beautiful. 

HELEN: If you love hiking, you should definitely go to Canada. On the west side like near Vancouver and Whistler and all that. Oh my God, it is magnificent.

BIRD: He's been out there. Vancouver's like his favorite city in the world. So we'll definitely have to check it out. I will have to check it out. 

HELEN: Yeah, you should definitely go.

BIRD: Okay, so this is the question that I ask every single guest that I have on the podcast. It is just what is the one thing that you can do this week to bring you closer to the best version of yourself? And I ask that because I'm all about keeping things as practical as possible. You know we talk about these kinds of high-level goals that we have, you know, in our personal or business life. And I just want folks to hear from you, someone who they may aspire to be just like. What does it look like practically, something that you do, you're going to do this week to bring you closer to like one of those future goals or like the best version of yourself?

HELEN: This is what I did last year when I started to get really stressed was I audited, my list of clientele. And I let go of almost a dozen clients. But what I would recommend you to do today. Look through your book of business and rate them. Not just from okay, it might be a good revenue-generating client, but they're a pain in the butt to work with. They are life-sucking versus life-giving. And so I did it in a very quantitative manner of like, what is my quality of life. Like am I excited to pick up the phone every time I need to call this person or every time that email comes through? Do I shake and I'm like oh my god I put it in my reply later inbox? Or am I excited to call them immediately? And that's what I did last year. I just went through my entire list. I did a complete audit. How much we made from them, whether or not they are life-giving, or life-sucking.

BIRD: Like Marie Kondo your client list basically.

HELEN:  Yes, Marie Kondo your client list! And let me tell you. After I did it. I wrote a letter, you know, and we graduated them.

BIRD: That's a good way to do it.

HELEN: We graduated those clients. We still left the door open, but we've graduated them. Because there was really, we were not servicing them in the capacity that I think we should have. And it was just taking away from my work, like the quality of my work, how I showed up to work because I was always afraid oh my god, I have this meeting today, I don't want to talk to this person.

I'm sure you've had that client. I think we all have

BIRD: One of my early clients when we sat down, that was one of the first things that we kind of discovered was like, he had to let go of some clients and it was hard and it took a while but it was the right thing. So, that is wonderful advice. I’m so glad you brought it up. Super-duper practical too.

HELEN: Yeah. So, just make a list. Rank them from 1 to 10 in each category, from a quantitative and qualitative standpoint. And let them go if they don't meet your average that you're trying to hit.

BIRD: I love it. This was so great. Thank you, Helen. You are just such a gem. And I was so so so honored and happy to have had you on the Bird Means Business podcast.

HELEN: Thank you so much for having me. 

BIRD: Oh, one more question. How can people connect with you online? What is the best way that they can connect with you and learn more and engage with you?

HELEN: Sure you can follow me on Instagram @meethelenngo, my last name is spelled NGO, I think Ashley, you're going to include that in the link or show notes. But you can go to my financial planning website capitalbenchmarkpartners.com, and all of my materials are on there. We have a pretty active blog on there, broken down into different sections. Check it out and get my free checklist, and that financial calendar for the year. 

BIRD: Love it. Thank you so much, Helen. I really appreciate your time. 

HELEN: Thanks, Ashley.

BIRD: Whew! Helen kept it all the way real. You know what? It’s really one of my favorite things about her. She is straight to the point and all about results. She’s like, we ain’t got time for all the fluff. Let me tell you what it’s really like. Y’all there are so many gems in this episode. There’s some real heart, truth for entrepreneurs. I promise you’ll be more equipped if you know what to expect going into it and how to really prepare yourself as you navigate this journey. So, I hope you took some really good notes.

Make sure that you click on the link in the show notes to download her free financial checklist and calendar. This is a great first step to really taking control of your finances. And like she said, it’s not that you’re bad with money. Perhaps it’s just that you don’t have a system around it. And y’all know I always say your systems will save you. Again, if you’re looking for a financial planner, look no further.  Helen is your girl. She’s super professional. She and her team are just super knowledgeable and great to work with. 

Alrighty, that’s all for this week. Thank you so much for following us on Spotify, for subscribing on Apple Podcasts so that you don’t miss any of the episodes. And also for telling your entrepreneur friends about Bird Means Business. Talk to you next week.