The real cost of financial anxiety for the solopreneur

If it is actually possible to see a client’s lightbulb moment, when the penny finally drops, then I saw it with Mr Franklin.

F worked in a creative way, he was amazing at the practical side of his business, and his work came from referrals; he was good at what he did and his customers loved him.

But he had a problem – he suffered from “FA” – financial anxiety. The symptoms were extremely painful.

On the surface his problems sounded like

“I never seem to get ahead financially, or have as much in the bank as I expect. Where does it all go?”

“When I need cash for personal expenses I just dip into the account that has enough in it; failing that I tend to use a credit card”

“I look how much is in the account and spend what I want, because I never know how much is actually available, I tend to overspend”

“I have direct debits going out for things I can’t even identify”

“I never know if the business is actually profitable”

To be honest, F was starting to resent the hard work he put in – he had lost sight of why he even started this business…..

What F did not know, until his lightbulb moment, was that he actually had a MUCH BIGGER PROBLEM: the EMOTIONAL COST of not tackling these smaller problems.

· Stress – the constant worry chipped away at him

· He struggled to sleep at night – this made it hard for him to focus during the day

· He was snappy with his wife – money was a major source of conflict in their relationship

· Anxiety – how would he get off this rollercoaster?

· Resentment – all the joy from doing a job he loved was being sucked out of his life

So we worked together and in a few weeks created Mr Franklin’s own ‘Path to Profit’ – he knew

What he wanted from his business – a vision of the future which he could now see was possible – and had

A plan to get there – to manage his cash in order to pay himself a salary, put cash aside for expenses and squeeze the maximum profit from his business

An accountability partner (me) to guide, support him and keep him on track

F now has peace of mind – he has financial sanity – and is happy again. Because the emotional burden was the real weight - and removing that was PRICELESS.