When you think about money, how does it make you feel? Do you shy away from it? Does it stress you out? Or does it make you feel excited and grateful? Did you know that your energetics around money could determine how it comes into your life and business?

On this episode of the Book Your Dream Clients podcast, I'm chatting with Connie Vanderzanden all about how you can shift the way you think about money so you can generate more for your life and business.

Connie Vanderzanden is on a mission to help female entrepreneurs live the lifestyles they desire by learning the simple steps, structure, and discipline to create and save money. With 34 years of accounting and bookkeeping experience, a variety of industry knowledge, and her own real-life business growth journey since 2001, Connie developed the Going Beyond Revenue Cash Handling System, focusing on cash flow planning that creates profitable and sustainable businesses.

Connie is a true Oregonian, born and raised in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, where she spends time with her husband of 34 years and their “fur kid.”

Website: www.profitwithconnie.com

Social Media Handles:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/connie.vanderzanden/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connievanderzanden1/

YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ0XcjtRZgw41nBk6dxS90w

Connie’s money celebration playlist on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWzM5ZGZlI8&list=PLdxBi2nh4IBFevleM_pX_OTw59easGy4F

Here is a blog post Connie did about Debt:

https://www.profitwithconnie.com/connies-gentle-guide-to-stop-equating-debt-to-a-4-letter-word/

Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] Lindsay: Connie. Thank you so much for being on the Book Your Dream Clients podcast. I am super excited to have you on today.  

[00:00:57] Connie: Thank you, Lindsay. I'm excited to have our conversation. Thanks for having me. 

[00:01:00] Lindsay: Yeah, absolutely. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and we will get going. Sure. My name 

[00:01:06] Connie: is Connie Vanderzanden.

[00:01:08] I have been in the accounting industry for over 35 years now. I have had my own business since 2001. And even with that accounting background, when I went to grow my business, I put all that knowledge aside and my money habits took over and I got myself at 50,000 in debt. Didn't pay myself for six years and had this cash, eating monster of a business that I had to figure out how to.

[00:01:36] Do something with, and I kept channeling system, I discovered was through the book profit first by Mike loved it, saved the business, but then I broke all the rules. So I've had to really heal my own relationship with money to make it the business more sustainable and longterm. And I share very openly about that.

[00:01:58] But otherwise, I also had to heal my money relationship at home with my partner and how to talk about it. And I've been married for 35 years as well, and we have a dog named echo and we live in Oregon. 

[00:02:12] Lindsay: Okay. So a lot of business owners coming onto how many online they don't have. I would say the vast majority of them are, you know, probably stay at home moms and they're, you know, they want to start a business, but they, they don't have any cash to start.

[00:02:26] So a lot of times they end up going into a little bit of debt to get started. I mean, to be honest, that's what I did with my first coach. I'm like, well, you know what, I'm going to do this. And I trust that everything's going to work and thank God it did. But so many people are going into that over and over and over again when they're starting, because they need.

[00:02:44] Do something to get going, and that's such a hard. That's such a hard conversation to have, you know, if you have a spouse or with yourself, like, how am I supposed to say, I need to spend money to make money when I'm not making money. And then that whole money, that money conversation comes into your head.

[00:03:03] Can we talk to that state of mind first? 

[00:03:05] Connie: Sure. It's super common, right? Especially. With coaches that really loved the professional development and it's encouraged a lot to go out there and get more continuing ed. You don't see that very much with accountants and bookkeepers who are very number focused.

[00:03:24] But it's, it's all about the one thing I did learn through all of this is yes, professional development is important for our growth and not as only as individuals, but for our business. And there's only so much that we need in a year. So first making sure we can put what we're going to learn into action.

[00:03:42] I don't know. I will be honest. There were so many things that I purchased and signed up for that I never put into action. I was totally looking for the shiny bauble to fix whatever was going on and those don't work. So for me at my naturals, Money habit is a spender. I love to spend money. It makes me feel good.

[00:04:06] Again, something I learned over time. So I've had to put some things into place, some tips into place to make sure that I'm really going to resonate and put these things into action. Before I say yes to the debt, because I don't think that is bad. I just think we need to have a plan around it and have a conversation with, and so when we're going to say yes to it, What, what, how, how are we going to pay for that?

[00:04:29] What's the long-term plan. If you're going to say yes to a debt for a year-long coaching program do so the goal is then what to pay it back within two years, three years of saying yes to it. And what will that look like? Or would you be willing to. So sell a car. Like one of my clients actually did that.

[00:04:50] That was really hard for her. So she sold her car to pay it off. Or are you willing to like get a job or keep a job just to help maintain that? So just think long-term, I did not think. I was just thinking I needed this type of cash flow to come in, to pay for these things. And then I never considered what the payment plan would be or what I would be looking at to pay that back.

[00:05:16] And that's how I was ignoring it and got to D and the problems with it six years later after my growth. But, so what, what do you want it to do? How do you want it to work for you? What are you willing to either to sacrifice short term or willing to step into to make that those payments happen? 

[00:05:35] Lindsay: I think there's such a stigma put around with having a full-time job or a part-time job along with building your business, because that doesn't sound as fun.

[00:05:44] Right? A lot of people are like, well, I want to get out of my job. So why would I keep it to build my business? And like, Connie. I think it can help you pay off your programs or your coach or whatever you're using to help you build your business. I mean, I don't, I would never have been able to build my business if I wouldn't have my full-time job, because I use a lot of that to help pay for things.

[00:06:08] When I first started. Cause I that's, that's where the money was going and I was blessed to have that, but there's so many people who are like, Nope, I'm going to quit. I'm gonna, I'm going to go full, full blown with the. And then pretty soon crash and burn happens or like, you know what you said, the debt, just all of a sudden, it just stacked up because you loved spending and still do I like spending money too, but it just stacked up after a while.

[00:06:32] Right. So then what, what did you do? What kind of conversations did you have to have with yourself 

[00:06:35] Connie: then? It's it had to be more about, I was a codependent with debt and so I had to look really hard at why. What was serving me about this debt? What did I really enjoy about being in debt? And at the time I thought these questions were really weird to look at, but it was, it was serving me.

[00:06:57] It was serving me to have the debt because it kept me in alignment with where my family was and what my generational story was. It kept me in line with everybody else. Every time we would go out, there was a constant conversations about, I can't afford this. I can't do this right. It, but it allowed, it kept me hiding from the fact of really claiming what I wanted for money, what, how I wanted money to show up.

[00:07:22] And it helped me keep the business smaller as well, by not looking at how I was going to use the debt. And so I had to learn. You know, like by journaling, I had a coach at the time that kind of helped me. Cause sometimes it's helpful to have somebody listen to you because one of the words I hadn't realized, I had been saying it all the time, but I, I would say early on in my business, I just wanted a business that paid the.

[00:07:48] And that's exactly what I created. So sometimes our subconscious beliefs come out and we're not even realizing that's getting in our way. So it's not all mindset though. It is about recognizing like where that came from. Where did you learn that from? And then re realizing, is this true for me right now?

[00:08:07] Would I like something else? And then working on receiving. Working on acknowledging and having gratitude for money which is something we also in our culture don't, don't do a lot of, because a lot of us were raised to believe that money money's bad or dirty. And how can we change that relationship?

[00:08:29] Lindsay: I bet so many people are wondering, okay. Did she just say that, you know, my story is helping me stay small. My story is helping me have that, you know, I can still have that conversation with people about, you know, this is so much money and, and you staying, staying where your brain is comfortable being.

[00:08:48] Can you explain that to the person who's like, what, what is she even talking about? 

[00:08:54] Connie: I got this a lot. I remember being up at a mic with my coach and he kept poking at me with this. And I was like, no, I don't see this at all. It took me several years to go back and go, oh, this is what happened. But yes, my mindset around.

[00:09:15] Having a lot of debts kept me focused on one, working with clients that weren't ideal for me, it kept because that's where the money was at. And that would come in and pay the debt, the bare minimum of the debt and keep it moving forward. So I was never confident enough to grow and search for. Perfect client or that dream client.

[00:09:36] And the other thing about it is that it kept me from using the words. I can't afford this a lot, so that I would not say yes to opportunities when they came in the door and saying yes, to an opportunity, sometimes meat or a lot of the times mean saying no to something that we have been doing. So we get on that comfort couch.

[00:09:57] And everything. We know how everything's working, we get up and things just flow. And we just go with things, but is there something over here, like dad or our relationship with money, that's keeping us from. Exploring what a new opportunity would being in, being able to have that adventure of like, oh, this is, this is pushing our comfort zone here a little bit.

[00:10:18] And are we willing to step into that new area? Because that's, if we want to grow and work with our ideal clients, we have to get uncomfortable first before we can get, you know, go over there. 

[00:10:29] Lindsay: Well, we live in a society where debt is the norm where it's, I mean, it's hard to not be in debt. We leave the home and we're in debt immediately because we're going to college.

[00:10:41] And, and then we need to get out of credit card because we have to pay for things to live on our own. And it feels like that's just how life is. And it, it really doesn't have to be that way. The vast majority of us are in some kind of debt, right? Whether it's our mortgage or credit cards, our vehicles, all of those things, it's all around us at all times.

[00:11:03] And so for me, one of the things that it is was, and still is there. 

[00:11:10] Connie: Well, if 

[00:11:11] Lindsay: I'm not in debt, what am I supposed to do with all this mind when it comes in? 

[00:11:17] Connie: Yeah. Yeah. Good. That's so funny. But it's true because we're such a plastic society and COVID has really pushed us more into a plastic society. I don't know.

[00:11:28] Last week I actually paid cash for something, but with the plastic society, we're so detached from our. From money. I remember I don't know if anyone's had this experience, but I've had credit cards have fraud or something on them. So I've had to go up a time without cards and have to count cash back to the grocery store.

[00:11:51] And I, my whole body gets freaked out about that because there is something different. And when we're counting out cat. Then just putting it on our card. We get detached from the purchase and that's how we get into debts. We're detached from our body has detached from how we're using money. So we just did a creative I'm doing these quarterly creative sessions.

[00:12:14] Cause I think it's important to consider how money is supporting your life in a creative way. And we were talking about Maslow's hierarchy of needs and somebody asked me, well, if you haven't identified. How many is going to support you after it supported your security level, what will you do with it?

[00:12:33] How will you know what to do with money? And it's kind of that same way. So if you looked at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which is a pyramid shape, if I'm, I'm sure the coaches know your listeners know about this it's insecurity is on the bottom level. For your business or your personal life, what would those second and third levels be?

[00:12:52] I mean, the fourth level will definitely be wealth or legacy about giving back to the community, but what would you like money to grow into so that you could give back and to like, consider that dream about that so that you're using that when you're considering your you're planning. What I call a financial planner, the budget and telling money what its job is and how it's going to show up for you is really critical.

[00:13:16] But yeah, we don't often think about once our security levels are covered or maybe a little bit of retirement. If we came from corporate, what else do we want to do with my. 

[00:13:27] Lindsay: And why is that important to have a space for that money? Why is that? Even what it, why does that even matter? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it starts 

[00:13:35] Connie: to change our energetics around money.

[00:13:37] It starts to change our ability to dream that money is going to make a big difference in the world. And I think business. Nowadays need to think about how can I give back once, you know, I'm going to take care of myself first and especially as a coach or consultant, I need to make sure I'm showing up as my best self.

[00:13:57] And I want my team to be paid well. I want my team to be paid livable wages, and I want to support the community or this greater cause is culture changing that I want to do. And that's what money is actually for money is actually to flow through it flows into the. So that it can contribute to our life and then out to contribute, contribute to other people's life lives and make a difference.

[00:14:22] And unless we. Dreaming about that. Now a lot of us never, we're probably never raised in thinking about what could we do if we had a million dollars, what could we, what impact could we do? And not that the business may want to make a million dollars, but kind of consider it. What, if you had an extra 2% of revenue, what could you do with that?

[00:14:44] What impact would you like? And it just helps us think bigger helps us think. Like yes, what I'm doing can make a bigger impact. Yes. What I'm doing does ripple through my world, the community and money is going to do the same thing. It's just about changing that ability. And once you can consider what that bigger container will be, then you're able also to start receiving more money.

[00:15:16] Lindsay: I like to compare it, to planning for a vacation to meet that's the most exciting part is planning for it and looking forward to it. So I think like planning for your money, getting excited of what you're going to do with it, and being as detailed as possible as far as your mind can go with it. That makes me feel excited rather than.

[00:15:37] Living it going, I'd rather plan for the vacation than actually go. I seriously would. That's 

[00:15:43] Connie: your dream job. Then you have to come job. 

[00:15:47] Lindsay: Then you have to come back and not look forward to anything anymore. I love looking forward to things and that helps me see the importance of placing that money somewhere and planning for it.

[00:15:57] How often you said you do this with your community every quarter. Is that how often you recommend doing this? Or what's like a good game plan. 

[00:16:05] Connie: I like quarterly because everyone goes through different seasons. And so it's, it's a nice way of looking ahead at what that next season would look like. I definitely, when I'm working with clients on creating their financial plan, I'm looking at not only where, where are they at today?

[00:16:20] Of what their bare minimum is today, but what do they want to grow into in the next 12 months? That's a normal budget. Where, where do you want to go? But I also want to see their big dream on the financial plan so that we always keep it in mind. So we're actually looking at that monthly, how were we growing towards that?

[00:16:37] Are we getting to our average for our growth? And so that we take. One more small step towards that big dream. But also, you know, it depends on where your background is. You could put it in affirmations or you can make a. Whatever a collage of it, what you see it all the time. But I think quarterly is a great goal for it and definitely annually.

[00:17:02] Are you looking at that? What's your favorite way to do it? I like to, again, on my financial plan, I like to have it there and I have it in my cash handling system as well. So every. I have to do my cash handling system every week because money actually needs me to pay attention to it on a more consistent basis.

[00:17:23] And so when I put money into my savings accounts, when I'm doing my profit transfer, what percent of that is already dedicated to community community giving. So I'm always constantly looking for who that new community giving partner will be. This year I just have one. Here in the Portland area, but so it's fun to do that type of thing, but we, depending on what's going on, we may decide to get.

[00:17:45] Throughout the quarter, rather than just once. Hmm. 

[00:17:48] Lindsay: I love that. I don't think a lot of people talk about that. If you just think about some, some, some group or around your community that you could donate to, you don't even think about that. You always think online places you could donate to charities or whatever, and I think that's so such a great practice.

[00:18:04] We do that with the. With homeschooling and I, I think that's such a, a great thing to plant seeds while, while your kids are young too, to get them involved in that. When I'm thinking about a coach who's just starting and she has, she sees zeros in front of her. And this is a. This is something that I see with students and me years ago.

[00:18:29] So fun to do the vision board and I'm putting up my pretty pictures and you know, all these things because I see everyone else doing it and like nothing on my vision board matches what my life looks like. And I did this six months ago. Why isn't anything happening? Talk to that 

[00:18:48] Connie: person. Yeah, well, and vision boards.

[00:18:53] Aren't my favorite way of doing that. I'll be honest with that. But it's, I think also if I had looked back at that person, I was still ignoring money at that time. So the more attention that I put to my relationship with money and my gratitude practice towards money, the easier it is for me to achieve some of those goals or achieve some of the feelings that are on that vision board.

[00:19:18] But yes, it takes small little actions and. When you're just starting out, even though I, I also tried to avoid this. It is about having conversations. It's about telling people what you do, not just on social media, but actual conversations and asking for what you need. And I will say my, my asking was not strong when I first started, but also my receiving muscle was really, really, really tiny as well.

[00:19:46] It was all about giving, giving, giving to everyone else. Like I was giving. My services away for free, because that's what I was trained as a young child to give. And then get the whatever crumbs were left over. So if you're, if you're not seeing what's in the bank account, like what you would like to see then start practicing, receiving more and you can receive this.

[00:20:12] Do have a gratitude practice around money. Be grateful for any little bit of money that comes. Whether you have a coupon that you saved money at the store, you found a dime or a nickel on out on the street or more start paying attention. And then that way you will also start to see money coming into your life easier.

[00:20:33] You'll have more opportunity to see it, but we have to start looking for it first, before we can find that. 

[00:20:38] Lindsay: Okay. I think that's a great tip and it kind of goes back to the conversation we had before about living in that plastic society. And every Sunday, when I get ready, we get ready to go to church.

[00:20:50] I look around for some random cash laying around, so my kids can. Give at the end. Right. And it's so funny how there's always, for some reason, there's always random pieces of money laying around. I don't know how this even happens, cause I never use cash, but I can always find something like I don't even worry about it.

[00:21:09] I just know I'll be able to find three different dollar bills for the kids and they'll be able to take it. And then I think. When you, when you said I had to go to the store and count out my money. And if we think about our last, you know, last trip to the grocery store, sometimes that's hundreds of dollars, right?

[00:21:27] And it would make us so much more conscious of what we're spending. If we had to take out those fifties and twenties and one hundreds on our spending habits, it can, we're not connected to it anymore at all. We just have to hit a button and it's done. And I think that. So destructive if you're not paying attention at all to money and you said, I need to be involved with my money every week.

[00:21:53] And that's exactly how I am. Every Monday, I have to spend time with my money every month is too far in between. And you have to, you have to pay attention to it, no matter what. If you're going in the red every month, because you're spending money on your website, your email service provider, and random people on five, or you still have to pay attention to it.

[00:22:13] That was one of the biggest things. That biggest mistakes that I made was I'm not going to pay attention to my money and tell us are bringing in money. Do you find that that's a common thing. 

[00:22:23] Connie: That is a super common thing. I did it as well. I mean, if they are paying attention to it, like for me, I would often be doing it like at midnight, one o'clock in the morning.

[00:22:33] So it was like the last thing. It got very little attention. And what I also was doing, I was again, pushing out the receiving, I would forget to bill my clients. I would forget to collect on my, on that money. And so. If you're ignoring the spending, you're probably also ignoring their saving and look, think of the energy around that as well, if you're ignoring your spending.

[00:22:54] But you're very thinking in that lack thought of I have to get the sale. I have to get the sale. You're also drawing that itchiness towards you. I've had more. Less happy clients. When I, when I used that energy, when I had to close that sale, the projects usually went the wrong way. Then when I am feeling more grateful about working with this.

[00:23:24] The receiving of that money and how it's going to support the business and just being happy for it. So there's a big gratitude practice around receiving money as well about, you know, bringing a bell, doing a dance, showing some gratitude for it. That's part of my Monday, Monday as well as like being very happy for whatever money came in that 

[00:23:42] Lindsay: week.

[00:23:44] Yes. Every time someone pays you a reoccurring payment kicks. Express your gratitude, because remember when you had nothing coming in and, and now look, what's coming into you and it doesn't matter if it's $10 or $10,000, it's still somebody is exchanging, exchanging energy with you, for your services, for your guidance, for your mentorship.

[00:24:09] And I think expressing gratitude should never be a process that you. Don't do any more because you've been doing this for years. It should always be the same as it is today when that first one comes in and it should always feel like the first 

[00:24:22] Connie: time. Yeah, there's a cause we were talking about being disconnected from it.

[00:24:27] The other piece I see a lot of business owners being disconnected from is how is their money supporting their lifestyle? And a lot of the times we're able to, as business owners put a lot of the things like our personal development and our art supplies and whatever we're using for our intuition practice through our business.

[00:24:48] And we're not considering that if we had a job. And that would go through the household that would be household expenses, or we wouldn't be having those expenses. And so how can you actually. Receive money from your business and put it in your household for personal things. And for me, I had to learn that the hard way I was at a mastermind and the coaches were like, have you paid yourself?

[00:25:13] And I'm like, well, I'm paying my credit card and paying my personal credit card. That business makes that payment. That's not paying yourself there. They really wanted me to physically write myself a check. And there's that energetics again? I bawled in front of a room full of women that I didn't know. I was still going to do the same dollar amount.

[00:25:32] It was just that instead of like electronically paying the credit card, I had to like write myself a check, put it in my personal bank account and make the payment through the personal. And that was a big, energetic shift. Being connected again to how the business is supporting your lifestyle, acknowledging what that dollar amount is.

[00:25:52] And just so that you can, once you acknowledge it, you can ask, you can ask what I need the universe to deliver on a bigger for, you know, whatever that dollar amount is. I need the universe to deliver this, and then you can start taking action steps to create that for yourself, but we have to acknowledge.

[00:26:09] How many is going to support that. And what do we need in our lifestyles to understand that again, I'm being more embodied by how many. 

[00:26:18] Lindsay: So, so, so good and so important. I mean, everyone talks about the sparkles and having, you know, the money coming in and the fun stuff, you know, go around and see if you can find change under your couch cushions and all these little exercises we can do.

[00:26:31] But once all of those things stop, no one knows what to do after that. And then they get frustrated because it didn't work for them. Do you have any resources that people can look out for to help them 

[00:26:41] Connie: with. Wow. We do w well, we have money actually, tips.com is the website right now, where we have a free report that has a cap, the first three steps of the cash handling system, which is basically being really grateful for money and then giving money a job.

[00:26:57] And that's one of them. And then we have a celebration. Playlist on our YouTube channel. If you're needing some money songs to get you happy and moving in that place. But yeah, I write a lot about it because there's, there's things that we need to do. Well, first, first you have to be aware, right? You have to be aware that.

[00:27:16] You would like your relationship with money to change that you would like the flow of money to change and then take action. And one of the action steps would be to know what you would like, how you would like money to show up and support you. And so there's lots of things on our website as well to access for.

[00:27:33] Lindsay: Okay, go back. You said you have a playlist on YouTube for bunny. 

[00:27:38] Connie: Yes. Yes.

[00:27:43] Well, we've re we've created playlist for a couple of things, but the one is that we have a playlist on our YouTube channel for celebration of money so that you know, that day or. If you do it twice a month, if you're doing it every week, like I do. And like Lindsay does do a little dance. And so if you need a playlist or that special money go-to song that you consider, like it's gets you up and moving, you got to feel it again.

[00:28:08] We got to feel it in our body. We got to connect with how it supporting us. But if you want to do it more small scale, you can get a bell and ring it as well. Then I like to ring it. I used to ring it all the way through the middle of my office to help the function ways get activated and move that energy around.

[00:28:25] But now I just ring it in my office. 

[00:28:27] Lindsay: I don't have as big of a space now. Oh, my gosh, I could never do that. I would just channel all my children and the dog and everyone.

[00:28:37] I love that no one has ever had no one has ever said that they have a playlist for money. And I love that you have one for everyone. Cause you always hear like play a song or, you know, to get yourself hyped up for a webinar or whatever I eat. We all have those things, but now we can just go and listen to your playlist and.

[00:28:55] That's awesome. That's really cool that you do that. And can you say your your free offer? What that link is again? Sure. It's money. 

[00:29:03] Connie: Action. tips.com and that's tips with an S. Awesome. 

[00:29:07] Lindsay: Wow. Okay. Well, Connie, thank you so much for sharing everything on this episode. Super valuable. I think it was a great conversation and very different from a lot of money conversations that I've had on the podcast.

[00:29:19] So I really appreciate that. And we'll put all of the links in the show notes. You guys can go ahead and follow Connie on Instagram, LinkedIn, go get her playlist on YouTube. Go save that and then go download her freebie and thank her for being on this show. Thank you Connie. For spending time with us, I'm really grateful for everything.

[00:29:39] Thanks 

[00:29:39] Connie: Lindsay. It was, it was a great conversation. Anytime money and business are my two favorite topics.

[00:29:43] Lindsay: Sounds amazing. Thank you.