Have you ever made a boatload of money in your business and had nothing to show for it? You're hitting high six figures, but you're not taking a salary. If you have started to run a business and chased the ever-elusive " more sales, more sales, more sales!" chances are that what's happened with those increased sales is increased expenses.

That means you're not making money in your business, which can feel horrible. The emotional toll of feeling like a fraud, like you're hiding and as if nobody knew-is a common business experience.

Today's guest, Ciara Stockeland, will break this down for us in a way no one else has. Ciara is a speaker, author, 4x Ironman, and Fractional CFO for inventory-based businesses.

Ciara is a third-generation entrepreneur. She started her first business at 13 and moved to retail to open a maternity baby store in 2006. She then built up a boutique business and franchised it.

With the second location, the expenses grew too. A second location meant more stuff, which meant the need for a forklift and forklift driver. On it went. At the time, Ciara was getting national recognition, which included speaking at the White House for small business advocacy.

“On the inside, I felt like a fraud. I was like, I feel trapped. I don't know what to do with all this debt. This is out of control,” says Ciara.

To make matters worse, Ciara noticed on social media that one of the franchisees had rebranded the store. A group of franchisees was running two point-of-sale systems and not paying royalties. Ciara filed lawsuits for trademark infringement and breach of contract.

“We won on paper, but we lost everything,” says Ciara. “And so in a year's worth of time, I went from being at the White House speaking on behalf of small business to being on my couch with no business, no team having to move because we lost our home, everything.

Ciara looked at the numbers.

"I wouldn't have pushed so hard to grow top line revenue, but instead, I would have focused on profitability and paying myself, I probably wouldn't have sold franchises to the wrong people," she says.

You have all the puzzle pieces when you understand your profit and loss statement and balance sheet.

“Looking at [the numbers] gives us reality. And when we have reality, we can make a plan,” says Ciara. “If we don’t look at it, we can’t move forward.”

Regarding profitability goals, most people either try to increase sales or cut expenses. But if you don't have the foundation for more sales, your whole business could collapse, and cutting expenses won't actually help your business grow.

Ciara likes to focus on margin instead.

“There's always options,” says Ciara.“We can not sell as much. We can sell more. We can payless for our sales. There's lots of ways to slice and dice those five categories. And I think understanding those buckets, sales, cost of sales, margin, expenses, profit. What can I do in each of those buckets to move the needle in the right direction?”

Check out Inventory Genius: https://www.ciarastockeland.com/inventory-genius-ebook-ad

Connect with Ciara Stockeland: https://www.ciarastockeland.com

Other GoG episodes you might want to check out:

How The Abundance Academy Changed My Life: https://sarahwalton.com/abundance-academy-changed-my-life/

The Secret to Your Business Numbers Will ChangeEverything: https://sarahwalton.com/understand-business-numbers/

You can check out our podcast interviews on YouTube, too! http://bit.ly/YouTubeSWalton

Thank you so much for listening. I'm so honored that you're here and would be so grateful if you could leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom, and clicking "Write a review." Then, we'll get to inspire even more people!

(Watch this quick tutorial if you need help leaving a review.)

#KnowYourBusinessNumbers#ProfitAndLoss#NetProfitGoals#FinancialSuccess#RevenueGrowth#FinancialManagement#SmallBusinessOwner#AskExpert #SalesCoach#ProfitabilityGoals

If you want to make a difference based on your passion, experience, or expertise, and you're looking at 2025 thinking, 'What the heck are we going to do?" Let's talk about the top three trends you're going to see as an online business owner in 2025.

The first trend is AI; it's not going anywhere. How are you going to use it? Have you noticed how many people are starting to sound the same? I want you to look at your AI-produced content and remove the words "unlock" and "embark." I don't want any rockets in your copy. You know what I'm saying?

Don't have it be obvious.

As you're looking to build your business, make enough money to pay yourself, make sure your family has what they need, hire the right people, hit new financial goals you've never seen before, and have enough time to create beautiful content, use these tools that we have access to.

They can help you brainstorm. That's where I'd love to see you use them the most: give me ideas for different ways to say this. How many people are actually suffering from this? What are people searching for when they're upset about XYZ? Those are the different ways you can use AI to support your content creation.

Use these tools to help craft an outline of what you'd like to say. And if you're going to use ChatGPT (or my personal favorite, Claude), don't just copy and paste it. It's really transparent when someone uses AI copy that they haven't put themselves into in any way, shape, or form.

All of these tools are going to get smarter and better. Still—don't copy and paste it. I want you to ask yourself if that's how you talk. If someone's reading it, can they hear your voice? Does your brand shine through? Are you actually speaking to them, or is AI speaking to everyone because that will kill your business in 2025?

The second trend is micro-communities. We have all these different people teaching very similar things. So, how the heck are you supposed to stand out in 2025? What you can do is start to think of your people as a tight little baby community or micro-community.

What I mean is that you know who you're speaking to. It takes work to understand your micro-community—many people call it niching down (but I don't like that!). We're talking to people.

So, micro-communities have similarities that bring us together. Making more money in business is mine. I have heart-centered, passionate women who've started to have some success in business, but they're hitting plateaus and not growing. Those are my women.

We talk about that, your next 90 days, how we're going to get you to hit your next big, huge financial goal, and what that will take from you if it calls to you. You know you're one of my people. That's my micro-community.

Listen in for the third trend. Before I wrap up this episode, there's one more thing I want to leave you with: Find the joy in your business again. Daily, who are you looking to help? How do you want to change this planet? We have a lot going on, and I really believe we probably need you and what you're here to offer.

You're here to do what you are here to do and don't let anyone take that from you. In 2025, it is time for you to shine as yourself and grow your online business. Because over here at Team Sarah, it's our job to put more money in the hands of more women. Happy New Year, and let's make this one great.

Other GoG episodes you might want to check out:

How to Use ChatGPT Without Losing Your Personality with Leanne Shelton
https://sarahwalton.com/how-to-use-chat-gpt/

How to Increase Revenue In Your Business, Quickly
https://sarahwalton.com/increase-your-business-revenue/

You can check out our podcast interviews on YouTube, too! http://bit.ly/YouTubeSWalton

Thank you so much for listening. I'm so honored that you're here and would be so grateful if you could leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom, and clicking "Write a review." Then, we'll get to inspire even more people!

(Watch this quick tutorial if you need help leaving a review.)

#BusinessTrends2025 #FutureBusinessTools #MakeMoney2025 #2025
#OnlineBusinessTrends #SalesCoach #BusinessCoach #AskExpert #WomenInBusiness