Stacey Powell
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Posts by Stacey Powell
Entrepreneurship and Making ‘Adult’ Financial Decisions
Jul 7th
When I launched on Forbes.com I promised myself that I was going to start Telling the Truth. It’s easy to be a financial guru, talk at people, and tell them, “This Is How You Should Handle Your Money.”
Adult Financial Decision?
It takes more courage to be transparent and share stories not just from our clients, but from ourselves, and even more courage to share not just from our past, but from our present. So here I am, being courageous.
Every summer I head to Dallas for the annual eWomen Network Conference. I look forward to it all year long. It’s the largest business women’s conference in North America, and an amazing place to learn, connect and be inspired. Sandra Yancey, CEO of eWomen Network, provides the incredible opportunity to learn from a long list of business rock stars: Michael Gerber, Tony Hsieh (Zappos), Robert Stephens (Geek Squad), Lisa Nichols, Zig Ziglar and the list goes on. This summer, I’m not going.
What’s an ‘Adult Financial Decision’?
3 Words to Small Business Success: Easy, Fun and Popular
Jun 8th
What’s the attitude you show up to in your business each day?
Are you having fun?
Does it lift your spirit to connect with those you need to connect with to be successful in your business?
In my blog Community Service, Leadership and Small Businesses, I told the story of how my best friend Tina Reynolds, long-time small business owner of Uptown Studios, uses her love of community service to drive the marketing for her business. I met Tina 15 years ago, when she was doing volunteer work for a local HIV/AIDS service organization, and through the years I cannot begin to recall how many organizations, actions and activities she has led or been part of. Her dedication and stamina for community service are unparalleled, and as a result she frequently receives awards, honors and nominations.
At this week’s California Small Business Day, she was honored by California’s Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg as the Capital Region’s Small Business of the Year. Senator Steinberg made an excellent choice. From the vantage point of a best friend I’ve watched Tina’s business grow, and then sputter, and then grow again. I’ve watched her maneuver through the economic challenges of the past few years, always with a positive attitude.
So how exactly do you get to be a Small Business of the Year? More >
Date Night With Your Finances
Apr 30th
Date night with your finances? What’s that supposed to mean?
Just what it says. The phrase “Date Night” evokes thoughts of fun, special, coveted. For many, the phrase “Bill Paying” conjures ugh, drudgery, lack. What would it look like if we felt differently about our finances?
Most of us have it backwards. Its no wonder we think of our finances as drudgery. This is how the majority of us “do our money.”
- We squeeze the chore between the laundry and washing the dog. More >
Entrepreneurial Passion vs. Sales
Apr 30th
I was listening to a new client tell a story that I’ve heard many times. She is in a creative field and passionate about her work. She really wants to work, but contracts aren’t coming and she is struggling financially. I asked the obvious question: “How are you marketing and selling yourself?” She looked a little blank; and then she scrunched her face; and then she launched into an explanation of the ways in which she was kind-of sort-of maybe marketing herself. Which really was to say: she wasn’t.
Through years of working with small business owners, many have come seeking answers to their financial issues. As an accountant, I would like to think that good accounting would provide the answers. But the truth is that it’s usually not about the numbers. The truth is that the most important component of impacting one’s financial issues is sales and marketing.
If you’re tempted to stop reading because you don’t own a business, please keep reading. More >
How Crayons Create Financial Peace
Apr 22nd
Chloe’s Crayon Drawings: “How I spend my money now” and “How I want to spend my money”
My biggest revelation about how to help others with their financial issues came when I began working on my own financial issues. In Telling the Truth, I point out the rather obvious fact why so many American’s with money problems can’t seem to get beyond them: we don’t talk about money so we have no opportunity to tell the truth about it.
We are a financially illiterate society. There are few places that you can go to work on your money, talk about your money, make your money better. I lay awake at night sometimes dreaming up solutions to this societal problem. And bit by bit, I create answers. That’s how we came to start Financial Boot Camps, and that’s how I tripped upon creating this exercise for a Boot Camp: draw your financial life with crayons.
The accountant in me questioned the exercise that the right side of my brain had created. “Um, that’s silly.” But the right side of my brain, the creative side that has been fed and nurtured by studying a lot of research into the psychological and emotional aspects of our relationship with our money said: “Forge on!” More >