235. Debt Doesn’t Have to Be a Dirty Word with Danielle Hendon

Does it freak you out to even think about possibly going into debt? If so, you're definitely not alone. Our thoughts tend to jump to the total due and not the monthly payment or the possibility of short-term use. Today's guest talks about how you can start to switch your money mindset around the debt you may already have. Danielle Hendon is the founder and owner of 4 Corners CFO. She's an accountant that helps business owners understand both debt and their money mindset and then obviously how to grow and expand.  If you love running your business, but you're not always so sure about the financial piece, today's episode is going to help you relax and give you great ideas.  Danielle says her origin story goes back to being a music major in college. Her English professor had the class write about the future of their career and she realized the future of a music major was not going to support her financial habits.  But she had friends in accounting and decided to try it out. She loved the auditing side of accounting, and loved everything about it until she started a family. A newborn and 80-hour work weeks did not mesh. “Yeah, we want to be there for our family. We want to have the flexibility, but we are still really smart women that can do an amazing job,” she says. Danielle wants to start by normalizing how she thinks a lot of us view debt. The narrative behind debt has a really negative connotation. It's built around the unintentional and habitual use of debt, rather than being built around the intentional and purposeful use of debt. “I want people to switch the narrative to understand that that negative connotation comes with the unintentionality. It has nothing to do with the debt itself. Debt is just a tool that can be used in good or bad ways,” says Danielle. That intentional debt could be the thing that launches your business. You cannot start a business without money. It's going to take time to get clients in the door. It's going to take time to get marketing up to speed. That is not a bad thing when it's intentional and it's planned for, and you know how much you're going to need to launch and be successful. If you’re risk averse, you might start small and show yourself the facts. Run the numbers. Take the emotion out of it and deal with pure data. Then let yourself add a little emotion back in to motivate you to knock those payments out even quicker. When it comes to growing their business, Danielle says hiring that first employee is always a good investment.  The fear usually comes from the ability to make payroll, which she says comes back to the importance of having a budget and a plan. She suggests a line of credit is a good way to counter that fear, as it will take three months to get an employee up to speed. “I will say 90% of the time hiring an employee is almost always the right decision when they are a revenue generating employee,” says Danielle. “Usually, your first hire is somebody to help do the doing. […] And then you free up space to grow, because if you are the only one doing the doing in your business, you cap out real quick.” Listeners are invited to connect with Danielle by visiting the following link: https://4cornerscfo.com/gameongirlfriend Other GoG episodes you might want to check out: Master the Art of Hiring: https://sarahwalton.com/how-to-hire/  You Deserve the Money: https://sarahwalton.com/bookkeeping-for-women/  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! (If you’re not sure how to leave a review, you can watch this quick tutorial.) #DebtManagement #GoodDebtBadDebt #FinancialEducation #DebtFreeCommunity #WomenInBusiness #AskExpert #SalesCoach #MoneyMindset #MoneyManagement