The Power of Intentional Living: A Guide to Personal Growth with Susanne Mariga

00:02 00:34 Deneen L. Garrett:
Hello, hello, everybody. It's me again, Denine L. Garrett, the creator and host of Women of Color, An Intimate Conversation. And again, this is a kickback. So this is the third episode where we're just kicking back, having conversation, changing things up a little bit from what you all may be used to. So today's guest is a CPA. She's an author and her book is behind her. CEO, mom, Suzanne Moriga. Suzanne, tell us more about you.

00:35 01:11 Susanne Mariga: So, Denine, thank you for having me. First of all, I'm excited to be here with you and your audience. But I am, just like you said, I'm a CPA by background. I'm actually a fractional CFO. So I work with seven to nine figure entrepreneurs and I specifically help them with implementing the profit first strategy. So it's literally teaching these entrepreneurs how to take their profit first, how to create intentional profitability. And I do that through the profit first methodology. And Danita, I'm not sure if the audience knows about Profit First, but I'd be more than happy to tell them a little bit about this process.

01:11 02:11 Deneen L. Garrett: Yeah, we will definitely get into that because I'm curious as well. And, you know, we, you know, it's about building wealth, generational wealth. So if this Profit First system can help with that, we definitely want to hear about that. So today's conversation is the power of intentional living, a guide to personal growth. So during this conversation, Suzanne, what I want you to share with us is how we can be intentional about living and personal and financial growth through the systems that you've created. So as a certified profit first professional at the mastery level, you're passionate about helping entrepreneurs maximize their revenue, grow their business, and save dollars through sound strategies which is, you know, pretty much what you've already shared. Why is it important to have sound tax strategies?

02:13 06:30 Susanne Mariga: So I think that, you know, a lot of times, you know, entrepreneurs, they start their businesses because they love what they do. And I remember when I first started my business, one of my first clients ever come through my door of my CPA firm, you know, he was a middle-aged man and he brought a shoebox with him. You guys can think of the traditional accountant and the shoebox client, right? And this was him. He brought a shoebox, filled the receipts And I remember he plopped down the chair right next to me and he said to me, he goes, whatever you do, I don't want to pay any taxes. He then proceeds to push the shoebox towards me and I start to go through the shoebox. I'm literally unraveling receipts that have been balled up, probably put in his pocket and then thrown in a shoebox when he gets home. And I get to the bottom and there's this piece of paper and it's called a profit and loss. So this is his income statement, revenue and his expenses. So revenue minus expenses equals profit. And I'm looking at this and I'm seeing the receipts match up to the profit and loss statements. I know the expenses are legitimate. He is truly good at incurring expenses. And I said, well, sir, don't worry. You're not going to pay any taxes because you didn't make any money. You see here, your expenses exceed your revenue. It's red, right? You don't pay taxes when you didn't make any money. And, um, you know, he, he goes away. He leaves him at the shoe box. He comes back a few days later, he signs his return. He's getting something called earned income credit. So he's getting a couple thousand dollars back and, you know, an earned income credit. If you guys are not aware, it's the credit that you get for showing up to work, but not making any money. He thinks that I did a good job. I think I did a pretty good job. And the next year he comes back and he brings the same shoe box. He's getting more, you know, he's good to nature. He recycles, he reuses, and he plops down in the same chair and he still tells me, whatever you do, I don't want to pay any taxes. I go through the receipts again. I get to the bottom of a new P&L, a fresh year. And I said, well, don't worry, sir. You're still not going to pay any taxes. Your expenses exceed your revenue. You're running at a loss. And you don't pay taxes when you didn't make any money. And so he comes back a couple of days later. He gets his return. And again, he's getting earned him credit. He thinks that I did a good job. I think I did pretty good too. Third year, he comes back again. and brings the same tissue box, has the nerve to say the same joke, but this time is different. This time I've gotten to know him a little bit better. He writes me emails at 11 o'clock at night because that's the only time that he gets to sit down and actually answers his emails. And now it's not funny because this is three years of running at a loss. And I look at him, I'm like, sir, I plan to retire one day. And I hope you have an accountant because you're going to be working for a long time because you're not even paying into the system to get social security. Oh, wow. And what struck me was, you know, he wasn't unique. There were many entrepreneurs that were in the same boat. They were so focused on not paying any taxes that they were failing to achieve anything in their own personal lives. You know, this man, his employees were obviously paid more than he was. He didn't own his own car. He was leasing a car. He was renting an apartment. And he literally had nothing to show for all these years of work that he was doing. And the bad thing was he was even building up money in the social security system. And so my passion came for creating a system where you win all around, right? You win personally, like Danine, you mentioned creating generational wealth. If that's important to you, you need a system in place to do that. You need process in place to create intentional wealth. And in taxes, if you're driving the Bugatti, you're driving a nice car, you're paying off your house, that means that you're being successful. And yes, there are ways to mitigate taxes, right, and to reduce taxes, right? But our goal at the end of the day should be ultimately to achieve the things that we started our business for, which is wealth generation and creating better lives for our children.

06:30 07:16 Deneen L. Garrett: Yeah, and I love that you're saying that because what I'm hearing is, you know, wrong focus, in essence, is what he and a lot of other people had in half, right? He said he didn't want to pay taxes. Well, he was achieving that. But like you said, he really didn't accomplish anything beyond that. Like, okay, you're not paying taxes. But what that also means is you're not generating income. You're probably, you said he didn't own and whatnot, right? It's so many things that we're missing out on because we're focused on that one thing, But that one thing is keeping us away from so many other things. So tell us, what is this profit first system? And how does this come into play with what you're passionate about and how you're helping the entrepreneurs that you work with?

07:18 14:09 Susanne Mariga: So profit first is exactly what it sounds like. It's literally paying yourself first as a business owner, right? You know, it's creating profit, right, on day one. The Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that 18% of small businesses will close their first year. 18%, 20% failure rate. Five years, 50% of these businesses will have closed. And then by 10 years, 65% of these businesses will have closed. So the odds are against us as business owners. And what Profit First does is that it creates intentional profitability day one. So literally, you are profitable on day one because you are profit first, right? It's creating a system that creates intentional profit. And I love this. We're talking about intentional conversations here. Let's talk about intentional profitability. And Profit First works with our natural human tendencies, which is important for success, right? When we do things that are easy that we enjoy doing, we tend to be better at it, more successful at it, and we do it longer term. And Profit First works with something called Parkinson's law. And so what Parkinson's law tells us is that work expands to fill the time available for completion. So if you give me two weeks to do a project, it's going to be done in two weeks. Maybe like five hours before the deadline, but it's going to be done in two weeks. You give me one day to do that same project. Yes, the output might look different, but it's going to be done in one day because we as humans, we're efficient. The more time you give us, the more resources you give us, the more we're going to use, right? And Profit First works with that same phenomenon because in the business community, when money is flowing, think about PPP loans, think about ERC. I'm telling you, some of you guys had the best year of your life during COVID, right? You know, my entrepreneurs were asking me questions, you know, when money is flowing, they asked me questions like, Suzanne, you know, can I expand into that new office space? I feel like this is going to be the year. This is going to be the year that I finally outgrow my current office space. You know, that space next door is coming available. And if I don't take it now, it's not going to be there when I when I actually grow into it. But this is going to be my year. Or my favorite question they ask me is, Suzanne, what about that corporate car? I feel like I need a tax write-off. I saw something on TikTok that I can get a $25,000 tax deduction if I buy that 6,000-pound gas guzzler. Is that true? Can you help me do that? Those are the questions they ask me when money is falling from the sky. when there's PPP loan ERC. Now, on the other hand, when cash is not flowing, when money is tight, the questions are different. They're asking me, what expenses can I cut right now to make it through this time? Or how do I gracefully lay off some of my team members? Because right now I'm struggling to make payroll and the sales just aren't there. And the questions are different simply because the cash availability is different. And what's happening is they've been influenced unbeknownst by Parkinson's law. Parkinson's law says that when you give us more of something, we're going to use more of it. You give me more money, I'm going to use more of it. If you give me more food, we're going to go to Corral, I'm going to eat more than if we go to order of dinner, right? And I'm working with my natural human tendency. This is how I am designed as a human being. And so what's going to happen in Profit First is we're going to create an illusion of scarcity. And we're going to create that illusion of scarcity through the use of bank accounts. You know, you guys may have heard of Dave Ramsey's system, the envelope budgeting system. And Dave Ramsey's system, as soon as you get your paycheck, money's allocated into an envelope according to a pre-designated purpose, right? You got an envelope for groceries, you might have an envelope for rent or mortgage in some case, you might have an envelope for dining out, but you have a envelope for every single purpose of your life. And Profit First works very similarly. However, instead of having envelopes, because we don't want any of you guys having envelopes, that would be dangerous. That would be a security risk, right? In Profit First, we're going to have bank accounts. And we're going to have five bank accounts. And what's going to happen is all your money is going to accumulate into one bank account throughout the month. So this is called the income bank account. So all your deposits are going into this income bank account. If you've got merchant services, those deposits are going into your income bank account. And then twice a month, you're allocating to different bank accounts according to your purpose. So one of the first accounts you're gonna allocate to is going to be your profit bank account. And literally, that's your profit. It's physics. If you move money into that bank account and you don't touch it, because that's the game of the world, that's the rules, right? You don't touch money, we move into the profit account. You're already beating the Bureau of Labor's cystic odds on day one because you are profitable on day one. You've allocated to a profit bank account. The next bank account that we're going to allocate to is going to be an owner's pay account. So many times when I talk to business owners, I ask them, who's your most value player? Who's that person on your team that they quit tomorrow? You're going to be crying at your desk, raising the offer of what they already got paid. Who is that person? And they'll tell me it's Johnny, it's Susie, it's Mike, but none of them will ever say it's themselves. But the reality is, If you didn't start this business, it wouldn't exist today, right? You're the thought leader behind that business. You know that the fuel of that business is your passion. Think about Steve Jobs. The day he died, Apple changed. The iPhone looks the same way it did the day that Steve Jobs died. And just like you would never allow Johnny, Susie, or Mike to go without a paycheck, you shouldn't either as a business owner. And just like you would never allow Johnny and Susie and Mike to go without a raise, you shouldn't either. And so funding that owner's pay account is crucial because we need to make sure that you are paid as the founder of the business. The next bank account that we're gonna fund is gonna be your tax account, right? Because like I said, Denine, if you're driving the Bugatti, buying the fancy house, you made money. And you may hire the best accountant in the world, but unless they are committing fraud, right? You're gonna have taxes. And so instead of worrying about how we're gonna pay last year's taxes with this year's money, we're gonna put away money into a tax bank account. So it's there just in case you need it. Now, of course, you're gonna be using tax strategy. You're gonna be meeting with your accountant throughout the year to talk about profit, estimated taxes, right? And how do we decrease our taxes by not increasing our expenses, right? But that money's there just in case you need it. And then the last big account that you're gonna fund is gonna be your operating expense account. And this is the account that literally you're gonna pay your bills from. This is the account that you're gonna decide, can I afford to upgrade into that new office space? Can I afford to bring on that new employee and increase my payroll expense? Can I afford to buy that new MacBook, right? This is the account that you're gonna decide to do that. And this is where you're gonna create that illusion of scarcity. This is where you're creating that that feast or that famine in that OPEX bank account. And you're only going to spend money from that OPEX bank account.

14:09 14:29 Deneen L. Garrett: Wow. So what brought you to this? Is it all the shoeboxes full of receipts that were coming through? And you're like, OK, wait a minute. There's definitely a better way. There's something that we can do differently. Was that one client, was he like your catalyst to start this.

14:29 15:16 Susanne Mariga: It was seeing a lot of shoeboxes that brought me to that, you know, bring out seeing a lot of shoeboxes and all that paper, like, yeah, we're not going to continue to do this. And also, Deneen, part of it was how do we change our communities, right? As women of color, how do we change our communities? You know, I started my career in the Chicago office of Arthur Anderson. And I remember, you know, moving to Chicago or getting ready to move to Chicago and asking some of my peers, you know, where do I live at? Where's a good safe neighborhood to live at? And my peers, you know, obviously they're not women of color. They're not even people of color for most part. I mean, this is like late nineties. You can imagine what a large accounting firm would have looked like. Right.

15:16 15:17 Deneen L. Garrett: Pretty much what it still looks like.

15:18 16:54 Susanne Mariga: Exactly. And you know, they and they met absolutely the best, you know, they said, you know, live over on the north side, you know, Lincoln Park is beautiful. Gold Coast is beautiful. Lakeview is beautiful. But whatever you do, do not live on the south side or west side of Chicago. Now, now looking back, I go, what were they thinking? You know, telling me that, but They were just looking out for their coworker, right? They're a wonderful, cool coworker. And I remember one day being bored on a Saturday and I remember taking this bus. So anybody that are familiar with Chicago, you know what I'm talking about. This is before South Loop was gentrified. And I remember getting on this bus and I said, you know, I'm just going to venture Chicago and wherever the good Lord takes me today, this is where I am going to end up today. So I took this like Michigan Avenue bus until the bus driver told me to get off because he doesn't go any further south. And I got off and there was another bus behind it. So I got on that bus and I continued down Michigan Avenue. And what I noticed is that, you know, it changed, it changed at Roosevelt. Instead of having your shiny stores and your little boutiques and your candy shops, you know, suddenly you started to see less grocery stores, less commerce, boarded up windows, shopping carts that were being pushed around randomly by people. And I thought to myself, how do you change communities? How do you change communities so that you don't have Roosevelt being the dividing line? And it hit me, how do you change communities is by creating profitable businesses. When you have profitable businesses that can provide jobs that allow people to keep their heads up in any economy, you just change the wealth of that community.

16:56 17:44 Deneen L. Garrett: Yeah, and you know, and as you were describing, you know, paying yourself first, it made me think about, you know, these systems could also apply like in your personal life, right? As far as taking care of yourself first, you know, you are your best asset. You are with you at all times, your most important relationship, all those things. And so just like you should pay yourself first, you should also take care of yourself first. So I want the audience, those who are watching or listening, to hear this and hear how this profit first system, which is designed around money revenue. can also apply in your life in your personal life, what are some of the challenges you face when you are creating a system or just in your work.

17:46 19:07 Susanne Mariga: So the system was created by an author by the name of Mike Michalowicz, profit verse. But I think for, in terms of implementing this system, some of the biggest challenges is that at some point you'll come to a point where you can't cut yourself into prosperity. You can't just keep cutting expenses. right? Because now you're actually harming yourself. For example, if you've got a busy schedule, adding one more client to a busy schedule is not going to help you. You need that extra pair of hands. You need that A player to join your team to make you more efficient and able to accommodate more work, right? If you're going to grow and become a seven to nine bigger business. And at that point, you have to look at your model and you have to decide who are you going to be? as a brand? Are you going to be the bargain basement firm where we'll price match wherever you go? Or are you going to be known for your quality and your service? And are you going to price accordingly? Who are you going to hire? Are you going to hire the best and the brightest? Are you going to hire who you can afford? I like to hire the best and the brightest. So I go back and go being intentional. What needs to happen for me to be able to hire the best and the brightest? How do I need to price? How do I need to position? What is this person asking for and how do I provide that?

19:07 19:36 Deneen L. Garrett: And that's also, you know, in alignment with, you know, your personal life, right? Again, with the personal growth, right? Starting with what do you want to achieve? Thinking about what that thing is and then working yourself into that. Like you said, I want quality. I want the best. So how do I achieve that? So there's such alignment and I'm loving it. So tell us about one of your most successful stories, one of your most successful interactions or outcomes with a client.

19:37 20:31 Susanne Mariga: So we've had a lot of successful stories with our clients. Definitely, if you go to my website, SuzanneMoriega.com, under the Work With Me tab, there's a variety of different clients that have talked about it. I think about the story that I write about with one of my clients that's actually in my book, Jane and Ed, The Virgin Hair Fantasy, for you guys that want some good hair, the best chef and wig maker out there. And, you know, to see them buy their own building, right, to see them become the first millionaires in their family, you know, has been very, it's an honor to be able to participate in that journey. You know, I've had clients that bought their own buildings, you know, instead of renting their buildings, like, you know, I'm going to buy an asset that's going to grow over time, time value of money, right? And, and they bought their own buildings, they built it out, they bought their own farms. And, you know, there's no greater honor seeing people change and pivot their, their legacies.

20:32 20:59 Deneen L. Garrett: I love that. So you described, you know, the profit first system, paying yourself first, the multiple bank accounts and what they're for. You know, this podcast is for women of color is to empower them. It's to, you know, give them tools to live their dream lifestyles. What three things can women of color do now to be intentional about their personal financial growth or, you know, growing a business?

21:01 22:41 Susanne Mariga: I think that the first question is, what do I want out of my life? And be very, very specific about it. How old do I want to be when I retire and stop working? I'm all about the fire movement. Fire me, please. I sold our accounting and tax practice at the age of 46. I retired at the age of 46 technically, right? My goal was to retire by 50 or be able to retire by 15. And I realized that I was bored. And so I take on a few fractional CFO clients, but having that ability to go, what do I want at the end of the day? Like, how long do I wanna work, right? How much do I need to do that? Grab that financial calculator, figure out present value of future cash flows. How much do I need to be able to retire? and create that path going forward. So first of all, just being really gut level honest and having no shame to it. People are going to look at you like you're going to retire at 50. What are you doing? But stand in your truth. Be absolutely honest about that. And then second of all, create that path to go and accomplish those things. I talk about profit first. Profit first is a system. It's a system to accomplish that goal of creating that wealth that allow you to retire. So creating a system, identify what you want, create a system, and doing it. And then just know your worth, first of all. You will become what you feel that you are. Okay. And, and you have to own who you are and what you want to be and have no shame to it.

22:41 22:59 Deneen L. Garrett: Absolutely. So as you know, I pointed out how, uh, the alignment with personal growth and whatnot, how it aligns with the profit first system. So what about, how are you using it? Do you use it or any of the, you know, strategy in your personal life? How does it show up in your personal life?

23:00 23:50 Susanne Mariga: Oh, yeah, definitely. Because profit first is on the business side, but you can also use profit first on your personal side. One of the things that I would recommend that people do is set up the habit and make it automated. Start to transfer money into your investment accounts. If you know that your payday's hit on this certain amount this certain day, then schedule the next day that money is automatically transferred into your money market accounts or your brokerage accounts. And then not only do that, but make sure it gets invested within a couple of days later after it goes into the brokerage account so that you can use that compounding interest, that compounding growth on investments, right? And that internal rate of return. But make sure that you automate, create systems to build your personal wealth so that you're not thinking about it. Make it an auto draft. Okay.

23:54 24:17 Deneen L. Garrett: And when you think about everything, everything that you're teaching your clients, you're empowering them to do, what's one thing? And again, thinking of women of color, what's the one thing for us to stop doing? If you would say, stop this one thing, and that would just totally change your life. Is there one thing for us to stop?

24:24 24:28 Susanne Mariga: Stop accepting the status quo as being normal.

24:28 24:35 Deneen L. Garrett: Okay. Tell us a little bit more. What does that look like for you?

24:35 24:58 Susanne Mariga: So for me, you know, I'll, you know, growing up, right. I didn't grow up in the best neighborhood. Um, my school, my high school was on academic probation. It's still on academic probation, like 20 something years later, still on academic probation. But that was my normal.

24:58 25:27 Deneen L. Garrett: And you went well beyond that, as you said, you took you hopped on that bus and you and you know, you kind of went backwards right in your bus drive. You went from a area of affluence to not so much. And then you said, what can I do about this? So that's you not accepting normal. Exactly. Awesome, awesome. So before we wrap, tell us a little bit about your book.

25:27 27:44 Susanne Mariga: So Profit First for Minority Business, I call it my legacy work. It does a couple of things. One is that a dollar for every book that's sold goes to Hope Worldwide, which is a 501c3. And we send that dollar, so Hope Worldwide sends that money to Zimbabwe, and we put girls to school. Nice. So it's a scholarship fund that puts girls to school. And since 2021, when the book has launched, we have filled up a classroom of high school girls that we were seeing them off to college. And this is important because in a country like Zimbabwe, where the government pays for college, but they don't pay for your primary school, and you have the only option to get married, and in a country that has polygamy, having that ability to go to school changes your life, but not just your life, it changes the life of your family to come in the future. So that is really important to me. Profit First for Minority Business Enterprises, again, it's changing America. I get emails regularly that this book has changed their lives. I talk about Profit First, just what I talked about today, but I also talk about government contracting. That's an area that a lot of us, as women of color, get into. I talk about the pros and cons, how to bid for good contracts. Why not say no bid and run away from a bad contract, right? I talk about tax strategy in there also, which is also an important thing in Profit First. Again, the temptation is to cut Uncle Sam, but by also cutting yourself. We don't want that happening. So I talk about things like how do you decrease taxes while at the same time increasing your network? For example, if a lot of you guys are solo businesses, you may be wanting to consider a solo 401k. And what that means is that you can put away almost $60,000 in some cases into a 401k account. This is a tax deduction, okay? You're not 37% bracket, that's like almost 40% of your taxes, your income being tax-free. But at the same time, you're building your net worth for the future, but you're saving money on taxes. And so I talk about different ideas to decrease your taxes while at the same time building your net worth, all in that book, Profit First for Minority Business Enterprises.

27:46 28:01 Deneen L. Garrett: Wow. So that solo 401k, never heard of that. That's something interesting to consider and to look into. So what would you like to leave the audience with? So for those who are watching or listening, what would you like to leave them with?

28:01 28:18 Susanne Mariga: You know, I'm going to leave it with this. You must understand why you're doing what you're doing. You have to understand what you want to accomplish. And that's where you start. What do you want to accomplish in your life? And then build your life around that.

28:18 28:31 Deneen L. Garrett: Love that. I love that. Well, Suzanne Moriga, thank you so much for lending your voice on Women of Color and Intimate Conversation. Foot kick back and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you. You're welcome.