S14E12 | Financial planning: what we need to know as professional pet photographers
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I never quite understood the exact role of a financial planner. I mean, I have an accountant? Don't they basically cover the same thing? Do I also need to pay another finance person? In today's show, that question, among many others were answered.
And look, I know finances aren't usually a crowd favourite topic among us creatives, but I did get an amazing guest on the show today who knows exactly how it is for us as creatives to deal with everything in terms of accounting, financial planning, and then also the psychology around money.
We went well over time. So you are in for a treat.
WE COVERED:
Why a pet photographer needs to talk to a financial planner, or not
When do we need an accountant, and when do we need a financial planner
How to find the best person for your business finances
What does working with a financial planner look like
Do we need a business financial advisor and a separate personal financial advisor
AND IN THE MEMBERS-ONLY EXTENDED EPISODE:
What falls under the role of “financial planner”
The cost of a Financial Planner
Investing
MENTIONED LINKS:
Episode with Anastasia Chomlack: One-to-one gratitude sessions (Giving back project)
Elaine Grogan Luttrull
Minerva Financial Arts, USA
Elaine Grogan Luttrull (she/her) helps creative individuals master money in both one-on-one and group settings with the support of a long list of arts funders and advocates. She is based in Dublin, Ohio (Kaskaskia and Hopewell indigenous and cultural lands) where she serves on the board of the Short North Alliance, the advisory board of Healing Broken Circles and drinks entirely too much coffee.
Transcript
Today we are speaking about everybody's least favorite topic, and that is finances. I did get an amazing guest on the show today who knows exactly how it is for us as creatives to deal with everything in terms of accounting, financial planning, and then also the psychology around. Finances as well. We got into all the nitty gritty of all of that.
We went well over time. So you are in for a treat. But we covered just in a nutshell, the difference between an accountant and financial planner. How to find the best person for you and your business, what it might even look like to work with a financial planner. The differences between, you know, if you need a financial, two different financial planners, one for business, one for.
One for personal. And then for the members only, we dived even deeper. We got into the costs of engaging a financial planner. We spoke briefly about investing, and then we really dived deep into psychology. We talked about financial counseling and. In terms of the current economic climate at the moment.
So if that's something that's, you know, worrying you a little bit, something that you feel is having an impact on your business, I feel like there's some really great actionable advice in today's episode. So stay tuned for all the details.
Welcome to the Pet Photographers Club. TuneIn as experts share their insights to help grow your business with higher sales, creative marketing, and kick ARS business strategies. Now onto the Shell.
Hello and welcome to the Pet Photographer's Club. I'm your host, Kirsty McConnell, and today I'm chatting with Elaine of Minerva Financial Arts. Welcome to the Clubby Lane. Thank you so much for having me. It's lovely to be joining you today. It's so nice to have you here. Now. I'm pretty interested to see where this conversation goes.
I've put you on the show today because as we were saying before we started recording, this is a topic that I think many pet photographers all around the world will be interested in tuning into today. I know you know you're in the US and I'm sure you've seen a lot of this this year. I'm in Europe. I know many photographers back in Australia, and everyone I seem to see.
Speak to is a little bit worried about the current economic climate all over the world. It's getting maybe a bit less fear now, but certainly the very beginning of the year. I know, you know, different countries talking about receivership or sorry, companies, receivership, countries, recession and all sorts of scary words like that.
But this is your specialty, you know, all about navigating these situations. So yeah, I'm really interested to hear what you have to share with us about navigating this current economical climate. But before we get into that, maybe we should back up a little bit, and I would love for you to give a bit of an intro to the audience as to who you are what it is that you guys do there, what, what you offer, and yeah, why we should even listen to you about this topic.
Yes, absolutely. Well, as you said, my name's Elaine. I am based in the United States and I run a company called Minerva Financial Arts. Minerva was the Roman goddess of arts, commerce and wisdom, and I really loved the combination of those three things as sort of guiding principles for, for all we do.
And what I do is essentially help creative folks with the. Business and financial side of their creativity. I am not an expert in crafting the most perfect pet portrait, but I can talk to you about all the money things that go into running the side of your business that doesn't involve the photography piece.
All the, all the less fun things you have to do is sort of my wheelhouse. I am a certified professional accountant, A C P A in the United States. And I hold something called a personal financial specialist designation. That's sort of the financial planning piece when we're thinking about retirement or, or long-term planning for money.
And then I'm an accredited financial counselor, which is kind of the human side of money that, as far as I'm concerned, is. At least as important, maybe even more important than kind of the numbers going in and going out because we as humans have to consider kind of the human part of what we are doing and, and how we're sort of navigating some of these challenges, particularly when it comes to things that are outside of our control, like.
Countries dancing toward recessions or, or inflation really impacting our pricing models. So, so that's kind of my world. I have been doing this for, I. What feels like a very long time. I think I started in about 2007 ish, but sort of formally in 2009. And I have the great pleasure of working with funders that give out awards and other supports to individuals across the world.
Creative Capital, T c g, Sundance, dramatist Guild, these really incredible organizations. That support creative individuals. And then I also work in the US with governmental funding groups that award arts to creative folks and then colleges and universities that teach future creative folks how to do all of these things.
So it is an absolute pleasure to be here. And I can't wait to dive in and talk more. It sounds to me like you are a very busy person. I just hearing you rattle off all these different aspects or different areas of a business that you can help and people who are, you know, different people as well, not just people who are in business but also who are, who are still studying.
I mean, it sounds like you're always got a different. Task in front of you every day, which is a bit like us as photographers actually. So that sounds super inter interesting for you. Now, I do wanna touch on two of those aspects today in our in our interview. In this episode, I'm gonna skim past the tax side that you mentioned, that you know, you are qualified to discuss that.
But because we have a worldwide audience, I feel like. We might just skim past that. If anybody has any specific questions around tax, probably they have their own tax accountant or I'm sure they can get in touch with you directly if they're in the us. Is that correct? Absolutely. Yep. Amazing. Okay. But then there are two other aspects to what it is that you do that you mentioned.
One is financial planning and the second is the financial counseling. Sorry, that in particular I think will be very interesting. But first of all, can you just give us a little bit more information into, first of all why a pet photographer might need to speak with a financial planner? Yeah, that's a great question.
I think
I, I might say that this might be controversial. My, my peers might not like me saying this, but I don't know that you have to, so I think. There is so much information available, right? You can absolutely, as a pet photographer and a business owner, sort of learn yourself through articles, through books, through YouTube videos and, and TikTok.
You know, you can learn a ton of information about sort of financial planning broadly. I think where it might be helpful to speak with someone individually is to help sort of cut through some of the noise. Sometimes when we're gathering information from all those different available sources, we're not always confident.
What is. Like true information and we're not always clear on how it really applies to us. Right? And so, you know, as you're coming across information, it can be really helpful if you are chatting with someone who really does understand the nuances of your business, right? The service components, the product components, the sort of heart components in, in navigating those client relationships and also the UN.
Certainties that come with sort of peaks and valleys of how your business might flow depending on the season. For example, if most of your work is outside or you know, sort of those different nuances around kind of what your business looks like, it can be really helpful. To sit down with a human who is focused solely on you and understanding all of those nuances of your business.
And then the other side, of course, is sort of helping you articulate maybe what your own goals are long term. I think if you're, if you're pulling information from, you know, all the available sources all of that information is sort of focused on. Who, whose goal is giving the information to you, right?
So if you know someone on TikTok is telling you how to save money so you can retire by 30, right? That is absolutely through the lens of their own goal of retiring by 30. But most of the creative folks I work with never want to stop. Creating in any sort of way, right? So, so they might have a very different idea of what their goals are or what they're working toward, so, so working with someone who, again, is totally focused on you and your business and your own goals, can help you cut through the noise a little bit and really create some sort of planning document that suits you in your situation.
Okay, that makes sense. Now if we just back up for a little moment. Maybe, can you actually then clarify when we would be going to an accountant and when we would be going to a financial planner and is that ever the same person? Great question. Yes. It absolutely can be the same person. And in my dream scenario, it is the same person because these.
These issues, especially in the United States, have a lot of overlap between them and so. What I see for creative folks is often kind of in the early years, they're doing everything themselves. They're tracking all of their income and expenses. They're figuring out taxes. They're going to different websites to figure out their business registrations, right?
In the first couple years, folks are usually doing everything themselves. And then as they grow, they start to kind of outsource different things. So the first thing that usually gets outsourced is bookkeeping. So that is keeping track of the money in and the money out. And there's a lot of good data you can get from looking at money in and money out.
But it's also something that takes a lot of time, even if you're using a really great software platform. So that's something that folks may often outsource. And then the next kind of level is outsourcing their taxes, right? Because that's something many folks do not enjoy doing. Although I can't tell you they are.
Super, super fun, and there are lots of good stories you can tease out of your tax return, especially in the United States, but that's something that gets outsourced pretty quickly. And then the final sort of growth level is where you're getting more strategic, right? So you're thinking about how to plan a little bit better, how to sort of make longer term decision.
Decisions that help your business and maybe your own financial situation. And that's where working with a tax person who is a little bit more strategic with that planning piece or adding in a financial planning person that can really start to make sense. And for some people they reach that growth level after a handful of years of business, if things are going really well.
For other people it takes much, much longer. And there there is no sort of absolute right way to go about that. Okay, so just clarify if I've comprehended this right. So if we're kind of in the still fighting to pay our bills stage, is that when maybe you would be talking to an accountant when you're in that early stage of the business?
But once that's kind of. Sort of, you've got a bit more of a system in place and, and that's all happening without too much thinking, then that's when we could start looking at the growth of our business. And in that case, that that might be when we might wanna talk to a financial planner. Is that right?
Yeah, that I think is exactly right. With one small caveat. Sometimes the accountant is also the financial planner. So those don't have to be two separate people, but in many cases they are. Okay. Right. Now, before we just move on too much further from this, I know that you know our listeners, if they're at, you know, a stage in their business where they're wanting direction with either of those two things, they can certainly come to you if they're in the us.
For our listeners that are outside of the US, can you give us a couple of pointers as to, you know, how we can make sure that we're finding the right person for our business as a pet photographer? Oh yes, definitely. And these tips apply within the US as well. But I would say absolutely I. Ask other folks, you know, in the creative space who they are working with, because you want someone who certainly has the right credentials, right?
And the credentials vary by, by jurisdiction, but you want somebody with some sort of official money related credential, and then you want someone who. Understands the nuances of creative businesses. And so the best place to start is through your peer network. Other groups you're involved with, folks you maybe know through this community, right?
Sharing resources about sort of who've used or, or who other folks are using. That word of mouth referral is gonna be the absolute best way. I think if you don't have any sort of resources to start with there, the second best way would be to go to kind of the governing body of the money people in your jurisdiction in the United States.
That's the American Institute of CPAs. That governs sort of certified public accountants. There's also a group that governs certified financial planners, right? So you, you go to kind of the governing or licensing groups that identify folks who are qualified to do this work. And then you can usually search for someone in your area when you are searching.
I would suggest reaching out to at least three people, just to kind of see who you might have the best rapport with or feel the most comfortable with, and then certainly ask them who else they're working with, particularly if they have other creative clients so that you can get some references from their other clients as well, just to kind of do your homework and make sure kind of your gut instinct is right.
Okay, good advice. I'm thinking about like a few months ago I was looking for a new accountant and in fact the first thing I did was reach out to somebody I know who, who used to work in finance but now is a pet photographer. And I was, okay, amazing. Do you have a good accountant or are you your own accountant?
And and she was like, no, I'm, I'm not a cpa. Like I'm. I am a financial whatever she is something else. Here's my accountant's details. I was like, thank you very much. It was really handy. Rather than having to kind of do all that research yourself, know that this accountant is already working with a pet photographer was because, you know, as a pet photographer, we're very specific.
You know, you go to accountant, they're like, you are, you do what the people came. Right? So having, being able to. Yeah, kind of fast forward through that was certainly handy. So just for the listeners, if you are looking for an accountant and you know, you're not gonna go to Elaine because you're not in the US or whatever reason pop up post in the Facebook group of the pet photographers club and ask around because probably somebody is near to you or in the same country at least, and they can give a recommendation.
Am I right, Elaine? In thinking that? Today, you don't have to be in actually the same town or city as your accountant or financial planner. You can be in as long as you're kind of in the same, I guess, in the us the same state. Is that right? That is mostly right. And also I do have folks that that work with accountants and planners that are not even in the same state.
I would be in the same country at least. And then depending on the country, so in the US. We do have rules that change based on state, and sometimes there are city specific rules as well, but any good professional will make sure they are familiar with the geographical rules for their clients, even if that's not exactly where they're based.
So as you're sort of chatting with someone just. You know, run that by them. Say, you know, hello, I live in, fill in the blank state, you know, can you still work with me? And and odds are they will, they will be able to, and if they're not comfortable with that, they'll just say no. Okay. Okay, great. Now if we move into the financial planning aspect, can you give me a bit of an.
Give us a bit of an example of, you know, what we could expect working with a financial planner so we can use my business if you want, as an example. Maybe. So at the moment it's just me, but I have the goal of becoming a a team. You know, having, having other photographers shooting for me as associates, I don't want 'em to be employees.
And you know, obviously I have financial goals as well. So what would we do with this information if I was working with a financial planner? Yeah, so the general process would be you have an initial conversation and you share those things. You say, here's where I am now. I'm thinking about bringing on four or five other associates, and I'm thinking about increasing what I'm paying my myself.
So that I can travel more or whatever your personal financial goals might be. And so there would be a, an initial conversation where the planner's asking some questions. You are sharing some information and they might even be saying things like, do you think you might have to care for aging relatives?
Down the line. And so they might also ask you some questions to sort of understand or tease out goals that might not necessarily be top of your own mind, but might become relevant for you later. And they might say, you're based in Italy, you know, how often are you going back to Australia? And, and kind of what does that look like?
Right? So, so they're gonna be understanding kind of this. Specific financial aspects of your life. For example, you might have additional travel costs that someone who lives much closer to their family may not necessarily have. Right? So that's kind of the first meeting, and then usually at that point they will ask you for a lot of information.
So the financial history of your business. Maybe your personal spending information, you know, and you've, if you've got that organized, that's amazing. If it's less organized, it's gonna take them a little bit more time to kind of pull everything together. And then the next time you meet, they will have gone through all the information and sort of.
Understood kind of exactly where you are maybe what kind of debt you have, maybe what your business is doing so far, what you're currently paying yourself from your business, if you're currently paying yourself from the business. Cuz we know not all businesses are able to do that. Right. So then there will be a meeting where you're sort of going through almost the financial history, maybe for a year, maybe for longer than that.
Maybe for shorter than that. If you're, you know, really only. Interested in, in a couple months of history, and then the planner will start thinking about where it might go. And so they might put together say three different scenarios that say, okay, here's what it looks like if you hire three associates.
In the next year and you know, pay them, you know, 60% of what they bring in. For example, here's how your expenses might change under that scenario, and here's how the income for your business overall might change. And then here's what it would look like if you brought on six associates, you know, and then here's what it would look like if you brought on one associate and then three months later brought on another associate.
And that's where you start kind of. Playing with the numbers a little bit just to sort of, Gut check what feels reasonable, what assumptions everyone is making, right? Does this kind of make sense? And then everybody sort of processes that for a little bit. And then the next meeting would probably be saying, okay, this feels like the right direction.
This feels doable. These are the numbers we are going to pay attention to. So if you're thinking about hiring associates, maybe one number you're watching is. How far in advance are you booking out clients for different sessions? Right, so maybe if you're booking out people three weeks, you're totally fine.
You don't need an associate. But then if it starts to creep to like 4, 5, 6, Six weeks that you're booking out, you might say, okay, it's ready. I'm ready to bring on one person to sort of shorten that booking lead time a little bit. Right. So, so that's just an example of a metric that a planner might identify to help you pay attention to as you're deciding when to bring on the first associate or the second associate, or the third associate.
Right. So, so then, you know, we'd, we'd model that out. We'd pay attention to what we wanna pay attention to, and we'd probably test it for a while and then see if the results that actually happen are close to what we thought might happen, or if they are wildly different for any number of reasons. And then that final piece would probably be returning the conversation to you Kirsty, the human, right.
So, you know, thinking about this business and all these changes you've made, how is this impacting you? The human? Are you paying yourself more? Are you. Reinvesting everything into the business. Is your tax situation changing? Right? And so thinking about how your business plan is impacting kind of your human plan, for lack of a better word.
And then understanding if there are different tweaks we need to make on the human side. So, and then it would probably go into what planners might call, like maintenance mode. Like let's say we go through all of that. Everything works out exactly according to plan, which is never how it goes. Right. And then it's like, okay.
Let's just keep doing this until something else changes. Maybe a geographical move or you want to bring on even more associates or expand into a new country or something, right? Then those sort of major life changes are when often we sort of reevaluate and re-look at the numbers again. Okay. Wow. Okay.
That was so good. So much information. I'm gonna break it down a little bit here. Yeah. So, and then we actually should wrap up the first half, but I'm gonna keep going for a little bit because I think this is really important for the listener to hear. So first of all, it sounds like at least working with you, You are helping from a financial planning point of view, both personal finances as well as business finances.
Is that correct? Yes. And that is a really intentional choice and. I, I don't wanna say this too harshly, but I think if, if a financial person is only working with you on your business or only working with you personally, that feels like such a missed opportunity because what we know in the arts, And especially for folks who are running their own businesses in the arts, there is a lot of overlap between sort of the business side and the human side and, and sometimes the, the line dividing those two worlds is blurry or fuzzy at best.
And so I think it's absolutely crucial that we're considering both of those things because they are so intertwined for creative individuals.
Okay, that makes sense. Because I've listened to, you know, a few other financial planners and I've read some blogs and this kind of thing, and it always seems like they're either f you know, they're either helping with personal or they're helping with business. And I feel like exactly like you just said, but.
I am my business at the moment. Yeah, yeah. And, and it doesn't really, I can't really differentiate, you know, if you ask me what my personal financial goals are and what my business financial goals are, they're intertwined. Yes. And so, yeah, that to makes total sense to me that as micro businesses and small businesses, it kind of has to be that way.
So finding a financial planner who can help with that makes total sense to me. Okay. So that's the business versus personal that I wanted to ask you about. I wanted to ask you a couple of other questions, but I think actually I'm gonna save them for the second half because I'm noticing we're already over time and I could talk to you about this all day long.
So what about we wrap up part one now before we do, I would love for you to just share with the listener the best place to find you. Is it Instagram? Is it your website? Yeah. Where should they go? Yeah, the website is minerva financial arts.com. There's a contact us form if you have extra questions or, or you wanna get in touch.
There's also a free newsletter you can sign up for there where we share kind of monthly tips about things to think about and, and things to kind of. You know, maybe ponder as you are running your business. The most recent one is on thinking about when it's time to update your prices which is probably relevant for, for a lot of folks.
So, so that's the best way. I am also on Instagram so feel free to follow along there as well. And, and yeah, I will look forward to, to chatting with anyone who wants to follow up. Amazing. Yes, like I said, I really wanna jump into some more nitty gritty about this, about working with financial planners.
Especially like you mentioned at the very start of the interview about you don't tell people where to invest their money or you don't invest it for them. So I wanna dive into that a little bit. I also wanna work out where the line is between a financial planner and, you know, somebody that can help you with.
Like I don't know, business strategy, I suppose, is there even a difference, you know, when it comes to working out, you know, how to achieve those goals in terms of the financial, yeah. Planning and then, like I said, at the very start of this interview, I really wanna talk about the kind of psychology around being in business.
Making money, all of those kind of things with you as well. But that is gonna be all coming up next for the premium members, for the listeners for the second half. So if you're not a member yet, don't forget, you can always join today. This is $10 a month if you are a member. Switch on over to listening to your private RSS feed or in the member zone so you can hear the entirety of this episode.
Yep. And if you haven't already joined, just head on over to the pet Photographers Club. Dot com slash join. And yeah, that's your link to join today. So for now let's wrap up part one.
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