How to Create Multiple Revenue Streams Featuring Hannah Smolinski

Hannah Smolinski: 00:00:00

One of the things that helped when I was thinking

Hannah Smolinski: 00:00:03

about my business was really trying to identify what does the

Hannah Smolinski: 00:00:09

client really need every month?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:19

Welcome to Smashing the Plateau.

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We help consultants, coaches, entrepreneurs, and small business

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owners build their business after a long career as an employed professional.

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We believe you should be able to do what you love and get paid

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what you're worth, consistently.

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I'm your host, David Shriner-Cahn.

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Today on Smashing the Plateau, I'm speaking with the president of

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Clara CFO group, Hannah Smolinski.

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In today's episode, you will learn how to turn your expertise into multiple,

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active and passive revenue streams.

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Stay with us to hear all the details.

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Now let's welcome, Hannah Smolinski.

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Welcome Hannah Smolinski.

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Hannah is a CPA and the founder of Clara CFO group, a virtual CFO agency providing

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small businesses with financial clarity and profit maximization strategies.

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Her experience working for one of the world's largest accounting firms

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inspired her to make corporate expertise accessible to small business owners

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through fractional CFO services.

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She also hosts a YouTube channel with over 36,000 subscribers, and

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uses the platform to help small businesses achieve financial success.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:13

Hannah, welcome to the show.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:02:15

David.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:02:15

Thank you so much for having me.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:02:16

I'm excited to chat today.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:18

Me too.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:18

Tell me a little bit about your career and what led you to become a fractional CFO.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:02:23

Yeah.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:02:24

So I, started off at Big Four accounting.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:02:27

I did the whole very traditional, started out getting my accounting degree.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:02:31

Didn't really ever think I was going to do accounting, but I landed in accounting.

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I liked business and numbers seemed to work well for me.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:02:37

So I ended up in accounting and then did the, when you need to

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sit for your CPA exam, sometimes you go, and do a master's degree.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:02:44

So I did that as well, also in accounting, very exciting stuff.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:02:48

But it did allow me the education to sit for my CPA exam, and it also allowed me

Hannah Smolinski: 00:02:52

opportunities to, get a great internship with a Big Four accounting firm.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:02:57

And then I started on that path in the Big Four.

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And I'm sure some of, a lot of your, people who have been in corporate kind of

Hannah Smolinski: 00:03:04

understand the Big Four, either whether it's in consulting services or it's in

Hannah Smolinski: 00:03:07

accounting, it's a churn and burn model.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:03:09

You work there, they, hire tons of staff when you first start

Hannah Smolinski: 00:03:13

and then they hope that there's going to be attrition over time.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:03:16

So I ended up kind of being spit out of the system where I actually opted out

Hannah Smolinski: 00:03:21

about five years in because I needed more work life balance, surprise . So

Hannah Smolinski: 00:03:27

it was time to do something different.

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And, I loved working in public accounting.

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I loved my coworkers and everything, but I just needed more balance.

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So I ended up working for a small engineering firm when I left.

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And that's where I really started to get really aware of everything

Hannah Smolinski: 00:03:44

that small business owners really needed with their finance.

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And it was actually really different from a corporate, background.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:03:50

And, it was, yes, you need, you need finance, but in small business,

Hannah Smolinski: 00:03:55

there was more, I wouldn't say more nuance, but there's just, different

Hannah Smolinski: 00:03:59

needs and much more focus on cash.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:04:02

And I just realized that there was an opportunity there to start

Hannah Smolinski: 00:04:05

consulting after I was working for a small business for a while I

Hannah Smolinski: 00:04:10

realized, hey, I could probably do this for some other companies too.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:04:14

So about five years into that business, I was like, maybe it's

Hannah Smolinski: 00:04:17

time to start something on my own.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:04:19

And that's where Clara CFO group was.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:04:21

And did you go fulltime right away in your

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:04:24

own, into your own business?

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Or did you start something on the side?

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Build it up a little bit and then leave your job.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:04:30

I did the side by side, so I was definitely

Hannah Smolinski: 00:04:32

working for the other company.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:04:35

I was actually about 32 hours.

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I wasn't quite full time with them.

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And so it gave me a little bit of free time.

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And then my evenings were spent developing my business and on the side.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:04:44

So I probably did them side by side for a good year and started to build

Hannah Smolinski: 00:04:49

up a client base for my business.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:04:52

And then I ended up transitioning out of my role with the small business

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and kept them on as a client actually.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:04:59

So that was actually a nice kind of soft landing into, full-time

Hannah Smolinski: 00:05:03

consulting is when I had a healthy client base at that point in time.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:08

So how do you have a conversation with an employer

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and say I want to leave, but I also still want to work for you.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:05:13

Really it came down to, value and the skills I was bringing were,

Hannah Smolinski: 00:05:19

what I was really best at was the finance and the advisory side on the finances.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:05:25

And what I had the conversation was actually, my skillset was more expensive

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for doing that type of consulting work.

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But they were basically under utilizing my skills and they could have hired in

Hannah Smolinski: 00:05:39

a less experienced and honestly cheaper person to come in and do everything else

Hannah Smolinski: 00:05:45

I was doing in the business at the time, because I was doing administrative work

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and I was helping with sales and I was the person who was like, running errands,

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if someone needed to have an errand run.

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So we actually were able to bring in an administrative, more administrative

Hannah Smolinski: 00:05:58

focused person, and then it allowed me to sit more in that higher

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:03

level, strategic advisory type role.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:06

And, it cost them less overall kind of with the whole package after doing that.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:11

So I sold it based on, you're going to be getting more time from

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:15

somebody else and it's going to cost you less in the long run.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:19

So it was actually a solution that was a win-win.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:22

Yes.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:23

Yeah.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:23

And I try to do that wherever I can, because I, I believe that

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:26

there's, win-wins all over the place.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:28

So you just kinda need to work and find the angle and usually

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:32

we can find something to work.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:33

Yeah, no, that's really good.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:35

So then you went into your own business and tell me a little bit about how

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:38

you landed on your business model.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:42

Yeah.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:42

So I definitely tested out a number of things for a while because I wasn't

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:46

exactly sure how to sell my services.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:48

I think when we all start, we're all trying to figure out what does the

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:51

market really need and what are we selling and where do I fit in all of it?

Hannah Smolinski: 00:06:56

And I knew the market needed CFO services, but I had a hard time

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:01

selling them at first because I didn't know how to talk about it.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:04

And then I also had a really, challenging point, of trying to make sure that I

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:10

didn't get myself roped into bookkeeping engagements, because when people hear,

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:15

Hey, you're doing accounting on the side, everybody thinks that means that you're

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:19

going to do their accounting for them.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:21

And, really identifying that we weren't doing the accounting and

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:25

actually like sitting in a more higher level strategic advisory,

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:29

type service took a little while.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:31

So that took a while to suss it out.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:32

But I knew, that the role would be ongoing.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:35

So it lent itself really well to a recurring revenue model where,

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:40

a client hires us on a retainer.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:42

And we have a set amount of work.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:44

We do every single month because with accounting things change every

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:48

single month, you get a new set of financials every single month.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:07:51

And so that ended up working really well with that recurring revenue model.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:07:56

Yeah, one of the things that I hear a lot from

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:00

professionals in their own business, when they're trying to shift into

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:04

a recurring revenue model is how do I know how much time is actually

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:09

going to take me to do this?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:11

How do I know what kinds of deliverables I'm actually going

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:15

to be able to produce each month?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:17

How do I price it?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:19

How do I price it in a way that it's not too low?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:22

And also how do I price it in a way that's not too high and I'm

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:25

over promising what I can deliver.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:28

So there's often a lot of fear around changing a business model or pricing model

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:32

from one that might be project based or time based into a recurring revenue model.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:08:39

One of the things that helped when I was thinking

Hannah Smolinski: 00:08:43

about my business was really trying to identify what does the

Hannah Smolinski: 00:08:48

client really need every month?

Hannah Smolinski: 00:08:51

What do they need?

Hannah Smolinski: 00:08:52

And if I broke that down, I started to see trends where I knew that

Hannah Smolinski: 00:08:57

every single client would need, for example, a budget every single year.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:02

So we're always going to do an annual budget.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:04

And then we know, Hey, a forecast needs to be updated pretty much

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:07

every month because assumptions change decisions are being made.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:12

New clients are being brought on and you know, revenue

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:15

forecast can definitely change.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:17

So when I noticed at that point, I understand what does the client need

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:23

every single month then I could back into, what does a package look like

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:27

that I can really sell that I know I can deliver over and over again.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:30

So it ended up for us that when with a client that's typically under a

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:35

million dollars, we can start to see, we know what we need to do

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:39

at the beginning of the project.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:41

And then we know that on a monthly basis, once we get that first bit

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:44

established on a monthly basis, we have a really good sense of what that's

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:49

going to, be on an ongoing basis.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:51

So I was just talking with my staff earlier today and I was like, for

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:55

this type of client, we know that we can spend four to six hours every

Hannah Smolinski: 00:09:59

single month on this type of client.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:01

And that always, almost always is, going to work out just fine.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:07

Now at the beginning of the project, that's where we have the most uncertainty.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:11

So for us, we actually do a recurring revenue model, but

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:14

we also have a setup fee.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:16

So we charge that at the very beginning, which helps offset any

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:20

up, really, wild swings and hours.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:24

And then we also very specifically say these things are out of scope.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:27

So if we get into your books and they're way messier than we ever

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:31

expected, then we're going to like, put that back to a bookkeeper, or we're

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:35

going to bring some money on that.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:37

That's not our responsibility to absorb, but it's their responsibility to absorb.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:41

And so I think once we started to identify, we know you need these

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:45

things because people are coming to us because they don't know what's

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:48

going on in their financials and they're looking for an expert.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:51

And so as the expert, we can say, we know you need these things, and

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:56

we're going to deliver on these things for you every single month.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:10:59

So it lends itself really well in the recurring revenue model.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:11:02

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:03

So I think what you've raised a really important point,

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:05

which is you've gotta know your scope for what's included and what's ex

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:08

excluded from a particular offering.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:12

And I think that's also hard for people in the beginning to figure that out.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:11:16

Oh, and I've made tons of mistakes.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:11:17

Let's not, , let's not pretend like I didn't get burned a number of times from,

Hannah Smolinski: 00:11:22

a way under bidding, a project or way underestimate the amount of time it took.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:11:28

So I do think there, it does take a number of tries to really get it right.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:11:33

And, I think the more you do something, the better you get at knowing the time

Hannah Smolinski: 00:11:37

that it's going to take, and you can put your best estimates out there.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:11:43

I would always say if you're going to set some estimates, add 50%, and

Hannah Smolinski: 00:11:47

then maybe charge your hours from there, because there's always

Hannah Smolinski: 00:11:50

going to be learning along the way.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:11:52

Yeah,

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:52

so what did you do when it turns out that you weigh

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:11:56

under bid in terms of how much value you provided or how long it took you?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:02

What you do in those situations in the beginning?

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:04

Yeah.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:05

I definitely underbid a couple of my very first clients.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:08

And this was when I was still doing some accounting for clients as well.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:12

I just would come back to them with conversations and say, Hey, like I had

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:17

bid this project based on assuming your monthly close was going to take 10 hours.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:22

It actually took 20 hours.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:23

And I don't anticipate that changing because of efficiencies.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:26

Like I'm as efficient as I can get.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:28

And where we need to change the scope of what this is.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:32

And I think part of that is also understanding, you always have to

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:35

be a little bit, if you're going to increase your prices, you have to

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:39

hold your client with an open hand.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:42

Because you have to be willing for them to walk away when you increase

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:46

your prices, but you also need to know like that you need to be true

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:49

to yourself and what your value is.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:51

If you're going to have a price increase discussion, you also need to be aware

Hannah Smolinski: 00:12:56

that maybe they won't like it and maybe they'll think, Hey, we can go

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:00

and find services cheaper elsewhere.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:01

At the end of the day, that's not a bad thing.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:04

because then you could go out and find a client and price it

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:06

correctly the next time around.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:08

So I think you have to just be, you have to be willing to, with the consequences

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:13

of what happens on a price increase.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:13:15

Yeah, no, that's very wise.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:13:17

So at this point, what are the different kinds of offerings

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:13:21

that you have in your business?

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:22

Yeah, so our main core offering is the virtual CFO services.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:27

And so those are recurring revenue projects where we come

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:30

on and, average time with those clients is at least three years.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:34

So we're looking at where we come onto the team and we're serving

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:37

them one on one, every single month.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:39

But I have a couple other revenue streams, which is slightly different from probably

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:43

other people providing CFO services.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:45

So I have a YouTube channel, which was mentioned, I think in the

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:48

intro where we are putting a lot of free education up on YouTube.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:53

And with that, I have income coming in from YouTube AdSense.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:13:57

So that makes me a little bit, so probably the range between what

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:01

is recurring revenue, from one on one services is about 80 to 85% of

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:07

the total income in the business.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:08

And the other portion is made up of these other things.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:12

So I've got AdSense coming in, I also will sell things like workshops

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:17

or even worksheets in Excel.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:20

So I'll make a worksheet.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:21

let's say it's like how to calculate your estimated taxes for your small business,

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:26

and that worksheet will sell, like I'll probably sell two or three of them today.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:30

Just because I have a video that's actually sitting out on

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:33

YouTube and people watch it.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:35

And especially when estimated tax time comes around, that

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:38

video gets pulled up and a lot of people will buy that spreadsheet.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:41

So I have that and digital workshops that I have done where I've, recorded

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:46

a training and then I can sell the recording over and over again.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:49

And then I've got affiliate commissions.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:51

So I like right now I have a QuickBook series and I'm an affiliate of QuickBooks.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:14:56

So with my YouTube channel, that's driving some affiliate revenue as well.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:15:02

Long term for your business, what would you like it to?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:15:06

Like, how would you like it to develop?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:15:07

Because if at this point it's 85% from one on one services, where are

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:15:12

you thinking you want to take things?

Hannah Smolinski: 00:15:14

Yeah, I would like to get to closer to a 50, 50.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:15:18

And that seems like aggressive, but because I do want to grow and scale

Hannah Smolinski: 00:15:22

the agency side of the business as well, but really with YouTube, it's a

Hannah Smolinski: 00:15:26

really interesting platform, there's a lot of opportunities for monetization.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:15:30

And even if you're not monetized with AdSense, you can still be monetized

Hannah Smolinski: 00:15:34

by selling a course or you can, do the affiliate revenue thing, which

Hannah Smolinski: 00:15:38

affiliate revenue really kicks in when you get like good volume

Hannah Smolinski: 00:15:41

coming in on videos and whatnot.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:15:44

But I would like to see that grow.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:15:46

And I do think that will happen a lot through potential courses.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:15:49

So we've got some, we've got some plans to grow on that side where we're

Hannah Smolinski: 00:15:54

able to come in and provide really, targeted courses to certain industries

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:00

that will help them with their overall financial understanding and planning.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:16:05

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:16:06

Was there a particular trigger that encouraged you to get

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:16:09

started selling digital offerings?

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:12

I think what happened, I think the first offering I sold was

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:16

actually, because of P P P so the paycheck Protection program was why

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:21

my YouTube channel really took off.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:23

I was helping people understand that program.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:26

And then with that, I was selling, no I wasn't selling, I was giving away

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:30

for free a spreadsheet that was helping people calculate their PPP loan amounts

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:35

and their potential forgiveness amounts.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:37

And that grew my email list basically from, a couple hundred

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:42

people to over 10,000 people.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:16:45

Wow.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:45

Basically like that one spreadsheet.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:47

And so what that made me think was like, wow.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:51

If people get spreadsheets for free, maybe some people might

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:55

want to buy some spreadsheets too.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:56

so let's test that out.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:58

Yeah.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:58

Let's test that.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:16:59

That, that's the thing with some of the stuff it's like, why not?

Hannah Smolinski: 00:17:01

throw it up there.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:17:02

If nobody buys it, don't spend too much time on it where it's

Hannah Smolinski: 00:17:06

going to be a huge loss, test it.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:17:08

If one person buys it, maybe two people will buy it, but, my products

Hannah Smolinski: 00:17:12

have always been, and the products that have always done well, have

Hannah Smolinski: 00:17:15

been based on what people are asking for and where people have questions.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:17:19

So any product I build it's because somebody has expressed a need

Hannah Smolinski: 00:17:25

for it at some point in time.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:17:26

And so that's, ideally you have a customer and then you build a product,

Hannah Smolinski: 00:17:31

not the other way around, you build a product and then you get a customer

Hannah Smolinski: 00:17:34

that tends to not work so well.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:17:36

And I've done that too.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:17:37

And then net doesn't sell and then I wonder why.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:17:40

yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:40

Congratulations on everything you've built and the way

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:42

you've started to diversify your business.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:44

If you are advising someone who has a, not an accounting or finance

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:48

related business, but a, totally different professional services, niche.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:52

What would you advise?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:53

when it comes to building multiple revenue streams and building

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:59

recurring revenue and passive income?

Hannah Smolinski: 00:18:02

I would say that there's a lot of opportunities

Hannah Smolinski: 00:18:06

for really easy entry into this space of selling anything digital.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:18:11

and then probably you're already doing something from a marketing perspective

Hannah Smolinski: 00:18:17

that you might be able to transfer into something you can actually sell.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:18:20

So a lot of us as consultants, we're giving workshops, or

Hannah Smolinski: 00:18:25

we're doing things for free.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:18:26

We're doing speaking engagements, we are teaching on a topic because

Hannah Smolinski: 00:18:29

if you're consulting on something, it means that you have a knowledge

Hannah Smolinski: 00:18:32

base that maybe other people don't.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:18:34

So how can you take that knowledge base and think about what type of

Hannah Smolinski: 00:18:39

product could I bring to market.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:18:42

And ideally that product is at a pretty base level because you don't want to take

Hannah Smolinski: 00:18:48

your clients who might be paying you a hundred thousand dollars for a consulting

Hannah Smolinski: 00:18:51

gig, and then take that knowledge base and give that away for a hundred dollars.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:18:57

We're not going to do that, but maybe you can sell something, that's the first 10

Hannah Smolinski: 00:19:01

tips to get into whatever, a like teaser into the first things you would need to

Hannah Smolinski: 00:19:06

know before you need your services, or maybe just really high level information,

Hannah Smolinski: 00:19:11

or if you have a workshop recorded or you want to do a workshop, go and, put that

Hannah Smolinski: 00:19:16

into a place that you can be monetized.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:19:18

A lot of people will spend 50 to a hundred, to $200 on some education.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:19:23

And if they know you trust you, they'll be buying your products.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:19:27

So I think there's a lot of really quick entry ways into making money

Hannah Smolinski: 00:19:32

that we have incredible opportunity right now with all, everything that,

Hannah Smolinski: 00:19:36

all the tools that we have access to.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:37

We sure do.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:38

congratulations on, on what you've built Hannah, at this point, now that you've

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:42

been in your own business for a while.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:19:44

What has that done to your work life integration?

Hannah Smolinski: 00:19:46

I'm still working probably more than I would like

Hannah Smolinski: 00:19:49

to be, but I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:19:52

I think one of the biggest game changers for me is bringing on another me.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:19:57

Another me and client service.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:19:58

So I've been able to hire somebody who I trust, to work with clients one on one

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:05

and then, and frankly, she does a better job in a lot of ways, because she's

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:09

not pulled in 27 different directions, like I am as the, business owner.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:13

But when, as I'm bringing on client serving professionals, Being able to

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:19

alleviate some of the client pressures a little bit is definitely changing my work

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:22

life balance in a good way or integration.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:25

I like that better.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:26

and I'm, I have a child, so I want to spend time with her.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:29

And I always end my Workday during school times.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:32

I always try to end my Workday at three o'clock because that's

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:35

when she gets off the bus.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:36

And I wouldn't be able to do that if I was still working in public accounting.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:40

So

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:41

That's for sure.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:42

Yeah, definitely not, it's always a joke when they were

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:45

on, flexible work arrangements, quote, unquote, it just meant that you were still

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:48

working the same amount of time, but just getting paid less, which was the joke was

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:52

like, nobody's going to go and do that.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:55

No, at least when I left, that's what it was like.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:57

So I think.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:20:59

Now I have, I will use my time in the evenings, in the weekends sometimes

Hannah Smolinski: 00:21:03

just so I can make sure that I get those hours when she's home from school.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:08

Sounds great.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:08

Hannah, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us today.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:12

Where can people go to get all these great resources that we

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:16

talked about during the show?

Hannah Smolinski: 00:21:18

Yeah, so you can check out the YouTube channel.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:21:20

So that's at Clara CFO group, C L A R A CFO.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:21:25

And that's where a lot of those videos who are really trying to help people

Hannah Smolinski: 00:21:29

with how to build a successful small business from a financial perspective.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:21:33

And you can also go to the website it's claracfo.com, and then if anybody

Hannah Smolinski: 00:21:39

wants to reach out to me directly, my email is Hannah@claracfo.com.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:43

Sounds great.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:44

We will include all of these things in the show notes.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:47

My guest today has been the president of Clara CFO Group, Hannah Smolinski.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:51

Thank you, Hannah, for joining us.

Hannah Smolinski: 00:21:53

Thank you so much.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:56

When you visit the Smashing the Plateau website at

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:59

smashingtheplateau.com, you'll find a summary of each episode, along with

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:03

the links we mentioned on the show.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:05

In today's episode with Hannah Smolinski, we learned how to

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:09

turn your expertise into multiple active and passive revenue streams.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:13

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David Shriner-Cahn: 00:23:19

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David Shriner-Cahn: 00:23:21

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