Rebroadcast | Financial Real Talk: When You're an IBCLC & Business Owner

Annie: I'm Annie.

Leah: And I'm Leah.

Annie: And this is Lactation Business Coaching with Annie and Leah, where we talk about the smart way to create a compassionate and professional private practice.

Leah: Let's dive in.

Annie: Hey there, Leah.

Leah: Hey there. Annie, how are you today?

Annie: I'm very good. How are you?

Leah: I'm doing good. I'm a little nervous about today's topic because we're talking finances and I definitely could use some work in this area. I'm sure we all can because it's always a challenge, especially as a small business owner. It's just a lot to think about and hope that we get to share some good wisdom and things we've learned along the way, but I know we have an awesome sponsor today. You want to tell us about that?

Annie: We do. I am super excited that today's episode sponsor is MilkNotes. MilkNotes was created by a lactation consultant IBCLC just like us, and it is more than just an easy-to-use charting application. It's a feature-rich mobile app that makes it easier for you to manage your lactation practice. Every aspect is encrypted for security and HIPAA compliance. No more confusing charting programs, the MilkNotes templates are simple lactation focused and easily customized to report your client's condition and care. New MilkNotes Pro integrate secure messaging, embedded video care consultations, faxing, rental pump tracking, and a fully customized care plan. The MilkNotes patient portal allows your client to start their profile information even before your first visit. After the visit, your client can review their care plan in any custom e-documents you've attached. MilkNotes makes charting easy and affordable so you can focus on who's most important - them! Start your free 30-day trial today and thank you so much to MilkNotes for sponsoring this episode, which today as Leah said, is all about finances, financial tips for the lactation consultant who is also a small business owner and this is as Leah said, kind of a nerve wracking topic, because money's really personal and at least I know the way I grew up. I grew up, you don't talk about money. You never talk about money. It's all secret. I remember being a kid and asking my dad, well how much money do you make? And he would say none of your business.

Leah: My dad said the same thing. That's so funny.

Annie: So today though, Leah and I, here we are and we've got these businesses and we are small business owners and we're going to share with you some of the things that we've learned on our journey, raise some questions for you to consider about your own business, and hopefully start a good conversation that gets us all thinking about how we can support each other as small business owners who are trying to make a living doing work that we love.

Leah: Absolutely. Absolutely. Before we get started, I definitely want to share a marketing tip with you. So when I first started out, I did these free mini classes and I think this is a neat way if you're really trying to figure out a way to get in front of people who might refer to you, and also prospective clients in the prenatal stage. I used these mini classes so I did this 30-minute top 10 tips you need to know before breastfeeding. It was super quick, but it got me in places. I actually did it at several baby retail stores and retail shops, and they loved it because it brought people in their store and it was quick and fun and it got me in front of a lot of people and also just connected with the community. So I think if you're starting out, especially if business is slow and I don't know what to do with my time, this is a great way to be using your time cause you can be talking to people about getting them set up and then doing these little mini classes and before you know it, business is going to be rolling in. So I hope that marketing tip helps for you guys.

Annie: I love that. I've done a few of those over the years and I've always been surprised at how far down that echoes, where I'll have somebody call me because their friend went to that free class and it was like two years ago, and so you never know how things like that can go and just a side benefit of establishing relationships with other businesses in your community that are potential referral sources. It's a great tip.

Leah: The retail places have gotten me in with other places and it's just building that presence in the whole community is so, so valuable especially when you're starting out and trying to get your name established in the community as a well known name. I think this is the great way to do that. So as we get started on talking about finances, we really have to think through what it means to be a small business owner and if that is your main gig or do you have a side gig. I think that plays in a lot about how you think about finances too, cause if this is your main gig and you're also the main breadwinner in your family or the only breadwinner in your family, I mean these points can make a big difference on how you even look at your finances to start out with. If this is just your little side hustle to have vacation money, how you look at it is going to be way different than if this is the only money coming into your family and you're supporting your whole family with this income. So what do you think about that, Annie? How has that changed your perspective?

Annie: Yeah, I think it's a really great place to start because I do think there are a lot of us out there who got into this work because we started out volunteering, we had small children at home, and we're thinking, Oh, I could fit this in after school pickup or whatever it is that's happening. And that could start you out on a bit of a short-sighted vision of what you're actually doing. And so you may be in a position where your family doesn't need you to be bringing in a significant income at this moment. So that might be your reality. And if it is, I would still challenge you to say I am building a business. I'm building a business and you want that business to potentially be able to support you. And so if you're thinking about it like Oh, I just need a little bit of money, what's going to happen is you're going to undervalue the work that you do, undercharge for your services, which is damaging to your community. That hurts people who need this to be an income. If you say, well, I can afford to go out for a quarter of what my competitor does, and that's great. I'm just happy to have the work. That's really damaging to the rest of us who are trying to pay our bills on what we're doing.

Leah: I think the more you value what you're doing and think of it like I am building a business. This is my career. That shows in your professionalism. If it's just a hobby, a little side hustle, that really makes a difference. So no matter how you approach it, I do really resonate with what you're saying is like you should take it serious and you are a small business owner. As soon as you registered with your state, that's it. You're a business owner. So let's make the most of it. And over time, this might be able to be your main career, but no matter what, it'll be professional and help support the rest of our community if we put it out there like that. That's a great point.

Annie: Totally. And I love what you say about when we treat it like a business, it's also good for our clients, and I really think particularly in supporting our families where one or both parents is returning to work very quickly. I think when we can really understand the value of work as work and as what it does for a family, I think that we're better positioned to be invested in helping those working parents meet their breastfeeding goals after they return to work. Whereas if we're thinking like, Oh, breastfeeding is ... I do it for love and I'm just helping people, you might not really be able to hear the person on the other end of the couch saying, I'm devastated that I have to go back to work, but my family needs the income. If that's something that you've made that important to you, you're going to have a lot more empathy and compassion and desire to help your clients who are in those situations.

Leah: Oh, I like that. That's a really good point to think about. So talk to me a little bit about this thought process of the cost of doing business versus a business expense, because that is definitely something that I think a lot of people don't think through when they're thinking about what does it mean to be a small business owner? What does it mean to run a business? What is the cost of running the business? because that comes with cost inherently. But then we also have this other side of there's expenses and so can you talk a little bit to that? I'm really interested to hear your perspective.

Annie: A lot of times we think about being a business owner versus being an employee, and you kind of might think, Oh well when I'm an employee, I get paid. I go to work, I get paid. When you're a small business owner, you're like, I have to make all the money and then I get to spend it however I want, and I need to think about what I'm going to spend it on and I should put it all back in my business. But you have to really think about yourself as a small business owner that you're both the employer and the employee. As an employee, you need to work for what is a living wage for you. You're not going to be putting every penny you make at the beginning back into the business. You need to start out by paying yourself your salary. Maybe you did one consult in your first month and you might say, Oh, I did one consult, so I should spend that on a conference or whatever. Now I've got money for a conference. No, you have whatever's leftover after you paid yourself. So first of all, that's really important. The second thing that you're going to have to pay is you have to pay your taxes, and everybody's got a different tax situation, and I would really - and I'm going to say this out of experience, hard won experience - of something that I'm very bad at as a small business owner is planning to pay your taxes, and assuming you're going have to pay them and saving the money throughout the year, rather than just hoping you can cover it when the taxes are due, and that's also really hard because that's my money.

Leah: I want to keep it. I don't want to set it aside. I want to do stuff with it. Yes, yes. I hear you. That was such a hard lesson in the beginning because the first several years we had explosive growth. I had not been in this type of business. I had been a contractor before, but it wasn't the same amount that I was getting now. And so the first couple of years I was kind of shocked at how much I had to actually pay because you were self-employed. I was like, Whoa, okay, I really need to think this through. Oh, maybe it's a fluke the first year, and then the second year was like ouch, that's really hurting. And then third year I was like, must do something different. And so it took me three times to figure out that setting that money aside is so, so important, or paying ahead if that's what your CPA has recommended. But it is definitely a hard lesson to learn but so, so important and it really helps you recognize what your true kind of income is. If you were an employee, you would not be seeing these big numbers and so you get all excited. I'm making the cash; so much money, but it's like, Ooh, chicken! You are not making all that because a whole bunch of that is going to have to go to taxes, and so once you set that aside and it was so helpful to work with a CPA who kind of helped me lay out, like you need to be setting X amount of dollars aside, and so I actually have it on an automatic out of my bank account now. So it goes in and then I have an automatic draw into my taxes set aside money. And that has kept me honest and, and definitely a lot more relaxed when April 15th comes around and I am writing that check. I'm like, okay, it's there. Everything's fine. I'm not going to have to sweat through this one. But that is so, so important, and I think we don't realize - especially if you've never been self-employed before - you don't realize there's some heavy taxes to that, and then you have to think about all the deductions and all these things, but it's definitely so, so important to set that aside so you're not sweating at the end of the year.

Annie: And think about it this way. You can take that money that you're setting aside for taxes and you can put it in a savings account, which will do two good things for you. One is you're going to have a much harder time accessing it if you're tempted to do so. And second, you can earn interest on it. So when you're an employee and you're having those deductions taken out of your paycheck, that's just going straight to taxes. You don't get anything from that, but when it's sitting in a savings account that you're waiting to pay your taxes on, you are earning interest. You may need to pay estimated taxes throughout the year, and that's something that as Leah said, a CPA can help you with and we're going to talk more about that later in the episode, because we've got some really concrete tips for how you can get yourself organized and who the right professionals are to help you. So I wanted to also talk about this cost of doing business versus business expenses that Leah brought up because they kind of sound like that's the same thing. I have a business. I have business expenses and you really need to be clear in your mind about which expenses are things that help you run your business that are nice to have. And there are certain expenses that if you don't pay those, you don't have a business. So the number one that I hope we all know this is liability insurance. So when you work for, say you work for a hospital, you're covered under the hospital's liability insurance. If you are a volunteer breastfeeding counselor, you are probably covered under insurance through that organization. I hope you were. When you were a small business owner, you are the one that has to provide that liability insurance. And so if you don't have liability insurance, you don't have a business. And the second thing that you need to be super aware as a cost of doing business are the costs associated with any privacy protecting measures you're taking to comply with your country's privacy regulations. So here in the United States, that's HIPAA, so it's going to cost you money to have HIPAA compliant communication system. That is a cost of doing business. You cannot say I'm just starting out. I just want to use free Gmail. I can't afford that. If you can't afford that, you don't have a business.

Leah: You can't do business, and that is definitely not an area you can skimp on. There are several things like that that are must haves you have to do. It goes along with like you're going to need to have equipment. There are some must-haves with what's in your bag and that kind of thing. Those aren't necessarily business expenses. You can't do your job. That's going to be a cost of running a business. And then the business expenses come in when you take a doula out to coffee. You didn't have to do that, but it helps your business. Or you're going to pay for say a class that's local and you want to go to that or things like that. Those are going to be your business expenses, but there are some non-negotiables that have to happen. Like the privacy protection, like the equipment. like in my business, I have an admin and life cannot go on without her. So, she is a cost of doing business because we really utilize that service.

Annie: There are going to be times where you're going to have those kind of business expenses that feel extra then become necessary because your business can't run without them. And so that comes in when you're growing and those are really good problems to have. It's important to do a regular check in with your business a few times a year, maybe once a quarter when you're writing out that check for the estimated taxes and say, let me just take a look at everything I'm paying for and make sure that I still want to be paying for all of these things that I'm paying for, and where do I have overlap? Look at that thing I subscribed to six months ago.

Leah: Yes. Oh my gosh. We were doing a big change on our website and so I was like, Oh, I need so many photos. So I signed up for the biggest thing on Shutterstock because I needed all the photos and, Oh my gosh, three months later, I've been paying $150 a month to Shutterstock and I only used it for that one two-week period. yes. So I have learned my lesson. I put a reminder in my phone - must take off this subscription by this date so I don't get charged to the next one. And I've done that several times on several different services that it's so important to remember.

Annie: I have done that too, and I had a really bad one actually that happened earlier this year. As part of the research I do for my paperless business, the publishing books, tech training that I do, I sign up for all these different platforms, and I do pay plans with them so I can try them out as a use, which is fine. There's a business expense there. I pay for the charting platforms when I'm using them in my own private practice. So what happened was last year, I went through a bunch of different ones, so I tried two of them last year. Spent four months using JANE, spent about seven or eight months using CHARM. Both Jane and CHARM have integrated payment processing so you sign up for the payment processor and then you can take credit cards at the time of bookings. Super convenient. A lot of them do that. they were not using integration with Square Up or Stripe or PayPal, which are the three most common payment processors that are used for online sales. JANE was using one called Payfirma or is using one called Payfirma and CHARM uses one called Bluehost. So I signed up for accounts with Payfirma and Bluehost. They told me what the fees were. They told me here's how to do it. We're going to connect you. Here's what you signed, and I got this whole thing from Payfirma, - well, not from Payfirma. From this other company saying I had to go through PCI compliance.

Leah: Oh wow.

Annie: I write to my people at JANE and I was like, is this a real thing or is this spam? It's asking me all kinds of questions about my business, and they said, no, you have to do that because you're processing credit cards. So I went through the whole thing. I did the PCI compliance. It took me 20 minutes. It was such a pain because they are asking me things like my physical location, my closets. I work out of my car. I just want to be people to be able to put their credit in when they make an appointment, like you told me I could do, but I did the whole thing. I did it as best I could. It said I passed the PCI compliance.

Leah: Congratulations.

Annie: Thank you. It was quite an accomplishment. So that was with JANE, and then I switched to CHARM and I signed up for the Bluehost and I got a thing in October saying you have to reregister for PCI compliance, so I was like, okay. Now I know what this is. I'm just going to do it. Went through the whole thing, got the email, congratulations, you're registered. So then a couple months ago, I was trying to deal with my bank and get my business bank account. It didn't like the bank I was with. I wanted to switch to a new bank account. I was emptying out my bank account so it had no money in it, and all of a sudden, I got hit with all these overdraft fees. They were big and I was like, I have nothing coming in and so I got my statements. I looked on the statements and it's these fees for MT/OT and it was just business transactions. I was like, what is this? I call my bank. They're like, you bought something. That's a subscription. I didn't buy anything. I don't know what this is. Can you help me find out who it is? It took us a month. I kept calling. Finally, they gave me this phone number and then finally they said you have some account with a payment processor and this is for fees. And so, then it took me many, many back and forths with the people at both JANE and CHARM and Bluefin and pay for Payfirma to find out what had happened, which is that I have been charged $400 for PCI noncompliance after I did all that to be PCI-compliant. Sent me into overdraft. I was able to get my bank to reverse the charges, but I had to go in there, which... Talk about a business expense. I had to take time off. I had to pay for my babysitter so I could go sit for an hour at the bank and get these reversed. I'm going to have to go back and close my account cause I had to leave. I actually didn't have time to close my account cause I had to go back and pick up my kids, and I got Payfirma. I am PCI-compliant, I have done the things, I am not non-compliant. So they reversed the charges and refunded me and to be honest, I've never been asked to do that by Square Up or by Stripe or by PayPal for credit cards, and I process a lot of online payments. So that makes me very hesitant as a small business owner to take on responsibility for something, and I think it's that I didn't fully understand and that I didn't have a way to fit into my own business model, whereas something like Stripe or Square Up or PayPal when you're using the PayPal business account, they're lightweight. I'm not being asked to do PCI compliance and I'm not going to have any hidden fees. That was devastating. It was a lot of money.

Leah: Yeah, a lot of the money. A lot of time. And it's so important as a small business owner really taking ownership of everything that you're doing financially and really investigating. It's a hard lesson to learn, but it's so important that you take a look at your bank statement regularly. Now that everything's so electronic, we don't do that very often. We just cruise along, watching the money come and watching the money go. But I mean, how often do you watch through each transaction? What's going on, what's going on? But you really have to take charge of that. And I think that's where it comes in really handy if you have the volume using a bookkeeper or a CPA because they are a second set of eyes.
That's what happened. My bookkeeper's the one that caught the Shutter Stock thing. She said are you still using this because this is a lot. And I'm like, no. In fact, I'm not using that and thank you so much for flagging me on that. So, I really, really think it's valuable if you're at a volume or maybe that's just not your strong point. If you don't do math, you don't do banks, you don't balance your own checkbook, then taking on a business and all the additional income and things that you're going to need to be looking at, you might need additional help for that. And I think it's worth your money to employ or have somebody help you out with that if that's not something that you're really passionate or talented in, which is definitely the case in my part. It is not my strong suit and so I am happy to have somebody else because it helps me free up time to do what I am good at so I can make more money. So that hiring the bookkeeper's not a big deal at all because I'm getting to do what I'm good at and spending more time in that means more income for the business as a whole. So don't be afraid to have those helpers in your circle

Annie: And a good bookkeeper and a good CPA are going to be invested in you keeping as much of your money as possible so that you can pay them. on the one hand, taxes are there. you get paid, you pay taxes. how hard could it be? And the reality is there are a lot of options that you have for how you structure your business, how you pay things, maybe even whether a certain expense might actually help your bottom line.

Leah: Right

Annie: So you're not going to read the tax code that changes every year. No, you can't keep up with it, but a good CPA and a good bookkeeper are going to be able to make recommendations to you about those things that are going to save you money. Whereas you doing it yourself might not cost you money that you're paying by the hour to another person, but they could be costing you money from your bottom line.

Leah: Yeah, for sure. And I think it's important as you move forward and maybe you're having some growth in your business, things are changing to regularly check in with your CPA and say, Hey, this has changed in my business. Am I still doing everything that would be the most beneficial to my business or for the way I'm doing taxes? Or those kinds of things. Because as you grow, that can really change the way you structured your business when it was just maybe just you, versus how you structure a business if you've got lots of people working with you. So I think it really is important as you grow or as your business changes in any way that you're checking in, or if you bring on a new expense or a new big overhead, those CPAs are so good at figuring out what's not going to work for you, or have you thought about doing it in this way that could help you with this tax break here or something like that. I think it's so important and I have - lesson learned - had to check in more as we've had growth and that's really been so helpful. Cause there were things, I mean it would have taken me months to research it and figure it out on my own where I can spend $150, spend an hour with the CPA and it's taken care of and I didn't have to sweat at all. It's just done and I know all I need to know and they're going to take care of it going forward. So really, really think of it as an investment in your bottom line.

Annie: And that's how I feel personally about the money I spend on my biller for insurance, and sure, I could call the insurance company myself and have the same conversation 15 times a month where I say, hi, you put this amount to cost sharing and you weren't supposed to. Can you please reprocess the claim? And I was doing that. Yeah, okay. How hard is that? But when I started to grow and had more insurance clients and then I started to see that I don't have that time to spend. I would much rather spend that time with clients and also knowing that what will most likely happen is that I'm going to let some slip through the cracks because I didn't have time to call and that's leaving money on the floor. And so I pay my biller, I write that check once a month with joy in my heart. I know that the work he did for me recovered money beyond what I paid him. So if I hadn't been paying him, I would have not been paying him, but I would have been spending time and I would not be recovering as much money.
Leah: Right. And another thing that you can do, if you're really hesitant from a financial perspective thinking - well I can't hire all these people. I can't do all that. I'm just starting out. I don't have money - but if you look at how your time's broken down, just like you're saying here, so if you were to look at how your time's broken down, say over a week or a month and you spend three hours doing billing tasks a week, and if you could then replace that cause that's time you're working. But if you could replace that with seeing an additional client and then look at how much does it cost to do the biller and am I going to be bringing in more if I were to spend that time seeing a client? Usually you're going to make more money seeing the client, even if part of that money you just made is going to be going out to a biller, or going out to a CPA or a bookkeeper. In the long run, if you really look at your time breakdowns, it can give you a lot of insight on where you are able to actually make more money by hiring the help, especially if that's not your forte.

Leah: Now if you are just a superstar bookkeeper and you can punch out those numbers in no time flat and it just resonates in your mind and that's just like in your back pocket, then that might not be what you spend money on helpers, but there might be another area. I hate social media. It just drains my brain. I can't even handle it. That might be an area that you go out and hire help for, because then you can add in another client in that time that you would have been spending doing that and then you've got more income out of it. So there really is a way to think about where you're spending your money that can actually boost. You think money's going out, but it actually could mean more money's coming in

Annie: And that's like as you're growing or especially when you're just starting out to say, okay, I want to add this thing, but should I add this thing? And just really kind of looking at the pros and cons. This is what it's going to do for me. This is what it's going to cost. Do I really need this right now? Is it going to make me more money right now? Sometimes when things are slow, you can be tempted to start shopping around for systems and then that's when you find yourself spending $1 million on stock photos, and just to really check yourself and say sometimes spending money is the way forward for your business. And sometimes spending money is like putting a band-aid on a situation where you actually need to be kind of doing more marketing, like you talked about at the top of the episode.

Leah: And I think this really comes down to the heart of I think what every small business owner hopes and fears, which is we hope that we're going to have these super successful businesses that are making us a ton of money, that can be the sole source of income for us and all of our loved ones and we're doing what we love, and this fear that I'm going to have nothing. I really don't want to minimize that fear because it's there. It's terrifying being a small business owner. I've always been a small business owner. Before I was a lactation consultant, I was doing other freelancing. My husband owns a company. My father was a small business owner from when I was a very little girl. It's like in my DNA and in my blood and my brother got a job, like a real job and it has benefits. He has insurance. He's got upland, he has his taxes taken out and there's part of me where I'm like, that just sounds really relaxing. I'm telling you like in my adult life, which I'm getting older every day, I've had many, many periods of time in my life where I have felt terrified, where I haven't slept, where I've cried out of fear for my family and how are we going to make ends meet? how are we going to pay our bills? And we've gotten this question, Leah and I, a bunch of times from listeners, people want to know how do you get health insurance if you're a small business owner? And this is how you get health insurance. You pay $1 million for it. Here in New York City, I'm going to give you here some financial real talk. Health insurance for a family of four with two small business owners - we have to pay $1,800 a month for the most garbage health insurance on the market. If I wanted to have real health insurance that actually paid for things, I'd be spending more like three grand a month.

Leah: That is amazing!

Annie: So that is a non-negotiable and my family has to have health insurance. We cannot afford to lose our health insurance, but that means we start every month behind. We start every month in the hole, and that's a terrifying place to be in, and we've had times where we've gone into debt and we've had really scary moments. And so I don't want anybody to really be unaware of what that's like, and that for some people it's harder. It's going to be harder than others. And we've got a lot of things wrong in this world that make it more hard for some people than others, which is horrible, and actually in the show notes, we're going to link to a couple of organizations that are doing great work to help with equity in the lactation sphere, so that more people of color can become lactation consultants and reduce those barriers and overcome those barriers, and so to would encourage any of you to look into those organizations and give to them and promote them, cause they are doing great work and it's hard. It's hard for all of us and it's even harder for some certain people for some reasons that are just, heartbreaking to think about.

Leah: Absolutely!

Annie: On the flip side, you've heard both Leah and I talk during this episode about the growth we've experienced, and what does that feel like for you, Leah, as a small business owner to watch your business grow?

Leah: I mean, it's definitely provides me so much pride and I have other people that work for me. I have a single mom that works for me, and so just knowing that this company as it grows can help other families, it's just amazing and I really have a sense of pride, but I also know that that didn't happen overnight. And I know a lot of people coming in to the business, maybe new are like, okay, well how long is it going to take for me to be making this a living, or making this enough to get this X amount of money or that X amount of money or be busier? And really with the type of work that we do, and it's often a climb, a climb up a mountain, and we're all on that climb together. And I love how you brought up the point about really helping others that you see in the community that you could be a support to them, either through mentorship or pull them in part of your team so that other people can experience the growth and being able to be part of the small business in a way that can benefit everyone. But I really feel like there's this big thought out there like, Oh, can you even like sustain as a lactation consultant? Can it really make you rich? And I don't know that any of us are going to be multi-millionaire lactation consultants.

Annie: I don't know. Leah, I'm sleeping on stacks.

Leah: Okay. I need to move to New York because clearly down here we are not making millions, but I do think that as seriously as you take your business and if you put into it kind of how we're talking about, you really can grow a sustainable business with sustainable income. There's definitely a climb to it. And I rarely see people come out of the chute making this year one their career but it is doable, and you also got to think about what does it mean to be rich to you? I think that's so important too, like is it rich in life in that you're getting to do the work you love and have plenty of money to get your family all that they need, their needs met and that's amazing. Or is it like, no, I really want to make $1 million, and that can change your perspective on how you look at the work that you do as a lactation consultant.

Annie: And I know that for both of us, cause you and I have talked about this so many times, is that we are committed to our businesses, and that I think both you and I enjoy running a business. We like learning how to make money. We like coming up with new ideas and ways to expand our businesses and grow our businesses, and that really fires us up but it's not just about having a business. If it was just about having a business, then go do something else. You're going to make a lot more money in real estate, at least I'm told but I chose this work and I know you chose this work because we have this fundamental belief that more breastfeeding is going to make our world a better place, and then I'm so pie-in-the-sky that I just am like, and when breastfeeding makes the world a better place, we're all going to have our financial needs met. The world's going to be run by a bunch of people who are breastfed as babies and that's what I am here for.

Leah: I'm eating your pie-in-the-sky right now. I love it. I love it, and that's so, so true. So as we're wrapping up here today, I hope this financial...this was like financial real talk. That's what it is - financial real talk. We're putting it out there in the real life, the real world how it really is. As we wrap up today, I know you have an awesome tech tip for us. What you got?
Annie: I do. I want you to understand the difference between secure and encrypted. Both are essential costs of doing business. When you have encrypted email for example, that means that you've set it up so that only the recipient can get it. You've put some locks into place so that only the person that you want the message to go to can get it. It's like you've tangled it up in secret codes. Once the recipient gets it and they open it, it's no longer encrypted. It's been opened so that's not secure. It's encrypted. You've done everything you can on your end, but you don't have any control over what happens once the person that you send it to gets it. Think of it like an envelope. You put the address on the envelope, you seal it up. If you live in Game of Thrones world, you're going to put the seal on it that nobody can break from the King or the Queen, but once it gets opened, what happens in Game of Thrones world, everybody's passing that note around and showing it to everybody. You have no control over what the recipient does. So secure messaging means that you are inviting the recipient. So if I have a secure message with you, Leah, what I'm doing is I'm saying we both have to step inside this room and we're going to close the door and no one can see or hear what we say. Once we leave that room, you and I can separately tell people what went on inside the room, but no one will actually have access to exactly what happened inside that room. So having secure messaging offers your clients a safe space for their data, for their clinical history, all of those things if they need it. But if they don't want secure messaging because it's an inconvenience, it's an extra layer to have to sign into a portal to communicate with you and they want to opt out. At the very least, your emails should be encrypted so that you know that on your end you're protecting the communications that you sent out as a way to protect your clients. And our sponsor MilkNotes offers video care that is peer-to-peer encrypted streaming, which means that the data stream goes from your device to the parent's device securely encrypted the whole way. So that that parent on the other end could have somebody in the room watching with them that you don't have control over who's watching it with them. But what you do know is that from device to device, it's protected and it's encrypted and no one's going to be able to hack in and have access to that conversation.

Leah: That is so, so important and I think small business owners, there's all these other things that you have to learn about. Like this. This is probably something you went into lactation world. They're not talking about this, but as a small business owner, these are things that you have to know and this is such an important part and I think, very, very confusing for many of us. So I'm so thankful that you broke that down and it makes so much sense. So much sense. Well Annie, it's been so fun talking to you today even though I thought finances were going to be yucky and no fun. We made it fun and we survived the financial talk.

Annie: You did it and I feel good opening up this conversation cause I know that we're all struggling with similar things and we just would love to hear from you and what your business struggles are and who knows, your question might make it on the podcast. So if you like what you heard today from me and
Leah, we encourage you to go find our Facebook page, leave us a comment, share it with your friends, leave us a review in iTunes cause that really, really helps more lactation consultants find us. Thank you so much for listening and Leah, I will talk to you soon.

Leah: Sounds good. Talk to you soon. Bye.

Annie: Bye.

Leah: Thanks for listening to Lactation Business Coaching with Annie and Leah. If you liked this podcast, please leave us a rating or review on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, wherever you're listening right now, and don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.