Growing up one of nine kids, living in a 1200 sq. ft. house, wealth is not something that was handed down to Susie Carder, a profit coach for entrepreneurs.

“There was Bobby, Ronnie, Stevie, Terry, Joni, Shelly, Susie, Kelly, and Debbie. Nine kids. There were 11 of us, we had 1200 square feet that we all lived in. One bathroom with six girls. I don’t know how we did it, but we did it. Then I just made the decision of there’s got to be something else,” said Carder in an interview on Inspired Living TV hosted by Keri Murphy.

It would have been easy for her to stay in the life that she grew up knowing, but Carder had a vision for the life she wanted to live.

Carder began her career as a hairdresser. It didn’t take her much time to realize that 15% of this vocation was technical ability, and the other 85% was business acumen, sales, marketing, and operations.

As soon as she realized this, she hit the ground running. She started taking classes that were specific to the skills she wanted to gain. Any time she would run into another roadblock of something she didn’t know how to do, that was her sign to grow her knowledge.  

“I didn’t go to traditional college. If I wanted to learn how to market, I went to a marketing class. If I needed to understand the P&L, I took an accounting class. If I got sued as a business owner, I went to a business law class,” explained Carder.

She turned her passion for beauty and entrepreneurship into creating the largest online platform in the beauty industry. She grew her company to be in the top 1% in the country, top 10% in the world, and ultimately ended up selling it for 9 figures.

After selling this company, Carder turned her focus to helping others do exactly what she did, using a very systematic process. With the staggering statistic that 80% of entrepreneurs don’t have profit, or pay themselves, Carder knew that she had the tools to fix this epidemic.   

Carder explains that when working with clients, her process always starts with looking at the money. She looks at their profit and losses, and then their business plan.  But, she’s found that most resist it.

“It always starts with the money because the money tells you a story. So I will look at their profit and loss and then the next thing is their business plan, and everybody resists a business plan. But it’s like you’re getting in the car, and going across the country and don’t have a plan,” said Carder. “So when we have the plan, then it helps everyone around you to go, what are we? How are we getting those customers? How many clients do we need to have to look at us? How many leads do we need to get to convert into sales? Like really complicated stuff, but I make it fun.”

Another core philosophy of Carder is “Your company should be your business, not your baby.”

She says, “Every day we’re building a business to either rebuild ourselves or to sell it to somebody else. So, when you go into business with that mindset, it’s different than going, this is my baby. No, it’s not your baby. It’s your business. It’s your business, and the idea is to sell it to somebody else, or build enough profit to keep it to yourself so that then you can retire and live in the same lifestyle that you did when you were running your business.”

However, Carder warns that while it’s possible to have success doing something you’re not good at, it will be much harder and not enjoyable.

“What is my God talent? That thing you could do all day long that doesn’t exhaust you. And that’s the first thing you have to tap into. Tap into what you’re really great at,” suggests Carder.

She explained that this is key because business will never be perfect and it will never really be done – at least until it’s sold, and even then it’s not done. Someone else just starts dealing with it.

Carder’s final piece of advice in the Inspired Living TV interview is to find a coach.

“You have to have someone 10 steps ahead of you. You don’t want to get an agreement. You don’t want someone to agree with every decision. You want someone to question that decision. You want someone to poke holes in it. That’s a really great coach versus someone that just is a yes person. That’s more of a friend.”

To learn more about Susie Carder, visit SusieCarder.com.

To download Susie Carder’s Free 10-Point Business Planning Assessment and Companion Video Training visit SusieCarder.com/freebizassessment/