Not all of us were born with a silver spoon. And even then, not all of us were taught how to face traumatic financial problems. Barbara Huson is the leading authority on women, wealth, and power. She joins Amy Honey and Jamie Honey and Collect the Cash author Dee Bowden to talk about the financial trauma most women face. The ladies share their insights on dealing with wealth and maintaining it. Listen in as they share their unique perspectives on empowering women to live up to their financial potential.
Grab Barbara Huson’s book on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3oudQwK.
Dee Bowden’s book is on Amazon at https://amzn.to/34jh2o1.
See all products and authors from the show at https://a.co/2rmCxWH.
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Listen to the podcast here:
The Secret Shame Of Successful Women: Overcoming Trauma In Finance With Barbara Huson And Dee Bowden
I am excited. I can’t even tell you.
She’s very excited, and I can tell you.
I’m a little embarrassed because I don’t usually fan out on people, but I’m going to fangirl out on this lady because she changed my life so much. I’m super excited. Her name is Barbara Huson, previously known as Barbara Stanny. She’s the leading authority on women, wealth and power. As a best-selling author, financial therapist, teacher and wealth coach, Barbara has helped millions take charge of their finances in their life, including mine. Barbara’s background is in business.
Her years as a journalist, Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology, her extensive research, and personal experience with money give her a unique perspective and make her the foremost expert on empowering women to live up to their financial and personal potential. She’s been featured on Good Morning America, The View, Extra, The O’Reilly Report, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, all of them. We’re going to talk to her. This is Barbara Huson. Give a warm Amazon welcome to Barbara.
I love that introduction. That was awesome.
I’m serious though. I met you through Monick Halm, the Real Estate Investor Goddess. She also has a book on Amazon called Rewire for Wealth. She’s also written seven other books. The latest one is Rewire for Wealth. It’s the one that affected me the most. She’s a Real Estate Investor Goddess. It’s all women real estate investors. It’s all-around money.
The biggest impact you had for me in that book, and I read that chapter if you go to Amazon and look, was what you said about the secret shame of successful women. That was powerful. It took me this long to admit to my own trauma and even admit that it existed and about any abuse I’ve been through. It took me this long to even admit it. I had been married to my husband for several years. He didn’t know, Barbara.
I can only speak about women because I work exclusively with women, and I’m sure it applies to men too. The number one thing that gets in the way of us accumulating wealth is trauma. That unhealed trauma manically affects our relationship with money and everything else.
It makes so much sense. When I read it, I’m like, “Duh, of course.”
Let me tell you, for women, our difficulties with money have very little to do with money. It has everything to do with our fear of or ambivalence about power. I define a powerful woman as someone who knows who she is, knows what she wants, and expresses that in the world unapologetically. Essentially, our fear of power is our fear of becoming all of who we’re meant to be instead of watering ourselves down, so we don’t make waves. It’s our fear of becoming a strong container that can attract, grow, and sustain our wealth.
How did you get started helping women with money? I’m passionate about helping women too, but I wondered what got you there?
I never thought this was what I’d be doing with my life. I swear to God, I never thought. In one of my books, “In our deepest pain lies our highest purpose.” My editor thought that was stupid, and she took it out, but I put it in another book. My deepest pain was always about finances because I grew up wealthy. The only advice my father ever gave me about money was, “Don’t worry.” I thought that was great advice. I didn’t want to worry. I wanted to spend it. I married a man who was a stockbroker, but very early in our marriage, I found out that he was a compulsive gambler.
Over the course of our fifteen-year marriage, I continued to let him manage the money. Even though I knew he was gambling in a way, my inheritance. That’s how terrified I was and intimidated by finances, anything to do with it. Finally, after our divorce, I decided money was not my thing. I do not want to deal with money. Here’s my theory, if you don’t deal with your money, your money will deal with you. I got tax bills way over $1 million, almost $2 million for back taxes.
A powerful woman knows who she is and what she wants and expresses that to the world unapologetically.
My ex didn’t pay for illegal deals that he got us in and he left the country. I did not have any work close to $1 million, and my father wouldn’t lend me the money. That’s when I knew I had to get smart. I had three small daughters. I was not going to raise them on the street. I didn’t know how I was going to do it. I go to classes and read books. My eyes would glaze over. My brain would fog up. I believe when you are committed, down to your toes, no backdoor, the universe revolves to help you reach your goal.
I was a journalist for the San Francisco Business Times and got hired for a freelance project to interview women who were smart with money. Those interviews changed my life. I not only got smart about money but I wrote my first book, Prince Charming Isn’t Coming: How Women Get Smart About Money. Seven books later, I’m talking to you as an expert on finances. Go figure, and you never know where life is going to lead you.
You might like the title of one of the books I’m getting ready to write. It’s called You Did Marry Prince Charming, You Just Haven’t Trained Him Yet.
That is a very needed book.
It’s about how you communicate so that they can give you what you need, and you can ask for what you need in a way that they can hear it.
It’s so funny because my husband is always saying to me, “I’m trainable.”
He’s like, “You’re writing that book about me.” Yeah, I am. How exactly do you define wealth then? It can mean a lot of different things. I love money. It’s not a priority for my husband.
Wealth is not an amount. It has nothing to do with the amount. I know plenty of people who have millions and feel financially insecure. I know people who have far less and feel bountiful. I define wealth as having more than you need, and you know it. For you, that’s one number. For me, it’s another. That’s what I want people to understand. It’s not about an amount. You can have millions and still be financially insecure because it’s not just about wealth. The Latin root for the word wealth is wellbeing. That’s the purpose of creating more than enough. I can experience peace of mind and wellbeing.
Wealth to you is wellbeing.
It is.
That’s super true. We live in Vegas. I have two friends out here. One friend, his rock bottom is $10 in his pocket. My other friend, his rock bottom is $50 million in the bank. When he hits $50 million, he’s freaked out, stressing out. In his brain, he’s broke. It’s the way we think about money.
It’s 100% the way we think about it. The way we think about it influences the way we behave with it. If we want to change our behavior, we don’t focus on shifting our behavior. We focus on changing our thinking because the brain is what controls our behavior. The mind is what shapes the brain. You want to change your relationship with money, willpower is never enough. It is a real struggle. It is by shifting the thoughts and feelings that come from our mind that shapes the brain and can reshape our behavior when we rewire the brain.
That was what happened to me from reading your book, Rewire for Wealth.
I want to hear what happened.
It was so funny because, at the beginning of it, you have us write what we want to get from it and looking to get. I wrote that I wanted to see what I didn’t see, my blind spots. Lo and behold, I get to that part about trauma, and I’m in tears. I decided to tell my husband and my dad. My dad was a stockbroker, and the lesson and the belief that I learned from him was that women shouldn’t play with money. You’re going to go to college, get your MRS Degree there, marry a guy, and he’ll do money.
The MRS degree is Mrs. I heard your mom say that. She’s like, “You should go to college because that’s where you’ll find the more affluent husband.”
When I told my dad, he couldn’t deal with it, and bless his heart, his own trauma, whatever that is. He yelled at me, blamed me, and hung up on me. I freaked out. I’m literally standing in my kitchen. My husband and daughter were there. I’m screaming, “I’m so triggered.” I’m like cussing everything in the world. I get a trauma therapist. In your book, you recommended getting a trauma therapist. I immediately did that. It was so funny, on a podcast four weeks earlier, I heard somebody else say, “You’ve got to get a specialist in trauma. You can’t just get any therapist.” You said that in the book, EMDR. I went and found one.
Two weeks after getting and seeing this counselor, and I’m still seeing her. She’s great. I see her at the beginning of every week. It’s all hands-on deck, Code Red, but now I’m good. I had applied for something and was accepted. I literally had to click two buttons and didn’t do it. Two weeks later, I’m sitting there, looking at my computer, and this was back in April 2021. Literally overnight, $3,000 a month in passive income. It was there the whole year.
Why do you think you didn’t click it before that? What enabled you to click it?
I think that when you have the trauma, you create things that are chaos around you because you don’t want to deal with the shame. You don’t want to look at what you don’t want to look at.
I wonder if there was something that was threatening about clicking that and being part of that program. Usually, what happens is when something at all feels threatening, even if it’s not even similar to the old trauma, our thinking brain goes offline, our primitive brain is activated, and we go into fight, flight or freeze.
We can’t see it.
Our thinking brain literally shuts down.
That was back in April 2021, literally overnight $3,000. It’s going up all the time. Now I’m like, “There’s literally money everywhere.” I have money coming in from everywhere now. It’s crazy. It’s mind-blowing to me. When I bought this book about four weeks in, I bought it for almost all of my girlfriends.
It will distract you while you’re watching cartoons, which is awesome. The other point is, when Amy got this, she was like, “Jamie, you wouldn’t believe it.” I’ve seen the level of the self-awareness, the elements of subtle action that have created great changes. If she started to bring in double, triple, quadruple the amount of money, that’s okay.
This is no lip service. This is one of the books that has impacted me the most in my life. There are a few books that are like that. I’d say Mel Robbins’ The 5 Second Rule is one of those books that was a big impact. This book is probably one of the biggest impacts of any book I’ve ever read.
If you don’t deal with your money, your money will deal with you.
I was so scared to write it. I had to rewire my whole brain to be able to write that book. The fact that I wrote it tells me it worked. It took me six years to figure out how to come up with a formula, a very simple structure, and a system that we could follow in order to rewire our brain, which can be complicated. I wanted to simplify it.
I came up with the three steps, recognize, reframe and respond differently. If you can apply those three steps for a couple of months but religiously repeat them over and over again, recognize the unhealthy thoughts, reframe them to something more positive or loving, and then respond differently as if those reframes were true.
We have a few comments on the Amazon app in the chat. We’ve got Doris, who’s with us a lot. She’s a stay-at-home mom of six. Doris said, “You want to adopt a trophy daughter?” She goes, “It’s going in my cart right now.” I was telling Jamie how nervous I was talking to Barbara. I meet stars. I’ve been in movies with big major stars, but I was nervous to interview you because it’s been so impactful.
She was super giddy about the idea of being able to chat and share the appreciation with you for what you’ve created that creates self-appreciation, awareness, and the opportunity for women all around the world to experience more and create that wealth, that wellbeing, which is your wealth.
I have been stalking you. I will be joining your group coaching very soon by the way.
Amy, that would be so fun for me.
I knew Monick is in that group and I wanted to join her. If you guys want to reach out to Barbara and talk to her personally, you can do that, but definitely add that book to your cart. It’s on special, 33% off. I paid full price for it because I bought it for all my friends.
I’ve heard her recommend this book and go, “Have you read it? I’m going to send one. What’s your shipping address? I’m sending one from Amazon right now to you. You’ve got to read it. When you get to Chapter 4, I want to talk to you.”
This is what every author longs to hear and doesn’t always hear. Thank you.
I’m so glad I’ve got to say it to you. It was funny because you came on as one of the masterminds for Monick, and I was the one in tears telling you about it. I was so excited even to tell you what a difference it makes for people. I think it’s brilliant.
That’s one of the magic things, folks. Grab this book because when you read a book, and a book like this, you’re sharing the mind of someone great. They’re holding your hand. You’re holding hands with someone who cares for you to go on a journey with them.
How do men and women differ in the way that they process financial information?
I think the biggest thing is that men are transaction-oriented. Women are relationship-oriented. Men are all about profits. No matter how much they have, they can always make more. Women, once we have financial stability, we’re no longer motivated by money. We’re more motivated by how to use our money to make a difference. The biggest thing and what caused me to bring neuroscience into my work is when I saw how they view investing in the market.
Men view investing as an exciting challenge, and they’re up to it. Women can view investing in the market as a threat. We tend to hold back. I thought, “If we could change that wiring, if we could change the way we see investing, we can change our whole relationship to wealth and power.” That’s where neuroscience comes in. It’s made all the difference in the world in my life. I only write about things I want to learn about. That’s all. I’m not the expert. I become the expert by studying it. I know how much has changed my life. It makes me feel so good to hear it helped you.
I love that you brought neuroscience into it because things don’t change without changing the brain. I always talk about this. I look at the body as a triangle. Get the physical in the bottom, mental in the middle, and your spiritual, emotional or psychology at the top. If you change the bottom but don’t change the top, it’s not permanent. We see this happen all the time with lottery winners. They win $25 million. It changed on the physical but they didn’t change the mindset. They didn’t change neuroscience. A year later, it’s gone and they’re broke again. That’s exactly what you’re talking about here.
Understanding that if you want to change your brain, you do it through your thoughts and feelings, not through your behavior. Trying to change your behavior only makes it so much harder and more difficult to expedite the process by shifting your thinking and then along with your behavior.
Your thinking leads to your actions, and then the actions lead to the results.
Our brain is made of these neural pathways. The neural pathways, the deeper they get, the more we think of thought, the deeper ingrained it is. Let’s say you have a thought that there’s never enough. You grew up hearing that. What happens is our brain has what’s called confirmation bias. It will only see, hear and act on what it believes is true. The more you say there’s never enough, the deeper that neural pathway goes.
You can’t even see anything that shows you there’s more than enough. If you weaken that neural pathway by replacing it with a different thought, even though at the beginning you don’t believe it, but repeated over and over again, you start digging new neural pathways. That’s what we’re talking about, weakening the old and building new.
Doris said, “Amy, you’re not the only one whose parents gave you that script. Mine never discussed finances with me.”
Mine didn’t either.
My dad would come home from work from being a stockbroker. I was always curious like, “What? You can just take money and it can make you more money?” I was always fascinated with money from a young age, and I grew up fairly wealthy but I struggled with it my whole life. My dad would come home from work. I’d be like, “How was work? How does that work? What does it do?”
It wasn’t like, “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” but it was like that in the sense that he didn’t want to talk about work. He was done with work. He didn’t want to talk about work. It wasn’t anything against him, but the message I received or made up in my head as a child was that women shouldn’t play with money. That was the message. We have this programming as well that is very ingrained.
Our brains are the most malleable and impressionable when we’re young. Whatever we see over and over again gets wired in our brains. Even as we grow, we won’t even see anything that contradicts that. We keep reinforcing it.
An experience of that is like when you’ve lost your car keys, “I can’t find my keys,” and you’re running around. Someone goes, “They’re right here on the table.” You’ve made a statement, “I can’t find them.” They were removed from your observation, and that’s happening all the time because of beliefs that have been created. This book can highlight that. You have the self-awareness, so you can change that to, “I always find my keys.”
Not only do we have the self-awareness, but you have the structure. You have a very simple system to reprogram your brain. That was what was missing for me was having a system, structure and steps.
When you’re committed, the universe revolves around helping you reach your goal.
The steps are so clearly laid out. They’re very easy to follow. Before I let you go, what are three things a woman can do to get smart about money, especially a busy woman who has no time for anything else?
This is what I did, and I’m telling you, it works. I didn’t understand money. I couldn’t get it. What I came to see is small steps consistently taken that lead to remarkable results. I didn’t realize that these three steps were reprogramming my brain. You do these three steps for three months and you will be amazed at the difference. If every day you read something about money, even if it’s only for one minute, even if you open the newspaper to the business section and peruse the headlines.
Even if you’re standing in line at the supermarket and you pick up Money Magazine and read through it instead of People. Even before you go to bed, you take a finance book and read one paragraph because so much of getting smarter is familiarizing yourself with the jargon of the current trends. Every day read something, even if it’s for a minute.
Every week, have a conversation about money, preferably with someone that knows more than you. We’ll talk about money, we’ll moan and groan about it, but when is the last time you sat down with a friend or a colleague or a family member and said, “How did you get smart? What was the biggest mistake you made? What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten? What would you tell me to do? What’s the best book you’ve read?” Ask questions.
Every day, read. Every week, talk. Every month, save. Automatically have a small amount transferred from your checking account or your payroll check to a savings account. It’s about getting in the habit of saving. Small amounts add up. Consistently save. Every day, read. Every week, talk. Every month, save. You would be amazed. That’s how wealth is created.
Barbara, I am so honored and happy you’re here.
We’re so grateful to have had that opportunity as well.
We’ll definitely have you back if you’ll come back. We would love to have you back.
Thank you. You were so kind in everything you said. I appreciate it.
Thank you so much, Barbara. Have a wonderful rest of your week. We’ll see you soon.
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This next author we have coming up is another beautiful lady. I’m super honored for her too. Her name is Dee Bowden. She created Collect The Cash to teach small businesses how to solve cashflow problems. After recovering $7.5 million from a large government agency, derecognized small businesses also fall prey to revenue loss because they don’t collect the outstanding invoices.
She’s on a mission to serve business owners by sharing her three-step system. Dee has been featured in Forbes, Yahoo Finance, VIP Global and Black Enterprise Magazines. One of her favorite books is I Declare by Joel Olsteen. We are going to give a very warm welcome to Dee Bowden. I’m glad to have you here.
It’s great to meet you.
Dee, what caught you to write this book?
What had happened was during COVID, my book coach, her name is Sharai Robbin. She’s a bestselling author. She kept doing these Facebook Lives and saying, “You can write a book in 90 days or less.” I was like, “Really?” She’s like, “I’m telling you, you can write a book in 90 days or less.” I went and listened to her webinar, and I told the story of how I got to do what I do.
Several years ago, I used to work for a small IT company outside of Boston, where I’m originally from. You know how it is when you get hired by a company. They welcome you aboard, “Here’s your cubicle, here’s that box and a special plant.” They come up and say, “We’ve got $8 million in outstanding receivables that we haven’t been able to collect. Your resume says you can collect.
We need you to do what you do.” I’m a believer. I went to God. God and I had a great conversation that went like this, “Hi, God.” “Yes, Dee, how are you?” “God, overall, I am fantastic, but I’ve got this $8 million problem, number one. Number two, your word says, ‘You have not because you ask not.’ I need some wisdom, God, on what I’m supposed to do.”
I got quiet. Collect The Cash on the business-to-business spectrum is this. It is problem-solving, customer service and gratitude. I go back to my cubicle, get to work, do problem-solving, customer service gratitude on behalf of the company that I worked for. I collect $6 million in 60 days while working part-time, Monday through Friday, 4:00 to 8:00. This is a true story. The story is in the book.
I collect the money. The CEO of the company says, “Let’s come downstairs and have a conversation.” If you’ve either been in sales or in collections, you’re thinking, “I’m about to get a bonus.” No, we go downstairs and he says, “We want to thank everybody for everything across all industries, sales, contracts, order entry, order fulfillment, invoicing, and my land collections. Thank you so much. We’re closing the company. You’ve got 30 minutes to get that same box and the same plant. Leave the building two months before Christmas.” This is a true story. This is how Collect The Cash came to be. After I leave the building, I’m like, “Seriously, this is a small business.”
Fast forward to COVID, I’m watching Broadway, airlines, sports arenas, all the people who do business with small businesses shut down and small businesses. Particularly because I like theater and music, all the things I like doing are shut down. Small businesses that had contracts to sell the tchotchkes, the t-shirts, whatever, they can’t do it. They’ve lost money. I’m watching my story over and over again.
My business coach said, “Dee, you have a system. You teach business owners how to collect cash through problem-solving, customer service, and your secret sauce is gratitude. Do me a favor and write this story and teach business owners how to become successful so they can stop losing money and stop ending up like what happened to me personally.” That’s how Collect The Cash came to be.
You’re also the author of Collect The Cash: The Sale Is Not Complete Until The Money Is In The Bank. That’s what we always say. It doesn’t count as a sale until you’ve taken a credit card.
Here’s something that everybody can relate to. You all have a cell phone. Let me teach you how the sale is complete and the money is in the bank. For example, whether you are Team iPhone or Team Android, you walk into the store. First thing they do, the sales process starts. As soon as they confirm, they will take your driver’s license. They confirm that you are who you say you are. Next thing you know, “I see you’re eligible for a phone upgrade.” The sale has already started. You haven’t even recognized or wanted to upgrade your phone, but they’re already starting to sell you something.
The next thing you know, it’s telling you to walk around the store, figure out which phone you want, Team iPhone or Team Android. You’re eligible for an upgrade. You decide you’re going to upgrade your phone. The sale has already started. The next thing you know, the contract is already rolling. They asked you, “What date would you like for your invoice?” The invoice equals the contract.
Next thing you know, order entry is happening. They scan the back of the cell phone to put the inventory into the system, then your invoice. You tell them what date you want to pay them. They process your sale. Before you leave the store, a transaction approved has happened, whether it’s debit or credit card or in cash. That’s how the sale is complete and the money is in the bank. You don’t get to leave that store until you do all those things and complete the process. That’s what business does. I teach you that part, but I teach you also how to do problem-solving because my specialty is people that have provided a product or a service.
I come from the government space and corporation. We’re dealing with Net 30, 60, 90. A lot of my experience is that part, but whether it’s net 60, 30 or 90, if somebody owes you money and you’ve been ghosted, that doesn’t feel good. You need to know, “What do I need to do to get my money?” I teach you the art and science of problem-solving, which is figuring out what broke down in the system. Customer service is you’re doing the extra mile to figure out where the system broke down and doing extra to get paid. Gratitude is to say, “Thank you for the opportunity to do course correction,” number one. Number two is to say, “Thank you for taking my call.” The number three, the most important part, “Thank you for cutting that check.”
The way you think about money influences the way you behave with it.
The way that we do sales is we want people to be super excited. We want them to give us the money and thank us for giving us the money because they’re so excited about what they’re about to get. I haven’t had my hair cut in over two years. I’ve still been locked down. I learned how to do my own nails, but definitely a way to pivot and get innovative and start to think outside the box. For something like that, I don’t know if there’s a way you could do it through Zoom, where you could give them the products and teach them to do it themselves while they’re working with you. Selling products would be the thing.
I would think PJ could absolutely do a Zoom call and have people who want to learn how to do facials. For example, let’s say she uses Mary Kay products, not endorsing Mary Kay, using as an example. She wants to teach people how to do Mary Kay facials. She gets people to sign up for the Zoom call. She tells them to go ahead and buy the Mary Kay charcoal, gray mask, and everybody comes on Zoom. You all do the mask together. You start learning how to do this. That’s what business is. When you go into business, you go into business, including me, to solve a problem.
I decided to solve a problem by telling the story and talking to the business owners who love doing sales but don’t like collecting cash. It’s uncomfortable to ask a client who owes you money to pay you. It’s extremely uncomfortable. Most people would rather get a root canal than have to go do this because that’s the thing they don’t want to do.
Do you teach them how to do it themselves? Do you recommend getting somebody that’s a go-between? It gives them a little bit of separation and teaching.
I’ve worked with companies where I come in, and I teach their team how to do this because here’s the thing. It’s 1 of 2 things. If you’re a solopreneur, you’re the person that’s doing all the things. You need to know how to do this. As you grow and as you scale, you get somebody, you may need to hand that off to somebody who needs to know how to do this. I teach them the system of what to do. If you don’t like handling that, my company BCS Solutions, is available to come work with you and show you how to set up your systems, collect the money and then teach you what to do in the future.
The goal is for you not to lose any more money. After watching myself work for a company that mismanaged their AR, which stands for Accounts Receivable, i.e, what is unpaid, that was one. Number two, watching COVID happen and knowing that there are all these major entities had contracts with small businesses which unfortunately lost money because they didn’t get to sell their services. My thing is, how do you get on the front end of that and stop losing money? That’s the goal.
Collecting money is probably one of the most uncomfortable. It’s probably the most uncomfortable thing for people. Even asking for a sale is very uncomfortable for people, especially women. Like the last author we were talking with, women are relational, and men can be very transactional. Men don’t have a problem with it. They’re like, “It’s business, whatever.” Women are like, “What if I hurt her feelings?”
That’s such a great point because that was something that I had to get over. In order to be in this business, to speak and teach about it, I had to get into the sports analogy. For example, you are all little sports fans, so you’ll love this. If you get a copy of Collect The Cash, I’ll teach you all about the collection zone. Right now, it’s sports. We finished the US open. If you’ve watched the US Open, the tennis players got into the zone. If you’re a baseball fan, you know they’re getting into the zone. For those of us who love football, you know that all the players are getting their mindset ready. They’re studying the films and learning about their players. They’re getting into the zone.
The same thing is applicable when it comes to collecting cash. When you’ve got money that’s owed to you, you have to get your mind around the fact that, “How am I going to get paid? I worked hard to get this sale. I’m not about to lose the sale. I need to get paid.” You don’t have to be hard about it, but you do have to be focused to get it. If you were confident enough to get the sale, you need to be confident enough to get your money. That’s how it works.
Some people are so surprised they got the sale.
Sales and getting paid go together. It’s like sales is the front-end and getting paid as the backend. They go together. The guys don’t have a problem with this. They understand, “If I don’t kill, I’m not eating.” It’s simple to them. I’m like, “I’ve got to get paid.” There is no issue with it. Women, we definitely have more emotion about it. I’m not saying you have to lose your emotion, but I think you have to learn the art and science of, “How do I collect? How do I get my sale but also get paid and still build a relationship?” I teach you all of that in the book because it’s all about relationships and getting paid.
That’s what I teach in sales. There’s a way to do it ethically and from a very heart-based, heart-centered sales. The way I look at it as if I’m not selling, I’m not serving. I’m not getting people great deals that they absolutely love. I’m not serving them to the best of my ability. You say you like football, so who’s your team?
I’m originally from Boston. My team is the New England Patriots, but now because I love Tom Brady, I have adopted the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Do you support them both now?
Absolutely.
What happens if they play against each other?
In the first half, I’ve got the Patriots. In the second half, I got the Buccaneers. I’ve got to do both.
If they play against each other, you win regardless.
I get the best of both worlds.
We moved to Vegas. Apparently, we’re Raiders fans now, but we don’t really follow football too much. Although we own a gym up in Washington State, when the Seahawks won the Super Bowl. We became the 12th man up there, but Jamie was like, “What’s the Seahawks?”
I played representative rugby in Australia, but American football, no.
It’s very similar to when people say they play football in England. Football in England is soccer. In America, we’ve got real soccer and we’ve got football. You have to learn the two. You can get twisted up quick. I have three teams. I’m originally from Boston. My original team is the New England Patriots. Because I’m a Tom Brady fan, I absolutely love the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. My other team is America’s team, the Dallas Cowboys. I got three teams that I follow all year round.
The Cowboys are iconic, aren’t they?
You can love them or hate them, but they’re America’s team. It is what it is.
The Cowboys I know because my first year working in Japan, I was a stunt actor there, opening up Universal Studios, and my luggage got lost on the way over. I went from summer to winter, crossing over that horizon. One of my stunt buddies, Christian Stokes, a fantastic director, is a huge Dallas Cowboys fan. He lent me his brand-new Dallas Cowboy jacket. I was wearing that until my clothes got there.
Dee, is there any action steps that people can do right now to start shifting? Is there any advice that you would give?
If you want to change your behavior, focus on changing your thinking. Because the brain is what controls your behavior, but the mind is what shapes the brain.
I’ll tell you four things. Number one, track your accounts. Number two, find out how much money is owed to you, whether it’s money owed you now, 30 or 60 days past due. Number three, I would tell you to start planning to make phone calls to find out what broke down. Why didn’t you get paid? Basically, answer the question of what had happened.
Here’s the thing. When you don’t get paid, you have to answer that question, “What happened?” A perfect example, you ordered ten sets of sneakers. You only got 8, but you paid for 10. The first thing you want to do is, “How come I didn’t get my ten sneakers? What had happened?” You’ve got to start problem-solving. You have to get on the phone and start asking the questions. You need to go back and figure out what broke down in the system in your business. If you were doing that, you would be finding out how many customers do you have? How much money is owed to you? What broke down in the system? What didn’t go well?
For example, you ordered the sneakers. You ordered 10, paid for 10, and you only got 8. Problem-solving, number one, that’s the first thing you’re going to be doing. Number two, you have to get good with doing customer service. Customer service, people think of it as, “I call customer service, and they fix everything.” No. Part of customer service is building relationships because when the person takes your phone call, when you get on the phone with them, you want them to help you solve your problem. You have to build a relationship with them.
The last thing you have to do is I personally believe in expressing gratitude. Amy, I already told you. I thank you before we even started. Thank you so much for the opportunity to come on and talk about the Collect The Cash. Gratitude to me is that intangible, but people forget it. In business and in life, when you stop and say, “Thank you,” it makes a difference.
Your husband is smiling. I’m definitely resonating with him because he’s like, “Yeah,” but it’s true. It’s a simple thing. Those are the things, track your accounts, follow up, problem solve, stay grounded, express your gratitude and do it again, rinse and repeat. Those are the things you can do automatically. This is one of those struggles, and you can learn more tips in the book, Collect The Cash, which you can get on Amazon.
I think the reason that Jamie was smiling is that whenever we’re in high times of stress, we always talk about how to be grateful even in the face of the most dissatisfied person. Even somebody that maybe we felt didn’t do us right. You will find something to be grateful for about that person because there’s always a lesson. When you go to gratitude, nothing else can live there. None of the other yucky fear and shame and guilt doesn’t live there.
Another thing about gratitude is the HeartMath Institute in California has shown there’s an increase in heart function, like physical change when you’re in gratitude. Cortisol reduces in the body, which is the stress hormone. There are physical elements that change by being in gratitude. With all the travel we’ve done, we’ve hit situations where people are like, “Ugh.” What can we be grateful for at this moment? We express that gratitude with you have had shown, and is in the book and have been teaching all these people on how to get cash through gratitude, the best way to get it and how that changes the environment by having the gratitude.
I can give you a life example. In my career and business, I’ve supported government contractors and government agencies. When I was reconciling an account, one of the customers came back and the first thing she said to me was, “Dee, no one ever says thank you for what we do.” I thought that was odd. She said, “Dee, you’re the first person to come back and tell us to thank you for helping you solve your problem.” I realized that everybody wants to be seen, valued and appreciated. If you’re able to see, value and appreciate them no matter who they are and what they do, it does something for you.
When I learned that the gratitude thing was the secret sauce and then I started seeing the money come in, and I came back and said, “Thank you to the people who helped me Collect The Cash.” I’m like, “This is my process.” I’ve got my three steps from my time with God. It’s problem-solving, customer service, and the secret sauce is gratitude. You can see it above my head. It says GRATITUDE in big letters. I live by it, and it’s a principle.
That’s a great principle. Jamie posted, “Seen, valued and appreciated.” I think everybody needs to feel heard as well. They feel heard and seen. That’s part of being seen like, “You understand me. You understand where I’m at.” Especially when it comes to collecting money, because if you can have a conversation with somebody and get to where they’re at, they’re going to be defensive in the beginning. That’s been my experience with people. They’re defensive in the beginning, but if you can help them to feel like you’re on their side and you’re trying to get to a resolution, that’s going to be good for them, for you, and for everybody, that’s beautiful.
That’s a perfect example. That’s what my problem solving is all about. You said it perfectly. I wanted to say thank you for that because that’s what problem-solving is all about. It’s that part or lesson you taught beautifully.
It’s like you’re taking that person’s hand. Now, you’re on their side and you’re walking across the line together and figuring it out together. Do you have any more books that you’re getting ready to write? Do you have an upcoming project that you’re excited about?
I don’t have any books yet, but my upcoming project is this. I’m going to be teaching for the Small Business Development Center here in Washington, DC, about How to Collect Cash and Keep Your Business Profitable. I’m teaching that course. I’m going to talk to business owners further than this about how you problem solve, do customer service, and do gratitude in your business, and how you set up a tracking system, so you know what’s coming in, what’s going out, what your problem areas are and how you fix it, so you don’t end up like what happened to me personally.
When that happened to you personally, you were able to recover it. You were able to pull out of it.
It took some time. I definitely had some emotions about it and felt some things about it. I’m not going to lie about it. It took me a minute. Here’s the thing. I didn’t realize that back then when I went through it, that would be the catalyst that years later would prompt me to write the book, tell the story, become a speaker, teach courses, and now create a whole Collect The Cash movement. Now we’ve got courses and seminars and opportunities for people to work with me one-on-one, in groups and corporations all because of what I learned, and then decided that the best thing I could do is to take this lemon and turn it into lemonade, which is now Collect The Cash.
Dee, thank you so much for spending the time with us. Thank you for taking the time. Remember, keep reading. Reading is knowledge, and knowledge is power.
When you read a book, you’re sharing the mind with an author while they hold hands with you and take you on a journey.
Important Links:
- Barbara Huson
- Rewire for Wealth
- Prince Charming Isn’t Coming: How Women Get Smart About Money
- The 5 Second Rule
- Collect The Cash
- I Declare
- Collect The Cash: The Sale Is Not Complete Until The Money Is In The Bank
- https://Amzn.to/3oudQwK
- https://Amzn.to/34jh2o1
- https://A.co/2rmCxWH
About Barbara Huson
About Dee Bowden
