Today I have the amazing Erinn Bridgman joining me to talk about building wealth as entrepreneurs. Erinn is a money strategist and mindset coach who helps entrepreneurs get a grasp on their numbers. We are going to discuss why it is so important to know those numbers, get organized, and become clear on your personal and business goals. As Erinn says, wealthy women will change the world!

Business Owners Need To Know Their Numbers (2:58)

Getting Started On The Path To Financial Freedom (9:44)

Wealthy Women Will Change The World (17:17) 

Erinn’s Resources And Intensive (21:28)

Connect with Erinn

Wealthy Woman Checklist

Instagram: @erinn_bridgman

erinnbridgman.com

Review the Transcript:

Quianna Marie
Good morning, my love. I am so so grateful that you are back. We are continuing the amplify your wedding series. And I am beyond thrilled to introduce you to someone that is going to rock your world. If you’re anything like me, we started our businesses because we absolutely had a passion for what we do. We turned our talents into money and maybe it started out as receiving gift cards or trade for some other things with our friends. And eventually we started creating an income. And then once that income started coming in, if you’re anything like me, it started to get a little chaotic. Yes, bills are always paid on time, things are a little shaky, especially as photographers, we never know exactly where that next paycheck is coming. Many of us as entrepreneurs do not live that nine to five job we live a 24/7 job. And it’s hard for us to manage our money when it’s trickling in during some months of the year and it’s pouring in on other times of the year. So I am beyond thrilled and grateful to introduce you to Erinn Bridgman. Erinn is an money strategist, mindset coach, and she truly helps us each get a grasp on our numbers because women that know their numbers turn into wealthy women that will change the world. Erin is an incredible mama beautiful wife, her and her husband are working on this huge portfolio for homes and she truly is an inspiration who is going to teach us how to stay organized. Use our spreadsheets turn spreadsheets into something sexy, which personally I will be honest, I am not a big fan of but after going through her intensive program, I cannot speak more highly of Erin. So let’s go ahead and get this party started. Let’s talk about money. Money can be sexy money is going to change the world. It doesn’t have to be icky or weird. Let’s dive deep. And I cannot wait to introduce you to Erinn. So let’s go ahead.

Quianna Marie
Welcome to Quianna Marie weekly, a podcast for creatives who love to celebrate wins, big or small by dancing in the kitchen photographers who are excited to serve their clients and friends who are ready to chase really, really big dreams. You can find all of the resources mentioned in this episode at quiannamarie.com/podcast. Join me as I share weekly motivation, chat about growing pains, finding genuine connections and celebrating your wins through the lens of a photographer at heart. Come join me for a dance party. Ready? Let’s go. Hey, hey, welcome, Erinn. I am so so so happy to see you. Oh,

Erinn Bridgman
this is so fun. Thanks for having me on your show!

Quianna Marie
Of course, girlfriend. So let’s just dive in. We know and it’s so funny working with you that numbers can be sexy, but they can also be so so so intimidating. So let’s just dive into these questions, get these juicy, juicy thoughts out? Why is it so important for business owners to know their numbers?

Erinn Bridgman
Well, I love that your audience is a lot of wedding photographers. And that’s what this series is about. And, you know, that’s my roots. That’s how I really started in entrepreneurship. I was a wedding photographer for seven years. And the scale of that brand is six figures. And that’s the you know, the, that is the catalyst that has allowed us to build such wealth. It’s what funded our first real estate investment property, and has allowed us to do so much expansion in the foundations in the in the young years of entrepreneurship. And a huge key to that is knowing the numbers. And I know I’m speaking to an audience that is more bent towards maybe we have more of the creative side, right? We maybe even fell into this business many times, we didn’t necessarily go out into the world to like, Hey, we’re gonna start a photography business, it was a hobby that turned into a business. And so with that, it’s very important for us to have a mindset shift around knowing the numbers. And so first I when I speak towards the mindset, which I see a lot of resistance around, I hear a lot of labeling, self labeling, I’m just not a numbers person. And I have to combat that a lot. And the truth is, is nobody is born knowing math. Nobody is born knowing numbers. This is a skill you can attain. And just like you’ve attained the skill of learning how to use your camera, and shoot on manual and all of these things. The same is true for your numbers. And so if you are having resistance and having that come up, I just want to label it like it’s an excuse and to also raise the necessity around knowing your numbers because we’re not running a hobby. We’re running a business and in that very definition. It means you have to understand the money understand the numbers to run a successful and profitable business. I mean the death In addition of that is that, you know, you can’t know your profit margins if you don’t know your numbers, right. And of course, I teach a holistic, heart centered entrepreneurs sweet spot where we look at different aspects, not just your money, we look at your impact, and we look at your own passion and your own and your lifestyle. But when it comes, particularly to money, is so important for you to know your numbers. And because that’s where we can make certain decisions. On you know how to personally grow your own wealth on what makes the most sense in your business, what you should be how you can add source, how you can scale, what you needed to simplify or take back. So mindset is a huge part of this. And then of course, there comes to down to the management of all this. And so some top level things that are that I worked through in the intensive that’s really important to know, is you want to know your obviously your p&l stuff, and p&l sheets are very retroactive. So it’s very much us looking backwards and reconciling versus what I really want to teach with your numbers is present future and helping us start to make expansion and make plans and move forward. And that gives us a lot more power and puts us in the driving seat of our numbers. So we want to see moving forward, what is your revenue, what is your expenses, we want to project your tax payments, so that you never have an April, like maybe this past April, where you felt so much stress, you didn’t have money, you weren’t planned for it. And then we want to know your salary. And this is a huge, huge piece that I see many successful six figure entrepreneurs, I’m talking amazing, talented, very thriving companies. They’re not paying themselves a salary, they’re paying themselves last and consistently just drawing on just enough to make their bills. And that’s not how wealthy women operate. So working through this present to future model, we look at what’s actually on your books. And then we start to work like creating projections, which many times we don’t do, we don’t press into, you know, let’s think about the expansion. Let’s think about what’s more, which helps us calculate better accurate tax payments. Because, you know, this happened for Brett and I early on and entrepreneurship where our business grew a ton. But we save the same amount for taxes, and hello, more revenue, more tax payment. So we were hit with a large, unexpected bill at close to $20,000. So we do projection works you understand tax payments to understand how much salary can we pay? How can we bonus you even more to go towards your personal wealth. And that’s a whole nother side of my program. And my philosophy is I don’t just care about your business numbers. I care about your personal numbers and your personal wealth. And we could dig into that more if you want. But yeah, there’s a big spiel on knowing your numbers.

Quianna Marie
This is so important. And I feel like you’re absolutely right to kind of recap, a lot of us get into this business because we love it. And this passion just turned into profits. And we went from right we went from just exchanging gift cards and maybe trading our time for money to now we’re actually making some cold, hard cash. And now we’re thinking wait a minute, how can we plan for the future. And that’s, that’s one thing I’ve always struggled with, with my wedding photography is I always just to kind of joke and say I’m kind of like a realtor where I get these big sums of money at once. And then it’s can be kind of stressful trying to budget that like throughout the year. And so I love how you mentioned with your intensive and just with all your wealth of knowledge that you’re training people you’re teaching, especially photographers and creatives that we have to look in our past and as well as our future to know our numbers now. And that to me, it just paints the picture for us to feel a little more supported and not have things look so scary because we can actually look back at the data, we can actually look back at the things that have already happened. And this was what I loved, especially working with you too is like we can look forward and we can project like oh mini sessions are coming out so I can have an influx of $2,500 on this weekend. coming up in October. I want to do it again and in November. Great. Okay, so how are we projecting this and and I feel like this is why you’re the perfect candidate and like the perfect boss, babe friend to join this series Erinn seriously because this is a piece of business and a piece of the photography world we’ll call it like the Instagram lala land where people just don’t get into these numbers like they don’t talk about it. It’s like taboo or something. And I love love, love your tagline. You’re always posting about this. You’re always sharing how wealthy women can change the world. And I just think like that just like gives me the chills. So I’d love to chat a little bit deeper. Like can you share with us some apps or programs or some advice that you would share? Like if we’re like, okay, clearly we’re on the Hot Mess Express here and we’re trying to just get on the highway to like financial freedom. So in order Do that, like what are some apps and programs we should download right now or start implemented into our business

Erinn Bridgman
instead of apps and programs that may give just some specific tangible things that people can do right now? And maybe why after they tune into this because I love a podcast that helps, I guess, yeah, I’m feel really inspired. But now you can actually do something. So that’d be an okay direction for us. Yes,

Quianna Marie
please. Let’s go. Let’s go get into gear. Let’s go. Okay,

Erinn Bridgman
so a couple of things that I would love for your peeps to do. One is on the personal side. So piles of green cash are not very motivating, right? These abstract goals of like, Oh, I just want to hit six figures this year, I have people come to me talk like that. I’m like, Well, why? What does that do for you? How does that change anything for you? So what I want your people, your listeners to do right now, when it comes to their personal wealth is I want you to figure out your top one, two or three financial goals, and get a specific number to that. So and when I teach on the large part of personal goals, which, you know, I don’t, I can’t say the exact principles, it really does, I have to be working with the person to understand their financial positioning. But generally, we work with debt pay down and savings first. And then we think about lifestyle improvements, generosity and investing. Because as entrepreneurs, we don’t have a 401k we don’t have, you know, a retirement plan, we are creating that. So these are the top five level financial goals that we think about. And so debts, debt and savings are our first. So if you if you’re listening, and you’re you know that you have debt, or you have very little savings, you should probably look at that as being your first few financial goals, and get specific. So I want you to go in and figure out exactly how much do you owe on your car? Exactly how much do you owe in your student loans? This, these are things that many times we avoid, because we don’t want to see the numbers, we’re nervous. But what’s amazing is if we can get really clear, okay, I want I only have $2,480 in my savings, I want to have 10,000 Do the math, I can’t do it this fast. But how exactly exact Toller okay, because then you’re going to get and get into the feeling and the why of that goal. So that’s, that’s one thing I want your audience to do. Because this is going to raise your necessity and give you way more clarity on why you’re going to do all the numbers work that you need to do. Because like I said, a pile green cash isn’t motivating, but the idea of paying off your car, or being able to like, you know, go on the trip, because maybe you already have debt and savings handled, so you’re more in the lifestyle improvement. Okay, this kind of stuff is gonna get way more exciting. This is why my money and numbers are all exciting, because money is power. And it’s it’s a resource that we can then execute towards our values. And I talk a lot about value based spending. So that’s one practical thing that on the personal side, I would love for you and your audience to really like consider doing on the business side of things, you can start literally just writing down getting at looking at your bank account daily. And just looking at like your honey book, or whatever you’re processing, to see what your month looks like ahead or see what the next quarter looks like ahead. Of course, in my system, we get really dialed in with exactly lots of nuance, like all the nitty gritty details. But this is a really helpful step for us to move from just retro actively doing our money stuff to be able to be ready for taxes and scrambling at the end of March. Versus you’re tapping in. So you’re looking at your bank account, you’re looking at your honey book for this in the next three months. So that’s like an activity right now we can do to help you get into the energy of present to future managing your money. And then let’s talk about mindset. I mean, that’s a huge face. So I’m kind of tipping on the three things that I kind of talk through is like your personal your business management and goal setting. And then the fourth one is your mindset. And so a thing with that that I would love is to start thinking about tracking like literally get your notes app out and start to track the money that’s coming into your world inside of the intensive I know Kiana this was something really helpful for you and something was tracking the money that’s coming in you did an abundance tracker as a group and individuals and the purpose of this is to help us notice more what we focus on expands right and law of attraction and really shifting our energy we’re naturally wired to see this fear to see right like that’s like our we have to remind our brains like this is a prehistoric times. You don’t have to like fight off the tiger and you know We can tell our brains what to think and what to believe. So elevate the power of money and the power of it being all around us by just simply tracking every day, the money coming into your world. And I’m talking like paid parking meter, the change that you find in your car, the $100 bill that you had no idea was in that birthday card, you know, and it might feel silly, but do an exercise a habit of this for a couple of weeks, and just see how it shifts your thinking around money and possibility and energy, I find that to be a very helpful exercise. So those three things are things I would love for your audience to start to do right away.

Quianna Marie
Amazing. I love this. And this is something that I just need to kind of like highlight for you or just kind of another like introduction for you, Erinn is, this is why you specifically are so powerful, because it’s a mindset shift. It is truly getting deeper. And I don’t want to label this like a woman thing. But I it really does feel like a warm hug and a very feminine energy, a lot of us are in our masculine energy in our business where it can be like making fast decisions and thinking of growth and numbers and spreadsheets. But then there’s this other layer that you bring to the table that is about mindset shifting. And I specifically love how you just mentioned where you’re almost like giving your money a job or you’re giving your money a purpose. So instead of saying I need to make these 10k months, or I’m only a successful wedding photographer, if I’m making six figures or beyond, right, like now we’re at these, now we’re seeing posts about these coaches hitting seven figure months or seven figure years, right, like it’s just insane. And so I think that can be really like draining for our creativity and draining for our goals, but giving our money in action, like actually creating that lifestyle and create that feeling once we hold it, right. And I know a lot of us entrepreneurs, like I you, I even tell you this all the time, how it’s so easy for me to make money, like if money is just flowing in. But that’s always been my narrative. That’s always like I’ve always said that. And so now, with your tools and your expertise, now I can kind of get a handle on that and actually hold it and have my money work for me. So this is just like so cool. So tell us, Erinn, how do we find you? How do we work with you, because this is literally just scratching the surface, you gave us some really tangible things that we can start taking action on now. But I know you have incredible resources and intensive so how do we find you and be your best

Erinn Bridgman
friend? Well, before talking about that, I just want to highlight a few things that you just said like this tends to be more of a woman problem. And this idea of wealthy women will change the world. And this is why I’m so passionate about the work that I do. And you know, the truth is, is it is more of a woman’s issue than a man’s issue in some ways. And I like to highlight that because the end, you know, I give my big TED talk at the beginning of the intensive but the systems of society, our patriarchal society that we live in, has inhibited women with the power of money for centuries for years. And so not only when we are thinking about our mindset, are we going up against our own personal story, our own sim millio, you know, situation, but we are literally pressing against the framework of society. And so I think that’s really important to remember. I mean, it was not, but in the past 100 years that a man that a woman could open a bank account without a man, it which is crazy to think with what and that’s just the past 100 years that that’s changed, or that a woman could get her own credit card. It was only in this past 100 years that we started to have laws that push for equal pay. We know in 2021, women make 82 cents to the dollar on average of a man. And so like Hello, like all of that is exposing a system and a framework. And ultimately, money is power. And so women have been limited in power in money from a systemic situation. And even if you look at like how the media speaks to men versus speaking to women about money money, like many times you can see it’s about for women, it’s about spend less and how to trim down your blah, blah, blah. And for the man it’s you know, being more towards like how do you grow your wealth and like, you know, real financial advice, which is not what the media is targeting towards women. So it is an issue that we face as women more than men. And yet my passion is like as entrepreneurs, we are the unicorns of women who are saying I’m bold enough, I’m confident enough to go into the marketplace with my product or my service and to ask for the energetic exchange of money for that. And so I just believe as entrepreneurs we are on the front lines of of this movement of change in history. And so that’s why I believe so much in my work so much in what I do. Because I do believe that wealthy women will change the world and Ghana, just like I was speaking to you before we recorded live, the you are the type of women I checked, and I work with men that are listening, I know there are heart centered, beautiful women, who and we know statistically, women will are more altruistic with their money. And certainly the women that you know, that are drawn into my universe are there, their level for generosity, their level, their desire to make their money, be of great impact, the way that they will use the power of money will in fact, change the world. And so that’s why I’m so passionate about helping men change both their mindset and management around money, because the world will be a better place. And I and to who you become in the process of doing this is an upgraded version of yourself the new thoughts that you believe me, a lot of the work I do around money, and then you dig into the mindset piece. We’re digging into worthiness stories you find like that’s one of the most common things I find is we there’s some sort of story playing around worthiness, whether it’s like I’m not worthy to charge that rate, I’m not worthy to enjoy making money because it should be really hard. I’m not worthy of spending the money on myself or, you know, whatever it is. And so we get to do deeper work. Money is just the tool for that.

Quianna Marie
Yes. All the praise hands, like yes, yes.

Erinn Bridgman
So thanks for letting me go on my TED Talk rant right there. But I’m super passionate about this. And I love getting to work specifically. And I tend to attract a lot of photographers, a lot of wedding industry creatives, because I know how to speak the wedding, I have that side of my brain, right? That creative spreadsheet, you know, are designed to be user friendly, and to really be able to take them in bite sized pieces and make them work. And they’re tools that will work in your business for a lifetime. And I understand the resistance of creatives around this work as well. And I am a creative but I’m also the nerd and the data spreadsheets as well. So my goal is to convince you that spreadsheets are sexy that numbers are sexy. And I can Yeah, join me on Instagram. That’s where I’m most active. At ESRI N underscore Bridgman bridge with no E, I’m sure will link it in the show notes. And get on my email list. I’m getting ready to go on maternity leave, because I’m having a baby. I’m not sure when this is going live. But we’re going to be producing some products at a really low cost for people to be able to have some support. And then I’ll be opening the intensive doors again in the fall in October. So you can certainly get on the waitlist, check out the wealthy woman checklist. It’s a free checklist to help you really understand what are the pieces of business mindset and your personal world that you need to dial in in order to scale your wealth.

Quianna Marie
Amazing. Yes, yes, yes. That’s why I was so excited. I know that you have all these resources, and even just your Instagram stories, and it just been like a part of your world. And you have this really fun quiz. Like you have so much stuff going on Erinn, but I’m like, I just want everyone listening to do a deep dive into your business. And because honestly, the more we can understand our numbers, like I always say, I need to make a t shirt that says this. I will never be rich because I’m too generous. But I’ll never be poor because I work too hard. So I feel like with you, Erinn, I feel like this is a perfect opportunity to like blend those two and be like No, no, no sister, we can be wealthy because wealthy women change the world. And we truly have the power in our hands. And we just need to have you.

Erinn Bridgman
I love it. Yay. Yay. Well, just opportunity to chat. Hope it serves your audience. Well, I encouraged him to press into at least one of those three actions I shared. Definitely come over follow me on Instagram. I’m super relational. So I’d love to like hear from you in the DMS and chat and all that stuff.

Quianna Marie
I love it. Thank you so much, Erin. We’ll see you soon.

Erinn Bridgman
Hey, cheers. Cheers.

Quianna Marie
That’s a wrap on another episode of Quianna Marie weekly. Thank you so much for your listenership and support. You can find the resources and show notes for this episode and more at quiannamarie.com/podcast. I’d be honored if you’d show your support by leaving a review and rating on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, keep on dancing.