Check out the latest episode below. Mr.Biz Radio provides business owners with the knowledge and insights needed to drive their companies forward.

Mr. Biz Radio: Luminate Your way to Financial Wellness

Unedited transcription of the show is included below:

Welcome to Mr. Biz radio. Biz talk for biz owners during the next half hour, Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth, a leading business advisor, and two-time bestselling author will cover topics. That'll help business owners run their companies poor profitably, and more efficiently. If you're ready to stop faking the funk and take your business onward and upward, this show is for you. And now here's Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth.

Wow. So just starting off on a bad, bad note, there had a cough, right, as it was starting at the time to start speaking well, welcome to another episode of Mr. Biz Radio with me, Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth. And this week we are going to talk about a topic. I know that everyone who listens to the show, whether you're a business owner, entrepreneur, solopreneur you might not even be an entrepreneur, a business owner. It's still going to be helpful for you. We're going to talk about how to Luminate your way to financial wellness. And there's a lot of different aspects of that, of course, depending on where you fall in, in some of those categories, I just mentioned, but in order to go through that this week we, I'm bringing on a first time guest and she is the CEO and founder of Luma wealth. She's the best-selling author of a book. Get this, you're going to see the tie in here. Lumination shining a light on a woman's journey to financial wellness. So with that without further ado, Heather Edinger, welcome to Mr. Biz radio.

Well, Ken, thank you so much for having me. And I'm really looking forward to our discussion this morning.

Yeah. I look at one of my goals this year, and I'll just be really honest with you, Heather, why I reached out to you to have you on the show is one of my goals for 2021 is I really want to make sure that I'm able to help more women owned businesses and I saw your platform. I'm like, Oh my gosh, Heather would be perfect to come, you know, reaching out and helping more women owned business owners women owned businesses to help them as well as veteran owned businesses. And so those are two of our focuses this year. And so, you know, again with your platform, I thought, man, this would be really good. And it would be good for our, our female listeners as well as male listeners as well. So again, I think some of the things you're going to be able to share will be like as I mentioned, valuable for everyone. So that being sent Heather, walk us through T talk to us about your entrepreneurial journey. How, how did you get to writing your book and becoming a best-selling author and founding Luma wealth?

Absolutely. So first I probably should mention that I come from three generations of entrepreneurs and both because of family experience and also because of professional experience, I know just how challenging it is to be an entrepreneur and certainly to make it to multiple generations. And quite frankly we had such glorious businesses as in electrical clips and grocery stores. And of course today, the business that in which is financial advice. So it, as far as my journey goes was asked to have jobs at a young age that was kind of how my father did it. And when I came out of school, I joined a small firm in Boston as an equity trader. They were acquired within three months. And so everything that I thought was going to happen changed pretty quickly. And the irony is Ken that they actually offered me an enormous promotion and it backfired because I was so young and so naive, I thought, well, I'm smart enough to know they just want to save money.

So I was fortunate that Jeffries and company hired me out of, there was an amazing experience. And I had, I was an equity trader and gained a lot of experience about what really moves financial markets. And fortunately also had a great deal of success and had a number of head hunters after me, at which point, ironically, I returned to Cleveland, Ohio, which is where I'm from and joined what was then still predominantly a family business that my father had started in 1963 and then went on the journey with that business to number one, really changed the direction of the business. We were investment management only then and moved into really the advice business, the financial advice business on wealth management, running your business, those kinds of things. And I fortunately was also smart enough to know that I needed to take some of the toughest clients and toughest territories to prove myself because I was a family member and that could be a whole nother discussion on family businesses.

And then I, what I did is I really focused on the most underserved market that I could see, and that was in the women's space. And we can talk more about this, but women were not treated equally. They even if it was their own money. And I decided very early on that I wanted to focus on niches within the women's space because of course, women are not a niche. There are over 50% of the population. So that would be widows divorcees, of course, women entrepreneurs and business owners, women executives, et cetera. We also adopted a system called EOS entrepreneurial operating system, eosworldwide.com is where you can find out more about that. And as I moved into leadership, that has been an excellent program that I am a big fan of and because of our success in serving these various niches of women and really understanding our unique value proposition in all, we launched this new business Luma wealth in 2017 to really codified and enhance the delivery model for women and their families.

And I do want to be clear that we are male and female advisors serving women and their families. I believe that this is not just a women's issues, so to speak, but it's really about bringing the whole family forward, being inclusive at the table, whether she's the breadwinner and he's staying home in a traditional marriage taking care of the three kids, or she's a pink, which stands for professional aunt, no kids or whatever it may be. But the whole point of Luma is really to integrate an approach that brings together what she wants to accomplish in her career, what she wants to accomplish with her business, what she wants to accomplish for her family. And in a way that we can dialogue that is safe, informative, and really helps move her along a path to understanding not just what her goals and objectives are, but how best to get there and how to measure success and progress along the way. So that was the reason we founded Luma in 2017 and we are now taking this business national. And as I said, just really excited to provide different communities for these women like Luma luminaries, which is the one we specifically have for women business owners. And that clearly is a big focus for us in our business.

That's awesome. That's awesome. And I'll tell you, that's one of the reasons why, you know, as I mentioned before, one of our focuses for 2021 is I've seen it myself, just having been out of the corporate world now for about five years. You know, it's just, it is true. I mean female business owners are underserved. I've seen it myself. You know, I heard it before and I thought I had, you know, a lot of people say those types of things, but I have definitely seen it. And that's what, you know, again, why we wanted to make that one of our missions for 20, 21. I should mention, you know, yet you guys always hear me talk about this. You know, cashflow cashflow is such an important issue. I know Heather knows him very well as well, but so are you tired of waiting 60 or more days for customers to pay invoices? If so, invoice financing or Porter capital can help. So invoice financing present provide you with immediate cash, unpaid invoices, and as little as 24 hours to get the working capital you need, when you need it, visit portercap.com/mrbiz to request free quote today. Join us after the break on Mr. Biz Radio

Business owners have a continually growing to do list with little time for revenue producing activities, with check off your list and their experienced team of virtual assistants. You can focus on growing your business. Visit, checkoffyourlist.com to learn how check off your list skill team can handle your day to day tasks like social media, bookkeeping, calendar maintenance, and much more contact. Check off your list at checkoffyourlist.com or call (888) 262-1249. To see how their virtual assistants can help you live to work rather than work to live.

Thank you for listening to Mr. Biz radio. Did you know our show airs seven days a week for more than 30 hours. Now, if you are in the B2B space and would like to reach thousands of business owners every week, including our more than 250,000 social media followers are thousands of daily internet radio listeners, our email list fans and Mr. Biz solutions members This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to become a sponsor. Tap into Mr. Biz nation to help grow your business. Check out both of Mr. Biz's national bestselling books, pathway to profits and how to be a cash flow pro on Amazon. Now, once again, here's Mr. Biz. All right. Welcome back to the show and it's time for the Mr. Biz tip of the week. And this week's tip is

Start with yes. So many times we get stuck in this mindset in a rut start with yes, with ideas with your customers, clients, with your employees, your spouse, your children, everyone start with yes. Think of how something can work as opposed to jumping right away to determining how it won't work. And you guys know this would be think about it. I think each and every one of us are probably guilty of this. Some more than others, of course, but you know, think back the people in your life lives that you know, that as soon as you bring up a new idea, the first thing they tell you is how it won't work. It's just not conducive to long-term growth, super important. And I would challenge you, try it, try this. I was challenged with this a couple of years ago, and I promise you, it will be powerful for you.

Try to get through the rest of the day, whatever time you're listening to the show, try to get to the rest of the day without telling anyone no. Now there's creative ways. There might be something that you don't want to do. There's creative. There are creative ways to get around that and not say the word. No though. Oh, that's a great idea. Let's think about the ways you know, that we could maybe make that work terminology like that semantics like that. Very, very important. I tell you, if you switch, switch your mindset to thinking starting with, yes, I'll tell you it will be powerful. You will see a huge change in all of your relationships, not just on the business side of things, but you know, even with your spouse, your significant other, your children, et cetera, people in your life, it's a very empowering, I'm glad I got that advice a couple of years ago, actually at growth con with with grant Cardone's growth con as where I heard it first.

And literally he said that he said, see how long you can make it. He said the challenge to make it through the rest of the day, but keep an eye on because you won't make it through the rest of the day because you just won't, that's not how we're wired, but see how long you can make it before you do that. So super powerful. That's the mischievous tip of the week. And so we're talking this week with hetero Heather Ettinger, she's the CEO and founder at Luma wealth. You can find out more at lumawealth.com. That's L U M A wealth.com. So Heather you, you gave us some of your background. I know you started Luma wealth in 2017. You've been on this journey now for a while. Talk to us a little bit more about what you guys do at Luma wealth, how you help folks.

Sure. Thanks, Ken. So really what we're trying to do is help women manage life. And that's really, of course, if the integration in this particular case, let's say of their business life, their business owner life and their personal life. So what we do is we, we start with a discovery process and that's really looking at the business. What's important goals and objectives, both personally, and for the business, what keeps you up at night and anything around family and the wealth and, and business landscape. And then we set up what we call almost a set for life assessment. So that may on the business side, look at what is the longterm business growth plan? What if you're looking to have an event business equity, valuation, and a prioritized action plan, but what's really, really important here is we're going to walk you through kind of an assessment that also looks at your own money journey and how that impacts how you make financial decisions, both personally and professionally.

And then secondly, we're going to walk you through looking at, instead of all the things that we do, which of course look at cashflow and estate planning and insurance planning, tax planning, those things, we're going to put down a wheel in front of you that has six different areas of life. And those are relationships, job, purpose, spirituality, play health and community and walk through. What's important in those different areas, both as it relates to you personally. And then of course, how it relates to you and your business. What are the priorities? What are the pain points? What are we solving for? And then we're going to lay out a calendar that we'll go through both what you may need more financial literacy on to get more comfortable around whether it's business decisions or personal financial decisions. And then also what are the key things that we need to discuss during the year?

So if I might can, I'll kind of walk you through a couple different stories that, that help to clarify this. So I would be remiss if I didn't mention our luminary leaders, which is women business owner, community, where we actually do not allow CPAs or attorneys, et cetera. It's just women business owners. It highlights one business owner and gives her a chance to tell her story and then have other business owners ask questions, share their stories. And we create a very safe environment for them to learn. We've also created a next gen group specifically because we do have a lot of next gen business owners who are dealing with parents who may own the business, but they're looking to develop as leaders, but I'll give you an example during COVID. So had a client and we really needed to assess kind of what was the signals and what was the noise.

So with all the COVID news, et cetera, there were a lot of crosscurrents as to how long we were going to be shut down and during the pandemic, how people were going to pivot, et cetera. So we really sat down with her and tried to identify what were the true signals that were going to affect her business, the true indicators, what costs centers we could address in a different way during this time, how to help file for PPP. And then also we looked at some of the key positions and who was kind of stepping up if you will, and who was not. And so there was some reorganization that went on. We used a framework that we have in EOS called the accountability chart and just kind of talked about what the key focus should be on as she moved forward. And then we took so we did eliminate a couple of positions.

We also helped in, in terms of talking about some partnerships that we had that might help in marketing. And then we talked about some different tax strategies and all that we could put in place to help save her money as a business owner, and then also on her personal tax returns. So it was just a way of really incorporating the two. And then we also developed a program. We quickly found out that people didn't want to be on zoom webinars for hours at a time. So we developed something called health of a leader, and it was short videos that would give our business owners just quick snippets that they could work on in their business that would help them run the business better during what was such a complicated time. So that just gives you a couple of different ideas of how we really particularly responding to COVID address the needs of our clients.

That's awesome. And I love, I I've been trying to not stay away from the P word, Heather. I, I try to use adapt but I love the fact that you guys did that for your clients and, you know, the whole zoom sessions and all that stuff. I mean, it gets it's certainly you get a zoom fatigue for sure. I know a lot of people will talk about that. But so again, this week we're talking with Heather, Heather Edinger, she's the CEO and founder of Luma wealth. Again, you can find out more at lumawealth.com, that's L U M a wealth.com. And if you lack the cash flow needed to expand your business, but don't meet the qualifications of a traditional bank. You might want to check out Porter Capital, unlike traditional lenders, they look at the strength of your customer's credit as qualification to get the working capital you need when you need it. Visit portercap.com/mrbiz to apply for a free quote today, come back after the break, Heather is going to give us some tips on how to illuminate your way to financial wellness,

Looking for ways to streamline your business. If so, can help. Pulse is the CRM and marketing automation platform with many features, such as email and text message marketing, project boards, quoting, and invoicing, and so much more. If you're a franchise, we also have a franchise specific version with robust franchise management capabilities request your demo today at thepulsespot.com. Again, that's the pulse P U L S E spot.com. If you find listening to Mr. Biz radio is helpful. Imagine having live access to not only Mr. Biz, But also five other trusted business experts. It's true. You can have live access to your very own CFO plus a business attorney at website and digital marketing expert, a sales and growth guru, a financing professional, and a customer experience master visit mrbizsolutions.com to learn more. Join Mr. Biz nation at mrbizsolutions.com.

To submit questions to the show, email them to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Now, once again, here's Mr. Biz.

All right. Welcome back to Mr. Biz Radio, the Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth in this week's guest, Heather Ettinger, CEO, and founder of Luma wealth. So Heather, I thought this would be a good, we always have our guests to share their expertise during the third segment. And since you are the best-selling author of illumination shining a light on a woman's journey to financial wellness, I thought, what better time then for you to share how we can Luminate our way to financial wellness. So why don't you share with us some of the top tips from your book?

And I, I would love to share some of the top tips. I'm going to take just a few seconds to kind of frame it because why did I write the book and really what, what we know and what I know from being in this space for over 30 years is that while the majority of women want advisors only about 25%, have them an 80% leave meetings feeling misunderstood. So how the industry is delivering financial advice has not been resonating. And meanwhile, we have an absolute financial wellness crisis going on in this country over 70% of Americans, not just women say financial stress is their leading cause of stress, and it's not socioeconomic it's it's across every level, including high net worth. So we really need to do something different to set the framework for this dialogue, which is really what I tried to do with the book.

So I'm a huge Simon Sinek fan. Ken, I don't know if you are, but I love starting with kind of the why and the why for me is that if we educate and empower women, they're the agents of social change. And the why for individuals is understanding your, your money journey exploration. What were the money messages you got as a young person? How have those influenced your relationship with money, your relationship with financial advisors, et cetera. And that is really a critical component to moving forward, because there's a lot of fear in the industry of, you know, what our fees are that advisors are charging, or how do I get started? I don't know where to start, and you really have to understand like what baggage you're bringing into that that exploration. Then I talked to the lumination comfort zone and essentially what this does is it sets a framework also for how do you get from being in a fear zone?

And I often say the woulda should have, could have face, right? I should have done this. I would've done this, I could've done this, but I didn't. And for most women it's actually because they don't have time. And what we've seen is for example, working women, 46% of those women in a study that I did said they knew they were leaving money on the table because they just didn't have time to go through all their benefits and make sure they were leveraging them. So we really need to figure out what are some of the barriers, what are keeping people in that fear zone? Then the learning zone is really identifying in very simple terms, kind of what's coming in and what's going out, what you and I would talk about is as cash flow, right? And that's personally and professionally, and really understanding kind of the big categories, the big buckets, if you will, and what is needed in terms of knowledge building to really get to the next phase, which is saying, how do I start to build a plan that mirrors my, my goals and dreams and gives me a simple path there.

So it's really collecting information. Where are the gaps in the information, what financial literacy do you need those types of things? And in the book, I do have a number of different assessments at different stages to help you through that process. And then we get into the confidence zone and the confidence sown is where you're like, wow, I really do have the information I need. I do know what my choices are. I do know the pros and cons of choosing path a versus path B and most of our lives as we go through different stages of development, different ages, if you will, we're going to bounce a bit between the confidence zone and the learning zone. So for example, if you were going to start thinking about retirement or selling your business, you're going to need to gather different information than you had when you were just growing your business. And so you take a step back, you go back into that learning zone, you pick up that information and then again, move into the confidence zone. In addition I have a tool in there called stages of development, and it goes through those six areas of life that I talked about earlier being relationship and community, job, purpose, spirituality, health, and play. And during

Each kind of life stage each age,

Age group, what are you dealing with? That is both, yes, the monetary issues, but also the other emotional issues or family demands that may impact you. So let me give you an example.

Over the over

40% of women are involved in elder care of some sort taking care of their parents. And so really understanding is that what's, what's the emotional challenge I'm going to have with that. What's the time challenge I'm going to have with that. And then also potentially is there a monetary challenge with it because maybe mom and dad didn't save enough money or whatever. So I may need to step in and help. So we really try to set the framework for the different things that you need to be thinking about. I often say it's kind of like that book, what to expect when you're expecting. That's. What I want to do is kind of take some of the fear and mystery out of things and say, Hey, here's some of the things that you're going to need to be dealing with at the next stage of development.

So really what I'm trying to do with illumination is set up a different context by which women can talk about money. It's going to feel safer. It's going to feel more related to their life. It's going to give them an exploration of their history in these six different areas and how different influences affect them today, and then how they carry that forward as they begin to develop their plan for the future. And so this is a book that I hope not only will people read all the way through, and I do share a lot of anecdotes and I'm very vulnerable in the book because that's how women learn best, but also a book that they can come back to and go, you know what? I want to go back to that chapter on, you know, the stages of development and what I need to address because I'm coming up on the next stage. And I hope that it's, it becomes a resource that they can come back to time and time again.

I love it. And I'll tell you the thing I love the most about it. Heather is the fact that you take a six pronged approach. So, so often you hear, you know, financial advisors and people that like that have, Oh, we need to look at two things or three things, or maybe even four. But I think the fact that you bring, you're bringing in six different elements and those all, as you mentioned, those all have a profound impact, some more than others, of course, but on your overall financial wellness picture, your future plans, et cetera. So I think it's, it's super important. And, and I think, again, I think that's the thing I liked the most about your approach is that you're hitting those six different elements. And really for some people, you know, number five might be more impactful than another person. But I think that's super important to be able to discuss those all six of those.

Yes. And can I think the other thing it does is it's fascinating when we put down the wheel of what financial advisors do, you know, state planning and tax planning, et cetera, quite frankly, most clients glaze over. When I put down this wheel, all of a sudden it generates a completely different dialogue about what they hope for, for themselves and their family. What just things that they would forget to bring up if we didn't put that down. So, Hey, I went to this amazing retreat in Boulder, and I want to build that into my financial plan every year. But if I hadn't seen spirituality down on that wheel in front of me, I might never have brought it up. And that is an important part of my future. Yeah.

Fascinating, fascinating. I think it's really important. So Heather, thank you very much, unfortunately, we're out of time, but I really appreciate you coming on.

It's been a total delight, Ken. Thank you very much.

Absolutely. Thanks for listening guys. Have a great week and don't forget as always cashflow is King.

This has been Mr. Biz radio to learn how to become part of Mr. Biz nation. Visit mrbizsolutions.com for access to weekly content,

Subscribe to the Mr. Biz YouTube channel and follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter, to listen to archive shows. You can find them on the Mr. Biz solutions website.