The Practice of Therapy

Gordon Brewer: [00:00:00] Well, hello everyone and welcome again to the podcast and happy for you to get to know today Suzanne Morriga. Hi Suzanne.
Susanne Mariga: Hi Gordon.
Gordon Brewer: Happy to be here. Yes. And Suzanne's background is is that she is a CPA and just today we're going to be talking about just some money stuff. And I think a lot of. The questions that people have.
I know that Suzanne is also a profit first therapist. And so we had Mike Michalowicz on the, on a previous episode. And so I'm really looking forward to learning from Suzanne and just talking about taxes. Profit and building wealth and that sort of thing. But Suzanne, as we, as I start with everyone, tell folks a little more about yourself and how you've landed where you've
Susanne Mariga: landed.
Sure. Thanks, Gordon. So I am a CPA. I've been a CPA for, I stopped counting like over 20 years. Yes. A [00:01:00] long time. And we specialize in providing fractional CFO services. And most of our clients are on the larger side, seven, eight figure entrepreneurs. And we help them implement profit first, but we do it, we, we do it by specializing in high net worth tax strategies.
So I'm excited to share with your audience some of that, but, you know, my personal journey with profit first was like many entrepreneurs, right? We, we do the business that we love, right? You guys love helping people. You're amazing therapists. You're the heart people of the world. And while I was the.
Left brain accountant of the world. Right. I loved like looking at numbers and I love strategizing and, you know, I never thought beyond what I wanted in my business. And as a result, you know, the results that we got in our business was very random. And it wasn't until I really learned to. Prioritize the things that I wanted, and I aligned those actions with the values, right?
You guys are psychologists that I really started to get the results that I wanted. And so I'm so excited about profit first and, [00:02:00] and, you know, excited about talking about that too, today with you guys. Right,
Gordon Brewer: right. Yeah. So I know one of the things we kind of chatted about a little bit before we started recording is just one of the things I know a lot of us as therapists, and I know this has been kind of my own work as well, is really.
Getting in the right money mindset. You want to say some things about that?
Susanne Mariga: You know, it's, it's interesting because, you know, when I was going through my, my certification and profit first as a profit first professional I was at the same time going through. What I would call coaching certification, and it was interesting because, you know, I learned about, you know, there was this very simple stick figure that just kept showing up in all the books that I was reading and, and, and, you know, it was a man and he had a body and, and he had a head right.
And this head was pretty simple, right? But it was actually more to it than what it looked like, right? There was this [00:03:00] conscious mind, subconscious mind. And this conscious mind was like the thinking mind, like, what do I want for lunch today? How do I feel about taking, you know, do I want to take this route to get home?
And it was all affecting his emotional mind, which is a subconscious mind. Like, how do I feel about what I'm about to have for lunch? Or how do I feel about having to take this route home today? And all that was like creating dendrites and synapses in his body, right? Which was driving actions and behaviors.
That was crazy at creating results, whether he liked it or not. And, and that's the same way it is with money, right? When we're, how we view money and how we view The outcomes, or if we're even thinking about the outcomes that we particularly want, right, those drive the actions and behaviors in our body that creates the outcomes that we want.
And as business owners, we have to think about it. Like what, what is winning really look like for us? You know, what is the end goal that we want to have and, and really start to idealize that, you know, create that picture, that Polaroid picture so [00:04:00] that we. We can align our minds with our behavior and our feelings to get those results that we want.
And, and that's how it is with money. You know, I think a lot of times, you know, especially in the heartfelt fields, like, like, like yourself, Gordon and, and many of your audience, you know, we. You know, this is what we've been called to do from a, from a stance of service. Right. And, and we love it so much.
We probably would do it for free and unfortunately free, you know, isn't going to allow us to retire one day. Right. It isn't going to allow us to build generational wealth. And so, although it's great to do it in service. It's also honoring who you are as a person, right? To, to, to know what is it that, that I really want, how do I create a one to one situation?
It's starting with what is winning for you, right? Sorry, what is winning for me? And really outlining that to create that, that path to get there.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. Yeah, I think it's a, I think [00:05:00] one, one of the ways that I've thought about it. And, you know, again, some of my own self work it were work around just money mindset is really looking at what is the lifestyle I want to lead.
And what is the lifestyle I want to keep with, because money is just a, is a vehicle or a means or a tool that you use to achieve those things. And so I think it's important to, in many ways, take the emotion out of money. Because I think that's where people get in trouble.
Susanne Mariga: Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, I remember me when I started my practice.
It's like I talked about earlier. It was about serving. And I remember like after about three years of owning the practice, I remember sitting across the dinner table at my husband and now I had started this practice to be able to spend time with my daughter who was just born. I had left my corporate job to be a mom and, and, but not give up her career.
And I remember like working really long [00:06:00] hours. And I remember like just, you know, Trying to super serve my clients and lowballing my prices, right? Because I wanted to get more clients. And I remember sitting across the table with my husband one Sunday night, and he was like, honey, you'll be better off.
You get a JLB, you know, we'll see you more and you'll actually get paid. And, and again, it wasn't until really thinking about what I wanted that I was able to start to achieve those things because I had that mental picture and somehow connected that psychology to those actions to create those results.
Gordon Brewer: Right. Yeah. I think it does take a clear picture of, of where you want to be and where you want to go and what that looks like that vision kind of thing, which is not, not anything new to people, but I think really you get to the basics of that. And that's, that's kind of what you ground yourself in, in order to know where you're going to go.
Yeah. Yeah. So I know one of the other things that kind of in your purview, so to speak Suzanne is [00:07:00] just around being aware of taxes and since you are a CPA, that's probably one of the first things people think about with CPAs and yeah, and just really what you can do to kind of leverage yourself or help yourself kind of build wealth and really think about retirement and that sort of thing.
Susanne Mariga: You know, it's interesting because I remember when I first started my practice, one of my first clients, I remember him bringing a a shoe box into the office. And I remember like him popping down the chair across from me and, and he's pushing a shoe box towards me on my desk that I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to touch or not.
And, and, and, and he goes, whatever you do, I don't want to pay any taxes. And I remember like getting to the bottom of the shoe box, all these crumpled up receipts and pulling out. This piece of paper that he called a profit and loss. And I remember looking at this piece of paper and I was like, well, don't worry, sir.
You're not going to pay any taxes because you didn't make any money. You know, you, your, your bottom line is negative, right? There's no money. [00:08:00] And I remember him coming back a couple of days later, signing for his return. He was excited. He was getting earned income credit. I think it was like a couple thousand dollars.
It's that credit for showing up to work even if you weren't successful. And, and, and he was like, You know, he felt that I did pretty good and I felt like I did pretty good. And then the next year he comes back and he's got that same shoe box. He's recycling and he's like, you know, whatever magic you did the year before, I want you to do that again.
And I said, okay, sure. And I, I get to the bottom of the shoe box and I'm like, still, sir, you're not gonna pay any taxes. You didn't make any money. And. And again, he goes away, thinks I did a great job. I think I did a great job. And the third year he comes back and, and this time, you know, he plops down again.
He's got the same shoe box. He's thrifty. And he's like, you know, he still says that joke. I don't want to pay any taxes, but this time is different because now he looks tired. Now he looks older. And. And now I know him a little bit better. I get the call at like, you know, the first thing in the morning or the email at 11 o'clock [00:09:00] at night, you know, and, and I see him paying people payroll and he doesn't have anything.
He's not even paying himself, you know, and you know, he's got all this office rent, but he doesn't even own his own home. And, and I want to ask him, I'm like, sir, like, how are you going to retire one day? You know, because one day I'm going to retire. How are you going to retire? And the reality is, yes, it's, you know, great to like, Get deductions.
But at the day, it's not. It's if you're hurting the government, but you're also hurting yourself, who's winning from this. Right. And so I think that good tax planning starts with the fact that it's okay to win, right? It's absolutely okay to win. We work to win, right? We work to be able to enjoy our lifestyle.
We worked to be able to provide for our families, right? We work to create a better generation for the next generation that's coming behind us and buying. filing cabinets when we don't need that buying those big heavy cars that are like, you know, almost 10, 000 pounds and gas goes like, it's not doing you any good at [00:10:00] the day.
So first of all, knowing that that other side of success is taxes, and that's absolutely okay. Now, the next thing I would say that's important is that, all right, now that you know that taxes the other side of success, right, we've accepted that. Now what I want us to look at is how do I How do I get tax savings?
How do I get tax deductions without increasing my expenses? You know, a lot of CPAs are like, go out and buy that truck, go ahead and get those filing cabinets, run out, it's December 31st, now it's your last opportunity. And, and I want you to take a different step back. So if you're a solo practitioner out there, right, there are amazing things that you can do.
One of the things is a Keogh plan or solo 401k. That's going to allow you to put away 66, 000 into your retirement account. Every year. And if you hire your spouse, double that 130, 000 almost is what you're putting like over 50. You're putting away like 73, 000. Right. And, and one thing about that is you're getting a tax deduction.
You're [00:11:00] getting that right out. But guess what? Did your expenses really go up?
Gordon Brewer: No, no, not in that situation.
Susanne Mariga: Exactly, you passed it from the right hand to the left hand, right? You just built your net worth while getting a really nice tax write off. And I'm assuming at that point, you're probably in the 37 percent tax bracket.
So that's a pretty nice savings on the, on the 66, 000 that you put away for your future self. You know, the other thing is if you've got employees, right. And everybody that has a business says, you know what? I want to increase profits. How do you increase profits in a service based business? Right. One way is you get good employees and you keep them right.
Because the longer employees are with you, the better that they're going to get in their job, right? They're going to be more efficient. You're not gonna have to train them over and over again. They're going to get more independent so that you don't have to see every client anymore. It's just a one, one for everybody.
So, so maybe go, okay. What would make my employee stay with me longer? Right. And one of the things I would think about is, okay, maybe we're going to do a [00:12:00] retirement plan, but it's going to be a retirement plan aligned with my goals. And so what I'm going to say is I'm going to build a retirement plan.
It's going to be a 401k, maybe traditional or not traditional, right? Maybe it's a safe Harbor, maybe not. But what I'm going to do is you got to be with me for six years before you can fully that six years. Right. And that means that if you get. If you get stolen away by the shiny lights of my competitors, or you end up starting your own practice, you're going to forfeit your contributions.
Now what that means is I've got a tax deduction every single year because that you were with me. But if you leave me, you forfeit those monies, but they stay in the trust. Right. And if I happen to be the last person standing, guess whose retirement account I just contributed to.
Gordon Brewer: Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
This is, this is you know, one of the things that I know and just working with folks and I know we were talking about money mindset earlier on, but one of the things that I think people don't recognize [00:13:00] is how you invest. In other words a mindset a money mindset problem that most people have, have to get over as they think about money in terms of if I pay anything out.
then the money is gone or the money is not there anymore. But really in this, this way of thinking about things, you're really, you're taking that money and you're increasing it by investing. You want to say more about that? I mean, that's I know that's pretty basic kind of stuff, but I think you could add a lot to
Susanne Mariga: that.
Oh, yeah, definitely. It's about preparing for your future self, right? And I always say, you know, I want future Suzanne. I don't want her yelling at me when she, when she, when she thinks about me, I want her happy and joyful. And so it's creating that, that way for that future self to be happy with you is really what you're doing with that.
And also, you know, you're, yeah. You're, it's a win win, you know, Uncle Sam doesn't want to take care of you when you get older and, and you're [00:14:00] building for your, your, your future is, is what you're doing with that. So it's a really great strategy from that standpoint and, you know, you're supplying for what you need, which is really great.
You know, another thing that we do with our clients and, and, going on about tax strategy is, you know, there's opportunities for investing, right? And growing that well. And one of the ways is to do that is to the qualified business opportunity zones, right? And, and those are areas that the government has designated as areas that they want to.
Build upon, right? They want to redeem these areas and make them better areas. And what they do is they create policy that if you invest in certain areas, we're going to give you tax write offs, right? And, and so maybe what that means is, okay, if I've got some capital gain, right? Capital gain or investments that you.
I had over a year and I invest as monies, you know, there's something called step up basis, step up in basis. And what that means is, let's say I decide to buy my practice building. Let's say I decide to spend a couple hundred [00:15:00] thousand dollars on my practice building because I want to service the local community in 10 years when that community is revived.
Let's say my, my building appreciates it doubles in value. And so I bought this in this qualified opportunity zone at 200, 000 and in 10 years is where 400, 000, that appreciation, that difference of 200, 000. Well, guess what I just did. It's, it's a tax free transaction when I sell it, because again, I use tax law in order to create investment opportunities to build my network and create tax savings.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. Yeah, that's I think that's a smart thing for anybody that if you're, if you're leasing from somebody you want to say, dive in a little deeper on that. I'm just thinking about, okay, if you're say you're in a practice and you've got a building that maybe is occupied by other people, other therapists, and you decide, okay, I'd like to buy the building.
What are the way, what are some ways for a person to think about [00:16:00] doing
Susanne Mariga: that? Right, in terms of how to buy the building or, or tell me a little bit more, Gordon. Yeah,
Gordon Brewer: so buy the building and why it might be to their advantage to do that as opposed to just keep paying paying rent or, you know, paying a lease.
Susanne Mariga: You know, I remember hearing the story of, I believe with Sam Walton, the Walmart, and I think he may have leased early on and then he lost his lease and he had to restart all over again. After that, he's like, I'm just going to buy every building I'm in from now on, because I don't want that, that rug pulled out from underneath me ever again.
And, and, you know, I love the way my husband talks about, he goes, when you buy the building and, and it's, and of course there's some ways I'm with. Picking where you're going to be located at, make sure it appreciates. It's kind of like, Getting free rent for like the next 10 years is what it's like because at the end of the day, you have an asset that can be sold, right?
That's going to appreciate in value instead of paying it to someone else, you know, [00:17:00] you're paying into your equity at the end of the day.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. Yeah. And I think that's an important concept for people to get their heads around. It's just a, you know, asset building and being able to increase your wealth that way as well.
Yeah. Yeah. So in your work with folks, I love that story about the van and the shoe box. What do you see as some common mistakes that people do make in terms of running their business and things that they can change?
Susanne Mariga: So the most common mistake that I see, and I think we all start here and not enough of us actually grow out of it is, you know, we don't really, really figure out what does wanting look like.
And what that means is we don't sit back and go, what's the end goal of this? What's the end goal of me waking up every morning doing what I do. What, what is the thing that I really want out of this? And so, you know, as Simon Sinek says, it starts with why, right? So [00:18:00] figuring out that why the next thing that I see is then they don't have a process to get where they are.
And I know Mike McCallots was on a few weeks ago on your show, but we use the profit first method and what the profit first method is. It's a cash management system. It's, it's not an accounting system. Please don't go back to your accountant and say, this is an accounting system I want to implement.
It's a cash management system, but what it does is it. Prioritize paying your profit first. So kind of like Dave Ramsey and his envelope system, what's going to happen is you're going to create bank accounts and you're going to transfer money to the bank accounts based upon designated purposes. So all money is going to come into one account, which we call the revenue account.
And then. Twice a month on the, usually on the 10th and 25th, we're going to allocate to the different bank accounts. We're going to allocate to our, our profit account because we're going to pay our profit first. We're going to allocate to our owner's pay. I can't tell you how many times I meet owners and they paid everybody else on their staff, but they haven't paid themselves.
You are the MVP. You're the most value player today. [00:19:00] You step out that practice no longer exists. And then we're going to be, we're going to realize there's another side. There's a, there's a side of success that we're going to prepare for, and that's called taxes. So we're going to allocate a portion to taxes.
And then after we've allocated to profit owners pay tax, what's left over is operating expenses. And that's the rest of the money gets allocated to that. And that's the money that you're going to make decisions on every day. Can I afford to be. In that big building, or, or can I find another way? Is there a way of me running out a building that's maybe in a part of a or a room and it's part of a physician practice or maybe meeting my clients over zoom and doing a virtual practice?
Can I afford to go out and buy everybody a new computer on my team? Right. And what's going to happen is, you know, from a psychology state standpoint is you're going to be implementing something called Parkinson's law. And what Parkinson's law says is the more there is of something, the more I'm going to use.
You know, I tell people, you know, don't take me to a golden corral. Don't take me to a golden corral because I've never left golden corral proud. You know, I [00:20:00] walk in there, there's like three like plate stations, one in the middle, one on each side. I actually memorize what it looks like. There's a salad bar on the right.
And there's like, you know, it turns into a taco bar and then a meat bar. And then there's like you can see that there's a, this is the walk of shame here and dessert bar, chocolate fountain. Somebody's been there too many times. You know, when I go to Golden Corral, I have never left proud. Now on the other hand, Gordon, when we go to order dinner, I get this small little five inch plate.
I might. Fill it up a little bit with like carrot sticks and celery, but I'm not going to eat as much as what I did at the golden crown. Now I'm not going to ever tell you I'm hungry because I'm not going to be hungry at the order of dinner, but I'm going to leave more proud. And that's exactly how it is with money.
You know, when we look at this bank account and it's all, all money coming into that bank account and being spent from that bank account the day we got paid. Oh my gosh, let's go buy everybody a computer. Everybody needs a new Mac book, you know, or maybe I can get that cow like escalate, you know, go drive to my meetings.
That's awesome. But if I separate my [00:21:00] bank accounts and I create the small operating expense bank account, what's going to happen is that I have boundaries, right? I have boundaries on what I can spend. And so I'm going to spend a whole lot less money than if I'm just using one bank account that gets all the money comes in and there's an opportunity for all the money to go out.
Right.
Gordon Brewer: Right. Yeah. And I, I would encourage people that if you haven't read profit first, I would encourage that. And you've got a profit first a book as well Suzanne, you want to say something about that and what, who it's really kind of geared towards.
Susanne Mariga: So I have a book, it's part of the profit first family.
So Mike Michalowicz and I wrote it together. It's called Profit First for Minority Business Enterprises. But even if you are not a minority, you are, people tell me they enjoy the book. Like I get, I get DMs all the time from people that read my book and I'm like, you're not a minority. And, and, and the reason why the book was written was because I wanted to ship neighborhoods.
I wanted to ship wealth and neighborhoods. And, [00:22:00] and, and I, and, and one of the things that I see with entrepreneurs, they don't know what they don't know. And this book, what it does is it covers profit first as a strategy similar to what Mike's book does. Same strategy, but we go into some different things.
So we talk about tax strategy. We talk about government contracting. So for some of you guys that are wanting to get contracts with school districts or with prison systems or, or different governmental entities, we talk about when it's a bit, a good bid, and when it's a time to say. No bed, right? So we talk about government contracting.
We talk about some mindset things like you know, what do you do when you walk into a room and nobody looks like you in this book? So it's definitely a book that everybody can benefit from. One of the things that I'm most proud about with the book Gordon is we earmark a part of the proceeds to go to a nonprofit organization called Hope Worldwide.
And what we do is we provide scholarships for girls in Zimbabwe to be able to go to school. And the reason why is in Zimbabwe the government doesn't provide you with school, [00:23:00] right? And so, you know, we literally, you know, we, we've for the last few years, we've filled up a classroom full of girls just because of book sales.
And I always tell people, I said, you know what you know, a lot of time, these girls, you know, they're, they're groomed to be married one day. And imagine telling a doctor that she has to be somebody's second wife. That's not going to happen. Right. So that's probably, that's probably what I'm most proud of about the book, but it's definitely a great book.
It's Kirkus Review, Publishers Weekly's Editor's Pick.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. All right. Oh, that that, that is so such a heartwarming story because I think a lot of times we can kind of get in our bubble and not be aware of other parts of the world and other parts of how people live. And so that that's great.
That's great. Well, Suzanne, I've got to be respectful of your time, and I'm so glad we had this conversation. Tell folks how they can get in touch with you and also find the book.
Susanne Mariga: So the best way to get in contact with [00:24:00] me is I actually have a gift for your audience. And what this gift is, is if you're starting your profit first journey, I have a table of what a healthy company looks like.
And what I mean by that is what percentage of your revenue should be going to profit? What percentage should be going to owner's pay? What percentage should be going to tax? What percentage should be going to operating expenses? If you go to profit map. That's profit map. co. You're going to be able to download that, that table.
And depending on the size of your business, be able to figure out, you know, what percentage should be going to profit or is paying tax and offering expenses.
Gordon Brewer: Awesome. That's great. That's great. And we'll be sure to have links and in the show notes and the show summary. Well, Suzanne, so glad you joined us for this episode. I think this was, I think this is an important topic and I think it's appreciate the work that you're doing and in all areas of your
Susanne Mariga: life.
Thank you, Gordon, for having me.