Mastering Your Money Mechanics with April Stroink

Released Sunday, 12th February 2023

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Mastering Your Money Mechanics with April Stroink

Sunday, 12th February 2023

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Today, Sachin interviews April Stroink on our money journey as practitioners. They discuss how April came into coaching practitioners on finances after being trained as a financial advisor. April shares how her baby benefitted from health practitioners when medical care was powerless to help her. April talks about how a holistic view of well-being is similar to a holistic view of financial well-being, which she calls “wealthcare,” and how she began coaching practitioners. The conversation covers how little entrepreneurs know about finances, and how they can put together a financial system they can manage with the right team. Listen in for advice on fixing your finances while you still can.

Key Takeaways:

[1:02] Sachin welcomes listeners to Perfect Practice. Today, Sachin is speaking with April Stroink. Sachin introduces April and her work of coaching about money and thanks her for joining the podcast.

[3:24] April describes her work as a “wealthcare” practitioner. Your financial well-being is closely connected to your physical health, mental health, and close relationships. It’s important to understand what’s happening in our finances if we want to get healthy.

[3:51] Finance is one of the pillars of overall good health and well-being. It is one of the major stressors for most people. When the body is under stress it releases cortisol. Stress also impacts sleep. A lack of sleep impacts health. In Canada, where April lives, money stress is the number one reason for relationship breakdown, as well.

[4:57] April was trained as a financial advisor to get people to retirement with a safety net. She was not trained in behavioral finance. Money is emotional and we have biases about it. People behave differently with their money than with other areas of their lives.

[5:56] April worked with clients who told her they were living paycheck-to-paycheck even though they were making a good income. The more they made, the less disposable income they had and they were drowning in debt from student loans and business loans.

[6:26] In 2017, April shifted her practice away from “assets under management” to helping people on the coaching side of things to help people understand their spending behaviors and their emotions around money so they can reach their financial goals.

[6:56] Along the way, April has been very in-tune with her “wealthcare” and healthcare and the health of her family. Her nine-month-old daughter was constantly sick. Antibiotics made her sicker. April tried naturopathic medicine and worked with an ND as part of her healthcare team. Within 48 hours her daughter was like a new child.

[7:54] April’s classical financial training wasn’t serving her clients. She needed a more holistic view to look at the entire picture of their wealthcare, as naturopathic doctors and functional medicine professionals use in treating patients. April’s approach to wealthcare is similar to this healthcare community. So she started to work financially with the community of practitioners.

[9:15] Numbers don’t lie. When you use good data, it takes gives you a solid foundation to work past the emotion of the equation. April asks her clients to step into the Chief Financial Wellness Officer role for their firms. There are three attributes of a CFWO: 1. To be fearless about their numbers, 2. To be curious about their finances, and 3. To be passionate about their numbers.

[11:36] April will show a client the mechanics that work with the cognitive biases around money. She says the biggest thing that she helps clients with is increasing and boosting their confidence when it comes to their numbers and their finances.

[12:57] We have to realize Parkinson’s Law that demand always meets supply. If we have a month to do a task, it will take a month. If we have a week, it will take a week. The same happens with our money. As business owners, we have the axiom that Sales minus Expenses equals Profit. As we grow, we can increase our revenue but our expenses also increase.

[13:50] You need to take a deep dive into the Costs of Goods Sold. What is your Gross Margin per unit of everything that you are selling? From there, you want to have as much margin as possible to run your operation.

[14:19] April conducts regular expense audits with her clients. She categorizes expenses into three buckets. The first bucket is “Key” (Key) Expenses that drive profit, including staff, software subscriptions, and marketing. In a business crisis, such as a pandemic, do not cut profit-driving expenses first. Consider the effect of any cut over 10 days, 10 months, and 10 years.

[19:37] The second bucket is “R” (Recurring) Expenses such as subscriptions and insurance. Research your insurance providers and you may be able to cut the cost for the same coverage. Look at all your systems and subscriptions with a critical eye regularly.

[21:20] The third bucket is your “U” (Unnecessary) Expenses. This is where it gets down to emotion. It’s helpful to have a third party who is committed to the success of your business but is not emotional about your business, taking a look and asking, “Is it necessary to have all this furniture or all this office space?”

[21:57] It’s not what you bring in, it’s what you keep. Be diligent about regular expense audits. Sachin’s wife goes over the credit card receipts every month and asks “Are you still using this subscription?”

[23:52] Take a look at the products and services you offer. Have you changed the price of the offerings to keep up with the cost of goods to provide them? Which of your services are profit generators and which are profit detractors? The one you are emotionally attached to because it was how you started your practice may be a profit detractor now.

[25:50] April asks clients first, “Do you have the right people on your ‘wealthcare’ team?” This includes your bookkeeper, your accountant, your banker, your lawyer, your financial adviser, or your financial coach. She wants her clients to have the right team because they need the data. Without the right data, the wrong systems may be put into place. April looks at their books.

[27:24] A lot of practitioners don’t understand the role of the bookkeeper, vs. the role of the accountant, vs. their role as business owners. Just as you cannot advocate your health to anyone else, you cannot advocate your wealth to anyone else. You are 100% responsible for your business.

[28:04] Bookkeeping is not regulated in Canada. April has a list of questions for clinicians to ask when interviewing potential bookkeepers. It’s important to have a proper “wealthcare” team in place so that you get the right data. Without the right data, putting the rest of your systems together is a moot point. “Garbage in, garbage out” will not help you.

[29:23] April has facilitated many courses for the Province of Nova Scotia, including “Financial Essentials 101 for Entrepreneurs.” The number one feedback she gets from the course is “I wish I had learned this when I first started my business!” If you don’t have the right habits when you start your business, bad financial habits may continue and may end your business.

[30:38] April thinks finances should be learned through conversations in the home, starting at a very young age, so people don’t become adults without knowing about finance and are confronted by institutions that profit from their being ignorant and in debt until they get to a place where they have to confront their bad financial habits when the money stops flowing.

[32:03] Finance should be taught in high school and as part of process management in colleges. Business owners need to be learning it immediately.

[32:54] Sachin points out that the three most profitable segments of our economy are health management, wealth management, and the food industry. The more we know, the better we can take these matters into our own hands. The powers that be are not necessarily interested in us having that skill set.

[35:40] April can be found on Instagram and Facebook @AprilStroink. People can book a free 30-minute consultation through the website Aprilstroink.ca.

[36:10] If you sign up for a free consultation call, there are some questions to answer before the call. April wants to know your impetus for calling her. What is preventing you from sleeping at night when it comes to your finances? How she can best serve you, and are you ready? She really wants to work with people who are ready to put the systems in place.

[36:53] April’s mission is to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. She wants to make sure people are ready to do the hard work. It’s not easy and you do have to follow through.

[37:28] April’s last words: “Wealth is very subjective. What I determine as wealth for myself will be completely different from what you determine as wealth for yourself.” April wants to unpack the definition of wealth and talk about what prosperity means to you and what a purposeful life means to you. That’s what the definition of wealth comes to.

[38:28] Sachin thanks April Stroink for sharing her expertise.

Mentioned in this episode

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April Stroink

April Stroink is a money coach and advisor for individuals and entrepreneurs who want clarity, ease, and abundance with their finances. Here is April’s story from her website:

“Do you want to feel ease and calm around your finances? Let’s see if this is familiar: You work hard and make good money…but you’re still living paycheck to paycheck. You can’t seem to get ahead. The money stress causes you sleepless nights (and strains your relationships). You want to find a better way to manage your debt and save for the future. AND… above all, you want it to be easy. Sound impossible? It’s not. I know it’s not because I’ve been in your shoes… As an entrepreneur who’s operated and sold several profitable businesses, I’ve had the same challenges and dreams. I’ve navigated the highs and lows of owning a business and managing household finances.

“Many years ago I took over the reins of our family’s outdoor retail chain. On paper, it looked pretty profitable. But in reality, we had our struggles, like most small businesses. We needed a system to plan for our expenses, our cash flow, and our taxes. We wanted to pay ourselves regularly while keeping our family business and household finances separate. It was complicated. There were periods when I felt like our finances were in absolute chaos. We had a lot of sleepless nights as we weathered economic downturns, changes to tax laws, personnel challenges, and the stresses of day-to-day family life.

“But, in a few short years, I discovered a new way of managing our business and household cash flow and spending. I completely transformed our business’s profit margins. Our family business improved to the point where it was VERY lucrative, and we ultimately sold it. And shortly after that, our household became debt-free. We celebrated with a pre-paid trip to Greece! But here’s the thing. Throughout the financial transformation and paying off debt, we NEVER felt restricted about our money. Even though we were managing our spending and savings, we ONLY felt freedom and abundance.

“And that’s when I knew I had found something very special. Once I discovered the right tools to create financial ease and calm in my family and our business, I began sharing these systems to help others calm their own financial chaos.”