How You Can Work ON Your Business Instead of IN Your Business (Part 1)

Brian Hood (0:00)

This is the Six Figure Home Studio Podcast, Episode 93

SPEAKER_2 (0:03)

You're listening to the Six Figure Home Studio Podcast. The number one resource for running a profitable home recording studio.

Brian Hood (0:19)

Welcome back to another episode of the 6 Figure Home Studio Podcast. I am your host, Brian Hood, and this weird looking bald dude that's smiling me awkward through the power of the internet is my purple-shirted bald and beautiful co-host, Christopher J. Graham.

Christopher J. Graham (0:33)

They can't see me, Brian. It's a podcast.

Brian Hood (0:36)

How are you doing today, my friend? And I'm actually going to interrupt you. I'm not going to let you answer that because I know you're doing great because as of Friday, less than four or five days ago, you are officially debt-free, am I correct?

Christopher J. Graham (0:51)

Yeah, yes, I am. So we mentioned this back on, what was it, episode 54?

Brian Hood (0:55)

Episode 57, how recording studios can get and stay out of debt. This is right when you started your debt journey.

Christopher J. Graham (1:01)

Yeah, this is right when I started it. And so the big story here is I used debt to buy things, to buy services, to buy marketing, to speed up the growth of my business.

It worked. It definitely worked. However, in retrospect, I wouldn't have done that. Knowing what I know now, I would have chosen to not take on that debt.

And here's the thing, here's what's going to blow your mind. I think I would have grown faster without the debt.

Brian Hood (1:25)

Interesting.

Christopher J. Graham (1:26)

And the reason for that is that when you carry debt with your business, you also carry stress. And when you carry stress, you're stupider.

Brian Hood (1:36)

Is stupider a word, by the way? I don't think it is.

Christopher J. Graham (1:38)

That is a joke.

Brian Hood (1:41)

That was a good. It was like you could literally hear the sound of that joke whooshing over my head there.

Christopher J. Graham (1:45)

Wishing over.

Brian Hood (1:47)

So either way, I'm stoked that you're out of debt now.

Christopher J. Graham (1:49)

Thanks, man.

Brian Hood (1:50)

It's a good follow up to that podcast. It was out, what, six, seven months ago.

And so there's some closure for our audience. Yeah, we've got more stuff planned about debt and strategic debt versus bad debt versus good debt. We have a lot of stuff planned for this in the future. So this is not the end of the debt conversation, but it is the end of your debt, at least right now.

Christopher J. Graham (2:10)

Yeah, well, and the kind of the interesting thing, like we'll talk a lot more about this in the future. But around the house, my wife and my kids have began to refer to me as No Debt Daddy, and No Debt Daddy is a way better dad than Debt Daddy.

Brian Hood (2:26)

Debt Daddy, it sounds like a cheesy, poor name.

Christopher J. Graham (2:30)

Yeah, it does, it sounds disgusting. But the big take home for that, and we mentioned this a couple episodes ago in the podcast, that sometimes people will say, oh, well, you know, guys, how do you balance family and business? And my response to that is typically, well, if you're asking that question, probably most people mean, how do I balance work, family and debt?

And my experience has been, it's way easier to balance family and business if the debt's not part of the equation.

Brian Hood (2:57)

So it's good stuff, man.

Christopher J. Graham (2:59)

Super pumped.

Brian Hood (3:00)

Congratulations on that, my friend.

Christopher J. Graham (3:02)

Thanks, man.

Brian Hood (3:03)

I'm popping like some little confetti streamers. You can't see it right now.

Christopher J. Graham (3:06)

Let me throw one more piece into this, because we're going to talk more about this in the future. There's two ways to run a business.

There's to run the business with debt. There's to take on, you know, whatever type of small business loan or credit card or whatever. You're using that debt to run the business. And the other way is to cash flow your business, which is you don't use debt, but you use money left over each month to reinvest that next month.

A lot of people hear that and they're like, no, no, no, debt's the only way, and that's the only way. It's not. Tons of businesses throughout history work on a cash flow system. Harley Davidson works on a cash flow system. We're not doing that episode today. We're saving this whole long freaking awesome episode for the future, because we've got a lot more stuff to talk about, but I'm just like super jazzed on this cash flow method. It's how I launched my business originally. I was cash flow for probably five years.