Dorothy Mackendrick of DeeMack Consulting

In This Podcast You Will Learn:

Why you need a plan: Congrats! You are super brave. You enjoy the “leap” and you thrive on taking risks! But the plan…will make all the difference. The financial plan can be fairly simple and will most likely change, but you need to have a pretty good idea of what is going in and what is going out. Start not with what you “think” will be coming in, but with what is actually coming in.
How to budget for sustainability: No matter how good your product or idea is, if you can’t fund it, then it is not sustainable. And sustainability is what you need if you are in the market for leaving a legacy. Have someone help you with a few excel spreadsheet basics. Simple as that.
When to ask for help! Planning ahead and managing your funds are probably the least exciting parts about starting a business. If they aren’t your forte, no problem. Just make sure that you seek out help from a business coach, accountant, or someone better than you at it–before it comes back to bite you in the butt. Don’t be naive. It will bite you in the butt. It’s what I hear over and over from failed startups.

CLICK HERE to listen to the Podcast or scroll down to the bottom of the post.

I first met Dorothy at Craftcation, a conference for crafters who own small businesses. Dorothy fit right in with the rest of us dog o’sessed, creative, small business strategists. Not pictured, but very much present, was Marlo M. and Steph Cortes. What struck me as super impressive about Dorothy is the fact that she is such a grand champion master planner. I’m pretty sure she has an Excel spreadsheet for every area of her life. I thought that creatives aren’t supposed to have that super power! I thought it went against every grain of our being!?!

Well, I was wrong. Such is not the case for this lady! She has both right and left-side brain power and is keen on creative small business owners. It’s official. “She likes us! She really likes us.” <tear>. Don’t miss out on what she has to say!

p.s. Here’s your Tuesday mid-day Reality check: You need to know the financial side of our business, our life depends on it, your legacy depends on it! At the very least you need to know enough about it to delegate the task to someone else.

About Dorothy:

Dorothy Mackendrick is a small business coach who lives in Los Angeles. She is the founder of DeeMack Consulting and she is the yin and yang of business coaching. She knows what needs to get done, but is adaptable and flexible in the methods she applies. You’d have to be if you had spent 13 lucky years in museum education and administration with both creative, teaching and administrative responsibilities. She painlessly massages you into doing the things you don’t like about business. All in the name of bringing you more success.

She has her MBA, and is not scared of budgets, numbers and spreadsheets. In fact, she finds a lot of comfort in them. Do you think that’s weird? Believe it or not, there is a lot of information to be gleaned from your bank statement (with a little organization). It’s like a great big puzzle that she can help you solve.

Dorothy’s experience includes spending two years working at a small film production company where she watched projects go from early stage budgets through production (the fun, really fast paced part), and then the long process of managing a creation once it is out in the world. She enjoyed the whole process, and can help you do it too. She knows the startup culture from beginning to end.

Dorothy lives in Los Angeles with her dog and her man. She loves to cook and there is almost always a food experiment in her dehydrator.

You can find her at DeeMack Consulting or on Twitter.