Ms.Biz

Ep. 30 | How to be Bold in Your Faith in Business : Interview with Sean Feucht

In this video, we discuss the remarkable journey of Sean Feucht and his Let Us Worship movement. [b]Sean Feucht embarked upon this path after losing a congressional race in California and felt a divine call to address the unjust COVID restrictions aimed at churches. 
His initiative grew from a single outdoor worship service to now having rallies in 27 US state capitals and even 6 different countries. Feucht's core mission urges Christians to draw strength from their principles and spread positivity even in areas marked by strong opposition. 
Resistance, according to Sean Feucht, is a validation of their Holy cause. He advises those seeking deep spiritual conviction to not shy away from voicing their concerns on issues like antisemitism and the sexualizing of children. According to Sean Feucht, standing up for righteousness is a vital workout for your spiritual muscles and a tool to discern genuine companionship.
He extends his messages to the Christian business community- emphasizing the importance of upholding integrity and dismissing the prevailing  woke ideology. Their devotion, he stresses, should lie firmly to God, not to their financial gains.
Sean Feucht is currently striving to finish Let Us Worship rallies in all 50 US state capitals by 2024. A mission he believes will lead the country towards a much-needed spiritual awakening. To achieve this, he is diligently raising funds to provide for revival efforts.
Perseverance, Sean Feucht asserts, is cardinal in the face of adversity. He encourages maintaining faith that ultimately, God works all things for good.  The courage he has seen in persecuted churches is what he believes modern Christians need more than ever today. 
Please join us as we delve into these discussions with Sean Feucht.
 
Msbizpod.podbean.com
www.facebook.com/MsBizPodcast
www.BoltzLegal.com
www.BoltzMedia.com
 
 

Ep. 29 | Working Smarter: Online Tools for Maximizing Business Productivity

In Episode 29 Brooke Boltz and Rachel Boltz share their top five favorite online tools that are currently accelerating their businesses.
 
They kick things off by discussing Canva, a versatile platform great for creating graphics, social media posts, videos, and more. Packed with easy-to-use templates, this tool makes design accessible for everyone.
 
Next, they delve into Trello, their go-to for organizing marketing tasks and assigning them to team members. By creating boards, cards, and checklists, Trello ensures that everyone's always on the same page.
 
Brooke and Rachel then introduce viewers to *Loomly*, a tool perfect for scheduling social media posts across platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter simultaneously - a real time-saver.
 
They also discuss Write Panda AI, an innovative tool that generates titles, blogs, emails, transcripts, timestamps, and clips from videos. Plus, with its automatic caption addition feature, it offers even more time conservation.
 
Their fifth pick is VideoLeap, a platform that makes editing videos straightforward. Whether it's using templates or starting from scratch, VideoLeap offers options to add effects, zoom, trim clips, and customize.
 
In addition to these five, they recommend ChatGPT for creative brainstorming, *Canva* for designing graphics, and Loomley for scheduling social posts and reels across various channels.
 
Join Brooke and Rachel as they dive deep into tools like Trello, Loomly, and VideoLeap, sharing their experiences on how these platforms simplify marketing tasks and content creation workflows. Don't forget to like, share and subscribe if you find this helpful!
 
Msbizpod.podbean.com
www.facebook.com/MsBizPodcast
www.BoltzLegal.com
www.BoltzMedia.com

Ep. 28 Part 2 | Scaling Success: Proven Marketing Strategies for Every Business Size

Welcome to Episode 28 where we explore the intricacies of marketing strategy tailored for businesses of all sizes—small, medium, and large. This episode takes a deep dive into effective marketing approaches for different scales of businesses, offering valuable insights and strategies to enhance your online presence.
Join us as we unravel the secrets behind successful marketing strategies. We'll delve into the specific needs and challenges faced by small businesses aiming to establish their digital footprint, share strategies for medium-sized enterprises seeking growth, and discuss how large corporations can maintain a strong and impactful online presence.
Throughout this episode, we'll provide actionable tips and insights to help you navigate the complexities of marketing in today's dynamic business landscape. From effective customization of your online profiles, including the use of images, colors, and concise business descriptions, to understanding the key components of a successful marketing strategy, we've got you covered.
Discover how to leverage strategic thinking to propel your business into the digital spotlight. Whether you're a small business owner looking to make a mark, part of a medium-sized enterprise seeking growth, or involved in the marketing efforts of a large corporation, this episode is tailored to meet your needs.
Join us on this journey into the world of marketing strategy, where we explore the nuances of crafting compelling and impactful campaigns. Like, subscribe, and share if you're ready to take your marketing game to the next level. Welcome to Episode 28—Marketing Strategy for Small, Medium, and Large Businesses. Let's dive in!
Msbizpod.podbean.com
www.facebook.com/MsBizPodcast
www.BoltzLegal.com
www.BoltzMedia.com
 

Ep. 28 | Scaling Success: Proven Marketing Strategies for Every Business Size

Welcome to Episode 28 where we explore the intricacies of marketing strategy tailored for businesses of all sizes—small, medium, and large. This episode takes a deep dive into effective marketing approaches for different scales of businesses, offering valuable insights and strategies to enhance your online presence.
Join us as we unravel the secrets behind successful marketing strategies. We'll delve into the specific needs and challenges faced by small businesses aiming to establish their digital footprint, share strategies for medium-sized enterprises seeking growth, and discuss how large corporations can maintain a strong and impactful online presence.
Throughout this episode, we'll provide actionable tips and insights to help you navigate the complexities of marketing in today's dynamic business landscape. From effective customization of your online profiles, including the use of images, colors, and concise business descriptions, to understanding the key components of a successful marketing strategy, we've got you covered.
Discover how to leverage strategic thinking to propel your business into the digital spotlight. Whether you're a small business owner looking to make a mark, part of a medium-sized enterprise seeking growth, or involved in the marketing efforts of a large corporation, this episode is tailored to meet your needs.
Join us on this journey into the world of marketing strategy, where we explore the nuances of crafting compelling and impactful campaigns. Like, subscribe, and share if you're ready to take your marketing game to the next level. Welcome to Episode 28—Marketing Strategy for Small, Medium, and Large Businesses. Let's dive in!
Msbizpod.podbean.com
www.facebook.com/MsBizPodcast
www.BoltzLegal.com
www.BoltzMedia.com
 

Ep. 27 | Your Business in One Scan: Linking all Social Media via QR Code

In episode 27, we discuss the ease of directing clients to your online presence using a single QR code. We walk you through creating an *All My Links* account, a service that consolidates all your social media profiles and website links into one space. You'll discover how to customize your profile with images, colors, and a brief business description. Plus, we take you through the process of creating a personalized QR code from *QR Monkey*. This QR code will directly link your clients to your diverse online presence. Watch and learn how to make it simple for your clients to access all of your business platforms in one scan! Dive into a world of convenience and efficiency. If you appreciate this video, don't forget to like, subscribe, and share!
Msbizpod.podbean.com
www.facebook.com/MsBizPodcast
www.BoltzLegal.com
www.BoltzMedia.com
Full episode transcript:
Brooke: QR codes are an excellent way to get people to visit your website and connect with you on social media But wouldn't it be nice to have one QR code to take someone to all those URLs in? Today's episode not only are we going to show you how to create a beautiful QR code, but we are also going to show you how to create one that has all your links. Stay tuned and be sure to watch this episode on YouTube so you can see our screen sharing screen sharing where we walk you through step by step how to create these links.
Rachel: QR codes are an excellent way to gain traction to your website, as well as to connect with individuals on social media. The great thing about QR codes is they can be used on a multitude of different marketing materials. So for example, you can have a QR code printed onto a flyer and you can connect with potential clients at an event.
Or if you have an office and you want to connect with some of your clients in the office, you can have them connect via a card or something that's on your desk. If you're at an event, also you can have a banner created or if you're just sponsoring like a football team, you can have a QR code printed and put on that banner so that people who just come in contact with your banner can then learn more about your business and connect with you. Business cards are another great way. Even like decals for your vehicle. If you're a construction worker in the construction industry and you have a business vehicle, using a QR code is a great way to get people who are in their cars, probably using their phones and they're not supposed to be, to be able to at least get your information in their phone quickly versus trying to memorize how to get in touch with you.
You just make the process a little bit simpler for them to be able to connect with you and it's very effective. So what is great about all my links is because instead of having multiple QR codes for your website, your Facebook page, your Instagram, and any other platform that you're on, you can create an account on all my links for free. And then once you create that account, you can create a QR code that'll take people to every single link that you have about your business. And it even gives the opportunity for you to put a brief bio in your account. So it's a great way just to give people a real quick first glance of who you are, what you do, and how they can connect with you.
So I'm going to share my screen here. And we'll get started. So the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to go to all my links.com. Then what you're going to want to do is you're going to want to sign up for all my links if you don't have an account already. So we're going to do this for Miss this.
You enter in your email address, you will want to make sure that this is an email address that you have access to. Because what you're going to have to do is you're going to have to verify the account. Set up a password that's going to be difficult for people to hack into or guess just like you would with anything, then you have your unique username. So this is podcast. If you can have something that simple and that kind of goes along with all of your other handles on social media, that's what I would recommend using.
Alright, So from here, what you're going to do is you're going to put all of your usernames in the into the links. So this is super easy. All you're doing is entering in the username. So ours, because it's consistent on all platforms, like in literally just take the same username and put it on all of these, we do not have the Snapchat or Tumblr yet. And this is not all of the list.
Once you add your usernames for these accounts, it'll give you the option to add more usernames to like TikTok. So right now we are just saving this information and boom. So heres what we can do from our main profile is we can hit the Add button. This is where we can add our TikTok. Once you add that, then you can just go through the list and make sure that you have everything there.
This one's really important. This is your web link. We are excited to announce that we are going to be launching our new website soon. So once we have our website there, we will add that on there for LinkedIn. It's the same thing.
Rachel: So everything is consistent around the board. So you're going to add all of your platforms in here. I can add a logo. This is something that's really good because when people scan the QR code, this is what they're going to be looking at. 
You can edit your profile picture, anything that you want to go in there. Edit profile. This is an excellent feature to use. This is where you can put like a small little bio about your business and like any tag lines that you have just to explain exactly what you do, because for example, you may have a gutter company, but you may do more than just gutter installation and maintenance. You may do pressure washing, you may do painting, interior and exterior painting.
So this gives you a way to let your customers know exactly what your services are. If you enjoy the Miss Biz podcast but still have questions or need advice, We have some exciting news for you. Join us for Miss Biz Connects. Miss Biz Connects is a weekly one hour Zoom call on Fridays at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
This is one hour each week dedicated to you. We want to meet you and put our brains together to help you grow personally, professionally, and spiritually. To access the meeting link, visit us on our social media pages at Miss Biz Podcast or send us an email to msbizpod@gmail.com.
Brooke: Join us this Friday and let's grow the Miss Biz Nation.
Rachel: Okay, so after you set up your account, you're gonna be taken to your home screen. On the home screen, there's a section that has a profile picture that you can insert. It's got your business name, it's got the handle for all my links. It also has to where you can create additional platforms for social media to connect to, as well as your web web page. And in order to connect more social media pages or your web page, what you're going to do is you're going to want to hit this plus button that says add link.
It's blue and it's bright and it's on the right hand side. Then what you're going to do is you're going to click whatever type of link you want to insert. So for example, if you have a web link, you can click there, and then enter in whatever the website URL is. If you have YouTube, you can do the same thing. You can hit at whatever your handle is on YouTube.
And to see what your handle is, if you may not know, you can always go to Google. And you can search, for example, YouTube, Miss Biz podcast. And then you can click on it. And then you'll automatically see the handle right here. So if you don't know what your handles are Currently, there are ways that you can go about to find it so that you can simply copy it and paste it into where it says the web link or the username.
So after you have all of the links in there that you want to take your clients and potential clients to, then the next step that you're going to want to do is you're going to want to go to edit profile. From here, you can it's set up a lot like LinkedIn and Facebook, where you can have like your main profile picture on the left hand side and then you can have like a background image. So to pick the background image or the header image you're going to click on the little picture it looks like there's a little mountain on there, you're going to click on that. And that's where you can insert your logo or whatever that you want to use. We like for example, for our logo is too big for this.
So we're going to have to resize it to get it to fit properly. But that is where you would go to add it. Also, you can pick an image. This can be a picture of you. You upload the profile picture from your device.
So I'm going to pick a picture where Brooke looks better than me, which is all of them. And save. That is going to be the profile picture. Okay, then from here, you can change your color scheme. So this is great for your branding.
So when I made bold seagulls, I did red because that's one of them their main branding colors that sticks out for Miss Biz podcast, we are pinks, purples, very feminine, bright colors. And then a short bio, this is where you would put your tagline about your business. So for when I made one for Bolts Media, I put a striking difference in digital marketing because that's my slogan. But then in my about section, I gave more detail about what we do, you know, full service digital marketing firm that specializes in X, Y, and Z. So this is going to be really good if you're a business that does multiple services to include this information in there.
You can add your birthday if you want to add your birthday. You can show your view count on your profile. I think that that's a really cool feature. So if you know, if you handed out 75 flyers that had your All My Links QR code, you can get a count of how many out of the 75 actually went to your on my links page. And then you can show your latest post on your bio page.
And then if you had a profile that contained sensitive content, you could turn that on as well. There's a spot for analytics, there's all kinds of different features that you can get really into. But right now, for the sake of the purpose of creating the QR code, I just wanted to show you how to set up the initial account and then you can always go in there and modify it and tweak it and make it however you want it to be. So always remember to save your settings because that's something that really irritates me when I do all this work and then I don't save my settings. So make sure that you are saving the latest and greatest.
Then what you're going to do to get your QR code. You can go to your profile. This is going to be the link that you're wanting going to want to insert into whatever QR code generator that you make. You know we're all about that case, about that case, no trouble. All about that case, about that case, no trouble.
All about that case, about that case, no trouble. All about that case, about that case, no trouble. All about that case, about that case.
Brooke: At Bolts Legal, we are all about your case. Text or call to schedule a free consultation for all your legal needs. BoltsLegal.com.
Rachel: So I really like using QR Monkey. It's very easy to use. You can make a very beautiful QR code. And it's very simple to use. So I just go into QR, Google, I type in QR monkey.
The first one is going to take you to an ad I try not to cost them money. So I go and I scroll down to click on the next available link. So as soon as you get to QR Monkey, there's going to be a spot that says enter content. This is very important to click on because that is the URL that automatically gets populated is the one that goes directly to QR Monkey. And if you don't update this, you're going to be making a QR code to go to QR Monkey and you don't want that.
So you're going to want to copy and paste your URL to your All My Links page. Then what's really cool about this is you can set your colors. So you can do single color, you can do a color gradient, or you can do like a custom eye color. I really like doing the color gradient, because I just think it makes it look better. Now, to do this, you can either do a couple things you can, you know, scroll to find the color that you want for for that.
Or what I like to do, I, I love Canva. And I will often go on here to find out what colors are in the branding. So our logo is primarily white. If there were other colors, I could actually go on here and find out what the color code is. So you're going to go to Canva.
You're going to click on something that you can change the color to. So here is a text box that I clicked on. Once the text box is clicked, you can hit the little plus sign. It has like a rainbow background and it says add new color. Now from here, it's going to take you to a little it looks like a little would you call that broke like a little color.
It's like a color. It looks it's a so it's an image and it almost looks like one of those tinnitus that you use for like tincture. Yes, that you used for the dropper. That's what it looks like to me. So from here, you're going to click the dropper.
It's below all the colors on the right hand side. And then you can take that and search whatever you color color you want. So it could be in your logo or it could be in your background. So I'm gonna click that. Once I click that, it's gonna change the shape color, which I really didn't wanna do.
But what I really want the whole point is I wanna find out what this color number is. So I can take this, I can highlight it all and copy it. So this is number FF4AA5.
Brooke: You found that by once you put the dropper over the color you wanted and change the color next to the dropper the color code showed up?
Rachel: Yeah it's a little text box and it shows the unique number so if I wanted to do well we'll do this one first and then we'll do a different one. We'll add a couple of different colors in there. Was that it? So we're going to go back to QR Monkey, And then we copied the number and then we're gonna hit paste. That's under what box?
So this is under the color gradient foreground color. So I can even add another color if I want to. But I think this will be this will be good. We'll just do the color gradient here. Now from here, it gives you the color options.
That's just to make it look prettier. You can add a logo image. Once you click this, it's going to prompt you to upload the image. So I'm going to go to the Miss Biz folder and upload our logo. Once the logo is uploaded, you can click this little box that says remove the background but because our logo is white it just removed the whole thing so that may not always be the best day.
Oh I clicked remove the logo and what I meant is remove the background behind the logo so if there's any extra it kind of just shapes it up a little bit nicer and then what you would do from here they give you a bunch of other logos to put on there So if you were making a logo specifically for Facebook, you could collect you could select a Facebook logo to go on top of it. But since this is going to be for all of our links, I really just want our branding on there so people know. And then the next option is to customize the design. So it's cool about this is there are many different options now that you can use for how you want your QR code to look. So there's the traditional way.
And if you hit create QR code, it'll give you like a preview of what it'll look like. And then you can just go option by option and see which one you like the best. So they have kinds that just have like little dots on it. They have kinds that have bigger dots on it. They have other styles that have like dots and lines.
So you can really customize this for whatever you think looks best for your business. So which one do you like, Brooke? I like the bigger. Like that one. All right, we'll rock with it.
And you can change this anytime. Like if you want to create a different QR code, the URL is always going to be the same, but you can make it your own. You can also change the shape as well. And you can just keep recreating it until you find something that you really like. Right And then the other thing that you can change, this is the eyeball shape.
So if you wanted to go with like the whole circle look, you can make it look any way that you want. Okay, so now that you have it the way that you want it to look it's aesthetically pleasing to you, then you download the PNG. It's going to show you an ad because this is a free thing that you can use. So they are offering this for you for free because people are paying for advertisements. So once it's done, it's going to tell you that it's done generating and that it's going it's downloading your QR code.
So right here in my screen, where my download section is, I can look and I can see that the QR code was downloaded. I'm going to open it up. And then I am going to save this in our folder for Miss Biz. That way I always have this no matter what if I'm if I need to add it to a flyer or if I need to add it to a banner or whatever purpose I need, I always have it here. So I'm just going to change it to all my links, QR code.
And then what would happen after you print this, your client is or potential client is going to take their phone and they're going to scan it. So they would automatically be taken to all of your links. And we'll show you how that looks We appreciate you and are honored to be on this journey with you. We can't wait to help you, to encourage you, and show you how to grow personally, professionally, and spiritually.
Brooke: If you found Miss Biz helpful, please leave a review and share with others.
Rachel: You can follow us on social media at Miss Biz Podcast. For legal questions or services, please visit BoltsLegal.com. And for digital marketing needs, please visit BoltsMedia.com. Let's get biz done.
 

Ep. 26 Part 2 | Speak to Win: Master the Art of Public Speaking

In episode 26 we dive deep into the anatomy of a winning speech. We talk about crucial components such as the *hook*, the importance of the topic, telling a unique story, providing memorable "_jaw-dropping_" moments, and ensuring a strong closing. We recommend writing out the full speech, rehearsing it, and then trimming it down to bullet points. Recording your speeches on video can aid in spotting any awkward mannerisms or habits. In our discussion, we also emphasize that the length of the speeches should not exceed 18 minutes and PowerPoint slides, should they be required, must comprise more images than words.We also bring to light common mistakes that speakers tend to make which include turning their speech into a sales pitch, lack of a clear point in the talks, and focusing too much on their company rather than the main ideas.Not only that, we share some practice tips including testing out humor in your speech, practicing in an audience setting, and even using your kids for honest feedback. We discuss follow-up options like tuning into the Miss Biz podcast and being part of the social media discussions. Moreover, we extend our support to the viewers by offering to help improve their speaking skills through the Miss Biz podcast community and Zoom calls for interactive discussions and support. We encourage our viewers to write reviews as it significantly helps the podcast grow! Tune in to know more about mastering the art of public speaking.
Msbizpod.podbean.com
www.facebook.com/MsBizPodcast
www.BoltzLegal.com
www.BoltzMedia.com
 
Full episode transcript:
Brooke: Have you ever had a favorite radio show, talk show, or podcast where even though you had never met the host, you liked and trusted them anyway? I used to listen to the Bobby Bones Show, and even though I had never met Bobby, Eddie, Amy, or Lunchbox, I felt as though I knew them. When Amy gave a recipe for a green smoothie, you'd better believe I was going to try it. We all know that building relationships is the key to business growth. But what if, instead of building relationships one by one, we could build them by the dozens, hundreds, or maybe even thousands.
Public speaking has the ability to increase our influence exponentially. Own that stage. [♪upbeat music playing. 
Rachel: Did you know that the fear of public speaking is the world's number one phobia and is believed to affect about 75% of people across the globe? That number to me is mind-blowing because out of everything that is complained about, spiders, snakes, claustrophobia, public speaking is the highest. According to Chris Anderson, author of the book, TED Talk, the reason why we are often so scared of speaking in front of a crowd isn't that there is a giant spider hidden on the podium or that the audience is bearing knives ready to attack if we don't impress. We are often anxious to speak in public because there is something at stake, which is our reputation. We value what others think about us a lot.
We crave the respect, the support, and the affection of others, and our future happiness depends on people liking us to some degree. So we've come to believe that what happens on a public stage can either make or break us. Fortunately, when it comes to public speaking, you can use your fear as an incredible asset. With the right mindset, you can turn your fear into the motivation that will persuade you to prepare for a talk properly. So in terms of Brooke, she is an excellent public speaker.
She goes on stage and she just has this natural gift and ability to captivate the audience's attention. Not only are they paying attention, but it's so quiet. Most of the time it's so quiet you can hear a pin drop, which really is an art and a skill because a lot of times in these big conventions or events, people are still carrying on conversation. So when you can take away all distractions and make people focus on just you and really listen to what the message that you're trying to convey. That is a true gift.
So I'm super excited for today's episode so that we can hear all the great information and insights that Brooke has to share.
Brooke: Thank you so much for that, Rachel. And public speaking has become something that I really enjoy. And so I've put together kind of this outline of what I call the anatomy of a winning speech, so that you can create speeches that you can feel comfortable and confident about presenting. First, I want to dispel the myth that the ability to speak publicly is an innate talent given to only a select few. It's actually a broad ranging set of skills that can be learned.
So if you believe that you just don't have the knack for it, that is not true, you can hone that skill and become a talented public speaker in the same way that anyone else can. No matter how low you currently rate your ability to speak in front of a crowd, there are things you can do to not only improve that but to become excellent at it. So in addition to just planning your speech though, you want to plan your introduction. You want there to be anticipation and credibility that's built before you ever take the stage. So choose a person to introduce you, preferably someone you know well and who has an authentic enthusiasm.
So you might have guessed it, anytime I give a public speech, Rachel Bolz is who gives me an introduction. She is incredible at it, and I'll let you tell her, or her tell you a little bit about how that experience has been for her. But You want someone who's gonna be enthusiastic, but also be able to speak from the heart about you. You can write the introduction for them. If there's someone who just doesn't know what to say, but has the skillset to say it well, then you can write it for them.
It should be impactful and highlight your biggest successes, but also be short enough that it can be memorized or stated without reading it utilizing bullet points or something like that. If possible, as you come to the stage, play pump up music that helps build the anticipation of your speech as well. But if that's not possible in the venue where you are, then your person who introduces you needs to be especially energetic as they announce your name and that kind of looks like and now ladies and gentlemen please welcome to the stage and just really be energetic and full of enthusiasm
Rachel: yes So when Brooke first started having me introduce her, I was completely petrified and I didn't necessarily want to say that to her because I didn't want to complain. And at the end of the day, if Brooke asked me to do something, I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it with a smile on my face. So what kind of helped me is she gave me some pointers of things to say but also I know her very well. So it was a topic that I was very comfortable with doing. It was something that I can rehearse and if I can't memorize it, I can at least remember the majority of it.
And just being able to, for me, to feel the emotion. Like when I think about Brooke, I think of someone I care about very much someone I believe in someone that I trust so of course I can introduce her with enthusiasm and excitement regardless of how nervous I may have been when
Brooke: I initially started. So find your Rachel, find your person who can introduce you, who knows you, who cares for you, and who can do it enthusiastically. So plan your introduction. Don't just show up and be the speaker because you want that energy to start before you even step on stage. So if you plan it out, then you will have an impactful beginning.
You will captivate the audience before you even get there because they will think this is someone important coming to the stage. I need to pay attention.
That something is called an idea, a mental framework that they can hold on to walk away with value and be changed by. In other words, a takeaway. If they have one takeaway from your speech that they remember, then that is an A plus speech. They will remember you. And that's usually a sign for me as well if I've done a good speech is when people come up to me weeks and months and years later and say, this was my takeaway from your speech.
And because of that, I did this or change that or bought the book you mentioned or whatever it was. They took action in some way because of something that I said. That is how you can know that you're giving an effective speech. So beyond that, you want to pray about what God wants you to share and what the people need to hear. And Anytime I give a speech, this is where I start.
I just sit and pray and say, God, what is the message that these people need to hear and that you want me to share? And I just take time and do that and as I'm in that time of prayer eventually ideas start coming to me and I get that central topic you really want to just have one key point that is the takeaway that you're trying to drive home.
Rachel: So it's almost like you're writing something backwards
Brooke: where you come up with your main topic and then you develop it from there. Yeah, absolutely. You gotta have your topic first. And so ask yourself the simple question, do I have ideas that deserve a wider audience? If you can't answer this question confidently, then you need to get to work and come up with something that is worth sharing.
Beyond praying, you also can look for ideas through reading or reading books or listening to audiobooks or listening to other speakers or podcasts to get new ideas. Another thing that you can do is reflect on your work over the past four to five years. What really stands out? What are two or three things that you've done that you are most proud of? I'm gonna share the anatomy of a five-minute speech that I gave at a conference recently to give you a tangible example of these tips in action.
So as to choosing my topic, I knew that at this conference I was going to be debuting my law firm's music video called All About That Case.
Rachel: Which if you haven't checked it out, you better look it up on YouTube because it is amazing.
Brooke: It was really fun and it's a parody of the Meghan Trainor song, All About That Bass, and we changed it to all about that case and Rachel and I are singing and dancing and it's a lot of fun. So yes, please if you haven't seen it, check it out. But we were debuting the video at this conference and it was a conference for chiropractors. So hundreds of chiropractors would be in the room. So I needed a topic that was going to be relevant to the video.
So I chose the topic of taking risks in business because I thought it was something that would apply to the video, which was not something you traditionally would see from a law firm, and also would apply to chiropractors who are business owners themselves, and who could relate to taking risks sometimes to try to grow your business. So you I came up with that topic. And then next is your hook. You want to tell us a little about the hook?
Rachel: Yeah. So your hook is is what you have to start off with you have to jump out the gate with it and Don't thank your guests for being there. Don't say my name is don't say today We're gonna talk about X Brooks hook was raise your hand if that was the stupidest video you've ever seen. And of course some people raise their hands. So then Brooke said excuse me while I go cry.
And will you tell them tell us a little bit about why you use that hook?
Brooke: Yeah. So in using this hook, I got their attention right at the beginning because I was asking them to participate. I was asking them a question. I said, raise your hand if that was the stupidest video you've ever seen. So because they're having to respond, they are engaged, they're paying attention.
The second thing that this hook was designed to do is to bring some humor, especially when I said, Excuse me when I go cry, that got some laughs and incorporating humor into your, your speech is a way to present yourself in a likable way. If you aren't a funny person, naturally some things that you could do to bring humor into a speech are either one, make fun of yourself. That always works for me. Just crack a joke about yourself. People laugh at that.
And second, which is pretty easy, is you can incorporate some photos or some memes that go along with your subject matter. That is a pretty easy way to incorporate some humor into your speech.
Rachel: Humor is also a really good way to cover up any type of mistakes that you make. So for example, Brooke had me on stage one time and I did not know that I was going to be reading things across the room. The font was like this light yellow color and the contrast wasn't very good. Well, I have a stigmatism that I still haven't gone to the doctor for and I need to go see an eye doctor. And I was reading these questions and some of the fonts I could see and then others I just could not see at all.
And there was a room full of people and I just started making fun of myself. I was like, is there an eye doctor in the house? Like and then you know while I was trying to figure out how to solve that problem, I was just trying to make them laugh because I didn't want to just stand there and not know what to say.
Brooke: So that was the perfect way for her to handle that. Honestly, also too, it If people recognize that you're having a struggle of some sort, which she was wasn't able to see the screen, then they're they're naturally rooting for you because they know that you're kind of uncomfortable or if you're nervous too, and people can can feel that they they want you to succeed and they have a great amount of grace for you when you're in a position like that. And the final thing that this hook did for me is that it allowed me to make myself vulnerable by inviting them to criticize me from the very beginning. It was showing a sense of vulnerability. And if you let go of your ego, it comes across in your favor just in the same way as if you're nervous, people will let their guard down and start internally rooting for you because you are viewed as a vulnerable, genuine person.
Brooke: The author of the book, Ted Talks, Chris Anderson, said, willingness to be vulnerable is one of the most powerful tools a speaker can yield.
Rachel: I think that asking people to raise their hands in response to a question is a pretty good way to start a speech. It gets their attention and causes them to do some self-reflection as they wonder where is she going with this? Also they are automatically engaged.
Brooke: Yeah so if all else fails start your speech with raise your hand if and I've done that several times and I think it is It's a generally good way that you can start a speech if you don't have something else that is is a hook that you're wanting to use.
Rachel: Yeah, and you're commanding their attention at that point. So if you've ever been on stage before, sometimes in certain settings, it's very hard to get everybody to stop talking or to listen or to end their conversation. I remember one time we were having an event and everybody just kept talking and no matter what I said or did, at that point, they weren't listening. So then I just started being goofy and I was like, if I say crack, you say my back. And then everybody got into it because it caused them to participate.
It was corny. Some people laughed. So I think getting them to engage is key when you're starting your speech.
Brooke: Absolutely. So after you start with your hook, the next thing that I do in a speech is to explain to them why your topic is relevant or important by using an authority figure or statistics. So this is going to Google and doing some research on why this is an important topic. And for my particular speech, I referenced successful business owners. I said, anytime that I meet a super successful business owner, I asked them, what is the secret to your success?
And then the answer is always word of mouth referrals. And then I also referenced another authority figure who was Jesse Cole, the owner of the Savannah Banana baseball team, because he says that The way to get people talking about you is to create you wouldn't believe moments. So I laid the framework for why this was an important topic by referencing other authority figures. So that's step two after your hook
Rachel: So because it's what successful business owners say it's something that we need to pay attention to so using that statistic or that research or that data or like what Brooke did in Referencing that authority figure that is going to be a way to show them right off the bat why your message matters. Plus, when they think about someone that they know or they've had a good experience watching, it creates that connection right off the bat.
Brooke: So next, after laying the groundwork for why it's a relevant or important topic is to tell your story. Now, we all have a lot of experiences in our lifetime, so you have to choose a story that is relevant to your topic because everything you say needs to follow along the journey of your speech. You can't take rabbit trails and go talking about something off topic. So you have to find a story about yourself that conveys your unique identity, but also stays on track with the main topic of your speech. Conveying your unique identity and telling your story is probably the most important part of your speech.
If you do nothing else, but this, it will be a B plus speech, right, You will get high marks for doing nothing but telling your story and telling your story in a convincing and genuine way. So These other things will bring you to an A plus speech, but your story is probably the most important part.
Rachel: Scientific studies show that good stories excite the human brain, which results in a deep bond between the speaker and the audience. That is from Carmine Gallo, the author of the book Talk Like Ted.
Brooke: So the story that I shared in my five-minute speech at the conference was about an opening statement that I gave at a trial when I worked for the insurance company side of things. I talked about a time where I sang to the jury half of the insurance company's jingle and then stopped to see if the jury would sing back to me the second half of the jingle. This is not something you usually see on Law & Order, attorneys singing in the courtroom. Certainly you don't see jury singing in the courtroom. Incredibly risky.
Very risky. If these jurors did not play along with me, it would have gone down as the most embarrassing moment of my legal career. But to my surprise and relief, they sang and because they sang back to me the second half of that jingle. It was just this incredible emotional report building moment. And I told this story and went on to say how I won the trial by unanimous verdict of this jury and how it was, you know, such an impactful moment.
So what did that story convey about me? Well, it conveyed that you're a risk taker, you're creative, you're different, You're not like other attorneys. It
Rachel: showed that the jury liked you. Obviously, if they didn't like you, they wouldn't have participated in seeing the second half of the jingle. It also showed that you built a rapport quickly. It showed the audience that you have trial experience, that you win trials, you think outside the box, and you're willing to be different. So telling my story
Brooke: showed the jury all of those characteristics of myself, and I didn't have to tell them any of it. I didn't have to go up there and say, I'm a creative attorney or I'm different than other attorneys. I didn't have to say that because I told a story that in that they could infer that from they could they could recognize that without me having to tell them and that's the kind of story you want to tell about yourself find something that conveys what your unique identity is, but don't tell them. It would have ruined the moment if I in the middle of the speech said, and because I did that and because the jury sang back to me, then that means that I am super creative and jurors love me, right? That would have totally ruined the moment.
So I was conveying that message without saying it and people understood that I was unique and creative and that I had been to trial and all those things that Rachel said. And so that's what you want to look for. Find that kind of story.
Rachel: And I mean, honestly, that was the perfect story to say in front of a room with chiropractors because they are probably all using all kinds of different personal injury attorneys. But they were able to see that you are different, that you're not like anybody else. Especially if we backtrack a little bit before brooke got on the stage, another personal injury attorney got on stage and it was the most, yeah, it was, it was not the most exciting. I will say that they pretty much did everything that Brooke and I just told you not to do. They did and it was very quick.
But then when Brooke came, it completely captivated their attention and it was, you know, a complete 180 from what they just saw.
Brooke: And that other law firm in their defense did what typical law firms do. They got on the stage and said, we do this type of law. We'd love to work with you. We're great at what we do. And, you know, come see us in the back and we've achieved these different accomplishments.
And that is what people typically do when they get on stage and they have the opportunity to present themselves. But it was frankly a lost opportunity because they had a captive audience of potential doctors who could refer them the business and by not being more memorable they just kind of lost out on an opportunity.
Rachel: And they paid a lot of money to be there. True. They paid a lot of money to be there. So if you have the opportunity to shine, especially when you have a room full of people, make the most out of it. Make it the most memorable and engaging experience for your audience.
That way they will remember you and that will be what separates you from other individuals in your industry. You know, we're all about that case but that case no trouble all about that case about that case no trouble All about that case about that case no trouble all about that case about that case
Brooke: A boat's legal we are all about your case Text or call to schedule a free consultation for all your legal needs. BoltsLegal.com. And again, this speech was literally five minutes. So you can make a lot happen in five minutes. The video was three minutes.
So in total it was an eight minute presentation. And if you count Rachel's introduction, it was maybe another minute. So less than 10 minutes, our entire presentation. But I can tell you that many people came up to us after the fact and...
Rachel: There was a line of people waiting to talk to Brooke. But you
Brooke: know what's so interesting is before we went on stage, we had a booth with our stuff that we were giving away, and which we could talk about that another time, but it was all the theme of the giveaways all related to our All About That Case theme. We were also dressed in our costumes from the All About That Case video. So it was all very connected. But before we went on the stage, we were passing things out and people weren't really proactively coming up to talk to us. We were kind of trying to, you know, engage with them.
And it kind of was a challenge. Then after we did our presentation, I didn't have to initiate another conversation the rest of the evening. There was people continuously coming up to talk with me and so much so that when the night ended, we were the last people there, the last few people, because we just had to talk to all the people who wanted to talk to us. So that is, I, that is a win to me is if people appreciate your speech enough that they want to meet you and talk to you, then that's a win because that's what it's all about anyways. So next in the anatomy of a winning speech is what I call you wouldn't believe moments, but what Carmen Gallo, the author of the Ted Talk book calls it a jaw dropping moment.
She says, a successful presentation or speaker always provides the audience with at least one jaw dropping moment that makes the whole event stay in their minds.
Rachel: Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, wanted to give a presentation to many global leaders on malaria and how it might be controlled in Africa and Asia. He provided a spectacular moment when he pulled out a jar full of mosquitoes and then unleashed them in the conference room to make the presentation exciting. When Gates announced that the mosquitoes were malaria-free, the crowd was shocked and puzzled, yet comfortable. Gates' Mosquitoes moment was the most rememberable and talked about part of his TED address, which lasted 18 minutes. Several news sources and wealthy social media accounts centered their coverage on the event causing the story to spread quickly across the globe.
Brooke: So my jaw-dropping moment or all about that case moment what not all about that kid What am I saying? My you wouldn't believe moment or jaw dropping use whatever you want. Was the all about that case video again, it was a dance video, a music video. So it was not something probably anybody has seen from a law firm before. So that was the jaw-dropping moment.
But probably, you know, a little bit lesser of jaw-dropping moments were also the fact that we were wearing our clothing from the video. So that was definitely made us stand out. And then we had giveaways that were We had little autograph sheets with our pictures on them where we we signed them kind of like a singer would So that was another memorable giveaway that was consistent with the message we were sending. And then my closing, which I'll share in a minute, was another memorable moment. So think about creating at least one jaw dropping moment in your speech that will get people talking.
Find your mosquitoes moment.
Rachel: Do you want to deliver something unique and emotionally intense to make it a memorable experience? You should also try to finish your presentation at a high note rather than letting your pace just sink. I see this a lot with speakers where you know they'll get to you know their main topic their peak and then it just kind of fizzles out from there. You want to make sure that you leave on a high note as well. So they feel excited and refreshed and ready to do business with you.
Make sure
Brooke: you have one insight they've never heard before. We do this every week when we create a podcast, we say to ourselves, what is that one thing that our listeners have never heard before? We want to be delivering value to you every week so that you have at least one takeaway that you can say I learned. And one of the reasons for that is because dopamine, the chemical in your brain that makes you feel happy is ignited when you learn something new. When you acquire new knowledge, your brain experiences a dopamine response.
So if you are teaching them something new in this entertaining type of way or captivating type of way, then that dopamine release will allow them to number one, remember it in a positive light and number two, remember it at all. They will remember you.
Rachel: Yeah. I mean, also you should try To from from just a selfless perspective. You should want to add value to their lives You know when we're doing our miss biz podcast, you know We hear so many other podcasts where they're like, oh make great content, but they don't tell you how to make great content. You'll listen to the whole flippin' episode and still not know what you're doing. And it's the same stuff you've heard before.
So that's why we take the extra time to show you how to do it or explain and give examples because we genuinely want to help you. And that's what you want to do with your audience. You genuinely want to do something that's going to add value to your lives because nine times out of 10, Even if you can't send somebody else business, there's things that you can do to add value to their life through knowledge.
Brooke: 100%. So finally, in the anatomy of a speech is the closing. And just like the opening, you want to use the closing to make another impact. Don't say thank you for being here. Don't say I appreciate so much this opportunity.
Don't say that your last sentence needs to leave them wanting more. So my closing in the five minute speech was so let's raise our glasses and you know what we're going to do. Sing with me. You know, we're all about that case, about that case, no trouble. And we did the same thing that I had mentioned in my unique identity story, but applied it to this event.
And we sang together the all about that case chorus. And that was hopefully a memorable ending. And as soon as we finished that, I said thank you and I left the stage.
Rachel: And it was amazing because I was listening and I was like completely shocked that she was up there singing, but it captivated everybody's attention because it's not something that's normal. And everybody sang with her. And it was just a beautiful bonding moment. So even if you can't necessarily sing, let's say you're not a good singer, do something else to get them involved and to leave them feeling good.
Brooke: Yeah, they could they could you could be a saying a quote or something and It doesn't always have to be even something where they're saying something out loud. There's all kinds of different closings I've done before. You can listen to other speakers as well to hear how they close out, but it just needs to be something where they are left wanting more. Just not the thank you so much for having me like that's that's missing an opportunity again to leave on a high note.
Rachel: You want to find that mic drop moment.
Brooke: Yes,
Rachel: not the mosquito moment because that can be kind of scary. Although maybe mosquitoes Okay, but you know that mic drop moment where you just leave the stage like feeling like you just you just owned it You just you did a great job and it's gonna leave everybody Excited to work with you excited to meet you and get to know you and learn from you So let's talk now about some of
Brooke: the technical components. Those are the components of what to put into the speech. But when it comes to actually sitting down and writing it, I wanted to give you some tips on doing that. So the first thing I do is sit down at the computer and just type out word for word what I want to say because I want to be able to see it in black and white. So I write it all down in sentence format.
Then I start reading it out loud to see how it sounds. And inevitably I'm gonna be making changes, putting this here, moving that there, saying, I need to tweak this sentence. It doesn't sound as good as it does when I read it in my head. So reading it out loud is going to give you an idea of how it's gonna sound to an audience. Then I go and remove, remove, remove anything that strays away from my central message.
Everything needs to be precisely targeted at your central message. Any rabbit trails, you've got to delete. You'll lose their attention. And so you've got to stay on point. So I remove anything that is superfluous or doesn't need to be stated or if it's duplicative.
I don't need to tell two stories. I can tell one story to drive my point home. Second story, I might lose them. So I remove anything that isn't essential and necessary. Then I revise it and continue rehearsing.
Then once I've rehearsed it So much that I've almost got it memorized, not completely memorized, but I know my stories, I know the flow pretty well. I take all the, I make a second document which is just bullet points. And those bullet points are just a couple of words to remind me what to do. So, for example, in my five-minute speech, I would say... Let's see, how did it start with the...
Is that the most stupid video you've ever seen? That would be the bullet point. Then the second bullet point would be Jesse Cole, Savannah Bananas. Then the second third bullet point would be whatever. At the end, it would say, raise your glasses, you know, just a quick phrase so that if I lose my spot And my mind goes blank and I don't know what's next.
I can look down and remember this is what is next. You cannot go on the stage with full sentences written out. You cannot read a speech. People don't want to be read to. They want to hear from you from your heart.
They don't want to be read to. So, and I can tell you that if you have sentences and you think I'm just gonna look at them to find my spot, you can't, you can't quickly look down and find your spot in full sentence format. So you've gotta do these bullet points, but I don't do them till the very end when I've got the flow of the speech and I like the flow of the speech, then I do the bullet points last, and then I rehearse a bunch of times with just the bullet points.
Rachel: Most people cannot read and convey the message as if they're talking. A very small percentage of people can, but the majority of people can't. And it ends up sounding very boring, very robotic, and it's not connecting with the audience, whereas if you already know what you're gonna say, you're confident about it, you're able to really reach heart-to-heart with them and connect in a way that can't be done if you're just simply reading the speech. I think what also helped me, especially if you're new to giving presentations and speaking, is recording myself and not just recording audio, but video recording and video recording your entire body because I know for me I felt like an awkward turtle when I would get on stage and I was like I don't know what to do with my hands, I don't know what to do with my eyes, I feel like I'm just staring at one person, you know. So when you're able to record yourself and see yourself on video, not only can you pay more attention to your body language and how you're interacting, but you can also figure out like your tone of voice and your influx and maybe certain things you thought in your head you were emphasizing they don't come out that way so maybe you have to practice exaggerating that a little bit so I find recording myself to be very helpful.
Brooke: That is a great pointer and it reminded me of something that I didn't realize that I was doing, but I learned about it in kind of an embarrassing way. When I was in court, I would, and I do this all the time anyways I kind of sway from foot to foot back and forth from my right foot to my left foot and it's because I don't know I guess I'm wearing heels in court and so your feet are kind of uncomfortable So I would just shift my weight from foot to foot and kind of sway back and forth. I didn't realize I was doing it. And one time a witness who was on the witness stand said something to the effect of yes, the attorney over there who's swaying back and forth and and and I was like oh shoot other people realize it I've got to stop doing this and if I had video recorded myself my full body like you Suggested I would have recognized that I was doing that and I would have been more aware of it to try to stop doing
Rachel: it Absolutely. So use today's technology to your advantage We have all kinds of different resources that we can use also I find that kids are pretty good reliable source for telling you the truth about something. Usually they're brutally honest, so you know that is another good way to practice is actually practice in front of people and see like how it feels to get them involved and if they get involved and if not then try different techniques to make it more effective.
Brooke: Especially with humor parts you can test those out in just everyday conversation to see if people laugh or not. Cause that's sometimes in your mind, you think it's going to be hilarious. And then all of a sudden on stage, nobody laughs and you're like, Oh snap, that didn't work out. So the humor moments are really effective to try out on other people. So you know if they actually find it funny.
But the next thing is the amount of time that your speech lasts. You want it to be as short as it can, like as short as you can get your points in. That's as short as you want to be. Even Ted Talks, which are some of the most well-known talks that people give, are limited to 18 minutes. Regardless of whether it's given by Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or some other famous person, this is a guideline that you should observe.
If it's good enough for Ted, then it's good enough for us, right? 18 minutes is enough time. Now, if you are at a convention or something where they say you've got an hour long presentation, then maybe break it up some ways, bring some people on stage and do an interactive activity, play a video, do different things. Because someone told me our attention span is like eight seconds. So even at 18 minutes, if you can captivate them for that much time, that is exceptional, but an hour or even 30 minutes without some type of interaction or breaking it up in some way, you're probably gonna start to lose your audience.
Rachel: So as a speaker, there are only three styles of talks you must avoid at all cost. These styles are downright ugly and they're very dangerous both to your reputation and your audience's well-being. And here they are. The first one, that's the sales pitch. So according to Chris Anderson, it is a speaker's responsibility to give to the audience.
Sometimes most speakers get it completely wrong. They try to take from their audience. Remember, reputation is everything. You really don't want to come across as a tedious self-promoter. Nobody comes to a conference to be sold to, make sure that you're building your reputation as a generous speaker impacting the lives of your audience with something wondrous.
Brooke: Yes and the quote from Chris Anderson is the speaker's job is to give to the audience not take from them. The second type of talk you want to avoid at all costs is the ramble. Oh boy, I hear this one all the time. The ramble is the, You know it, we've all been there. The person who's just talking and talking, they're not on topic, they are not engaging, and they're just telling you something that is just not engaging and not something that you can latch onto, pay attention to, or even get value from because you're just bored.
And so the moment you stray from the point, excuse me, the moment you stray from the essential point of your speech and start rambling, you will lose your audience's attention.
Rachel: Absolutely. Then there's the org bore. Most people assume that all they have to do is to give a great talk is to simply outline their work or describe their organization or explore an issue. Some examples might be like, we're bolts legal and we handle personal injury law and this is how we do it and this is what we do and this is what caused it to happen. That's not a good idea.
Such talk will not likely end up being focused upon and will have very little impact. So don't frame your talk around the extraordinary history of your company or the NGO, or the laboratory and its complex yet effective structure, and the fabulous and astonishing talenting team that you're working with, and how much success your products are having. Don't do that. All of these things might sound interesting to you and the folks on your team, but guess what? Your listeners don't work at your company and hence they don't find such details to be very amusing, not even a bit.
Instead of going on and on about your company and its product, focus on the nature of your work and the power of the ideas that inspire you.
Brooke: One question that I've been asked before is, should I use slides? In other words, a PowerPoint presentation or slides in the speech. I think that using slides is a good idea in a limited way. Because the human brain does not pay attention to dull things, and our attention span is only eight seconds, you should try to appeal to more than one of the five senses. And using slides can do that because it's a visual representation of what you're talking about.
But only if used correctly. You should not put on the screen an outline of what you're talking about unless you're in a setting where you're teaching. If you're teaching a course and you're wanting people to take notes on everything that you're teaching, then yes, you can have an outline on the screen. But if you're giving a speech for impact purposes, you don't want to have an outline on the screen. You don't really want to have words on the screen much at all.
The only slides that I use are images that convey the message in a better way than words could. So if I'm talking about, I don't know, if I'm talking about the Savannah Bananas and Jesse Cole, and I would maybe put up a picture of the Savannah Bananas doing something really extreme as an example so that they can see that this is the type of this is not your ordinary baseball team. So I put a picture of the Savannah bananas. I would not write on the screen. Jesse Cole is the owner of the Savannah bananas.
There's a huge difference there. So using an image that is in line with your message but doesn't detract from it is the key to doing slides.
Rachel: It emphasizes what you're saying and the point that you're trying to make. And I agree with you where you say that, you know, it can be used against you in a sense, because I used to do presentations where I would have like even just pictures, like pictures of me and my kids or pictures of this and that and that. And I felt like people were like looking at the pictures more so than they were paying attention to what I was saying. So being able to figure out you know, what's the least amount of images or clips that I can play and what can I show briefly that will help drive in the point but not take away from what I'm trying to say?
Brooke: For every speaker, the following is true. Having no slides at all is better than bad slides. Agreed. Well, I'm excited to hear about all your speech giving successes. So check in with us.
We're at Miss Biz Podcast on social media. We have a Facebook group called Miss Biz Nation where you can come and share with us your feedback, your ideas, your questions. And then we have a weekly zoom call on Fridays at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time where we can be face-to-face together in a small group setting and share about our businesses and help each other to grow.
Rachel: And if you're on social media make sure that you check out our platforms we're at Miss Biz podcast on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. I think that's all of them. But make sure that you follow us and that you like our content because we do share some behind the scenes footage that's not aired on our show.
Brooke: If you're listening to us on a podcast platform, every one of our episodes is also on YouTube in a video format. And I don't know about you, but we talk with our hands, we make facial expressions, things like that. So if you have the time and want to check us out on YouTube, we'd love that. Also if you like our podcast and this will be the last thing I ask you to do. One of the best ways to help us grow is to write a review.
So if you wouldn't mind taking a moment just to write a review on our podcast, that really helps us to get the word out about our podcast.
Rachel: We appreciate you and are honored to be on this journey with you. We can't wait to help you, to encourage you, and show you how to
Brooke: grow personally, professionally, and spiritually. If you found Miss Biz helpful, please leave a review and share with others. You can follow us on social media at Miss Biz Podcast. For legal questions or services, please visit BoltzLegal.com.
Rachel: And for digital marketing needs, please visit boltsmedia.com. Let's get biz done.
Brooke: Thanks for watching. See you next time. Bye.
 

Ep. 26 | Speak to Win: Master the Art of Public Speaking

In episode 26 we dive deep into the anatomy of a winning speech. We talk about crucial components such as the *hook*, the importance of the topic, telling a unique story, providing memorable "_jaw-dropping_" moments, and ensuring a strong closing. We recommend writing out the full speech, rehearsing it, and then trimming it down to bullet points. Recording your speeches on video can aid in spotting any awkward mannerisms or habits. In our discussion, we also emphasize that the length of the speeches should not exceed 18 minutes and PowerPoint slides, should they be required, must comprise more images than words.We also bring to light common mistakes that speakers tend to make which include turning their speech into a sales pitch, lack of a clear point in the talks, and focusing too much on their company rather than the main ideas.Not only that, we share some practice tips including testing out humor in your speech, practicing in an audience setting, and even using your kids for honest feedback. We discuss follow-up options like tuning into the Miss Biz podcast and being part of the social media discussions. Moreover, we extend our support to the viewers by offering to help improve their speaking skills through the Miss Biz podcast community and Zoom calls for interactive discussions and support. We encourage our viewers to write reviews as it significantly helps the podcast grow! Tune in to know more about mastering the art of public speaking.
Msbizpod.podbean.com
www.facebook.com/MsBizPodcast
www.BoltzLegal.com
www.BoltzMedia.com
Full episode transcript:
Brooke: Have you ever had a favorite radio show, talk show, or podcast where even though you had never met the host, you liked and trusted them anyway? I used to listen to the Bobby Bones Show, and even though I had never met Bobby, Eddie, Amy, or Lunchbox, I felt as though I knew them. When Amy gave a recipe for a green smoothie, you'd better believe I was going to try it. We all know that building relationships is the key to business growth. But what if, instead of building relationships one by one, we could build them by the dozens, hundreds, or maybe even thousands.
Public speaking has the ability to increase our influence exponentially. Own that stage. [♪upbeat music playing. 
Rachel: Did you know that the fear of public speaking is the world's number one phobia and is believed to affect about 75% of people across the globe? That number to me is mind-blowing because out of everything that is complained about, spiders, snakes, claustrophobia, public speaking is the highest. According to Chris Anderson, author of the book, TED Talk, the reason why we are often so scared of speaking in front of a crowd isn't that there is a giant spider hidden on the podium or that the audience is bearing knives ready to attack if we don't impress. We are often anxious to speak in public because there is something at stake, which is our reputation. We value what others think about us a lot.
We crave the respect, the support, and the affection of others, and our future happiness depends on people liking us to some degree. So we've come to believe that what happens on a public stage can either make or break us. Fortunately, when it comes to public speaking, you can use your fear as an incredible asset. With the right mindset, you can turn your fear into the motivation that will persuade you to prepare for a talk properly. So in terms of Brooke, she is an excellent public speaker.
She goes on stage and she just has this natural gift and ability to captivate the audience's attention. Not only are they paying attention, but it's so quiet. Most of the time it's so quiet you can hear a pin drop, which really is an art and a skill because a lot of times in these big conventions or events, people are still carrying on conversation. So when you can take away all distractions and make people focus on just you and really listen to what the message that you're trying to convey. That is a true gift.
So I'm super excited for today's episode so that we can hear all the great information and insights that Brooke has to share.
Brooke: Thank you so much for that, Rachel. And public speaking has become something that I really enjoy. And so I've put together kind of this outline of what I call the anatomy of a winning speech, so that you can create speeches that you can feel comfortable and confident about presenting. First, I want to dispel the myth that the ability to speak publicly is an innate talent given to only a select few. It's actually a broad ranging set of skills that can be learned.
So if you believe that you just don't have the knack for it, that is not true, you can hone that skill and become a talented public speaker in the same way that anyone else can. No matter how low you currently rate your ability to speak in front of a crowd, there are things you can do to not only improve that but to become excellent at it. So in addition to just planning your speech though, you want to plan your introduction. You want there to be anticipation and credibility that's built before you ever take the stage. So choose a person to introduce you, preferably someone you know well and who has an authentic enthusiasm.
So you might have guessed it, anytime I give a public speech, Rachel Bolz is who gives me an introduction. She is incredible at it, and I'll let you tell her, or her tell you a little bit about how that experience has been for her. But You want someone who's gonna be enthusiastic, but also be able to speak from the heart about you. You can write the introduction for them. If there's someone who just doesn't know what to say, but has the skillset to say it well, then you can write it for them.
It should be impactful and highlight your biggest successes, but also be short enough that it can be memorized or stated without reading it utilizing bullet points or something like that. If possible, as you come to the stage, play pump up music that helps build the anticipation of your speech as well. But if that's not possible in the venue where you are, then your person who introduces you needs to be especially energetic as they announce your name and that kind of looks like and now ladies and gentlemen please welcome to the stage and just really be energetic and full of enthusiasm
Rachel: yes So when Brooke first started having me introduce her, I was completely petrified and I didn't necessarily want to say that to her because I didn't want to complain. And at the end of the day, if Brooke asked me to do something, I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it with a smile on my face. So what kind of helped me is she gave me some pointers of things to say but also I know her very well. So it was a topic that I was very comfortable with doing. It was something that I can rehearse and if I can't memorize it, I can at least remember the majority of it.
And just being able to, for me, to feel the emotion. Like when I think about Brooke, I think of someone I care about very much someone I believe in someone that I trust so of course I can introduce her with enthusiasm and excitement regardless of how nervous I may have been when
Brooke: I initially started. So find your Rachel, find your person who can introduce you, who knows you, who cares for you, and who can do it enthusiastically. So plan your introduction. Don't just show up and be the speaker because you want that energy to start before you even step on stage. So if you plan it out, then you will have an impactful beginning.
You will captivate the audience before you even get there because they will think this is someone important coming to the stage. I need to pay attention.
That something is called an idea, a mental framework that they can hold on to walk away with value and be changed by. In other words, a takeaway. If they have one takeaway from your speech that they remember, then that is an A plus speech. They will remember you. And that's usually a sign for me as well if I've done a good speech is when people come up to me weeks and months and years later and say, this was my takeaway from your speech.
And because of that, I did this or change that or bought the book you mentioned or whatever it was. They took action in some way because of something that I said. That is how you can know that you're giving an effective speech. So beyond that, you want to pray about what God wants you to share and what the people need to hear. And Anytime I give a speech, this is where I start.
I just sit and pray and say, God, what is the message that these people need to hear and that you want me to share? And I just take time and do that and as I'm in that time of prayer eventually ideas start coming to me and I get that central topic you really want to just have one key point that is the takeaway that you're trying to drive home.
Rachel: So it's almost like you're writing something backwards
Brooke: where you come up with your main topic and then you develop it from there. Yeah, absolutely. You gotta have your topic first. And so ask yourself the simple question, do I have ideas that deserve a wider audience? If you can't answer this question confidently, then you need to get to work and come up with something that is worth sharing.
Beyond praying, you also can look for ideas through reading or reading books or listening to audiobooks or listening to other speakers or podcasts to get new ideas. Another thing that you can do is reflect on your work over the past four to five years. What really stands out? What are two or three things that you've done that you are most proud of? I'm gonna share the anatomy of a five-minute speech that I gave at a conference recently to give you a tangible example of these tips in action.
So as to choosing my topic, I knew that at this conference I was going to be debuting my law firm's music video called All About That Case.
Rachel: Which if you haven't checked it out, you better look it up on YouTube because it is amazing.
Brooke: It was really fun and it's a parody of the Meghan Trainor song, All About That Bass, and we changed it to all about that case and Rachel and I are singing and dancing and it's a lot of fun. So yes, please if you haven't seen it, check it out. But we were debuting the video at this conference and it was a conference for chiropractors. So hundreds of chiropractors would be in the room. So I needed a topic that was going to be relevant to the video.
So I chose the topic of taking risks in business because I thought it was something that would apply to the video, which was not something you traditionally would see from a law firm, and also would apply to chiropractors who are business owners themselves, and who could relate to taking risks sometimes to try to grow your business. So you I came up with that topic. And then next is your hook. You want to tell us a little about the hook?
Rachel: Yeah. So your hook is is what you have to start off with you have to jump out the gate with it and Don't thank your guests for being there. Don't say my name is don't say today We're gonna talk about X Brooks hook was raise your hand if that was the stupidest video you've ever seen. And of course some people raise their hands. So then Brooke said excuse me while I go cry.
And will you tell them tell us a little bit about why you use that hook?
Brooke: Yeah. So in using this hook, I got their attention right at the beginning because I was asking them to participate. I was asking them a question. I said, raise your hand if that was the stupidest video you've ever seen. So because they're having to respond, they are engaged, they're paying attention.
The second thing that this hook was designed to do is to bring some humor, especially when I said, Excuse me when I go cry, that got some laughs and incorporating humor into your, your speech is a way to present yourself in a likable way. If you aren't a funny person, naturally some things that you could do to bring humor into a speech are either one, make fun of yourself. That always works for me. Just crack a joke about yourself. People laugh at that.
And second, which is pretty easy, is you can incorporate some photos or some memes that go along with your subject matter. That is a pretty easy way to incorporate some humor into your speech.
Rachel: Humor is also a really good way to cover up any type of mistakes that you make. So for example, Brooke had me on stage one time and I did not know that I was going to be reading things across the room. The font was like this light yellow color and the contrast wasn't very good. Well, I have a stigmatism that I still haven't gone to the doctor for and I need to go see an eye doctor. And I was reading these questions and some of the fonts I could see and then others I just could not see at all.
And there was a room full of people and I just started making fun of myself. I was like, is there an eye doctor in the house? Like and then you know while I was trying to figure out how to solve that problem, I was just trying to make them laugh because I didn't want to just stand there and not know what to say.
Brooke: So that was the perfect way for her to handle that. Honestly, also too, it If people recognize that you're having a struggle of some sort, which she was wasn't able to see the screen, then they're they're naturally rooting for you because they know that you're kind of uncomfortable or if you're nervous too, and people can can feel that they they want you to succeed and they have a great amount of grace for you when you're in a position like that. And the final thing that this hook did for me is that it allowed me to make myself vulnerable by inviting them to criticize me from the very beginning. It was showing a sense of vulnerability. And if you let go of your ego, it comes across in your favor just in the same way as if you're nervous, people will let their guard down and start internally rooting for you because you are viewed as a vulnerable, genuine person.
Brooke: The author of the book, Ted Talks, Chris Anderson, said, willingness to be vulnerable is one of the most powerful tools a speaker can yield.
Rachel: I think that asking people to raise their hands in response to a question is a pretty good way to start a speech. It gets their attention and causes them to do some self-reflection as they wonder where is she going with this? Also they are automatically engaged.
Brooke: Yeah so if all else fails start your speech with raise your hand if and I've done that several times and I think it is It's a generally good way that you can start a speech if you don't have something else that is is a hook that you're wanting to use.
Rachel: Yeah, and you're commanding their attention at that point. So if you've ever been on stage before, sometimes in certain settings, it's very hard to get everybody to stop talking or to listen or to end their conversation. I remember one time we were having an event and everybody just kept talking and no matter what I said or did, at that point, they weren't listening. So then I just started being goofy and I was like, if I say crack, you say my back. And then everybody got into it because it caused them to participate.
It was corny. Some people laughed. So I think getting them to engage is key when you're starting your speech.
Brooke: Absolutely. So after you start with your hook, the next thing that I do in a speech is to explain to them why your topic is relevant or important by using an authority figure or statistics. So this is going to Google and doing some research on why this is an important topic. And for my particular speech, I referenced successful business owners. I said, anytime that I meet a super successful business owner, I asked them, what is the secret to your success?
And then the answer is always word of mouth referrals. And then I also referenced another authority figure who was Jesse Cole, the owner of the Savannah Banana baseball team, because he says that The way to get people talking about you is to create you wouldn't believe moments. So I laid the framework for why this was an important topic by referencing other authority figures. So that's step two after your hook
Rachel: So because it's what successful business owners say it's something that we need to pay attention to so using that statistic or that research or that data or like what Brooke did in Referencing that authority figure that is going to be a way to show them right off the bat why your message matters. Plus, when they think about someone that they know or they've had a good experience watching, it creates that connection right off the bat.
Brooke: So next, after laying the groundwork for why it's a relevant or important topic is to tell your story. Now, we all have a lot of experiences in our lifetime, so you have to choose a story that is relevant to your topic because everything you say needs to follow along the journey of your speech. You can't take rabbit trails and go talking about something off topic. So you have to find a story about yourself that conveys your unique identity, but also stays on track with the main topic of your speech. Conveying your unique identity and telling your story is probably the most important part of your speech.
If you do nothing else, but this, it will be a B plus speech, right, You will get high marks for doing nothing but telling your story and telling your story in a convincing and genuine way. So These other things will bring you to an A plus speech, but your story is probably the most important part.
Rachel: Scientific studies show that good stories excite the human brain, which results in a deep bond between the speaker and the audience. That is from Carmine Gallo, the author of the book Talk Like Ted.
Brooke: So the story that I shared in my five-minute speech at the conference was about an opening statement that I gave at a trial when I worked for the insurance company side of things. I talked about a time where I sang to the jury half of the insurance company's jingle and then stopped to see if the jury would sing back to me the second half of the jingle. This is not something you usually see on Law & Order, attorneys singing in the courtroom. Certainly you don't see jury singing in the courtroom. Incredibly risky.
Very risky. If these jurors did not play along with me, it would have gone down as the most embarrassing moment of my legal career. But to my surprise and relief, they sang and because they sang back to me the second half of that jingle. It was just this incredible emotional report building moment. And I told this story and went on to say how I won the trial by unanimous verdict of this jury and how it was, you know, such an impactful moment.
So what did that story convey about me? Well, it conveyed that you're a risk taker, you're creative, you're different, You're not like other attorneys. It
Rachel: showed that the jury liked you. Obviously, if they didn't like you, they wouldn't have participated in seeing the second half of the jingle. It also showed that you built a rapport quickly. It showed the audience that you have trial experience, that you win trials, you think outside the box, and you're willing to be different. So telling my story
Brooke: showed the jury all of those characteristics of myself, and I didn't have to tell them any of it. I didn't have to go up there and say, I'm a creative attorney or I'm different than other attorneys. I didn't have to say that because I told a story that in that they could infer that from they could they could recognize that without me having to tell them and that's the kind of story you want to tell about yourself find something that conveys what your unique identity is, but don't tell them. It would have ruined the moment if I in the middle of the speech said, and because I did that and because the jury sang back to me, then that means that I am super creative and jurors love me, right? That would have totally ruined the moment.
So I was conveying that message without saying it and people understood that I was unique and creative and that I had been to trial and all those things that Rachel said. And so that's what you want to look for. Find that kind of story.
Rachel: And I mean, honestly, that was the perfect story to say in front of a room with chiropractors because they are probably all using all kinds of different personal injury attorneys. But they were able to see that you are different, that you're not like anybody else. Especially if we backtrack a little bit before brooke got on the stage, another personal injury attorney got on stage and it was the most, yeah, it was, it was not the most exciting. I will say that they pretty much did everything that Brooke and I just told you not to do. They did and it was very quick.
But then when Brooke came, it completely captivated their attention and it was, you know, a complete 180 from what they just saw.
Brooke: And that other law firm in their defense did what typical law firms do. They got on the stage and said, we do this type of law. We'd love to work with you. We're great at what we do. And, you know, come see us in the back and we've achieved these different accomplishments.
And that is what people typically do when they get on stage and they have the opportunity to present themselves. But it was frankly a lost opportunity because they had a captive audience of potential doctors who could refer them the business and by not being more memorable they just kind of lost out on an opportunity.
Rachel: And they paid a lot of money to be there. True. They paid a lot of money to be there. So if you have the opportunity to shine, especially when you have a room full of people, make the most out of it. Make it the most memorable and engaging experience for your audience.
That way they will remember you and that will be what separates you from other individuals in your industry. You know, we're all about that case but that case no trouble all about that case about that case no trouble All about that case about that case no trouble all about that case about that case
Brooke: A boat's legal we are all about your case Text or call to schedule a free consultation for all your legal needs. BoltsLegal.com. And again, this speech was literally five minutes. So you can make a lot happen in five minutes. The video was three minutes.
So in total it was an eight minute presentation. And if you count Rachel's introduction, it was maybe another minute. So less than 10 minutes, our entire presentation. But I can tell you that many people came up to us after the fact and...
Rachel: There was a line of people waiting to talk to Brooke. But you
Brooke: know what's so interesting is before we went on stage, we had a booth with our stuff that we were giving away, and which we could talk about that another time, but it was all the theme of the giveaways all related to our All About That Case theme. We were also dressed in our costumes from the All About That Case video. So it was all very connected. But before we went on the stage, we were passing things out and people weren't really proactively coming up to talk to us. We were kind of trying to, you know, engage with them.
And it kind of was a challenge. Then after we did our presentation, I didn't have to initiate another conversation the rest of the evening. There was people continuously coming up to talk with me and so much so that when the night ended, we were the last people there, the last few people, because we just had to talk to all the people who wanted to talk to us. So that is, I, that is a win to me is if people appreciate your speech enough that they want to meet you and talk to you, then that's a win because that's what it's all about anyways. So next in the anatomy of a winning speech is what I call you wouldn't believe moments, but what Carmen Gallo, the author of the Ted Talk book calls it a jaw dropping moment.
She says, a successful presentation or speaker always provides the audience with at least one jaw dropping moment that makes the whole event stay in their minds.
Rachel: Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, wanted to give a presentation to many global leaders on malaria and how it might be controlled in Africa and Asia. He provided a spectacular moment when he pulled out a jar full of mosquitoes and then unleashed them in the conference room to make the presentation exciting. When Gates announced that the mosquitoes were malaria-free, the crowd was shocked and puzzled, yet comfortable. Gates' Mosquitoes moment was the most rememberable and talked about part of his TED address, which lasted 18 minutes. Several news sources and wealthy social media accounts centered their coverage on the event causing the story to spread quickly across the globe.
Brooke: So my jaw-dropping moment or all about that case moment what not all about that kid What am I saying? My you wouldn't believe moment or jaw dropping use whatever you want. Was the all about that case video again, it was a dance video, a music video. So it was not something probably anybody has seen from a law firm before. So that was the jaw-dropping moment.
But probably, you know, a little bit lesser of jaw-dropping moments were also the fact that we were wearing our clothing from the video. So that was definitely made us stand out. And then we had giveaways that were We had little autograph sheets with our pictures on them where we we signed them kind of like a singer would So that was another memorable giveaway that was consistent with the message we were sending. And then my closing, which I'll share in a minute, was another memorable moment. So think about creating at least one jaw dropping moment in your speech that will get people talking.
Find your mosquitoes moment.
Rachel: Do you want to deliver something unique and emotionally intense to make it a memorable experience? You should also try to finish your presentation at a high note rather than letting your pace just sink. I see this a lot with speakers where you know they'll get to you know their main topic their peak and then it just kind of fizzles out from there. You want to make sure that you leave on a high note as well. So they feel excited and refreshed and ready to do business with you.
Make sure
Brooke: you have one insight they've never heard before. We do this every week when we create a podcast, we say to ourselves, what is that one thing that our listeners have never heard before? We want to be delivering value to you every week so that you have at least one takeaway that you can say I learned. And one of the reasons for that is because dopamine, the chemical in your brain that makes you feel happy is ignited when you learn something new. When you acquire new knowledge, your brain experiences a dopamine response.
So if you are teaching them something new in this entertaining type of way or captivating type of way, then that dopamine release will allow them to number one, remember it in a positive light and number two, remember it at all. They will remember you.
Rachel: Yeah. I mean, also you should try To from from just a selfless perspective. You should want to add value to their lives You know when we're doing our miss biz podcast, you know We hear so many other podcasts where they're like, oh make great content, but they don't tell you how to make great content. You'll listen to the whole flippin' episode and still not know what you're doing. And it's the same stuff you've heard before.
So that's why we take the extra time to show you how to do it or explain and give examples because we genuinely want to help you. And that's what you want to do with your audience. You genuinely want to do something that's going to add value to your lives because nine times out of 10, Even if you can't send somebody else business, there's things that you can do to add value to their life through knowledge.
Brooke: 100%. So finally, in the anatomy of a speech is the closing. And just like the opening, you want to use the closing to make another impact. Don't say thank you for being here. Don't say I appreciate so much this opportunity.
Don't say that your last sentence needs to leave them wanting more. So my closing in the five minute speech was so let's raise our glasses and you know what we're going to do. Sing with me. You know, we're all about that case, about that case, no trouble. And we did the same thing that I had mentioned in my unique identity story, but applied it to this event.
And we sang together the all about that case chorus. And that was hopefully a memorable ending. And as soon as we finished that, I said thank you and I left the stage.
Rachel: And it was amazing because I was listening and I was like completely shocked that she was up there singing, but it captivated everybody's attention because it's not something that's normal. And everybody sang with her. And it was just a beautiful bonding moment. So even if you can't necessarily sing, let's say you're not a good singer, do something else to get them involved and to leave them feeling good.
Brooke: Yeah, they could they could you could be a saying a quote or something and It doesn't always have to be even something where they're saying something out loud. There's all kinds of different closings I've done before. You can listen to other speakers as well to hear how they close out, but it just needs to be something where they are left wanting more. Just not the thank you so much for having me like that's that's missing an opportunity again to leave on a high note.
Rachel: You want to find that mic drop moment.
Brooke: Yes,
Rachel: not the mosquito moment because that can be kind of scary. Although maybe mosquitoes Okay, but you know that mic drop moment where you just leave the stage like feeling like you just you just owned it You just you did a great job and it's gonna leave everybody Excited to work with you excited to meet you and get to know you and learn from you So let's talk now about some of
Brooke: the technical components. Those are the components of what to put into the speech. But when it comes to actually sitting down and writing it, I wanted to give you some tips on doing that. So the first thing I do is sit down at the computer and just type out word for word what I want to say because I want to be able to see it in black and white. So I write it all down in sentence format.
Then I start reading it out loud to see how it sounds. And inevitably I'm gonna be making changes, putting this here, moving that there, saying, I need to tweak this sentence. It doesn't sound as good as it does when I read it in my head. So reading it out loud is going to give you an idea of how it's gonna sound to an audience. Then I go and remove, remove, remove anything that strays away from my central message.
Everything needs to be precisely targeted at your central message. Any rabbit trails, you've got to delete. You'll lose their attention. And so you've got to stay on point. So I remove anything that is superfluous or doesn't need to be stated or if it's duplicative.
I don't need to tell two stories. I can tell one story to drive my point home. Second story, I might lose them. So I remove anything that isn't essential and necessary. Then I revise it and continue rehearsing.
Then once I've rehearsed it So much that I've almost got it memorized, not completely memorized, but I know my stories, I know the flow pretty well. I take all the, I make a second document which is just bullet points. And those bullet points are just a couple of words to remind me what to do. So, for example, in my five-minute speech, I would say... Let's see, how did it start with the...
Is that the most stupid video you've ever seen? That would be the bullet point. Then the second bullet point would be Jesse Cole, Savannah Bananas. Then the second third bullet point would be whatever. At the end, it would say, raise your glasses, you know, just a quick phrase so that if I lose my spot And my mind goes blank and I don't know what's next.
I can look down and remember this is what is next. You cannot go on the stage with full sentences written out. You cannot read a speech. People don't want to be read to. They want to hear from you from your heart.
They don't want to be read to. So, and I can tell you that if you have sentences and you think I'm just gonna look at them to find my spot, you can't, you can't quickly look down and find your spot in full sentence format. So you've gotta do these bullet points, but I don't do them till the very end when I've got the flow of the speech and I like the flow of the speech, then I do the bullet points last, and then I rehearse a bunch of times with just the bullet points.
Rachel: Most people cannot read and convey the message as if they're talking. A very small percentage of people can, but the majority of people can't. And it ends up sounding very boring, very robotic, and it's not connecting with the audience, whereas if you already know what you're gonna say, you're confident about it, you're able to really reach heart-to-heart with them and connect in a way that can't be done if you're just simply reading the speech. I think what also helped me, especially if you're new to giving presentations and speaking, is recording myself and not just recording audio, but video recording and video recording your entire body because I know for me I felt like an awkward turtle when I would get on stage and I was like I don't know what to do with my hands, I don't know what to do with my eyes, I feel like I'm just staring at one person, you know. So when you're able to record yourself and see yourself on video, not only can you pay more attention to your body language and how you're interacting, but you can also figure out like your tone of voice and your influx and maybe certain things you thought in your head you were emphasizing they don't come out that way so maybe you have to practice exaggerating that a little bit so I find recording myself to be very helpful.
Brooke: That is a great pointer and it reminded me of something that I didn't realize that I was doing, but I learned about it in kind of an embarrassing way. When I was in court, I would, and I do this all the time anyways I kind of sway from foot to foot back and forth from my right foot to my left foot and it's because I don't know I guess I'm wearing heels in court and so your feet are kind of uncomfortable So I would just shift my weight from foot to foot and kind of sway back and forth. I didn't realize I was doing it. And one time a witness who was on the witness stand said something to the effect of yes, the attorney over there who's swaying back and forth and and and I was like oh shoot other people realize it I've got to stop doing this and if I had video recorded myself my full body like you Suggested I would have recognized that I was doing that and I would have been more aware of it to try to stop doing
Rachel: it Absolutely. So use today's technology to your advantage We have all kinds of different resources that we can use also I find that kids are pretty good reliable source for telling you the truth about something. Usually they're brutally honest, so you know that is another good way to practice is actually practice in front of people and see like how it feels to get them involved and if they get involved and if not then try different techniques to make it more effective.
Brooke: Especially with humor parts you can test those out in just everyday conversation to see if people laugh or not. Cause that's sometimes in your mind, you think it's going to be hilarious. And then all of a sudden on stage, nobody laughs and you're like, Oh snap, that didn't work out. So the humor moments are really effective to try out on other people. So you know if they actually find it funny.
But the next thing is the amount of time that your speech lasts. You want it to be as short as it can, like as short as you can get your points in. That's as short as you want to be. Even Ted Talks, which are some of the most well-known talks that people give, are limited to 18 minutes. Regardless of whether it's given by Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or some other famous person, this is a guideline that you should observe.
If it's good enough for Ted, then it's good enough for us, right? 18 minutes is enough time. Now, if you are at a convention or something where they say you've got an hour long presentation, then maybe break it up some ways, bring some people on stage and do an interactive activity, play a video, do different things. Because someone told me our attention span is like eight seconds. So even at 18 minutes, if you can captivate them for that much time, that is exceptional, but an hour or even 30 minutes without some type of interaction or breaking it up in some way, you're probably gonna start to lose your audience.
Rachel: So as a speaker, there are only three styles of talks you must avoid at all cost. These styles are downright ugly and they're very dangerous both to your reputation and your audience's well-being. And here they are. The first one, that's the sales pitch. So according to Chris Anderson, it is a speaker's responsibility to give to the audience.
Sometimes most speakers get it completely wrong. They try to take from their audience. Remember, reputation is everything. You really don't want to come across as a tedious self-promoter. Nobody comes to a conference to be sold to, make sure that you're building your reputation as a generous speaker impacting the lives of your audience with something wondrous.
Brooke: Yes and the quote from Chris Anderson is the speaker's job is to give to the audience not take from them. The second type of talk you want to avoid at all costs is the ramble. Oh boy, I hear this one all the time. The ramble is the, You know it, we've all been there. The person who's just talking and talking, they're not on topic, they are not engaging, and they're just telling you something that is just not engaging and not something that you can latch onto, pay attention to, or even get value from because you're just bored.
And so the moment you stray from the point, excuse me, the moment you stray from the essential point of your speech and start rambling, you will lose your audience's attention.
Rachel: Absolutely. Then there's the org bore. Most people assume that all they have to do is to give a great talk is to simply outline their work or describe their organization or explore an issue. Some examples might be like, we're bolts legal and we handle personal injury law and this is how we do it and this is what we do and this is what caused it to happen. That's not a good idea.
Such talk will not likely end up being focused upon and will have very little impact. So don't frame your talk around the extraordinary history of your company or the NGO, or the laboratory and its complex yet effective structure, and the fabulous and astonishing talenting team that you're working with, and how much success your products are having. Don't do that. All of these things might sound interesting to you and the folks on your team, but guess what? Your listeners don't work at your company and hence they don't find such details to be very amusing, not even a bit.
Instead of going on and on about your company and its product, focus on the nature of your work and the power of the ideas that inspire you.
Brooke: One question that I've been asked before is, should I use slides? In other words, a PowerPoint presentation or slides in the speech. I think that using slides is a good idea in a limited way. Because the human brain does not pay attention to dull things, and our attention span is only eight seconds, you should try to appeal to more than one of the five senses. And using slides can do that because it's a visual representation of what you're talking about.
But only if used correctly. You should not put on the screen an outline of what you're talking about unless you're in a setting where you're teaching. If you're teaching a course and you're wanting people to take notes on everything that you're teaching, then yes, you can have an outline on the screen. But if you're giving a speech for impact purposes, you don't want to have an outline on the screen. You don't really want to have words on the screen much at all.
The only slides that I use are images that convey the message in a better way than words could. So if I'm talking about, I don't know, if I'm talking about the Savannah Bananas and Jesse Cole, and I would maybe put up a picture of the Savannah Bananas doing something really extreme as an example so that they can see that this is the type of this is not your ordinary baseball team. So I put a picture of the Savannah bananas. I would not write on the screen. Jesse Cole is the owner of the Savannah bananas.
There's a huge difference there. So using an image that is in line with your message but doesn't detract from it is the key to doing slides.
Rachel: It emphasizes what you're saying and the point that you're trying to make. And I agree with you where you say that, you know, it can be used against you in a sense, because I used to do presentations where I would have like even just pictures, like pictures of me and my kids or pictures of this and that and that. And I felt like people were like looking at the pictures more so than they were paying attention to what I was saying. So being able to figure out you know, what's the least amount of images or clips that I can play and what can I show briefly that will help drive in the point but not take away from what I'm trying to say?
Brooke: For every speaker, the following is true. Having no slides at all is better than bad slides. Agreed. Well, I'm excited to hear about all your speech giving successes. So check in with us.
We're at Miss Biz Podcast on social media. We have a Facebook group called Miss Biz Nation where you can come and share with us your feedback, your ideas, your questions. And then we have a weekly zoom call on Fridays at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time where we can be face-to-face together in a small group setting and share about our businesses and help each other to grow.
Rachel: And if you're on social media make sure that you check out our platforms we're at Miss Biz podcast on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. I think that's all of them. But make sure that you follow us and that you like our content because we do share some behind the scenes footage that's not aired on our show.
Brooke: If you're listening to us on a podcast platform, every one of our episodes is also on YouTube in a video format. And I don't know about you, but we talk with our hands, we make facial expressions, things like that. So if you have the time and want to check us out on YouTube, we'd love that. Also if you like our podcast and this will be the last thing I ask you to do. One of the best ways to help us grow is to write a review.
So if you wouldn't mind taking a moment just to write a review on our podcast, that really helps us to get the word out about our podcast.
Rachel: We appreciate you and are honored to be on this journey with you. We can't wait to help you, to encourage you, and show you how to
Brooke: grow personally, professionally, and spiritually. If you found Miss Biz helpful, please leave a review and share with others. You can follow us on social media at Miss Biz Podcast. For legal questions or services, please visit BoltzLegal.com.
Rachel: And for digital marketing needs, please visit boltsmedia.com. Let's get biz done.
Brooke: Thanks for watching. See you next time. Bye.
 

Ep. 25 Part 2 | Making Your Money Work: Tax-Saving Secrets for Your Business with Guest Mike Jesowshek

Join us for Episode 25 with special guest Mike Jesowshek. In this episode we discuss some crucial _tax saving strategies for small businesses_ based on the insights from our recent podcast. We delve into topics such as *maximizing business deductions*, *retirement planning*, *entity structure*, *real estate investing*, and the benefits of *hiring family members*. Learn about legitimate ways to write off various pre-tax business expenses including travel, meals, and home office costs. 
Discover how retirement plans like SEPs and solo 401ks can aid business owners in contributing larger amounts to tax-deferred retirement funds. We also talk about how the decision to incorporate as an *S-Corp* can reduce self-employment taxes. 
We also dissect the advantages of real estate depreciation deductions and the role of short-term rental losses in offsetting business income. Understand the financial benefits of hiring family members and how, with correct tracking of their work hours and pay, it can result in significant business deductions.
Lastly, we put stress on the importance of businesses reviewing their structure and adopting strategies such as tracking mileage and receipts to withstand an IRS audit. If you are a small business owner, this video is tailor-made for you. Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe for more such valuable content
www.taxsavingspodcast.com
Msbizpod.podbean.com
www.facebook.com/MsBizPodcast
www.BoltzLegal.com
www.BoltzMedia.com
 
Full Episode Transcript:
Brooke Boltz: As a business owner, your highest paid employee is the IRS. Boo! To grow your business, it is crucial that you learn and implement tax-saving strategies. This has been such a pain point for my business that I started searching for tax strategy experts and I came across the podcast called Small Business Tax Savings. From the very first episode and every episode thereafter I learned something new and valuable.
 
I am truly honored to have as our special guest today, certified public accountant and the host of the Small Business Tax Saving podcast, Mike Jesowshek.
 
Rachel Boltz: Listen Notes ranks this podcast in the top 1% of podcasts globally. Mike also offers a tax minimization program to teach small businesses how to legally shrink their tax bill. You are guaranteed to receive massive value from today's episode. So stay tuned. Hey lady bosses, are you working even after putting the kids to bed but still not getting results?
 
Brooke Boltz: Are you tired of spending money on ads that aren't getting engagement?
 
Rachel Boltz: Do you feel burdened that you aren't fulfilling your purpose in life because you are so consumed with work.
 
Brooke Boltz: I'm your host, Brooke Bolts. I'm an attorney and founder of Bolts Legal. I started my business and in one year was bringing in seven figures and am now bringing in multi-seven figures.
 
Rachel Boltz: And I'm your co-host, Rachel Bolts, owner of Bolts Media. I've helped many businesses build their online presence and increase their revenue through digital marketing.
 
Speaker 2: Want to hear how we did it?
 
Rachel Boltz: We are here to help you achieve your goals personally, professionally, and spiritually.
 
Brooke Boltz: So kick off your high heels, sit back, and let's ignite that passion.
 
Rachel Boltz: We're Miss Biz where we're putting the Miss in Biz. Let's get Biz done.
 
Speaker 2: So Mike, a lot of tax strategists tell you to save money on taxes, to go out and buy a bunch of expensive things that you don't really need. But that's not your advice. How are your tax strategies different?
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah, no, I think that that's such a common thing. I always say, if you do need a new truck, if you do need a new piece of equipment, sure, let's utilize tax code the way it's written. But let's not go buy things we don't need because at the end of the day, if you buy something for $100 as an example and you save 32 cents in taxes, you're still out, you know, whatever that 78 cents is in total. And so you're just getting something on a discount that you didn't really need anyways. And so when we look at this idea of maximizing deductions, I think it's so important to understand kind of what that means.
 
And the best way to describe it is to look at this idea of pre-tax versus after-tax dollars. And most people think of after-tax spending and the best way to describe after-tax spending is let's think of a W-2 employee. So a non-business owner, just a W-2 employee that's working for somebody and they have gross wages and then they have all these taxes taken out that the employer takes out on their behalf. And then they have their take home pay. And any spending that they do, whether it's paying for kids' basketball camps or buying groceries, anything they do is considered after-tax spending because they're using the dollars of money, the dollars that they're spending with is money that's already been taxed.
 
And so if we look at this flip side, as a business owner, you have sales, and then you have all these expenses that go into it, and then you have your profit of your business. And any spending that you do prior to that profit piece is considered pre-tax spending because as a business owner, you get taxed on the profit of your business. And so that's this idea that we constantly want to be thinking about when we think of this idea of maximizing deductions is how can I turn after tax spending, spending that is done after being taxed, how can I find a business purpose and move that into pre-tax spending? And I think that's the power when you talk about this idea of maximizing deductions, I think that's where the majority of the power is. And so the best way to illustrate this as well is let's imagine when COVID hit.
 
If you were a W-2 employee, you were working in an office, now you get sent home. You go, you're using a home office, you're putting heat and AC in that home office, you're buying a desk, you're buying a computer chair, you're buying a laptop screen all for that home office that you have now. And you get no deduction on that. All that spending that you're doing on that is considered after-tax spending. You don't get a deduction for it as a W-2 employee.
 
But as a business owner, that desk you bought, that home office that you're sitting in, that computer screen that you bought, that's all business expenses. And all that spending you're doing now is pre-tax spending. It's a business expense prior to those funds being taxed. And so that's kind of this concept of moving after tax spending to pre-tax spending. And there's so many things in the day-to-day life of business owners that we can tie to our business.
 
And we'll talk about some of those ideas like hiring your kids and meals and travel and all those different things about there's as a business owner, our business is engulfed in our life in many different areas. And there's ways that we can intertwine that to move spending that we're already going to do. We're going to do no matter what, but now we're going to get a pre-tax deduction for instead of using after-tax dollars. And so Home Office is a great example of that, where if you have a home, you have that expense. Whether you're a business owner or not, you're gonna have that same exact expense.
 
But now as a business owner, we can take a deduction for it. We can take a deduction for our cell phone. We can take a deduction for our cell phone. We can take a deduction for our internet. And those are all pre-tax spending.
 
And so when people come to me and say, hey, you know, it's end of the year. Should I just go buy a new truck and get a bonus depreciation and clear out my income? I say, well, do you need a new truck? Is there a reason for that new truck that you're going to go buy? And they're like, no, I mean, the one I have is perfect, but, you know, obviously I need a tax deduction.
 
I say, well, let's look at different things first. Let's look at the other spending that you've done throughout this year personally and see if we can find some ways to be creative and think about, hey, is there a way that we could turn that from after tax spending into pre-tax spending? If
 
Rachel Boltz: you enjoy the Miss Biz podcast but still have questions or need advice, We have some exciting news for you. Join us for Miss Biz Connects. Miss Biz Connects is a weekly one hour Zoom call on Fridays at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
 
Brooke Boltz: This is one hour each week dedicated to you. We want to meet you and put our brains together to help you grow personally, professionally, and spiritually. To access the meeting
 
Rachel Boltz: link, visit us on our social media pages at Miss Biz Podcast or send us an email to missbizpod at gmail.com.
 
Brooke Boltz: Join us this Friday and let's grow the Miss Biz Nation.
 
Speaker 2: And That is what I love about your teachings and your podcast is the creativity that you bring to the things that we're already spending money on and categorizing it now or showing us how to properly categorize it as a business expense. I have gone on a search for tax strategists to help me lower my tax liability and every time they just tell me the same things I already know. And for the first time when I started listening to your podcast, I heard new ideas I hadn't heard before. And That is why I was so impressed with what you were teaching and thought other business owners need to hear these strategies. So let's start talking now about the top five tax saving strategies for small businesses.
 
And you talk a lot in your podcast about maximizing business deductions. What are some ways that a small business can do
 
MIke Jesowshek: that? Yeah, so again, it's this idea of moving after tax spending and into pre-tax spending. And so if we look at an example, let's look at travel. When you travel for business, that's a deductible business expense. The hotel, the Airbnbs, the airfare, all of that is deductible business expenses.
 
And what the IRS looks like, it looks at as a business day, means that the majority of the day you spend on business, then that day is considered a business day. And when they look at the majority of the day, they're looking at, you know, average day is eight hours, a work day is eight hours. So if you spend four hours and one minute on business for a day, that's considered a business day. Now the IRS doesn't care if you then go to the beach, you go to amusement parks with your family, whatever you're doing, they don't care as long as the majority of that day was spent on business. And so I think that this provides a really cool opportunity for business owners to say, hey, we have a family vacation planned.
 
We have a family vacation coming up. Can I intertwine that with some business? Can I maybe attend a conference on that trip that we're taking? Could I visit a rental property? Is there clients?
 
Is there a vendor? Is there something out and where we're going that I can tie some of this to business and at least get some business days as part of that travel. Now I always kind of tell people like you don't want to do this every time or your spouse is probably going to kill you but you know we want to try to think about this and be creative in these ways of hey you know if we're going to Disney with the family, you know, is there a conference going on in Disney that I can spend four hours and one minute or five hours a day doing that conference and then doing everything else I'd normally do with my family on that trip? And now it's a business trip. So that's this kind of idea of okay, we're playing this trip to Disney How can I tie this to business and get at least a partial business deduction for it now obviously?
 
With all tax strategies, and this is kind of this overall concept of tax planning whenever I'm looking at tax strategy I have to hit two pieces one is it legal and obviously we would never do something that's illegal. So if we hit a strategy that can't pass that mustard, then we're throwing that one out the door. But the second piece is, are we dotting our I's and crossing our T's? Are we doing what we can to protect ourselves? Because that's the important piece.
 
The home office deduction is completely legal. But is there a way to make the way that we datarizing crossing our T's make it illegal? Yeah, absolutely. If we take a home office deduction for 100% of our home, that's blatantly illegal. Like how is it a home office if it's 100% office and it's not a home then, it's just an office.
 
And so there's ways that we wanna look at those things. And that goes with all of our planning is saying, okay, concept makes sense, it's legal, we found ways to do it, now we just need to make sure we're doing it right. We're dotting our I's, crossing our T's. And so if we look at that travel as an example, if we're going to Disney with our family, obviously if our family's not part of our business, the travel associated with them is not included as that business expense piece. Or if we're buying a five-bedroom Airbnb instead of a one-bedroom hotel, you know, we'd have to account for, okay, we don't need a five-bedroom Airbnb if it was just me traveling for this business piece.
 
And so those are just some factors that we need to factor into it. But travel, I think, is a great way of saying, okay, how can we intertwine business with the travel that we may be doing anyways? And so that's kind of one idea when it comes to maximizing deductions. Another one that's very common is meals. And you know, we say that as a business owner, you're constantly talking about your business, whether you realize it or not, but you go out to dinner, you go out to lunch with a friend, a family member, you know, is it, are you guys talking about business?
 
Are you asking them for referrals? Are you asking them for advice in an employee that you have or asking them for advice in a client situation that popped up? You know, there's all these different times where you think that you're just going out to lunch or dinner with a friend or family member, but at the end of the day, you talk business at it. Well, that's a business deduction. You can find a reason that's ordinary and necessary.
 
Why is this a business deduction? That's something that we should be taking care of. And so, those are kind of the ideas we want to start being creative again of saying, okay, everyday life, what are we doing in our everyday life? What's the spending we're doing? Every time I swipe my credit card, is there a business purpose for this?
 
Can I find a business purpose that I can validly back up and support? If so, let's take advantage of it. Let's utilize the code to our advantage, but also let's make sure we're protecting ourselves. We're keeping receipts. We're keeping that documentation to back up that business proof and that spending that we're doing.
 
Rachel Boltz: Absolutely. And I really appreciate the clarity that you bring to business owners. I was listening to one of your podcasts recently and it was disgusting about going through your personal account and seeing if there were any business related opportunities. For example, you might have went to lunch with a friend and then ended up talking about business the entire time. And another tip that you had brought up specifically about travel was using an app to track your mileage and then using different documentation factors to kind of reinforce the fact that you had used this for travel.
 
Just in case the IRS did question you about anything, you had the receipt of where you had visited for lunch or for coffee, and you had, you know, like a calendar entry kind of validating where you were in that moment. So I really do appreciate you kind of encompassing everything and just making it very clear and concise to people who may not think that might not be top of mind for them. And I know a lot of times in your different podcast episodes you talk about different different tips for different corporations and talk about reviewing your entity structure. So is an S corporation, is that what you recommend for most small businesses?
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah. So, you know, I think an S corporation is definitely a strategy and we can talk about, you know, that strategy, why we like it. And it's a strategy that, yes, we see a lot of small business owners that we work with geared moving towards that idea of a NASA corporation. But I think the first and foremost thing is kind of understanding what you have. And we always say kind of part of that tax planning process or this idea to pay in least amount taxes legally possible is first just having a core understanding of taxes.
 
You don't have to be an accountant, but you just have to understand how does my business entity tax? How does this work? And then that second piece is building a foundation for your business. And I think this entity is a huge part in that foundation of your business. And so we always say, you know, when does an S corporation make sense?
 
First off, when would, why would we decide to be an S corporation? And one of the main reasons that we would utilize the S corporation as a tax strategy tool would be to help minimize the amount of self-employment taxes that we pay. And so, you know, let's set this up the stage of when it starts to make sense is that most businesses start out as a sole proprietorship. They're just no entity at all, or they start out as an LLC, which is what we see most commonly, a sole proprietorship or an LLC. And if you're just a sole proprietorship or a single member LLC with no S-corp election, you have to pay your normal income tax rate on 100% of your income, and then you also pay self-employment taxes on your business income as well.
 
And so with the sole proprietorship single member LLC, we're paying our regular ordinary income tax rate on our percent of our business income, and we're paying self-employment taxes on a hundred percent of our income. And so when we look at an S corporation, what we're trying to do is saying, okay, how can we help minimize the amount we pay in self-employment taxes? And an S corporation is simply just a tax election. It's not an entity structure. You start at the state level.
 
You're just electing for an entity that you already have set up to be taxed as an S corporation at the federal level. And so you need to have either an LLC set up in order to elect S Corp status, or you would need to have a corporation set up. And then again, you would elect for it to be taxed as an S Corp. But with an S Corporation, we take your profit or your income and we split it into two pieces. As an S Corp, you're required to take a reasonable salary as the owner of the company.
 
So you have to take W-2 payroll salary as the owner of the company. And that salary piece is good, you're gonna pay self-employment taxes on. But the beauty behind the S corporations that we split that income into two pieces, the salary and then anything over and above your salary, we take in an owner's draw or a distribution and you avoid self-employment taxes on that. And self-employment taxes is 15.3%. So depending on where your income level is, there can be some pretty significant savings there.
 
As an example, if you're making $100,000 a year in profit in your business as a single member LC or a sole proprietorship, you're going to pay your normal income tax rate plus $15,000 in self-employment taxes. Now, we take that same business and say, hey, let's do an S-corp election. Now, we're splitting your income into two. And let's just say, as an example, we say $50,000 is a reasonable salary for the work that you're doing for your business. Now we're paying self-employment taxes on $50,000, but we're avoiding it on the $50,000 over and above that.
 
And by simply doing an S-Corp election, we're saving $7,500 in taxes in that year. And so that's kind of really the power behind an S-Corporation. Now a lot of people say, well, why don't everybody do an S-Corporation all the time, every time? And the reason being is that if your income's at a lower dollar amount or some various other situations, sometimes it doesn't make sense. And the reason for that is that with an S corporation, you're required to take a reasonable salary.
 
So that means you need to take W-2 payroll. There's costs associated with that. You need some type of a payroll provider, and there's gonna be monthly or annual costs to do that payroll piece. So there's costs with payroll, and you also now need to file a separate business tax return, which is gonna be a little bit more complex of a tax return. It's still all gonna flow through to your personal return, but you have to do a separate filing specific for your business.
 
And there's obviously some costs associated with that. So we typically say once your business starts to hit about $50,000 or more in profit, generally stating that's when an S corporation starts to make sense underneath that it's not necessarily going to hurt you, but the taxes that you save are gonna get eaten up by some of those additional costs. ["Wacky
 
Brooke Boltz: Wacky"] -♪ You don't wanna be wacky, coo-coo! -♪ We will cut you some slack, we got you! -♪ You just wanna make a big stack. Falling. Listen to our Biz Hack.
 
Rachel Boltz: Are you tired of waiting through spammy messages on LinkedIn? Here is a biz hack trick. Click on your profile picture, navigate to data privacy, and let freedom ring. Turn off the option that says allow others to send you open profile messages and while you're at it, switch off allow LinkedIn partners to show you sponsored messages. This will force individuals to have to connect with you first before sending you messages.
 
Brooke Boltz: It's like putting a no spam sign on your digital doorstep. Because let's be honest, no one likes spam on their sandwiches or in boxes.
 
MIke Jesowshek: So to go back to like how your original question, do we recommend or isn't S Corporation right for everybody? Now, it's not right for everybody, but I think that, you know, having a solid foundation, having an LLC set up and obviously being on the legal side, you can talk about the benefits of that. I love this idea of having an LLC set up for that protection piece. And when it makes sense, when your business gets to the profit where it makes sense, or when you have that opportunity where, yeah, I want to do an S corporation, now you can easily do it. You can easily do that as corporation because you have that entity structure set up.
 
You have that foundation built from the beginning. And so that's kind of the key piece of, you know, build that foundation and then that foundation is there to build upon as your business gets to the point where it's growing beyond that.
 
Speaker 2: So when we talk about the third tax saving strategy for small businesses, you talk a lot about retirement planning. How is retirement planning something that has an impact on your tax strategy?
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah, you know, I always look at retirement planning. I think that's one small business owners oftentimes don't think about retirement. You know, they're so engulfed in their business, they're putting money away from taxes, they're living life and they just don't think about this idea of saving for retirement. And they think, well, my business is, I have my business and that is my retirement plan. And a lot of people get to retirement and realize that their business really isn't worth as much as they maybe thought it was for various different reasons.
 
That's the main part of the business and without them, the business doesn't mean much. And so what do they really have to sell? Other people, very completely different scenario, but I think it's important for business owners to think about that idea of retirement because it just doesn't come as natural as it maybe would for a W-2 employee. But when we look at retirement from a tax standpoint, I really kind of talk about that as like a deferral. You know, if you put money into a pre-tax account, you're gonna eventually pay taxes on that money when you get into retirement.
 
If you put money in a Roth account you get no tax break today but that money grows tax-free which is obviously a great opportunity as well. So you know there's there's still like and there's no tax completely avoidance when you're talking about retirement plans but it does provide some really good planning. And so as a business owner, I think it always comes down to you, how much do you want to put away towards retirement? That's going to tell us what type of plan you want to go with. If you're saying, I want to put five, $6,000 of you away towards retirement, we're going to say go do like a traditional IRA or Roth IRA.
 
Don't even worry about setting up a business retirement plan. But if you're a solo business owner, you're saying, no, I want to put away, you know, more money than that, then we might be looking at a SEP IRA or a solo 401k. And these are all plans that allow you to contribute a bigger amount than just your traditional IRA into retirement and once you start to have employees you know we'd look at a simple IRA or a safe harbor 401k. I think the the plan or the retirement plan is don't get into a plan that is too big for you or doesn't make sense for the business in your state. And so it's almost like thinking about it.
 
What is the reason that I want to open this retirement plan? Is it to fund my retirement or is it to help attract new talent to my team or retain current talent to my team. You know, find out what that plan is and it can be a combination of them. And then also find out, okay, how much do you want to put away into your retirement plan? Or how much do you think your employees will want to put away towards their retirement plan?
 
And how much of that do you want to help fund? And that's going to lead you to to what kind of retirement plan you set up. Again traditionally we say if you have no employees outside of maybe you and your spouse we're looking at a solo 401k or a SEPI array. If you have employees, we're looking at a simple IRA or a safe Harbor 401k as being the most common type of retirement plans that we're backing into for that.
 
Rachel Boltz: Retirement planning is huge. And I feel like a lot of people don't really even consider retirement planning until they start to get a little bit older and start thinking about their exit strategy. So I love that you bring up retirement planning and ways that you can utilize it. Now I also have a question about real estate investing. You had mentioned something about that briefly.
 
So how does real estate investing relate to tax saving strategies for small business?
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah, no, we could dive down a long haul talking about real estate and the all sorts of type of planning opportunities that are involved in it. But I like to kind of talk when I talk about real estate, there's kind of two things that we talk about and where your opportunities are. The first one is more of a traditional real estate, you know, like where you're just holding a long-term rental property where you buy a single family home and rent it out to somebody and they stay there for years upon years. And then there's this short-term rental strategy and there's sometimes called the short-term rental loophole in how we look at that. But When we look at real estate in general, real estate is traditionally considered a passive type activity.
 
You invest in something, it gains some income, you get those rent checks. Maybe you're doing a little maintenance here or there, but you're not actively involved in it if it's just some rental properties and you have a day job. And the big thing about real estate is that you get a deduction for the cost of that real estate in the form of depreciation. And oftentimes depreciation is heavy up front where you can create a cash flow, you can create income, the depreciation, which is a non-cash expense, but it's going to offset that income that you're making. So you might make $10,000 of income from a rental property over the course of a year, but now you have $10,000 in depreciation that offsets that.
 
So you're paying zero in taxes, you're showing zero in income on your tax return, but you just cash flowed actually $10,000. And that's kind of the beauty behind real estate is that you get this idea of depreciation, which again, is a non-cash expense that can help offset a lot of the income that you have coming in. So when we look at real estate, I think it's very powerful in not only an investment that's going to continue to grow, but an investment that's oftentimes not, you're going to get positive cash flow without having to pay taxes on it, which is a benefit of itself. But if you can start to qualify as a real estate professional or you have a spouse that can qualify as a real estate professional, then we can look at real estate and say, how can we start creating losses in real estate that we can use to offset my business income. So if your business is doing really well, how can you create a loss or bring a loss over from real estate in those non-cash losses that we can use to reduce the income from our business?
 
In order to do that, we need something called a, you need to be a real estate professional, you need to have a spouse that's a real estate professional, or something along those lines. And so that's where you can really see power. You know, when we look at people were attacking And when President Trump found out his tax returns come out, a lot of people said, Trump paid $700 in taxes a year, and he's a billionaire, and that's not fair. When we look at what Trump was doing, at least from what we can tell from the information that was released, is he's using real estate losses to offset the majority of his income. So he might be cash flowing really well and bringing in a lot of cash, but he has these losses from real estate qualifying as a real estate professional that we can use to offset a lot of that income.
 
That's something that everybody can do, but the key thing is qualifying as a real estate professional. Then you bring in this idea of short-term rentals, where short-term rentals kind of throws that all up on its side and saying, oh, if we have a short-term rental with an average day of seven days or less, now we can use a short-term rental loss to offset active income. We can use a short-term rental loss to offset our business income. With a normal rental activity, you have passive income. You can't use that to offset business income unless you qualify as a real estate professional.
 
But now with a short-term rental, because it's not considered a passive activity because it's seven days or less, now we can utilize it to offset our business income. And that's kind of you'll see a lot of different things we talk about on our podcast. But this idea of the short-term rental loophole, that's where this idea of where you can utilize that idea of taking rental property losses to offset your other income, it opens up the door for people that don't qualify as a real estate professional, which can sometimes be a little difficult. So there's a lot of planning opportunities in real estate, not just looking at how can we help reduce your taxes or lower your taxes, but also just the investment itself and in where that can grow and kind of be a form of retirement planning, right? Like if you're not into the stock, bonds, mutual funds, those types of things, you know, maybe real estate is kind of your form of that idea of retirement planning.
 
And we see that with a lot of business owners going down that road.
 
Speaker 2: So for the fifth tax saving strategy for small businesses, tell us about hiring your kids. What are your thoughts on hiring your kids as a tax saving strategy?
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah, this idea of hiring my kids is one of my favorite strategies because it's something that if you have kids, it's something that you're spending a lot of money on them. You're paying for basketball camps, you're paying for amusement parks to go with their friends, and all of that again, we're we talk about after tax versus pre-tax dollars. Anything you spend on your kid, you're always consistently thinking, oh, that's just after-tax dollars. You know, how could I ever say that a basketball camp is a business expense? You're right.
 
That doesn't make sense. But is there a way that we could hire our kids in our business and then the kids could help pay for that basketball camp themselves? And the idea behind this is saying if we hire our kids in our business we can get a business deduction and our kids potentially pay no income tax on the income that they receive if they're under the standard deduction which this year is is somewhere upper thirteen thousand dollars. So you could pay your kids you know up to just under fourteen thousand dollars in income this year from your business get a business deduction for that your pre-tax expense for you and your child would pay no income tax on that income that they receive. This is a great way to shift that income into a lower tax bracket, a zero tax bracket, while still getting a business deduction for it.
 
Now, it's not as easy to say, okay, you know, we're going to pay little Johnny $14,000 this year, get a business expense for it and move on and everything's going to be great. You know, there's, there's again, this idea of, is this legal? Yes, absolutely. Directly talked about in the IRS code about hiring your own children and the tax benefits behind it. But the second piece is, are we dotting our eyes and crossing our T's?
 
Just writing a checkout to little Johnny for $14,000 is not dotting our eyes and crossing our T's. And so it's important to know the basics. The child has to be doing actual work for your business, you know, do we have a job description? Do we have an employment agreement for it? We need to be tracking their hours, you know, what are they doing?
 
What are the tasks that they're doing? Are we paying them a rate that's reasonable? So You might have them cut grass around your office, but are you paying them $250 an hour when the local professional is going to charge you $80 an hour? Yeah, that doesn't make sense. You know, we'd probably want to figure out what's a reasonable rate for their experience.
 
So If the professional is charging $80 now, we're probably going to charge even less than that because we have a child that's maybe inexperienced. Those are the things we want to start to link about this idea. But now we can get a business deduction, child pays potentially no income taxes, And the benefit then is that they can then go, they want to use those money to go to a basketball camp, go to a amusement park with friends. Essentially, we just moved after tax spending into pre-tax spending in that case. There's also this idea of funding a Roth IRA that I absolutely love.
 
Because when we think about a Roth IRA, as we talked about this whole idea of retirement planning, the problem with a Roth IRA is you get no tax deduction when you fund it. But if you have income that you have to pay zero tax on, You don't need a tax deduction. And so why, if we fund that Roth IRA, we get no tax deduction, which we also didn't need one because we have no tax. But now that Roth IRA, when you're 12 years old, you've put $5,000 into a Roth IRA, think about the compounding growth that that Roth IRA can gain over the course of however many years until you hit retirement. That's going to be tax free, withdrawals are tax free.
 
So I love this idea of now that we have earned income, let's and if we don't need to use it for basketball camps or whatever it might be, could we think about funding a Roth IRA with this. The other cool thing about Roth IRAs is that you can pull back the principal without any penalties, fines, and interest. So if from the age of 12 to 16, you put $5,000 into a Roth IRA each year, and now your child gets to college and they're like, I need some money, I need whatever it might be, and you don't have other resources for them. Well, they could go back and pull the principal back out of that Roth IRA without any kind of penalties or interest. And so it's really kind of this idea of hiring your kids is something we want to make sure we do right, but it's something that I think every business owner should be taking advantage of.
 
As long as you have kids, at least, you know, I say between the ages of seven, 17 is kind of where the sweet spot is of this. If your kids are older than that, There's different planning strategy around that and ways that we go about that. But there's definitely some planning around this idea of, of hiring your kids. And you know, just to kind of end that thought on is a lot of people, when I first talked to that, they say, sounds great, but you know, you said this thing about dotting your I's and crossing your T's and how you need to make sure that they're doing actual work. They might say like, I'm an attorney, like what could my kid possibly do in my business?
 
And I always say that there has been yet to be a business owner that I couldn't find something that we could say their kid was doing for the business. We couldn't find something that their kid could do in their business. You know, and it might not be as obvious as it might be initially. You know, could they be shredding papers? Could they be stuffing envelopes?
 
Could they be cleaning around the office? Another one I love for people that are kids that are in that like 15, 16 age and where they're starting to get into social media is, you know, couldn't they do some social media posts for you? Can they be researching different articles and sharing them on your social media? That's all part of this idea of let's be creative. Let's think about things that they can do and let's make sure that we're implementing them in a way that makes sense for it while also making sure that we're doing things correctly.
 
So a lot of planning opportunities, I just think it's something that if you have kids in that range, it's something you need to be thinking about and just start research in that process. You know, when we talk about tax planning, it's this idea of let me learn, let's hear all these good things, let's hear about these tax strategies, but we can't just stop from learning. We have to actually take, put our feet on the ground and start to implement those and so that implementation piece could be researching a little bit Tweaking that strategy to get to where it needs to be for your situation specifically
 
Rachel Boltz: You know, we're all about that case about that case no trouble all about that case about that case no trouble All about that case about that case no trouble all about that case about that case
 
Brooke Boltz: We are all about your case. Text or call to schedule a free consultation for all your legal needs. Boltzlegal.com.
 
Rachel Boltz: I love that fifth tip. I am a huge advocate for putting my kids to work. It builds a strong work ethic, but then if you can use that as an investment for their future and their future goals, like that to me is the icing on the cake. So I really appreciate those tips that you shared with us today.
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah. And that's a great, that's a great point. You know, it's, it's, we're looking at a tax strategy and that's where my mind's always like tax saving tax savings, but you bring up a good point. Like not only are we potentially saving taxes or we are saving taxes, but we're teaching them this idea of working for a living, working for money. Maybe they might be, this might be a business that they want to look to take over, you know, down the road, 20, 30, 40 years from now.
 
What a great opportunity to get them in at a very young age. And they might say, I want nothing to do with it. Well, that just made your succession planning a little bit easier because now you know, okay, it's not going to the kids. What other options are there? And where's kind of the exit plan in here?
 
But yeah, I think that there's so many benefits over and above just the tax savings that you mentioned there.
 
Speaker 2: Rachel and I both put our kids to work at communities. They are great at handing out air fresheners or whatever it is that we're passing out.
 
Rachel Boltz: People don't want to say no to kids. You know, they'll say no to adults all day long, but they don't want to say no to kids. So we send them the kids out.
 
Speaker 2: A couple of summers ago, I had my daughters, they were like nine and 10 at the time, work at the office in the summer, and I thought, I'm going to put them upstairs. We have just kind of a little loft upstairs in the office where they would be away from people and not like disturbing the staff. But, turns out they can still disturb the staff. Cause I'd be sitting here like on a phone call or something, and I'd hear, get up! You know?
 
And they'd be fighting. And so if your kids get along, that's a little easier than a fight all the time like mine do. But they definitely, the task that they did, just in case people are looking for ideas, is they sent out emails asking my former clients for Google reviews. And so I made a template email for them and gave them the list and they sent those emails. And then I gave them Robux for every review they actually got because they don't really care too much about money.
 
I did pay them, but that's not what really motivates them as much, but Roblox money, they were into that.
 
MIke Jesowshek: I love that. That brings up a good point. I love that idea of what are some things that they can be doing. Now, I do have to ask, Was there any funky emails that they might have sent out where the template got tripled or they were fighting and all of a sudden the keyboard was typing a bunch of different things?
 
Speaker 2: Yes, so many times. They would send three emails to the same person or forget to change the name. So it would say, Dear John, I'm supposed to say, you know, plenty of errors, but people were, were very gracious with, with I would say that was my kids. I'm sorry. I'm trying to teach them how to, I'm trying to help them, you know, start learning how to work and seeing what work is like and so people were very gracious thankfully.
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah I love that concept and you know another thing I had an attorney that I was talking to about this strategy and again they're like well what can they do for my business? I said, throw them in social media, have them start doing that social media stuff. And he's like, why don't do social media? Like, I don't need to, I grow from referrals. Like I don't need, I don't need to grow my business at all.
 
I'm like, well, what would it hurt to have someone manage a social media account for you? Again, we're looking at this from a tax strategy standpoint. You know, we're getting a business deduction, kids are paying no income taxes. What would it really hurt by having them do social media for you? And hey, maybe you have some really good clients that always come from referrals, but now they're starting to see your stuff more often, now they're gonna come work for you, think about you more often in various different things.
 
And you might not need the business, but was it gonna hurt if we're looking at it from a tax standpoint as well?
 
Speaker 2: Absolutely. The social media, Rachel's given a statistic before that millennials and younger will look you up on social media before they'll go to your website. And having a social media presence is important, especially to the younger demographic.
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah, 100%.
 
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for your time today. This has brought massive value to our listeners, and I just cannot thank you enough for volunteering and sharing your time today with us to teach us these strategies. And if anyone has not heard of or listened to the podcast, tax, Wait, I'm going to say it wrong. Small business tax savings.
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah, that's it.
 
Speaker 2: Small business tax savings. I highly recommend it. It's in the top 1 percent of podcasts globally, according to ListenNotes, and on the first page of Apple Podcasts when you search tax and it is highly valuable. We'll give you all kinds of great ideas to save on taxes for your small business. So please check it out.
 
And with that, thank you for tuning in until next time.
 
Brooke Boltz: Take care.
 
MIke Jesowshek: Rachel Brooke, thanks for having me.
 
Rachel Boltz: Thank you so much. We appreciate you and are honored to be on this journey with you. We can't wait to help you, to encourage you, and show you how to grow personally, professionally, and spiritually.
 
Brooke Boltz: If you found Miss Biz helpful, please leave a review and share with others.
 
Rachel Boltz: You can follow us on social media at Miss Biz Podcast.
 
Brooke Boltz: For legal questions or services, please visit BoltsLegal.com.
 
Rachel Boltz: And for digital marketing needs, please visit BoltsMedia.com. Let's get biz done.

Ep. 25 | Making Your Money Work: Tax-Saving Secrets for Your Business with Guest Mike Jesowshek

Join us for Episode 25 with special guest Mike Jesowshek. In this episode we discuss some crucial _tax saving strategies for small businesses_ based on the insights from our recent podcast. We delve into topics such as *maximizing business deductions*, *retirement planning*, *entity structure*, *real estate investing*, and the benefits of *hiring family members*. Learn about legitimate ways to write off various pre-tax business expenses including travel, meals, and home office costs. 
Discover how retirement plans like SEPs and solo 401ks can aid business owners in contributing larger amounts to tax-deferred retirement funds. We also talk about how the decision to incorporate as an *S-Corp* can reduce self-employment taxes. 
We also dissect the advantages of real estate depreciation deductions and the role of short-term rental losses in offsetting business income. Understand the financial benefits of hiring family members and how, with correct tracking of their work hours and pay, it can result in significant business deductions.
Lastly, we put stress on the importance of businesses reviewing their structure and adopting strategies such as tracking mileage and receipts to withstand an IRS audit. If you are a small business owner, this video is tailor-made for you. Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe for more such valuable content
www.taxsavingspodcast.com
Msbizpod.podbean.com
www.facebook.com/MsBizPodcast
www.BoltzLegal.com
www.BoltzMedia.com
 
Full Episode Transcript:
Brooke Boltz: As a business owner, your highest paid employee is the IRS. Boo! To grow your business, it is crucial that you learn and implement tax-saving strategies. This has been such a pain point for my business that I started searching for tax strategy experts and I came across the podcast called Small Business Tax Savings. From the very first episode and every episode thereafter I learned something new and valuable.
 
I am truly honored to have as our special guest today, certified public accountant and the host of the Small Business Tax Saving podcast, Mike Jesowshek.
 
Rachel Boltz: Listen Notes ranks this podcast in the top 1% of podcasts globally. Mike also offers a tax minimization program to teach small businesses how to legally shrink their tax bill. You are guaranteed to receive massive value from today's episode. So stay tuned. Hey lady bosses, are you working even after putting the kids to bed but still not getting results?
 
Brooke Boltz: Are you tired of spending money on ads that aren't getting engagement?
 
Rachel Boltz: Do you feel burdened that you aren't fulfilling your purpose in life because you are so consumed with work.
 
Brooke Boltz: I'm your host, Brooke Bolts. I'm an attorney and founder of Bolts Legal. I started my business and in one year was bringing in seven figures and am now bringing in multi-seven figures.
 
Rachel Boltz: And I'm your co-host, Rachel Bolts, owner of Bolts Media. I've helped many businesses build their online presence and increase their revenue through digital marketing.
 
Speaker 2: Want to hear how we did it?
 
Rachel Boltz: We are here to help you achieve your goals personally, professionally, and spiritually.
 
Brooke Boltz: So kick off your high heels, sit back, and let's ignite that passion.
 
Rachel Boltz: We're Miss Biz where we're putting the Miss in Biz. Let's get Biz done.
 
Speaker 2: So Mike, a lot of tax strategists tell you to save money on taxes, to go out and buy a bunch of expensive things that you don't really need. But that's not your advice. How are your tax strategies different?
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah, no, I think that that's such a common thing. I always say, if you do need a new truck, if you do need a new piece of equipment, sure, let's utilize tax code the way it's written. But let's not go buy things we don't need because at the end of the day, if you buy something for $100 as an example and you save 32 cents in taxes, you're still out, you know, whatever that 78 cents is in total. And so you're just getting something on a discount that you didn't really need anyways. And so when we look at this idea of maximizing deductions, I think it's so important to understand kind of what that means.
 
And the best way to describe it is to look at this idea of pre-tax versus after-tax dollars. And most people think of after-tax spending and the best way to describe after-tax spending is let's think of a W-2 employee. So a non-business owner, just a W-2 employee that's working for somebody and they have gross wages and then they have all these taxes taken out that the employer takes out on their behalf. And then they have their take home pay. And any spending that they do, whether it's paying for kids' basketball camps or buying groceries, anything they do is considered after-tax spending because they're using the dollars of money, the dollars that they're spending with is money that's already been taxed.
 
And so if we look at this flip side, as a business owner, you have sales, and then you have all these expenses that go into it, and then you have your profit of your business. And any spending that you do prior to that profit piece is considered pre-tax spending because as a business owner, you get taxed on the profit of your business. And so that's this idea that we constantly want to be thinking about when we think of this idea of maximizing deductions is how can I turn after tax spending, spending that is done after being taxed, how can I find a business purpose and move that into pre-tax spending? And I think that's the power when you talk about this idea of maximizing deductions, I think that's where the majority of the power is. And so the best way to illustrate this as well is let's imagine when COVID hit.
 
If you were a W-2 employee, you were working in an office, now you get sent home. You go, you're using a home office, you're putting heat and AC in that home office, you're buying a desk, you're buying a computer chair, you're buying a laptop screen all for that home office that you have now. And you get no deduction on that. All that spending that you're doing on that is considered after-tax spending. You don't get a deduction for it as a W-2 employee.
 
But as a business owner, that desk you bought, that home office that you're sitting in, that computer screen that you bought, that's all business expenses. And all that spending you're doing now is pre-tax spending. It's a business expense prior to those funds being taxed. And so that's kind of this concept of moving after tax spending to pre-tax spending. And there's so many things in the day-to-day life of business owners that we can tie to our business.
 
And we'll talk about some of those ideas like hiring your kids and meals and travel and all those different things about there's as a business owner, our business is engulfed in our life in many different areas. And there's ways that we can intertwine that to move spending that we're already going to do. We're going to do no matter what, but now we're going to get a pre-tax deduction for instead of using after-tax dollars. And so Home Office is a great example of that, where if you have a home, you have that expense. Whether you're a business owner or not, you're gonna have that same exact expense.
 
But now as a business owner, we can take a deduction for it. We can take a deduction for our cell phone. We can take a deduction for our cell phone. We can take a deduction for our internet. And those are all pre-tax spending.
 
And so when people come to me and say, hey, you know, it's end of the year. Should I just go buy a new truck and get a bonus depreciation and clear out my income? I say, well, do you need a new truck? Is there a reason for that new truck that you're going to go buy? And they're like, no, I mean, the one I have is perfect, but, you know, obviously I need a tax deduction.
 
I say, well, let's look at different things first. Let's look at the other spending that you've done throughout this year personally and see if we can find some ways to be creative and think about, hey, is there a way that we could turn that from after tax spending into pre-tax spending? If
 
Rachel Boltz: you enjoy the Miss Biz podcast but still have questions or need advice, We have some exciting news for you. Join us for Miss Biz Connects. Miss Biz Connects is a weekly one hour Zoom call on Fridays at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
 
Brooke Boltz: This is one hour each week dedicated to you. We want to meet you and put our brains together to help you grow personally, professionally, and spiritually. To access the meeting
 
Rachel Boltz: link, visit us on our social media pages at Miss Biz Podcast or send us an email to missbizpod at gmail.com.
 
Brooke Boltz: Join us this Friday and let's grow the Miss Biz Nation.
 
Speaker 2: And That is what I love about your teachings and your podcast is the creativity that you bring to the things that we're already spending money on and categorizing it now or showing us how to properly categorize it as a business expense. I have gone on a search for tax strategists to help me lower my tax liability and every time they just tell me the same things I already know. And for the first time when I started listening to your podcast, I heard new ideas I hadn't heard before. And That is why I was so impressed with what you were teaching and thought other business owners need to hear these strategies. So let's start talking now about the top five tax saving strategies for small businesses.
 
And you talk a lot in your podcast about maximizing business deductions. What are some ways that a small business can do
 
MIke Jesowshek: that? Yeah, so again, it's this idea of moving after tax spending and into pre-tax spending. And so if we look at an example, let's look at travel. When you travel for business, that's a deductible business expense. The hotel, the Airbnbs, the airfare, all of that is deductible business expenses.
 
And what the IRS looks like, it looks at as a business day, means that the majority of the day you spend on business, then that day is considered a business day. And when they look at the majority of the day, they're looking at, you know, average day is eight hours, a work day is eight hours. So if you spend four hours and one minute on business for a day, that's considered a business day. Now the IRS doesn't care if you then go to the beach, you go to amusement parks with your family, whatever you're doing, they don't care as long as the majority of that day was spent on business. And so I think that this provides a really cool opportunity for business owners to say, hey, we have a family vacation planned.
 
We have a family vacation coming up. Can I intertwine that with some business? Can I maybe attend a conference on that trip that we're taking? Could I visit a rental property? Is there clients?
 
Is there a vendor? Is there something out and where we're going that I can tie some of this to business and at least get some business days as part of that travel. Now I always kind of tell people like you don't want to do this every time or your spouse is probably going to kill you but you know we want to try to think about this and be creative in these ways of hey you know if we're going to Disney with the family, you know, is there a conference going on in Disney that I can spend four hours and one minute or five hours a day doing that conference and then doing everything else I'd normally do with my family on that trip? And now it's a business trip. So that's this kind of idea of okay, we're playing this trip to Disney How can I tie this to business and get at least a partial business deduction for it now obviously?
 
With all tax strategies, and this is kind of this overall concept of tax planning whenever I'm looking at tax strategy I have to hit two pieces one is it legal and obviously we would never do something that's illegal. So if we hit a strategy that can't pass that mustard, then we're throwing that one out the door. But the second piece is, are we dotting our I's and crossing our T's? Are we doing what we can to protect ourselves? Because that's the important piece.
 
The home office deduction is completely legal. But is there a way to make the way that we datarizing crossing our T's make it illegal? Yeah, absolutely. If we take a home office deduction for 100% of our home, that's blatantly illegal. Like how is it a home office if it's 100% office and it's not a home then, it's just an office.
 
And so there's ways that we wanna look at those things. And that goes with all of our planning is saying, okay, concept makes sense, it's legal, we found ways to do it, now we just need to make sure we're doing it right. We're dotting our I's, crossing our T's. And so if we look at that travel as an example, if we're going to Disney with our family, obviously if our family's not part of our business, the travel associated with them is not included as that business expense piece. Or if we're buying a five-bedroom Airbnb instead of a one-bedroom hotel, you know, we'd have to account for, okay, we don't need a five-bedroom Airbnb if it was just me traveling for this business piece.
 
And so those are just some factors that we need to factor into it. But travel, I think, is a great way of saying, okay, how can we intertwine business with the travel that we may be doing anyways? And so that's kind of one idea when it comes to maximizing deductions. Another one that's very common is meals. And you know, we say that as a business owner, you're constantly talking about your business, whether you realize it or not, but you go out to dinner, you go out to lunch with a friend, a family member, you know, is it, are you guys talking about business?
 
Are you asking them for referrals? Are you asking them for advice in an employee that you have or asking them for advice in a client situation that popped up? You know, there's all these different times where you think that you're just going out to lunch or dinner with a friend or family member, but at the end of the day, you talk business at it. Well, that's a business deduction. You can find a reason that's ordinary and necessary.
 
Why is this a business deduction? That's something that we should be taking care of. And so, those are kind of the ideas we want to start being creative again of saying, okay, everyday life, what are we doing in our everyday life? What's the spending we're doing? Every time I swipe my credit card, is there a business purpose for this?
 
Can I find a business purpose that I can validly back up and support? If so, let's take advantage of it. Let's utilize the code to our advantage, but also let's make sure we're protecting ourselves. We're keeping receipts. We're keeping that documentation to back up that business proof and that spending that we're doing.
 
Rachel Boltz: Absolutely. And I really appreciate the clarity that you bring to business owners. I was listening to one of your podcasts recently and it was disgusting about going through your personal account and seeing if there were any business related opportunities. For example, you might have went to lunch with a friend and then ended up talking about business the entire time. And another tip that you had brought up specifically about travel was using an app to track your mileage and then using different documentation factors to kind of reinforce the fact that you had used this for travel.
 
Just in case the IRS did question you about anything, you had the receipt of where you had visited for lunch or for coffee, and you had, you know, like a calendar entry kind of validating where you were in that moment. So I really do appreciate you kind of encompassing everything and just making it very clear and concise to people who may not think that might not be top of mind for them. And I know a lot of times in your different podcast episodes you talk about different different tips for different corporations and talk about reviewing your entity structure. So is an S corporation, is that what you recommend for most small businesses?
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah. So, you know, I think an S corporation is definitely a strategy and we can talk about, you know, that strategy, why we like it. And it's a strategy that, yes, we see a lot of small business owners that we work with geared moving towards that idea of a NASA corporation. But I think the first and foremost thing is kind of understanding what you have. And we always say kind of part of that tax planning process or this idea to pay in least amount taxes legally possible is first just having a core understanding of taxes.
 
You don't have to be an accountant, but you just have to understand how does my business entity tax? How does this work? And then that second piece is building a foundation for your business. And I think this entity is a huge part in that foundation of your business. And so we always say, you know, when does an S corporation make sense?
 
First off, when would, why would we decide to be an S corporation? And one of the main reasons that we would utilize the S corporation as a tax strategy tool would be to help minimize the amount of self-employment taxes that we pay. And so, you know, let's set this up the stage of when it starts to make sense is that most businesses start out as a sole proprietorship. They're just no entity at all, or they start out as an LLC, which is what we see most commonly, a sole proprietorship or an LLC. And if you're just a sole proprietorship or a single member LLC with no S-corp election, you have to pay your normal income tax rate on 100% of your income, and then you also pay self-employment taxes on your business income as well.
 
And so with the sole proprietorship single member LLC, we're paying our regular ordinary income tax rate on our percent of our business income, and we're paying self-employment taxes on a hundred percent of our income. And so when we look at an S corporation, what we're trying to do is saying, okay, how can we help minimize the amount we pay in self-employment taxes? And an S corporation is simply just a tax election. It's not an entity structure. You start at the state level.
 
You're just electing for an entity that you already have set up to be taxed as an S corporation at the federal level. And so you need to have either an LLC set up in order to elect S Corp status, or you would need to have a corporation set up. And then again, you would elect for it to be taxed as an S Corp. But with an S Corporation, we take your profit or your income and we split it into two pieces. As an S Corp, you're required to take a reasonable salary as the owner of the company.
 
So you have to take W-2 payroll salary as the owner of the company. And that salary piece is good, you're gonna pay self-employment taxes on. But the beauty behind the S corporations that we split that income into two pieces, the salary and then anything over and above your salary, we take in an owner's draw or a distribution and you avoid self-employment taxes on that. And self-employment taxes is 15.3%. So depending on where your income level is, there can be some pretty significant savings there.
 
As an example, if you're making $100,000 a year in profit in your business as a single member LC or a sole proprietorship, you're going to pay your normal income tax rate plus $15,000 in self-employment taxes. Now, we take that same business and say, hey, let's do an S-corp election. Now, we're splitting your income into two. And let's just say, as an example, we say $50,000 is a reasonable salary for the work that you're doing for your business. Now we're paying self-employment taxes on $50,000, but we're avoiding it on the $50,000 over and above that.
 
And by simply doing an S-Corp election, we're saving $7,500 in taxes in that year. And so that's kind of really the power behind an S-Corporation. Now a lot of people say, well, why don't everybody do an S-Corporation all the time, every time? And the reason being is that if your income's at a lower dollar amount or some various other situations, sometimes it doesn't make sense. And the reason for that is that with an S corporation, you're required to take a reasonable salary.
 
So that means you need to take W-2 payroll. There's costs associated with that. You need some type of a payroll provider, and there's gonna be monthly or annual costs to do that payroll piece. So there's costs with payroll, and you also now need to file a separate business tax return, which is gonna be a little bit more complex of a tax return. It's still all gonna flow through to your personal return, but you have to do a separate filing specific for your business.
 
And there's obviously some costs associated with that. So we typically say once your business starts to hit about $50,000 or more in profit, generally stating that's when an S corporation starts to make sense underneath that it's not necessarily going to hurt you, but the taxes that you save are gonna get eaten up by some of those additional costs. ["Wacky
 
Brooke Boltz: Wacky"] -♪ You don't wanna be wacky, coo-coo! -♪ We will cut you some slack, we got you! -♪ You just wanna make a big stack. Falling. Listen to our Biz Hack.
 
Rachel Boltz: Are you tired of waiting through spammy messages on LinkedIn? Here is a biz hack trick. Click on your profile picture, navigate to data privacy, and let freedom ring. Turn off the option that says allow others to send you open profile messages and while you're at it, switch off allow LinkedIn partners to show you sponsored messages. This will force individuals to have to connect with you first before sending you messages.
 
Brooke Boltz: It's like putting a no spam sign on your digital doorstep. Because let's be honest, no one likes spam on their sandwiches or in boxes.
 
MIke Jesowshek: So to go back to like how your original question, do we recommend or isn't S Corporation right for everybody? Now, it's not right for everybody, but I think that, you know, having a solid foundation, having an LLC set up and obviously being on the legal side, you can talk about the benefits of that. I love this idea of having an LLC set up for that protection piece. And when it makes sense, when your business gets to the profit where it makes sense, or when you have that opportunity where, yeah, I want to do an S corporation, now you can easily do it. You can easily do that as corporation because you have that entity structure set up.
 
You have that foundation built from the beginning. And so that's kind of the key piece of, you know, build that foundation and then that foundation is there to build upon as your business gets to the point where it's growing beyond that.
 
Speaker 2: So when we talk about the third tax saving strategy for small businesses, you talk a lot about retirement planning. How is retirement planning something that has an impact on your tax strategy?
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah, you know, I always look at retirement planning. I think that's one small business owners oftentimes don't think about retirement. You know, they're so engulfed in their business, they're putting money away from taxes, they're living life and they just don't think about this idea of saving for retirement. And they think, well, my business is, I have my business and that is my retirement plan. And a lot of people get to retirement and realize that their business really isn't worth as much as they maybe thought it was for various different reasons.
 
That's the main part of the business and without them, the business doesn't mean much. And so what do they really have to sell? Other people, very completely different scenario, but I think it's important for business owners to think about that idea of retirement because it just doesn't come as natural as it maybe would for a W-2 employee. But when we look at retirement from a tax standpoint, I really kind of talk about that as like a deferral. You know, if you put money into a pre-tax account, you're gonna eventually pay taxes on that money when you get into retirement.
 
If you put money in a Roth account you get no tax break today but that money grows tax-free which is obviously a great opportunity as well. So you know there's there's still like and there's no tax completely avoidance when you're talking about retirement plans but it does provide some really good planning. And so as a business owner, I think it always comes down to you, how much do you want to put away towards retirement? That's going to tell us what type of plan you want to go with. If you're saying, I want to put five, $6,000 of you away towards retirement, we're going to say go do like a traditional IRA or Roth IRA.
 
Don't even worry about setting up a business retirement plan. But if you're a solo business owner, you're saying, no, I want to put away, you know, more money than that, then we might be looking at a SEP IRA or a solo 401k. And these are all plans that allow you to contribute a bigger amount than just your traditional IRA into retirement and once you start to have employees you know we'd look at a simple IRA or a safe harbor 401k. I think the the plan or the retirement plan is don't get into a plan that is too big for you or doesn't make sense for the business in your state. And so it's almost like thinking about it.
 
What is the reason that I want to open this retirement plan? Is it to fund my retirement or is it to help attract new talent to my team or retain current talent to my team. You know, find out what that plan is and it can be a combination of them. And then also find out, okay, how much do you want to put away into your retirement plan? Or how much do you think your employees will want to put away towards their retirement plan?
 
And how much of that do you want to help fund? And that's going to lead you to to what kind of retirement plan you set up. Again traditionally we say if you have no employees outside of maybe you and your spouse we're looking at a solo 401k or a SEPI array. If you have employees, we're looking at a simple IRA or a safe Harbor 401k as being the most common type of retirement plans that we're backing into for that.
 
Rachel Boltz: Retirement planning is huge. And I feel like a lot of people don't really even consider retirement planning until they start to get a little bit older and start thinking about their exit strategy. So I love that you bring up retirement planning and ways that you can utilize it. Now I also have a question about real estate investing. You had mentioned something about that briefly.
 
So how does real estate investing relate to tax saving strategies for small business?
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah, no, we could dive down a long haul talking about real estate and the all sorts of type of planning opportunities that are involved in it. But I like to kind of talk when I talk about real estate, there's kind of two things that we talk about and where your opportunities are. The first one is more of a traditional real estate, you know, like where you're just holding a long-term rental property where you buy a single family home and rent it out to somebody and they stay there for years upon years. And then there's this short-term rental strategy and there's sometimes called the short-term rental loophole in how we look at that. But When we look at real estate in general, real estate is traditionally considered a passive type activity.
 
You invest in something, it gains some income, you get those rent checks. Maybe you're doing a little maintenance here or there, but you're not actively involved in it if it's just some rental properties and you have a day job. And the big thing about real estate is that you get a deduction for the cost of that real estate in the form of depreciation. And oftentimes depreciation is heavy up front where you can create a cash flow, you can create income, the depreciation, which is a non-cash expense, but it's going to offset that income that you're making. So you might make $10,000 of income from a rental property over the course of a year, but now you have $10,000 in depreciation that offsets that.
 
So you're paying zero in taxes, you're showing zero in income on your tax return, but you just cash flowed actually $10,000. And that's kind of the beauty behind real estate is that you get this idea of depreciation, which again, is a non-cash expense that can help offset a lot of the income that you have coming in. So when we look at real estate, I think it's very powerful in not only an investment that's going to continue to grow, but an investment that's oftentimes not, you're going to get positive cash flow without having to pay taxes on it, which is a benefit of itself. But if you can start to qualify as a real estate professional or you have a spouse that can qualify as a real estate professional, then we can look at real estate and say, how can we start creating losses in real estate that we can use to offset my business income. So if your business is doing really well, how can you create a loss or bring a loss over from real estate in those non-cash losses that we can use to reduce the income from our business?
 
In order to do that, we need something called a, you need to be a real estate professional, you need to have a spouse that's a real estate professional, or something along those lines. And so that's where you can really see power. You know, when we look at people were attacking And when President Trump found out his tax returns come out, a lot of people said, Trump paid $700 in taxes a year, and he's a billionaire, and that's not fair. When we look at what Trump was doing, at least from what we can tell from the information that was released, is he's using real estate losses to offset the majority of his income. So he might be cash flowing really well and bringing in a lot of cash, but he has these losses from real estate qualifying as a real estate professional that we can use to offset a lot of that income.
 
That's something that everybody can do, but the key thing is qualifying as a real estate professional. Then you bring in this idea of short-term rentals, where short-term rentals kind of throws that all up on its side and saying, oh, if we have a short-term rental with an average day of seven days or less, now we can use a short-term rental loss to offset active income. We can use a short-term rental loss to offset our business income. With a normal rental activity, you have passive income. You can't use that to offset business income unless you qualify as a real estate professional.
 
But now with a short-term rental, because it's not considered a passive activity because it's seven days or less, now we can utilize it to offset our business income. And that's kind of you'll see a lot of different things we talk about on our podcast. But this idea of the short-term rental loophole, that's where this idea of where you can utilize that idea of taking rental property losses to offset your other income, it opens up the door for people that don't qualify as a real estate professional, which can sometimes be a little difficult. So there's a lot of planning opportunities in real estate, not just looking at how can we help reduce your taxes or lower your taxes, but also just the investment itself and in where that can grow and kind of be a form of retirement planning, right? Like if you're not into the stock, bonds, mutual funds, those types of things, you know, maybe real estate is kind of your form of that idea of retirement planning.
 
And we see that with a lot of business owners going down that road.
 
Speaker 2: So for the fifth tax saving strategy for small businesses, tell us about hiring your kids. What are your thoughts on hiring your kids as a tax saving strategy?
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah, this idea of hiring my kids is one of my favorite strategies because it's something that if you have kids, it's something that you're spending a lot of money on them. You're paying for basketball camps, you're paying for amusement parks to go with their friends, and all of that again, we're we talk about after tax versus pre-tax dollars. Anything you spend on your kid, you're always consistently thinking, oh, that's just after-tax dollars. You know, how could I ever say that a basketball camp is a business expense? You're right.
 
That doesn't make sense. But is there a way that we could hire our kids in our business and then the kids could help pay for that basketball camp themselves? And the idea behind this is saying if we hire our kids in our business we can get a business deduction and our kids potentially pay no income tax on the income that they receive if they're under the standard deduction which this year is is somewhere upper thirteen thousand dollars. So you could pay your kids you know up to just under fourteen thousand dollars in income this year from your business get a business deduction for that your pre-tax expense for you and your child would pay no income tax on that income that they receive. This is a great way to shift that income into a lower tax bracket, a zero tax bracket, while still getting a business deduction for it.
 
Now, it's not as easy to say, okay, you know, we're going to pay little Johnny $14,000 this year, get a business expense for it and move on and everything's going to be great. You know, there's, there's again, this idea of, is this legal? Yes, absolutely. Directly talked about in the IRS code about hiring your own children and the tax benefits behind it. But the second piece is, are we dotting our eyes and crossing our T's?
 
Just writing a checkout to little Johnny for $14,000 is not dotting our eyes and crossing our T's. And so it's important to know the basics. The child has to be doing actual work for your business, you know, do we have a job description? Do we have an employment agreement for it? We need to be tracking their hours, you know, what are they doing?
 
What are the tasks that they're doing? Are we paying them a rate that's reasonable? So You might have them cut grass around your office, but are you paying them $250 an hour when the local professional is going to charge you $80 an hour? Yeah, that doesn't make sense. You know, we'd probably want to figure out what's a reasonable rate for their experience.
 
So If the professional is charging $80 now, we're probably going to charge even less than that because we have a child that's maybe inexperienced. Those are the things we want to start to link about this idea. But now we can get a business deduction, child pays potentially no income taxes, And the benefit then is that they can then go, they want to use those money to go to a basketball camp, go to a amusement park with friends. Essentially, we just moved after tax spending into pre-tax spending in that case. There's also this idea of funding a Roth IRA that I absolutely love.
 
Because when we think about a Roth IRA, as we talked about this whole idea of retirement planning, the problem with a Roth IRA is you get no tax deduction when you fund it. But if you have income that you have to pay zero tax on, You don't need a tax deduction. And so why, if we fund that Roth IRA, we get no tax deduction, which we also didn't need one because we have no tax. But now that Roth IRA, when you're 12 years old, you've put $5,000 into a Roth IRA, think about the compounding growth that that Roth IRA can gain over the course of however many years until you hit retirement. That's going to be tax free, withdrawals are tax free.
 
So I love this idea of now that we have earned income, let's and if we don't need to use it for basketball camps or whatever it might be, could we think about funding a Roth IRA with this. The other cool thing about Roth IRAs is that you can pull back the principal without any penalties, fines, and interest. So if from the age of 12 to 16, you put $5,000 into a Roth IRA each year, and now your child gets to college and they're like, I need some money, I need whatever it might be, and you don't have other resources for them. Well, they could go back and pull the principal back out of that Roth IRA without any kind of penalties or interest. And so it's really kind of this idea of hiring your kids is something we want to make sure we do right, but it's something that I think every business owner should be taking advantage of.
 
As long as you have kids, at least, you know, I say between the ages of seven, 17 is kind of where the sweet spot is of this. If your kids are older than that, There's different planning strategy around that and ways that we go about that. But there's definitely some planning around this idea of, of hiring your kids. And you know, just to kind of end that thought on is a lot of people, when I first talked to that, they say, sounds great, but you know, you said this thing about dotting your I's and crossing your T's and how you need to make sure that they're doing actual work. They might say like, I'm an attorney, like what could my kid possibly do in my business?
 
And I always say that there has been yet to be a business owner that I couldn't find something that we could say their kid was doing for the business. We couldn't find something that their kid could do in their business. You know, and it might not be as obvious as it might be initially. You know, could they be shredding papers? Could they be stuffing envelopes?
 
Could they be cleaning around the office? Another one I love for people that are kids that are in that like 15, 16 age and where they're starting to get into social media is, you know, couldn't they do some social media posts for you? Can they be researching different articles and sharing them on your social media? That's all part of this idea of let's be creative. Let's think about things that they can do and let's make sure that we're implementing them in a way that makes sense for it while also making sure that we're doing things correctly.
 
So a lot of planning opportunities, I just think it's something that if you have kids in that range, it's something you need to be thinking about and just start research in that process. You know, when we talk about tax planning, it's this idea of let me learn, let's hear all these good things, let's hear about these tax strategies, but we can't just stop from learning. We have to actually take, put our feet on the ground and start to implement those and so that implementation piece could be researching a little bit Tweaking that strategy to get to where it needs to be for your situation specifically
 
Rachel Boltz: You know, we're all about that case about that case no trouble all about that case about that case no trouble All about that case about that case no trouble all about that case about that case
 
Brooke Boltz: We are all about your case. Text or call to schedule a free consultation for all your legal needs. Boltzlegal.com.
 
Rachel Boltz: I love that fifth tip. I am a huge advocate for putting my kids to work. It builds a strong work ethic, but then if you can use that as an investment for their future and their future goals, like that to me is the icing on the cake. So I really appreciate those tips that you shared with us today.
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah. And that's a great, that's a great point. You know, it's, it's, we're looking at a tax strategy and that's where my mind's always like tax saving tax savings, but you bring up a good point. Like not only are we potentially saving taxes or we are saving taxes, but we're teaching them this idea of working for a living, working for money. Maybe they might be, this might be a business that they want to look to take over, you know, down the road, 20, 30, 40 years from now.
 
What a great opportunity to get them in at a very young age. And they might say, I want nothing to do with it. Well, that just made your succession planning a little bit easier because now you know, okay, it's not going to the kids. What other options are there? And where's kind of the exit plan in here?
 
But yeah, I think that there's so many benefits over and above just the tax savings that you mentioned there.
 
Speaker 2: Rachel and I both put our kids to work at communities. They are great at handing out air fresheners or whatever it is that we're passing out.
 
Rachel Boltz: People don't want to say no to kids. You know, they'll say no to adults all day long, but they don't want to say no to kids. So we send them the kids out.
 
Speaker 2: A couple of summers ago, I had my daughters, they were like nine and 10 at the time, work at the office in the summer, and I thought, I'm going to put them upstairs. We have just kind of a little loft upstairs in the office where they would be away from people and not like disturbing the staff. But, turns out they can still disturb the staff. Cause I'd be sitting here like on a phone call or something, and I'd hear, get up! You know?
 
And they'd be fighting. And so if your kids get along, that's a little easier than a fight all the time like mine do. But they definitely, the task that they did, just in case people are looking for ideas, is they sent out emails asking my former clients for Google reviews. And so I made a template email for them and gave them the list and they sent those emails. And then I gave them Robux for every review they actually got because they don't really care too much about money.
 
I did pay them, but that's not what really motivates them as much, but Roblox money, they were into that.
 
MIke Jesowshek: I love that. That brings up a good point. I love that idea of what are some things that they can be doing. Now, I do have to ask, Was there any funky emails that they might have sent out where the template got tripled or they were fighting and all of a sudden the keyboard was typing a bunch of different things?
 
Speaker 2: Yes, so many times. They would send three emails to the same person or forget to change the name. So it would say, Dear John, I'm supposed to say, you know, plenty of errors, but people were, were very gracious with, with I would say that was my kids. I'm sorry. I'm trying to teach them how to, I'm trying to help them, you know, start learning how to work and seeing what work is like and so people were very gracious thankfully.
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah I love that concept and you know another thing I had an attorney that I was talking to about this strategy and again they're like well what can they do for my business? I said, throw them in social media, have them start doing that social media stuff. And he's like, why don't do social media? Like, I don't need to, I grow from referrals. Like I don't need, I don't need to grow my business at all.
 
I'm like, well, what would it hurt to have someone manage a social media account for you? Again, we're looking at this from a tax strategy standpoint. You know, we're getting a business deduction, kids are paying no income taxes. What would it really hurt by having them do social media for you? And hey, maybe you have some really good clients that always come from referrals, but now they're starting to see your stuff more often, now they're gonna come work for you, think about you more often in various different things.
 
And you might not need the business, but was it gonna hurt if we're looking at it from a tax standpoint as well?
 
Speaker 2: Absolutely. The social media, Rachel's given a statistic before that millennials and younger will look you up on social media before they'll go to your website. And having a social media presence is important, especially to the younger demographic.
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah, 100%.
 
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for your time today. This has brought massive value to our listeners, and I just cannot thank you enough for volunteering and sharing your time today with us to teach us these strategies. And if anyone has not heard of or listened to the podcast, tax, Wait, I'm going to say it wrong. Small business tax savings.
 
MIke Jesowshek: Yeah, that's it.
 
Speaker 2: Small business tax savings. I highly recommend it. It's in the top 1 percent of podcasts globally, according to ListenNotes, and on the first page of Apple Podcasts when you search tax and it is highly valuable. We'll give you all kinds of great ideas to save on taxes for your small business. So please check it out.
 
And with that, thank you for tuning in until next time.
 
Brooke Boltz: Take care.
 
MIke Jesowshek: Rachel Brooke, thanks for having me.
 
Rachel Boltz: Thank you so much. We appreciate you and are honored to be on this journey with you. We can't wait to help you, to encourage you, and show you how to grow personally, professionally, and spiritually.
 
Brooke Boltz: If you found Miss Biz helpful, please leave a review and share with others.
 
Rachel Boltz: You can follow us on social media at Miss Biz Podcast.
 
Brooke Boltz: For legal questions or services, please visit BoltsLegal.com.
 
Rachel Boltz: And for digital marketing needs, please visit BoltsMedia.com. Let's get biz done.

Ep. 24 Part 2 Reels Revealed: Inside Secrets for Instagram’s Viral Video Platform

Episode 24 is here so get ready to uncover the hidden gems, tips, and tricks to master Instagram's hottest feature, Reels! If you're looking to boost your social media game, engage your audience, and take your content creation to the next level, you've come to the right place.
Hosted by Instagram enthusiasts and content creation wizards, Brooke Boltz and Rachel Boltz. We're here to spill the beans on the strategies that help turn creators from ordinary to extraordinary.
Whether you're an aspiring influencer, a business owner, or simply a fan of captivating short videos, Episode 24 offers insights and inspiration for everyone.
Join us as we unveil the best-kept secrets, offer actionable advice, and keep you in the loop with the ever-evolving Reels landscape. With our insider knowledge and your creativity, you'll be ready to create thumb-stopping content and boost your Instagram presence like never before.
Tune in, hit that 'Follow' button, and let's embark on a journey to Reel stardom together. You won't want to miss a single episode Ms. Biz! 🚀📷
 
Msbizpod.podbean.com
www.facebook.com/MsBizPodcast
www.BoltzLegal.com
www.BoltzMedia.com