We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Catherine Latoya Grant-Alston a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Catherine Latoya, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One thing we always find fascinating is how differently entrepreneurs think about revenue growth and cost reductions – both can be powerful ways to improve profitability. What do you spend more of your time and energy on?
Many people running businesses think that growing or scaling their business requires choices to either increase revenue or cut costs. Sometimes your business requires you to do both. Other times, you need to make investments to get to the next level. Those investments include hiring staff, investing in technology, or coaching/education. There are so many elements governing business finances that are not simple revenue and cost. The true components that matter in business are understanding the story that your finances tell, the trends, and who your business serves. The critical factor that many business owners miss is automating their business. Business owners spend so much time with manual processing that it drains their talent and restricts their reach of customers. I learned this firsthand when I would sit down and manually track my business finances in a spreadsheet. It took time and manual effort to categorize each transaction. It was even more painful to sit and write checks to vendors and input every detail into a word template for customer invoices. Each check collected was delayed to deposit because, let’s face it, who has time to run to the bank? The problem remained regardless if I increased revenue or cut costs. Automating my business finances using a system such as QuickBooks was so beneficial. Not only did I get precious time back to build my business clientele, but I also realized that I had automated financials at my fingertips at any time. The data told a story and was a critical missing piece to growing my business.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
Growing up, I remember seeing drug dealers with so much money and drug users stealing to get cash for drugs. I always thought, “how could they both be chasing the same dollar?”. It sparked my interest in money. I loved math, so it was a natural instinct to find money intriguing. My school was always my outlet from my environment. I spent most of my days involved in academic programs and extracurricular activities at school. There was an Academy of Finance program where we learned accounting, management, and personal finances. We had an opportunity to apply to be a bank teller in a credit union that was being built in the school. I applied and became one of the first three students to work in the bank. It was at that moment I realized I had found my true passion in the financial industry. From there, I continued to work at a bank full-time while going to college full-time. I obtained a business degree from the University of Connecticut and eventually earned my MBA from the University of Massachusetts. I knew that I wanted to help people stop chasing the dollar and instead learn how to leverage it to increase wealth and build their Kingdom. My King and I started ART Financial Solutions, LLC d/b/a Alston Kingdom to educate our community on being financially savvy.
I transitioned from retail banking into corporate treasury. I was fascinated by the millions and billions of dollars in the corporation. The strategy of planning billions of dollars was the highlight of my days. I became the 1st Director of Global Cash Operations, governing billions of dollars for a fortune 300 corporation. I realized that those same fundamental strategies could be applied to small businesses. The only thing different from the corporation to the entrepreneur was simply the number of zeros in the bank account. The operations essentially were the same. At that point, I realized I had the solution to help business owners grow and scale their businesses. Corporations operate efficiently using automation and technology. Entrepreneurs burn themselves out trying to do everything in their businesses instead of leveraging the same tools as the corporations. My husband and I took our 20+ years in the financial and technology industries and started coaching business owners on the value of automating their businesses, especially their finances.
Not only do we save business owners time to build their businesses, but we have a 100% success rate in increasing their revenue. We pride ourselves on businesses building empires that will last generations and generations to come. Of course, you can’t have a booming business and a busted life, so we naturally continue to provide personal financial literacy to our clients. We set the expectation that our clients are royalty and to be treated as such. Each client is acknowledged as King and Queen. They are a part of the Kingdom family. We take pride in this and understand that it differs from other financial consulting firms. We want each Kingdom to thrive!
Being a black owned business, we know firsthand the disparity of wealth. We want to educate our community and relate to each personal Kingdom. We started the Kingdom Treasures podcast to discuss Black Love, Black Finance, and Black Family. Our podcast community lets our clients, potential clients, and anyone who can relate to the black community know we are there to support. We have a relatable and positive open dialogue regarding the black community. It’s important to see positive black married and successful business owners willing to share their journey and educate the community.
How’d you meet your business partner?
My husband, Reginald Alston Jr., is the Co-Founder of ART Financial Solutions, LLC d/b/a Alston Kingdom. We met in college when we were broke college students figuring out life and dreaming big. We met at a party. On our podcast, Kingdom Treasures, the King tells the story of how he walked into the party and knew immediately that he wanted me to be his girlfriend. Let’s say I wasn’t as convinced. Ultimately, our love story manifested into the Alston Kingdom. The great thing about being married to your business partner is that you constantly share goals and aspirations with each other. We continuously dream big and implement. Of course, each day is not roses and sunshine. There are tough conversations and disagreements with business and marriage. On those days, we remember our “why” and have open communication. We often share these same strategies with other couples in business on our Money Date Night events. The community of support for married business owners is encouraging.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Growing up, the odds were stacked against me to succeed. According to statistics, I would be dead or in jail before age 21. I knew I was smart, and that school was an opportunity no one else had explored in my family. Since day one, I have fought for the life I envisioned – a life of abundance, wealth, and happiness. I took a chance at school, but I had to persevere from day one. I remember filling out the application for many colleges and then seeing that it had to be signed by a parent. I lived with my grandparents, who did not have legal custody of me. I didn’t know my father. My mother was incarcerated. It was nearly impossible to mail the documents to the prison and receive them back in time for completion. I remember going to the jail and pleading with the guard to allow my mother to sign the documents during our visitation. If you know anything about prison, nothing goes in, and nothing comes out of the visit. The guard looked into my eyes and saw my desperation. He understood the situation that I was in and knew the statistics of children who have incarcerated parents. He allowed me to bring the papers in to get signed. That was the same resilience I had to carry throughout my entire early adulthood of trying to figure life out with little direction. The same determination got me through college, working full-time and attending my classes full-time. The same determination pushed me through several surgeries, including heart surgery, before the age of 35. The same resilience propelled me to elevate my corporate career. The same resilience was the very thing that helped me build a thriving and successful financial consulting business. I carry that same resilience and perseverance to this day because I remember how the odds were stacked against me.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.grantalston.com
- Instagram: @AlstonKingdom
- Facebook: @AlstonKingdom
- Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/catherine-latoya-grant-alston
- Other: Podcast: www.kingdomtreasurespod.com