We recently connected with Michele Williams and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Michele, thanks for joining us today. It’s easy to look at a business or industry as an outsider and assume it’s super profitable – but we’ve seen over and over again in our conversation with folks that most industries have factors that make profitability a challenge. What’s biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

The biggest challenge to profitability in creative industries is really knowing and understanding the financials. Most creatives love the idea of sharing their gifts and abilities and want to be paid, but truly having a grasp on all that goes into the pricing and profitability can be difficult. For example, how do they get paid to think about a project? Work goes into the deliverables and the process well before the hands on work begins. Capturing that value in pricing may feel challenging.

On top of the pricing, fully grasping the financials and cash flow management is an added layer of complexity. It can feel overwhelming and laborious to analyze numbers so deeply, especially to a creative entrepreneur. When faced with these money issues compared to creating – they would much rather create. And I get it.

But here is the deal, if products and services are not priced correctly and managed effectively, the love of creation will evaporate.

Michele, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a speaker, serial entrepreneur, and the CEO behind Scarlet Thread Consulting and Metrique Solutions, a robust software platform for creative business owners. Over the years, I have been recognized as a leading authority in business strategy with a niche expertise serving women with creative firms. As a speaker and tech entrepreneur rooted in empowering women to run profitable companies, I have been blessed to speak on more than 50 platforms including: Custom Workroom Conference, International Window Coverings Expo, ASID, IDS, High Point Market Authority, and many others.

My career began with financial software development working with Dun & Bradstreet software. After 10 years, I came home to raise my family and began an interiors company, then invested in a school teaching creatives how to support the home industry with their craft and to make a business out of that skillset. I began business coaching in 2013 and started a podcast, Profit Is A Choice, in 2018. In 2022 we are launching Metrique Solutions, a financial dashboard for creative business owners to assist them in measuring what matters in their firms with ease – and with pictures!

I am most proud of working with women who are super smart with awesome offerings and assisting them in pricing their work effectively and managing the profits well so that they can grow and scale while allowing them to have a work/life balance they desire. It sounds cliché’, but I can tell you from doing this work for more than 10 years, empowering women in their entrepreneurial journey creates a trickle down to their families that brings the most joy.

My goal is to educate, equip, empower and encourage women in the growth and scaling of their firms by teaching strategy and financial literacy. All of my business endeavors have this at the center, and I love every moment of it.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn how to focus narrowly on the creative aspect of my business and to create a focus on the financial sustainability of my business. Learning to navigate business ownership and financials even though I have a degree in business and built financial software applications, did not come easily or without some bumps and bruises.

When I started my first company in 2000, I was most excited to do the actual work of creating for others. The pay was secondary. And while I understood how business worked and how financials worked, it was not my focus. My focus was creating.

And that was all well and good for year one, but by year two and three when I was seeing a negative net profit at the end of the year all while serving very well-off clients with interior design services, and missing my kids’ soccer games to do it, the fun went out the door quickly.

I clearly remember the day in March of 2003 when I was completing tax prep for 2002, and it was my best revenue year. And then I saw the bottom line, and it was negative. I was devastated and angry and felt such shame. I knew that if I was going to work as hard as I was, that I either had to get a grip and make money or go back to my 6-figure corporate job. And I did not want to go back to corporate.

So, I began looking at my business from the outside, instead of the inside. I took the business principles that I had seen exemplified in large business and brought them down to a micro level to apply to my small (tiny) business. Boundaries were developed, processes and procedures as well as terms and conditions created, and a new business owner was birthed.

The changes happened quickly and my love of creating was restored. Immediately I started sharing and teaching others after I saw my own business turnaround. As I have started and purchased other companies, these techniques have been utilized from the beginning. These lessons learned were from a hard path and tough times, and I don’t take them lightly.

This pain point is exactly what fuels my work today – almost 20 years later. I can feel the emotions and see in my mind’s eye exactly where I was when I made the internal decision to figure it out. And it can be figured out.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I could speak on this all day as an avid reader. Here are a few books that have seriously shaped my business journey:

1. “E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber. Understanding the roles of CEO, Manager and Technician – even if I am in the role of all three has been instrumental in my ability to see my business from multiple vantage points.

2. “Profit First” by Mike Michalowicz. I have been a Profit First Advisor since 2015. When I read this book it was describing aspects of my own journey and mirrored some of the processes I had created back in my kitchen in 2003 when I made a choice to save my business. The money management principles are easy to understand, and I help my clients implement these strategies which creates massive results for them

3. “Atomic Habits” by James Clear is another great read. To understand the intersection of your beliefs, identity and actions has been a game-changer. I cannot recommend this one enough.

4. “212 The Extra Degree” by Sam Parker and Mac Anderson. This book is small but mighty. It uses the analogy of water boiling. At 211 degrees water is hot. At 212 degrees it boils. That one degree makes a HUGE difference. This book encourages us to look at the extra degree in all that we do in life and business.

I could go on for days, so many good books are available.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.scarletthreadconsulting.com https://www.metriquesolutions.com
• Instagram: @scarletthreadatl @metriquesolutions
• Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting and Metrique Solutions
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michele-williams-business-coach/

Image Credits
CatMax Photography for some and @brand.you.photo for others.