Are you unknowingly sabotaging your finances in business … just by the way you think about money?

It’s more common than you think. In fact, some of the most capable entrepreneurs I meet are held back not by systems, not by strategy, not by talent.

By hidden money beliefs that keep them undercharging, overworking, and playing small.

I’m Jamie Trull, CPA and Financial Educator.

On most days I’m all about the tactical: saving on taxes, reading your financials, maximizing profit.

But today, we’re going deeper, because your results follow your mindset.

When you upgrade the way you think about money, you unlock a business that supports your life (not the other way around).

At the end, I’ll share the #1 mindset that keeps owners stuck … and a simple path to start finding hidden profit based on your money personality.

👉 Start here: Take my free 8-minute Money Personality Quiz to discover your dominant strengths (and tripwires).

👉 Then set your finances up to support your new mindset: Open multiple, no-fee business sub-accounts with Relay to automate profit, taxes, payroll, and pay-yourself transfers.

Part 1: Five Money Mindsets That Quietly Shrink Your Business

1) “Profit is selfish.”

If you’re aware of how tough the world can be, profit might feel icky, like taking more means someone else gets less.

This belief especially shows up among women entrepreneurs and heart-centered founders who value service over sales.

The result?

Chronic underpricing, overdelivering, and razor-thin margins that keep you stressed and stuck.

Reframe: Profit fuels purpose.
Profit pays your team fairly, sustains your service, and funds your impact—donations, scholarships, community projects, parental leave policies, and the breathing room to do your best work.

The people who worry about “money corrupting” are often the very people who will use it for good.

If that’s you, the world needs you resourced.

Try this micro-shift:

• Add a tiny “Impact Allocation” to your budget (even 1–2%).
  
• Every time you price or raise a price, remind yourself: “I’m resourcing my mission.”
  
• Celebrate profit as the combustion engine of your purpose—not its opposite.
  

2) “If I ignore it, it’ll go away.”

When numbers feel overwhelming, it’s tempting to avoid your bookkeeping, bank balance, and bills.

But avoidance keeps your brain on constant low-level alert.

You know there’s something important you’re not facing—and that cognitive load silently drains your energy.

Reframe: Clarity is a kindness to yourself.
Looking at the numbers is what makes them less scary. When you measure reality, you make better decisions, lower your anxiety, and recover your personal power.

Try this Money Monday routine (30–45 mins):

1. Open Relay (or your primary bank) and review each sub-account: Operating, Taxes, Payroll, Owner Pay, Profit.
   
2. Check your accounting dashboard (Xero/FreshBooks/QBO):
   
   • Cash on hand (today + 30-day runway)
     
   • A/R aging (who owes you) and A/P (who you owe)
     
   • Last week’s revenue vs. goal
     
3. Take 3 actions: send 2 follow-up invoices, schedule 1 bill, move this week’s Profit/Owner Pay transfer.
   
4. Note 1 decision for the week (e.g., adjust ad spend, pause a subscription, nudge pricing).
   

Set a recurring calendar event: “Money Monday.” Keep it sacred.

3) “Revenue is success.”

Revenue is loud and flashy.

But revenue alone can be a treadmill; you can sell more and still end up with less.

If your brain equates bigger with better, you might be chasing top-line goals that don’t move your bottom line—or your life.

Reframe: Profit is the point; revenue is a tool.
Yes, set a sales target. But pair it with margin and profit targets, too.

Before you chase more demand, squeeze more outcome from your current demand.

Three profit-first moves:

• Price audit: Which offers carry your margins? Which don’t? Reduce or reprice the laggards.
  
• Delivery efficiency: Document your process, batch tasks, templatize assets, and trim scope creep.
  
• Bank for behavior: Use Relay to auto-route revenue into separate “envelopes” the day cash lands:
  
  • Taxes (e.g., 20–30%)
    
  • Profit (e.g., 1–5% to start)
    
  • Owner Pay (e.g., a stable transfer each Friday)
    
  • Operating (what’s left is what you can spend)
    

When your bank is aligned with your goals, you don’t have to white-knuckle discipline. The system does it for you.

👉 Automate profit and peace of mind with Relay.

4) “Help is too expensive.”

“If I just work a little harder…”

That line has kept more founders stuck than any tax rate ever could.

Doing everything yourself is the most expensive way to run a company; because your $10/hour tasks crowd out your $1,000/hour work (sales, CEO time, partnerships, IP).

Reframe: The right help is a revenue strategy.
Support creates capacity. Capacity creates sales. Sales fund more support.

That’s the flywheel of a scalable business.

Start tiny, start smart:

• 5 hours/week Virtual Assistant for inbox, scheduling, customer service.
  
• Bookkeeper to close your month and send you a KPI snapshot you’ll actually read.
  
• Ops specialist to build repeatable SOPs for onboarding, delivery, and renewals.
  

Pricing check: Your rates must include the true cost of support.

If your price can’t support a VA or bookkeeper, the price is the problem, not the hire.

5) “Playing small keeps me safe.”

Maybe you’re not playing small—you’re playing medium: visible enough to stay busy, not so visible that you risk real rejection.

But medium keeps your best work hidden and your impact capped.

Reframe: Playing small is the riskiest plan.
Safe is the status quo … until it isn’t. The market changes, platforms shift, competitors arrive.

Bold, intentional visibility is less risky than invisibility.

Up-level without the panic:

• Raise your price on one offer by 10–15% and add one clear value enhancer (e.g., live Q&A, feedback round, priority turnaround).
  
• Pitch one dream podcast or partner per week.
  
• Post one “spicy but true” insight your ideal clients need to hear.
  
• Launch one small “category of one” idea (the thing only you can teach).
  

Part 2: Your Money Personality (and Why It Matters)

We don’t all think about money the same way, and that’s good news.

Your innate style carries superpowers you can lean into, and tripwires you can design around. My free quiz (rooted in the Sacred Money Archetypes® by Kendall SummerHawk, for which I’m a certified coach) reveals your top types, so you can build systems that fit you.

The eight types (quick tour):

• Accumulator (The Banker): Disciplined saver; may over-delay investing and hiring.
  
• Alchemist (The Idealist): Vision + impact; may underprice or avoid structure.
  
• Celebrity (The Big Shot): Magnetic and bold; may overspend to impress.
  
• Connector (The Relationship Builder): Referrals machine; may avoid “hard” money talks.
  
• Maverick (The Rebel with a Cause): Risk-taker; may skip the boring-but-critical details.
  
• Nurturer (The Giver): Heart of gold; classic overdeliverer/undercharger.
  
• Romantic (The YOLO): Loves comfort and ease; may avoid money discomforts entirely.
  
• Ruler (The Empire Builder): High achiever; may overwork and move goalposts forever.
  

👉 Discover your money personality type in 8 minutes.

Build your “personality-aligned money system”:

• Accumulator: Use Relay auto-transfers to force investment and Owner Pay (so you don’t hoard in Operating).
  
• Alchemist: Productize your magic—turn your method into a clear, premium signature offer.
  
• Celebrity: Install a monthly “profit lock” transfer before you touch discretionary spend.
  
• Connector: Script a simple price talk; use proposals that state value and outcomes, not hours.
  
• Maverick: Weekly 30-minute Money Monday + a bookkeeper who closes your month on schedule.
  
• Nurturer: Replace discounts with value-add bonuses; enforce scope in writing.
  
• Romantic: Automate everything (Relay sub-accounts + auto-transfers) so the hard parts happen without willpower.
  
• Ruler: Define enough for this quarter. Write a stop line. Protect time off like a client meeting.
  

Part 3: From Mindset to Money—Turn Belief into Bankable Behavior

A. Set Values-Based Pricing (So You Can Sleep at Night)

1. Define the transformation: What shifts for your client? (Time saved, revenue gained, stress removed.)
   
2. Price the outcome, not the hours.
   
3. Document the scope (protect your margins).
   
4. Review quarterly (costs change; your price should too).
   

B. Bank for Behavior with Relay

Set up sub-accounts in minutes and auto-route inflows the day they hit.
Common setup:

• Income (clearing) → auto-sweep twice/week into:
  
  • Taxes (20–30%)
    
  • Profit (1–5% to start; raise quarterly)
    
  • Owner Pay (fixed weekly transfer)
    
  • Operating (the only account you spend from)
    
  • Payroll (if you have W-2s or contractors)
    

When Operating runs low, it’s a signal—not a reason to raid taxes or profit.

👉 Open Relay and create your “profit envelopes”

C. Install a Weekly CFO Rhythm

• Money Monday: 30–45 minutes as outlined above.
  
• Sales Wednesday: One outbound pitch + one nurture touch.
  
• Finance Friday: Approve bills (batch), move profit/owner pay, skim KPIs.
  

D. Hire the Next Right Support

• 5–10 hours/week VA → then bookkeeper → then ops.
  
• Set a 90-day ROI hypothesis for each role; review against outcomes, not feelings.
  

E. Raise Prices With Integrity

• Add clarity (a timeline, milestones, check-ins).
  
• Add a premium experience (priority inbox, faster turnaround, private community).
  
• Increase 10–20% for new customers first. Legacy clients can keep their rate for one renewal cycle with a friendly heads-up.
  

Part 4: The #1 Money Mindset That Keeps Owners Stuck

“I’ll feel confident when I have more money.”

Nope.

Confidence doesn’t arrive after a deposit; it grows from keeping promises to yourself.

Looking at your numbers every week, pricing with integrity, honoring your boundaries, and installing systems that turn intention into habit.

You won’t out-earn a broken relationship with money. But you absolutely can heal it, one Money Monday, one clean price conversation, one automated transfer at a time.

Quick Wins You Can Do Today

• Take the quiz: Know your money personality (superpowers + tripwires).
  
• Open Relay and create sub-accounts: Taxes, Profit, Owner Pay, Operating, Payroll.
  👉 https://jamietrull.com/relay
  
• Schedule “Money Monday” as a recurring event.
  
• Pick one offer and raise the price 10–15% for new clients (add a value enhancer).
  
• Write one boundary sentence you’ll use this week:
  “To stay on timeline and quality, additional changes are a new phase billed at $X.”
  
• Hire 5 hours/week of help you should’ve had yesterday.
  

FAQs

Isn’t focusing on profit “greedy”?
Profit is what keeps your mission alive, pays your team fairly, and funds your impact. Profit done right is generosity with a business model.

Do I need to switch all my banking to try Relay?
No. Start by opening Relay and setting up a Taxes + Profit account. Experiment with a small auto-transfer. Feel the relief of earmarked money.

I’m not “a numbers person.” Now what?
You don’t have to be. Use Money Monday, a dashboard you understand, and bank rules that automate your good intentions. Hire a bookkeeper for the rest.

How do I know it’s time to hire?
When your calendar is full of $10–$50/hour tasks while $500–$1,000/hour work waits. Start small; measure outcomes; iterate.

Keep Going (You’ve Got This)

You don’t need to become someone else to make more and keep more.

You just need systems that respect who you are. Start with your money personality, then build bank rules and weekly habits that make the right choice the easy choice.

Two next clicks:

• Find your Money Personality
  
• Automate your profit with Relay accounts
  

And if you want the step-by-step, compassionate playbook to know your numbers and find the cash hiding in your business, grab my book Hidden Profit with bonuses:

Sponsor & Affiliate Disclosure

This article is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for advice from your tax, legal, or financial advisor.

Some links above are partner/affiliate links, which may provide compensation to me at no additional cost to you. I only recommend tools I genuinely use or believe in.

If this post includes sponsored promotion, that relationship has been disclosed.

This transcript was generated from the video for your convenience, but it may contain typos or slight errors due to the transcription process. For the most accurate and complete information, we recommend watching the full YouTube video.

Are you unknowingly sabotaging your business growth just by the way you actually think about money? It’s more common than you think, and in this video, we’re gonna uncover those money mindset traps that might be quietly capping your success. Hi everyone. I’m Jamie Trull, CPA and Financial Educator. And on this channel, I’m typically giving you everything you need to stay informed, organized, and profitable in your business finances.

And typically, I’m giving you all of those practical steps to do things like save on taxes, maximize your profit, and understand your financial statements. But today I wanna go a little bit deeper into something that actually affects your ability to do all of that effectively. And that is. Your mindset when it comes to money.

Now, make sure you stick around until the end, because that’s where I’m gonna tell you about the number one thing that keeps people stuck where they are in their business. Plus, I’m gonna get you on the path to finding hidden profit in your business based. On the way that you think about money. So let’s start with some common mindsets around money that hold people back.

The first one that I actually see a lot is believing that money is inherently bad or that profit is selfish. Now I’ll tell you that this one hits. Really close to home. This is something that I’ve struggled with in my own business in the past, and if you’re a person that’s very aware of the struggles of people in this world and in this country, then this might hit you as well.

Rethinking Profit and Business Finances as a Force for Good

In some ways, it may feel completely unfair to have a really profitable, thriving business that pays you lots of money, especially when you look around and you see so many people working so hard for a lot less. That can keep business owners from doing things like charging what they should be charging because they feel like it’s too greedy or they see profit as actually taking from others.

Now, I don’t wanna overly generalize, but I do happen to see this specific money mindset more often showing up in women entrepreneurs. And I think it’s one of the things that can lead to statistics, like the fact that 40% of privately owned businesses are owned by women, which is amazing, but only 4% of revenues are generated by women owned companies.

So there’s a massive disparity there. Now to be clear, there’s a lot of systemic reasons that that is the case, but also there is a piece of mindset to it as well, and a quick mindset reframe can really make all the difference in the world. And what I finally realized. Is that profit is not the opposite of purpose.

Profit is what fuels purpose. Profit is what allows us to hire people and pay them well. It allows us to run a thriving business that helps our customers and clients and can sustain over the long term. And it can generate income for us that we can then use to make our communities and our world better.

Why Financial Management Starts With Your Money Mindset

And I would actually argue that if this is you and you fall into this mindset where you worry about the power of money to corrupt, you are actually the exact type of person that needs to have a share of that money because you are going to do positive things. With it. So I want you to do a quick reframe there and start thinking about profit, not as something negative or selfish, but as what can actually help you increase your impact in your business.

Now, the second mindset that I see happening quite a lot with business owners is if I ignore it. Maybe it’ll go away. Right? And we know that this is not the case. We know that hiding our head in the sand and not looking at our financials isn’t actually gonna get us where we need to go. But in practice we avoid it thinking, well, if I don’t think about it, then I won’t have to worry about it.

But the truth is that when we do that, it actually. Hangs heavy on our shoulders. We know this. It’s in the back of our mind all the time, even if we’re trying not to think about it. And in fact, when you finally do face things and look at your finances and really start being more intentional with them, it actually will help to take that weight off of your shoulders and just make life feel so much better.

Weekly Check-Ins and Better Cash Flow Awareness

Now, I’m actually a really big fan of weekly money check-ins. I do these on what I call Money Mondays. If you’re curious what that routine looks like and what I’m actually looking at on my Money Mondays, definitely check out this video where I walk you through my life on a step-by-step basis and what I actually do on those dates.

And I’m actually a big fan of having a financial dashboard where you can track important metrics in your business. Or using accounting software like Xero or FreshBooks, or even QuickBooks Online in order to keep yourself organized. Now, if you’re trying to decide on what accounting platform is best for you and you’re comparing options, definitely go to jamietrull.com/accounting where you can see more about the different accounting platforms then I recommend, and these special deals I’ve negotiated on them for you.

All right now onto mindset number. Three. And that is using revenue as a benchmark for success. Yes. Revenue is exciting, and that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have goals based on revenue, but those shouldn’t be our only financial goals. If we’re really just looking at revenue to tell us if we’re successful or not, we may end up just running in place.

Prioritizing Cash Flow Management Over Just Revenue

And this type of mentality tends to lead to burnout because we’re constantly just thinking, well, if I just make more sales, if I just make more revenue, I’ll be okay. But I want you to remember. More sales means nothing if there’s not much left over. At the end of the day, we have got to, got to, got to make sure that we’re focusing in on profitability.

Are we making sure that we’re making as much money as we can off of each and every one of those sales before we go chase more sales? We do not want to leave money on the table. So in addition to having goals for revenue, you need to have really. Specific goals for profitability and also a system that helps you prioritize profit.

So if you’re looking for the best tool to do this, I actually use Relay as my business banking platform because of the fact that Relay allows you to open multiple different accounts at the click of a button and to be able to use them to essentially create different envelopes in your business. It’s kind of like a virtual envelope.

System, or you can create an envelope that’s specifically just for taxes. It has its own account, or maybe one for payroll or one for your profit. And paying yourself that will absolutely help you to make sure that you don’t overspend and that you’re protecting your profit.

How Understanding Your Balance Sheet Supports Smarter Growth

So especially if you’re one of those people that doesn’t love to look at your finances all the time. You can automate so much of this, and Relay is a fabulous tool that can help you do that. So make sure to go check out more as well as our current deals at jamietrull.com slash relay.

Alright, mindset number four that I see all the time. That is getting in the way of business owners being able to grow their businesses, and that is avoiding help because it feels. Too expensive. If you’ve ever said, I’d love to hire, but I can’t afford it, you are not alone. That is so common, especially for small business owners trying to scale.

But if you don’t have help, you yourself are gonna stay buried in $10 an hour tasks, and it is going to prevent. Your business from growing to where it could actually go. So instead, I want you to think that the right help is actually an investment in your business.

Now, of course, you want to be making sure that you’re making profit that can help you support bringing someone on. So that might mean looking back at things like your pricing to make sure that you’re priced accordingly, to be able to pay staff and still make a profit.

Corporate Finance Decisions That Strengthen Your Financial Health

Maybe it’s starting by hiring a part-time virtual assistant. That’s what. I started with five hours a week back in the day, six or seven years ago. That person is now my chief operating Officer, so you absolutely can find good help that can grow with you, or maybe it’s time to outsource your bookkeeping, or maybe it’s even time to bring on your first part-time or full-time employee to help you run your business and to serve your clients.

But even starting small can make some really big shifts. And of course, when it’s time for you to hire that first employee, make sure to come back and check out all my resources about payroll, including my comparison of multiple different payroll platforms, as well as specially negotiated deals just for you at jamietrull.com/payroll and mindset number five.

And this is one that also is near and dear to my heart. It’s something that I did for a while and that is. Playing small to stay safe. I am not the biggest risk taker, so me being an entrepreneur was really something that took a lot of practice to get comfortable taking any kind of risks.

Financial Planning for Business Owners Ready to Play Bigger

But then I realized that playing small was actually the risky thing to do. It meant undercharging. Under investing and underselling and really was a reason that I felt stuck for a period of time in my business. Instead, it is time to play a bigger game. It’s time to show up with more confidence in your pricing, your visibility, and your offers.

Now, if playing small isn’t something that resonates with you. I understand that I actually didn’t think that I was playing small for a really long time. However, I recently realized that while maybe I wasn’t playing small, I also wasn’t playing big. I was kind of playing medium, and that meant that while I was putting myself out there to a certain degree, I wasn’t really going full force.

I wasn’t. Putting so much of myself out there that it felt too risky. I wasn’t going for those really, really big goals that I actually do have. So whether you feel like you’re playing small or medium, it’s probably time to up it, right? Let’s take it to the next level and see what happens for your business when you do.

Strengthening Your Business Financial Management Through Self-Awareness

Now I wanna go a step further here because I love talking about money mindset, but I really like to make this personal for you. So I actually created a quiz that will tell you your primary money personality type. There are eight different money personality types. It’s based on these Sacred Money Archetypes by Kendall Summerhawk that IMA certified coach in.

So you can find that quiz over at jamietrull.com slash quiz. And the really great thing about knowing your dominant money personality types. Is that you can actually tap into your unique superpowers when it comes to making money and be aware of those things that sometimes can trip you up and get in your way.

And the more aware we are of those things, the more we can actively try to change them. Now make sure to go over to take the quiz yourself. It takes about eight minutes, but I do wanna tell you what those eight personality types are.

Building the Right Finance Team and Money Confidence

The first is the accumulator, a k, a, the banker. I’m sure to no one’s surprise, this is my number one archetype. The second one is the Alchemist, AKA, the idealist, then the celebrity, AKA, the big shot. You probably know someone just like this. Then there’s the connector, a K, A, the relationship builder.

Next we have the maverick or the Rebel with a cause. The nurturer, which is the giver. I’m gonna tell you, if you tend to undercharge, this might be you. Then there’s the romantic. This is often my YOLO mentality is out there. And lastly, the ruler or the empire builder, which a lot of entrepreneurs actually fall into.

So if you wanna find out what your dominant money personality type is, go to jamietrull.com/quiz. And now I’ll lead you to what I think one of the most dangerous money mindsets is, and that is, I’ll feel confident about money. When I have more of it, if you’re constantly kicking the can down the line to say, I’ll do this when I have more of it, I’ll give, when I have more of it, I’ll hire when I have more of it, it’s really common in business to continually move the goalposts and really miss the abundance that is around us all the time.

Why a Money Mindset Matters for Long-Term Success

Focusing on your money mindset can help you get to where you wanna go faster and enjoy it more when you do.

Thanks for joining me.

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