Tag: Expenses

Why Consumers Say They’re Planning to Cut Back on Holiday Spending This Year

With the holiday season fast approaching, American companies are gearing up for an end-of-year spending splurge that will hopefully close out 2025 on a high note. After all, the period that covers Thanksgiving and Black Friday through to New Year’s usually brings with it a nearly trillion-dollar burst of consumer spending—which should be a welcome reprieve from a year that has seen many businesses struggling to navigate an ever-changing slate of tariffs.

But that fourth-quarter boost may prove underwhelming this year, at least if consumers’ predictions about their own spending habits are to be trusted. In a new survey of more than 1,000 American adults—conducted in late September by the market research firm HarrisX, and including questions developed by Inc.—40 percent of respondents said they anticipate their holiday gift budget will be smaller than it was last year. That’s compared to 21 percent who expect it to grow, and another 32 percent who expect it to stay more or less the same.

That hesitancy is more pronounced among women than men—with 44 percent of women anticipating less spending versus 35 percent of men—and grows steeper with age, rising from 27 percent in Gen Z all the way up to 51 percent in the Silent Generation, and increasing with each successive age cohort.

“Men seem to be having the high time of it, and women seem to be really concerned about the economy,” said Mark Penn, chairman and CEO of Stagwell, the parent company behind HarrisX. “It is really kind of a tale of two cities.”

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That may partially be a reflection of partisan differences between men and women, he added, as Democrats tend to be more pessimistic about the economy than Republicans, and women are leaning increasingly liberal.

The upshot for retailers prepping for the holiday gift season? Put the men’s items closer to the front of the stores, Penn suggests, and move the women’s clothing a bit further back.

The HarrisX polling found that those gendered dynamics extend beyond just Christmas gifts, too. When asked whether their personal financial situation had gotten better or worse over the last six months, 42 percent of men said things have gotten better (versus 30 percent saying worse), whereas among women, the split was 20 percent better and 38 percent worse.

Overall, though, there’s a level of ambivalence in the polling data. When asked about how their overall household spending has changed in the past six months, 29 percent of respondents said it has increased and 29 percent said it has decreased. The remaining 42 percent reported that their habits have pretty much stayed the same.

“This poll reflects neither euphoria nor dejection,” Penn said. “It’s actually sort of in the middle of things. Americans remain somewhat pessimistic about the economy, but they’ve been that way for a very long time.”

For those who said they’ve spent more, the leading reason why was a “desire to enjoy life/spend more in the present” (23 percent)—while more than half of those who reported decreasing their spending blamed it on inflation.

Yet in almost every specific bucket of spending that the poll asked respondents about—restaurants, clothes, consumer tech, entertainment and travel—more respondents said their household had cut back on spending over the last six months than the number who reported having increased it. Only for groceries did more respondents raise their budgets (37 percent) rather than shrink them (20 percent)–which makes sense given that the steepest cuts of all were to dining out, which 47 percent of respondents said they’ve reduced.

Indeed, 55 percent of survey respondents said they’ve swapped out some of their usual product purchases for cheaper alternatives over the last six months—and 31 percent anticipate reducing household spending over the next six months, versus 20 percent expecting to increase it.

Travel is the vertical for which the largest chunk of respondents, 48 percent, said they plan to cut spending going forward, while groceries was again the only category for which more people are planning to increase spending over the next six months (30 percent) than decrease it (22 percent).

Penn cautioned that respondents’ predictions about their future spending behavior may be a better indicator of how they feel about the current economy, rather than what they’ll actually do in the future.

“They don’t really know how they’re going to feel six months from now,” he says. “Six months in the American economy is a long time. In six months, we could be in a recession or we could be doing 3 percent growth and [have] lower interest rates.”

The HarrisX poll also asked respondents about a few different policy areas which Inc. has been covering in recent months. Among those were President Trump’s recent tax and domestic policy package (AKA the “Big Beautiful Bill”), which 39 percent of respondents said has made their household financially worse off, versus 24 percent saying better off; the cryptocurrency-regulating Genius Act, which 57 percent of respondents said they were unaware of; and employee stock ownership, with 65 percent of respondents saying they’d be interested in getting paid partially with equity in their employer.

Brian Contreras

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October 21, 2025
HQ Announces Integration With American Express for an Enhanced Ride Payment Experience

New B2B payments collaboration provides HQ SummitGround® users a seamless and intuitive way to manage payments and expenses.

NEW YORK, May 6, 2024 (Newswire.com)
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HQ, one of the industry-leading enterprise solutions for global ground transportation, announced a new integration with American Express whereby American Express® U.S. Business and Corporate Card Members can now create virtual Cards within HQ SummitGround®. Starting today, Card Members can manage ride payments and expenses for a fully integrated payment experience while earning the rewards of their American Express Card.¹ For their companies, this will mean enhanced visibility and improved reconciliation on those expenses.

This new B2B payments collaboration allows employees, vendors, contractors, interview candidates, and others to use American Express virtual Cards to pay for rides taken. Card Members can establish specific controls for each on-demand virtual Card payment, including spending limits, expiration dates and allowed merchant categories. Card Members can also reduce time spent on expense reporting by viewing virtual Card transaction data within the platform. Larger enterprise clients can utilize multi-use Cards to associate projects or deals with a group of rides.

“As the leading corporate mobility platform, this integration with American Express provides our joint clients, both large and small businesses, with an enhanced ride payment experience and next-level spending visibility,” said Amiad Solomon, CEO, and Co-Founder of HQ. “This strengthens our focus on spending control, travel policy compliance, and payment transparency to drive operational efficiency and support our client’s strategic objectives.”

To achieve this integration, HQ is participating in the American Express Sync™ Commercial Partner Program.

Enrollment is required, and fees may apply. To learn more, visit:

https://hqtravel.com/integration#amex

¹ Not all Cards are eligible to get rewards. Terms and limitations vary by Card type.

ABOUT HQ

HQ SummitGround® is one of the industry-leading end-to-end enterprise solutions for corporate mobility globally. HQ delivers the technology that powers ground transportation with our unique ride booking, billing, and payment platform. HQ offers a wide range of mobility services from taxis, and private car hire to ride-hailing and corporate shuttles. HQ is trusted by clients internationally including Fortune 500 companies from the world’s largest banking institutions and law firms.

Source: HQ

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May 6, 2024
Huntington focuses on efficiencies | Bank Automation News

Huntington Bancshares remained steadfast in its commitment to control expenses during the third quarter, allowing it to maximize efficiency. “This focus on sustained efficiencies — including Operation Accelerate business process, offshoring and the other actions — will yield multiyear benefits,” Chief Financial Officer Zach Wasserman said during today’s earnings call. “These actions are necessary to […]

Whitney McDonald

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October 20, 2023
PNC continues cost controls in Q2 | Bank Automation News

PNC upped its 2023 improvement plan savings outlook by $50 million in the second quarter, increasing its cost-reduction efforts to $450 million, up from the previously announced $400 million. “We remain diligent in our expense management efforts, particularly when considering our current revenue environment,” Chief Financial Officer Rob Reilly said during the $556 billion bank’s […]

Whitney McDonald

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July 18, 2023
U.S. Cities Where Your Salary Is Worth the Most (and Least) | Entrepreneur

A six-figure salary may seem like a lot, but depending on where you live, your take-home pay might only be a quarter of your earnings after accounting for taxes and the cost of living.

A new report by financial technology company SmartAsset found that the purchasing power of a $250,000 salary drastically varied based on location.

The city where a $250,000 salary was worth the least was New York—those six digits dwindled down to a mere $82,421 after factoring in taxes and the cost of living—followed by Honolulu ($82,672) and San Francisco ($82,776).

Related: While Rent Prices Dropped Around the Country, Manhattan Hit a New Record High

The cities where high-earners take home the most of their $250,000 salaries are Memphis, TN which came in at No. 1 with $203,664, followed by El Paso, TX ($200,180), and Oklahoma City, OK ($197,381).

SmartAsset used its paycheck calculator to determine the take-home pay of 76 of America’s largest cities and then adjusted the take-home amount to factor in the average cost of living for each of the locations. The three cities (New York, Honolulu, and San Francisco) where high-earners lose most of their salary to taxes and other expenses were also the only cities in the report where workers’ six-figure salary was reduced to five digits after taxes and costs.

Here are the U.S. cities where the value of a $250,000 salary is worth the most and least.

Where $250,000 goes the furthest:

1. Memphis, TN: $203,664

2. El Paso, TX: $200,180

3. Oklahoma City, OK: $197,381

4. Corpus Christi, TX: $196,594

5. Lubbock, TX: $196,374

Where $250,000 is worth the least:

1. New York, NY: $82,421

2. Honolulu, HI: $82,672

3. San Francisco, CA: $82,776

4. Long Beach, CA and Los Angeles, CA (tie): $101,635

5. Washington, DC: $101,865

Madeline Garfinkle

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June 20, 2023
Employee Expenses Need to Be Reimbursed Quickly. Here’s Why. | Entrepreneur

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

You may have heard this story (or one like it) before: Imagine this: A top sales executive, Lee, undertakes a sales trip to woo a potential client. The trip successfully bumps your expected revenues for the coming year and beyond quite nicely. Naturally, Lee incurred numerous expenses during the trip — airfare, hotels, rental car, meals and other incidentals. Lee paid these with the understanding the company would reimburse them.

But the expenses aren’t reimbursed quickly, and Lee’s personal savings and credit cards reflect that. As days turn to weeks and months, interest mounts and late fees are incurred, affecting Lee’s personal financial history. Lee becomes disenchanted and frustrated, which is followed by job dissatisfaction and diminished performance. Quiet quitting becomes real resignation, with your Lee’s valuable skills and connections now working for a competitor that reimburses their employees on time. That lucrative business deal is likely to go with Lee.

Related: 5 Simple Steps to Prevent Expense Fraud

What you can do — and what you should do

A wide range of business expenses allowed by the IRS often need to be paid by employees. Those that cannot be covered in advance can include unplanned flights, cab or rideshare trips, meals or hotel stays. Other times, employees may be traveling on business with their own vehicle, in which case you should, of course, reimburse them for their mileage and vehicular wear and tear. Other common categories of reimbursable expenses may include training, professional dues, supplies, tools and parts and entertainment (note, while you may elect to reimburse employees for expenses such as taking a customer to a sporting event, those costs are not deductible for you and haven’t been since the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act).

The importance of being timely and accurate

Accuracy in tracking your business expenses is important because most, if not all, purchases made by an employee on behalf of your company are for items and services that can be deducted against your taxes.

Some businesses often re-bill expenses to a customer. Examples might be a plumbing or electrical contractor whose employee may need to pick up a plumbing or electrical fixture at a hardware or building supply store.

Employees who lay out their own funds on behalf of your business deserve to be repaid straightaway for myriad reasons. First, the business — and the risks and expenses — is yours and not theirs. You may pay them a salary, but it’s not up to them to carry cash or expenses to earn you a profit or secure future business. Don’t leave them on the hook for doing you a favor any longer than necessary. Prompt payment also underscores your commitment to them as valued employees.

Related: Don’t Throw Money Away By Not Monitoring Expense Reports

Rules are needed

It also helps when employees understand what they’re expected to do on your behalf. Give guidelines to employees asked to spend their money on your behalf. That would start with your budget for certain expenses. Establish this in advance. And while the annual list of crazy expense report submissions is amusing to read — from helicopter rides to work to hang gliders “to avoid a divorce” — you don’t want your business to show up on that list. Often a budget solves this problem, with the added benefit that you don’t have to approve every two-dollar purchase.

As reimbursable expenses are realized, they should be recorded promptly using your preferred system. This may be a spreadsheet, but many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) use contract bookkeepers or bookkeeping platforms. More often, they rely on document management systems with expense-tracking features that use optical character reading (OCR) to input data such as receipts and invoices. These documents can be captured in multiple ways, including photographing them, emailing them directly to a cloud server, importing them directly from a computer or scanning them.

Once converted by OCR technology, the data can be manipulated in pretty much any method that makes sense. For instance, you may track them for each salesperson you have, you may track them by which department puts in the request or you can track them by client or project. Your employee can do the entry, too.

Using a cloud-based system that will let you capture receipts in this way means you can avoid the complexity — and errors — of re-keying information and managing spreadsheets. You can sort the data by category, by vendor or by date. Compare that with spreadsheets, where remembering which tab your expense belongs on and ensuring each cell has the proper equations make it that much harder to reimburse your employees promptly. Paper files have similar flaws. Plus, paper can be lost, misfiled or damaged in tragic coffee-spill accidents.

These platforms are also more efficient, which goes hand-in-hand with saving time and money. They make review and control simple, too. Pay your employees back quickly, while gaining insight into what’s being spent and for what purpose. You can then make any spending adjustments needed and please your employees.

Related: This One Thing Can Make Managing Your Company’s Expenses Super Easy

What’s in it for you?

Doing your reimbursements quickly avoids both errors and fraud. It’s a risk that’s twice as high in SMBs and more damaging to them.

But paying back your employees without delay provides key benefits to you. It improves employee morale and job satisfaction, which makes them better employees. Being anxious when your expenses damage their own finances can also hurt their on-the-job performance and spark resentment. And suppose your reimbursement practices become a problem for employees. In that case, it can also make it difficult to recruit new, high-performing employees.

But when you give employees their money back promptly, everyone will be happy, resulting in time and resources spent on growing the business.

Jim Conroy

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May 8, 2023
Envestnet manages expenses, modernizes platform in Q4 | Bank Automation News

Envestnet focused on expense management and leaning on core investments in the fourth quarter to keep up with economic uncertainty and decreased revenue. THE BIG PICTURE: In Q4, the wealth-tech giant invested in its platform to enhance efficiency, Chief Executive Bill Crager said during the company’s Q4 earnings call Thursday. “We streamlined the business to […]

Whitney McDonald

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February 24, 2023
CAR T-Cell Therapy: Managing Costs and Finding Financial Assistance
CAR T-cell therapy can be expensive, but there are a few ways you can manage costs.
How Much Is CAR T-Cell Therapy?

Experts estimate that CAR T-cell therapy can cost between $500,000 and $1,000,000.

“CAR [T-cell therapy] is the most expensive Medicare diagnosis-related drug,” says Brian Koffman, MD, founder of the Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Society. Although new medicines are now available to people with the condition, costs haven’t come down.

Direct CAR T-cell treatment costs may include:

Apheresis (a process that draws blood and, using a cell separator, collects T cells before returning the remaining blood to the body)

Biopsies

CAR T-cell production

Hospital stays

Imaging studies

Medicines

Other related CAR T-cell therapy costs, such as housing and travel, can also quickly add up.

If you have to leave your home to be closer to a treatment center, indirect CAR T-cell treatment costs may include:

Caregiver support

Housing

Travel

You can only get CAR T-cell therapy at a certified center, and you have to stay no farther than 2 hours away from the center for at least 4 weeks. If you don’t live near a treatment center, you and your caregiver may need to travel long distances for your treatment and pay for temporary housing. You might also lose income if you’re unable to work.
Does Health Insurance Cover CAR T-Cell Therapy?

Many private health insurance plans cover CAR T-cell therapy, but other plans don’t. Some pay limited amounts only. Medicare covers CAR T-cell therapy. Medicaid covers it as well, but only in certain states.

Even if your plan covers CAR T-cell therapy, you may have out-of-pocket costs that aren’t covered, including deductibles and other expenses, Koffman says. For example, your health plan may pay for inpatient stays but not for certain medicines or medical devices.

Before you have CAR T-cell treatment, check with your health insurance provider to see what’s covered and what you are going to have to pay out of pocket. Your medical center may start the process by submitting the required paperwork to your health insurance company. The center may also be able to give you an estimate of your out-of-pocket costs.

Ask your health insurance company if they offer travel and lodging benefits. Although your plan may cover medical expenses, it might not cover the cost of traveling to and staying near a certified center. “This can be quite costly,” says Hollie L. Benson, CAR-T program manager at Mayo Clinic Arizona.
What to Do if Your Health Insurance Company Denies Coverage

If your health plan doesn’t cover CAR T-cell therapy, you can dispute the decision. Contact your health insurance company and find out what you need to do to appeal or dispute its decision to deny coverage.

In most cases, your health plan should cover the treatment if you can prove it’s medically necessary, Benson says. You may need to show your past therapies and have your doctor explain why it’s the right treatment for you.

If you’re having experimental treatment, you may need to share any information that supports CAR T-cell treatment, such as recommendations published in clinical guidelines from groups like the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. Your doctor can help you collect this type of information.

Work with your medical team to appeal a denial of coverage. “Open and early communication will help your team get the right information to your insurance company to quickly address any appeal,” says James Seashore-Ludlow, a registered nurse at Mayo Clinic Arizona.
Where to Find Financial Help

Your doctor and social worker may be able to recommend a program that can help you cover costs for CAR T-cell therapy if you qualify.

Some nonprofit organizations and pharmaceutical companies have financial assistance programs to lower costs for those who are eligible.

For example, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Susan Lang Pre CAR T-Cell Therapy Travel Assistance Program offers $2,500 to cover treatment-related travel and lodging expenses such as:

Air transportation

Ambulance services

Baggage fees

Car maintenance

Car rental

Gas

Ground transportation

Lodging

Parking

Repairs and parts

Tolls

Check the following:

Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

Lymphoma Research Foundation

Drug companies that sponsor patient assistance programs

Ask your doctor about clinical trials, too. Joining a clinical trial may help lower CAR T-cell therapy costs. “Some clinical trials will cover some of the trial expenses. There are also charities that help defer trial costs,” Koffman says.
Tips to Lower CAR T-Cell Therapy Costs

Take advantage of various resources that may help lower your out-of-pocket expenses. Try these tips from Koffman:

Talk to a social worker, case manager, or hospital financial adviser. They can help you deal with your health insurance provider to lower your costs. “Sit down with them and take the time to understand what’s covered and what isn’t,” Koffman says.

Talk to the drugmaker. “Don’t be afraid to ask if they can defer some of the expenses,” Koffman says. They may have programs that can help, especially if you’re uninsured or have private insurance.

Keep at it. “Be persistent but pleasant with payors,” Koffman says. “This may lead to the best result. Whatever you do, don’t give up.”
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February 9, 2023
14 Tax Deductions Your Small Business Might Be Overlooking
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
While there are other benefits, one of the most important reasons you’re in business is to make money. And it stands to reason that if you’re in business, you’d like to keep as much of what you generate as possible. That could be why so many people hate paying taxes.

But if you’re doing your bookkeeping correctly, you’ll find there are ways to keep some of the value your business generates. All you want to do is pay your fair share. And keep what’s left to run a successful small business or grow that business into something even bigger.

Above all, remember that you pay taxes on your profit, and your profit is your income minus your ordinary expenses; you report this to the IRS every year on Schedule C. So when you sit down to do your taxes or hand your information over to your tax accountant, you should be sure you’ve tracked every single business expense.

Related: These Are the Top Tax Filing Mistakes Made by Small Business Owners (and How to Avoid Them)

What deductions are obvious? Anything you buy that directly affects your business and is used for your business. If you’re in construction, it’s the cost of your equipment and raw materials. If you’re a web designer, it’s the software you use. Look at Schedule C and you’ll see the obvious ones: advertising, office expenses, licenses, utilities and more.

You need to be careful defining some expenses, especially if you’re running your business out of your home. Yes, you can deduct the part of your home that you use exclusively and regularly for business. But if you work weekdays at your home office and watch football from it on Sunday, it’s not exclusive to your business. If you only do your month-end bookkeeping in it — even if that’s all you do in it — once-a-month office use is not considered regular use.

But when you’re assembling your receipts or downloading expense data from your small business financial management system to provide to your tax accountant, there are certainly some expenses that you might not have thought to include. There may be other expenses you claim that are not eligible deductions. If filed in error, these mistakes could cost you fines — or worse — if you’ve deducted more than you should have or are permitted to.

Related: Here’s Why It Pays to Track Every Tiny Business Expense

Tax deductions you might be missing

While Schedule C enumerates 21 types of expenses, you still might miss some perfectly legal deductions. For instance:
1. Repairs or alterations to your home office: If you’re there all the time, then expenses like painting, re-flooring and brighter light fixtures would be deductible. Having a cleaning service for your office would be as well. The desk and file cabinets you use would also be deductible — as would the repair to the wall after your desk chair banged it up.
2. Education: Any education or training related to what you do to earn money is deductible. Many professionals require professional development courses to keep their licenses current. Others take classes to learn how to improve their business. If it’s relevant, it’s deductible.
3. Local travel: When you visit a client and pay to park in the lot across the street, that parking fee is deductible. If you take a toll bridge to cross the river to visit your client’s office, that bridge toll is deductible. And so is your mileage, assuming your client doesn’t reimburse you for those costs.
4. Your website: A website is a must-have to find and connect with new and existing customers. All related costs can be deductible — paying the person who creates it for you, paying for the website to be hosted, paying for its security, paying for the pictures and copy you post to it, etc. It’s all part of advertising, which is more than paying to run a small ad on your local radio or television station.
5. Startup costs: If this is your first year, the legal and professional fees you pay to complete and file your paperwork are deductible. Fees above the $5,000 first-year limit can be amortized over the succeeding 15 years.
6. Research and development: If you’re creating a new product, the expenses relevant to bringing that product to market are deductible.
7. Interest on debts: A loan you take for business purposes is tax-deductible as long as it’s an arms-length transaction. Keep track of the interest costs so you can deduct them at tax time. Your business credit card interest is also deductible.
8. Industry publication subscriptions: Every trade has a publication that keeps its practitioners current, from Advertising Age to Chain Store Age to Industry Week. Online subscriptions are also deductible.
9. Retirement savings for self-employed business owners: These include self-employed simplified employee pension (SEP) plans, solo 401(k) plans and Keogh or HR-10 plans.
10. Business gifts: There’s a limit of $25 per person per year for gifts to clients. But, 100 percent of the cost of employee meals at events such as holiday parties and company picnics is deductible.
11. Perks for your employees: Coffee in the office? That candy bowl at the front desk? 100 percent deductible. Lunch brought into the office can be fully deductible, while taking the team out for lunch is only 50 percent deductible.
12. Club or organization membership fees: The organization must be business- or community-related, such as a chamber of commerce, trade association or a professional organization.
13. Lawn mowing: If you receive clients at your home office, keeping the entrance to your house clean and presentable may be deductible.
14. Childcare for solo professionals: If you’re a parent and have a home office but you need to meet a client outside the home, childcare is deductible. If you’re leaving the house to go shopping, it’s not.
Related: 75 Items You May Be Able to Deduct from Your Taxes

Just remember, you can’t deduct what you aren’t tracking. Prior to the 1980s, you didn’t have many options — record-keeping systems included paper, pencils and file cabinets. The late 20th century made spreadsheets an option, which required ensuring formulas were put into the correct cells as well as remembering where the related backup documentation was saved.

The modern era has given way to even better ways of tracking information, and distilling years of accounting and bookkeeping know-how into an easy-to-use software platform. Now you can stay on top of all of the purchase orders, invoices and receipts you’ll need as a backup to your accounting records. And, have them all safe in a cloud-based system. Files, images, emails and scanned paper documents can be captured from a mobile device or a computer and stored safely online. You can categorize all transactions easily by account category and relevant tax schedule for subsequent reporting and filing.

These systems can be accessed from anywhere your business takes you, from home office to factory floor to out-of-state business pitch. You can pull them up when needed (such as for a loan application, a meeting with your accountant or deciding on financing a business improvement).

Consider financial document management solutions that can also automatically extract data from these documents. Instead of keying these numbers into a spreadsheet or paying your tax accountant to do this manual work, systems like Neat automatically feed financial data to accounting and tax software. These systems can make it easier to account for all of your business expenses — the obvious ones and those that can be often overlooked.

Related: The Most Forgotten Tax Deductions Business Owners Should Take
Jim Conroy

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December 22, 2022
Financial Planning for Heart Failure

Heart Failure Financial Planning

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December 16, 2022
Top 5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Scaling Their Business To 7 Figures

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Scaling your business to seven figures is not that hard. But it also isn’t easy. At least, it’s not easy to maintain a seven-figure business and continue to scale it.

I’ve learned this the hard way after building and growing several businesses to seven figures and beyond — as well as mentoring and investing in dozens more. It’s strange how easy it can feel once you build some momentum. Growth leads to growth and everything seems to be okay. Until all of a sudden, it isn’t.

Having gone through this cycle myself, I’ve discovered a few common mistakes most of us make when in a period of growth. I share these in the hope they not only inspire you to scale your own business to new heights but maintain these levels so you can continue to smash through one glass ceiling after another.

Related: 4 Ways to Build a Seven-Figure Brand and Sellable Business

1. You hire too fast

No matter what industry you’re in, it’s important to expand your team when growing your business. You can only do so much. You must delegate and work on the business instead of trying to do everything on your own. However, the timing around all this has to be right. If you push too hard too soon, you can overwhelm and halt all momentum.

So although you need to grow your team — and constantly think about the different types of roles you need — it’s essential that you get clear on your priorities. By honing in on the roles that offer the most return, you ensure you maintain your momentum without putting too main strain on yourself, your existing team members, and, most important of all, your cash flow.

2. You create too many offers

I see this mistake all the time, often because an entrepreneur gets caught up comparing themselves to other business owners. You’ve heard the advice before, to diversify your portfolio and add multiple income streams. It’s good advice, in part. Yet you have to tread carefully because launching too many offers too soon places far too much pressure on your shoulders. Worse than that, it creates a disconnect between you and your audience because they don’t know what they should do next.

Should they buy your course? Maybe hire you to coach them? How about that membership they can subscribe to? Or that other course, program or product?

The last thing you want to do is overwhelm and confuse. Adding new income streams is important, but you don’t have to do it all now. Make sure you become a “go-to” authority in one or two areas and provide huge value to those you serve.

Related: Meet the Mother Of Three Making 7-figure Income Working Part-time From the Beach

3. You increase your expenses

This mistake is a byproduct of the previous two because as you grow your team and add new income streams, your expenses rise exponentially. It can seem manageable at first, but before long it can spiral out of control. I’ve experienced this firsthand as my monthly expenses practically doubled month-on-month. It’s a disaster waiting to happen unless you get crystal clear on your finances.

This is a continuous habit you need to nurture, ensuring you check in on your revenue and expenditure each month. It’s not that you shouldn’t spend more as you make more, but you have to give everything you invest in purpose. Whether that’s a new team member, improving your lifestyle or placing new resources into the business, you always have to have a reason for spending your money. If not, you can quickly run out of it.

4. You don’t reinvest in your business

This is a huge mistake and once again it’s one I used to make. There’s so much advice out there about how to invest your money. The problem is, most of it isn’t relevant to an entrepreneur because most of it encourages you to take money out of your business and place it somewhere else (stocks, shares, bonds, pensions, etc.). That makes sense for someone with a predictable income. But for an entrepreneur? No way! The best thing you can invest in is your business because this is what you have the most control over. So before you give your money to someone else to invest, make sure you fully support your business with the time, money and resources it needs.

Related: 4 Ways to Invest More Deeply in Your Business

5. You don’t take money out of your business

It’s important to constantly invest in your business, but you have to continue to invest in your own life, lifestyle and personal growth. In the early days, I also recommend entrepreneurs take as little as they can and reinvest as much of it into their business. Yet this can only last so long. Once you build momentum and step into a period of growth, you have to embrace this yourself — not just as a business owner, but as a human being.

I see this mistake play out too often as successful entrepreneurs struggle to step back and enjoy life. It’s a fine balance, yet it’s an important one if you want to find harmony. The alternative soon turns toxic as you begin to resent your business. It’s an easy fix because all you have to do is to commit to growing as a person as you grow your business. This means you too require (and deserve) investment: money, time, energy and attention.

The rollercoaster ride you’re on is full of ups and downs. Just because you’re scaling and on the fast track to seven figures and beyond doesn’t mean there aren’t obstacles in your way. Avoid and overcoming these five mistakes will help you navigate your way to success.

Scott Oldford

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October 26, 2022