The How of Business - How to start, run, grow and exit a small business.

Year-end bookkeeping best practices: Jodi Arrant walks through what small business owners need to do before December 31 to close the year with clean books, fewer surprises at tax time, and perhaps even a smaller tax bill.
Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/627-year-end-bookkeeping-best-practices/ 
We're well into the fourth quarter, and it goes by fast. Too many small business owners wait until their CPA is desperately asking for more clarification sometime in March or April. By then, the chance to reduce your taxes may be gone. And clean books aren't just for taxes. The end goal is being able to use accurate financials to help you make business decisions.
Henry Lopez is joined by his bookkeeping partner Jodi Arrant to walk through a checklist of 11 year-end bookkeeping best practices: what to do now, what to provide your bookkeeper, and what to discuss with your CPA.
It starts with your CPA. If you only talk to your CPA when you hand over your box of receipts in January or February, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage. Q4 is the time to talk about equipment purchases, accelerating expenses you were going to make anyway, year-end bonuses, funding a 401(k), and catching up on estimated tax payments. As Jodi says, "You don't want to wait till December 31 and then find out you missed the chance."
Henry and Jodi also cover the new $2,000 threshold for 1099s, cleaning up transactions sitting in "Ask My Accountant" or miscellaneous, going digital with receipts, owner draws and the risks of commingling funds, capitalizing assets versus expensing them, cleaning up receivables, and giving your CPA access to QuickBooks Online.
Key Takeaways:
- Start now, not in January. Scrambling at the last minute is where you lose the accuracy in your books.
- Talk to your CPA before December 31. Many tax strategies only work before year-end.
- Collect W-9s early. The 1099 threshold is now $2,000 for 2026, and January 31 comes fast.
- Clean up uncategorized transactions monthly. If they aren't in the right buckets, you can't use your financials to make decisions.
- Keep business and personal funds separate. Commingling is an IRS issue and a liability exposure issue.
- Not every purchase is an expense. Ask your CPA for the threshold at which purchases become assets.
- Communicate proactively with your bookkeeper about new accounts, loans, purchases, and other changes.
The Year-End Bookkeeping Checklist:
1. Start year-end prep now
2. Meet with your CPA before December 31
3. Reconcile every account through 12/31
4. Prepare for 1099s
5. Resolve suspense accounts and uncategorized transactions
6. Get missing documentation to your bookkeeper
7. Review owner pay and payroll
8. Update loans, assets, and inventory
9. Clean up receivables and payables
10. Hold a year-end review and hand off to your CPA
11. Record your CPA's adjustments after the return is filed
The full checklist, with details for each item, is on the show notes page.
About Jodi Arrant: Jodi Arrant is the founder of J. Arrant Consulting, a bookkeeping and consulting firm in Eugene, Oregon, with over 17 years of experience in bookkeeping, payroll, and QuickBooks consulting. She is Henry's partner for The How of Business Bookkeeping Service.
This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com

Why small business owners know what to do but still don't do it: Shawn Feurer, creator of the Inner Blueprint, explains how the beliefs behind your decisions shape your results, and how to change them.
Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/626-closing-the-knowledge-doing-gap/ 
Experienced small business owners know exactly what to do, but still don't do it. They know they need to raise prices, let go of the wrong person, hire a new one, or bring in a coach, and yet something holds them back.
Shawn Feurer calls this the knowing-doing gap, and he says it isn't caused by a lack of information. We have AI, Google, and YouTube at our fingertips. The gap is caused by the subconscious beliefs, or set points, that were programmed into us long before we started our businesses.
Shawn spent 20 years in his family's home improvement business in Salt Lake City and later became a top coach at a business coaching company working with 70 companies. Across all of them, he saw the same pattern: the right processes, the right best practices, and owners who still got in their own way. After losing nearly everything about 10 years ago, he studied under Bob Proctor and went on to create the Inner Blueprint.
In this conversation, Henry and Shawn talk about why only about 5% of our mind is conscious, while the other 95% runs on programmed beliefs, habits, and experiences. Those beliefs set the limits on money, health, and relationships, the three areas Shawn calls the power trifecta.
That's why "just work harder" so often fails. As Shawn puts it, if you suffer from not enough time, not enough money, not enough you, "that's a program on the inside. You can't outwork that."
Shawn shares a simple exercise to reset your money set point: take the most you've ever made, double it, divide it by 12, and make it a monthly affirmation. He also explains why you should forget about the how until you have the belief, and why committing to 30 minutes of daily mindset work is what separates people who change from people who stay stuck.
Key Takeaways:
- The knowing-doing gap is a belief problem, not an information problem. If you know what to do and aren't doing it, a limiting belief is in the way.
- Awareness is the first step. Pause and ask: I know I should be doing this, so why am I not doing it?
- Working harder can't fix "not enough." That feeling is a program on the inside.
- Set your number by doubling it. Take the most you've ever made and 2x it; a 10x goal invites resistance.
- Forget about the how at first. Starting with the how keeps you inside the limits of your current thinking.
- Interested is not the same as committed. Change takes consistent, daily repetition.
- E + R = O. You can't control events, but you can choose your response and change the outcome.
How to get started:
- Rate yourself from 1 to 10 on finances, health and wellness, and relationships, and define what a 10 looks like for you.
- Write a monthly money affirmation based on doubling your best year.
- Listen for the voices that push back, and answer them with "I am" statements.
- Commit to 30 minutes a day: a big goal, affirmations, and gratitude.
About Shawn Feurer: Shawn Feurer has spent more than 20 years helping business owners, executives, and leadership teams break through the invisible barriers that limit growth. He is the creator of the Inner Blueprint, a framework built on the principles of Think and Grow Rich that helps leaders identify and change the subconscious patterns driving their results, and host of the Inner Blueprint podcast.
This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com

Time value of money for small business owners: why waiting to pay cash can cost you far more than the interest on the right loan.
Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/625-time-value-of-money/
Paying cash for everything is great personal finance advice, but in business, it can be the very thing that keeps you small. Henry Lopez explains the time value of money and why leverage is a key to entrepreneurship.
In this episode of The How of Business, Henry goes one level deeper than episode 566, "Good Debt, Bad Debt," into the why behind smart business borrowing. With a simple example, he shows why putting all cash in, or waiting until you have the cash, can give you the worst return, even after paying interest on a loan.
Henry starts with a practical test: something is an asset if it generates income, and we should only borrow to build or buy assets. A profitable small business is an asset. He also shares Harvard professor Howard Stevenson's definition of entrepreneurship: "the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled." By that definition, entrepreneurs go after opportunities bigger than the cash they have.
The core idea is simple. A dollar today is worth more than a dollar in the future. Henry walks through a $100,000 piece of equipment that produces $30,000 a year in added profit. Paid in all cash, it returns 30% cash-on-cash. Put 20% down and finance the rest at 9%, and the return on your cash rises to 50%, even after the loan payments, while you keep $80,000 for working capital or the next opportunity.
Then there's the cost of waiting. Saving for five years to pay cash means giving up roughly $150,000 in profit to avoid about $19,600 in interest. As Henry puts it, "Borrowing is buying time." The biggest cost isn't interest. It's waiting.
Key takeaways:
- Your personal finance mindset can hold your business back.
- Only borrow to build or buy assets that generate income.
- A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow.
- Measure your cash-on-cash return, not just the interest you pay.
- Waiting has a cost: the profit you don't earn while you save.
- Never borrow to fix a broken business model.
- Know your debt capacity: many lenders look for a debt service coverage ratio of at least 1.25.
- Be clear-eyed about the risk, including personal guarantees on SBA loans.
Before your next growth decision, ask three questions: Am I building an asset? What does waiting cost me? Do I have the capacity to borrow?
This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com

Conscious listening for leaders: Julian Treasure explains why poor listening costs businesses trillions and the simple habits that fix it.
Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/624-julian-treasure-conscious-listening/
Conscious listening is the leadership skill most business owners never practice, and Julian Treasure explains what poor listening costs your team and your bottom line, plus simple habits like RASA and "tell me more" that you can use to listen better starting today.
Julian Treasure, author, international keynote speaker, and one of the most watched TED speakers of all time, returns to The How of Business to show small business owners why listening is a skill, not a given, and how to get better at it.
Most of us think we're good listeners. Almost nobody is. Julian calls this "the wall of denial." Because we treat listening as part of being a nice person, few of us ever see it as something we can practice. That gap is costly. When leaders don't listen, their teams disengage, miscommunication grows, and good people leave.
In this episode of The How of Business, Henry Lopez is joined by Julian Treasure to explore the other half of communication: listening. It's why most leaders, including small business leaders, are not doing it well, what that can cost us, and how to fix it.
This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com

The way we speak, from formality and filler words to conversation styles and accents, shapes how customers, employees, and job candidates see us, and linguist Daniel Hieber explains how small business owners can recognize those perceptions and communicate more effectively.
Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/r428-daniel-hieber-language-perception/
Research linguist Daniel Hieber, founder of Linguistic Discovery, shows small business owners how the way we speak shapes how others see us, and how to use that awareness to lead, sell, and hire more effectively.
Every interaction in your business runs on language: a sales call, a customer complaint, a new hire's first day, an email to a client. How formal we are, how we take turns in a conversation, how direct we are, and how we sound all send signals. Most of us read those signals without realizing it. For a small business owner, a misread can strain a customer relationship, create friction on a small team, or cost you a great hire.
In this episode of The How of Business, Henry Lopez is joined by Daniel Hieber to look at linguistics, the study of human language, as a small business topic. Henry calls it "a completely different topic than I've ever addressed over 400-plus episodes."
Danny got hooked on languages as a kid. He learned Spanish, Latin, and Swahili, studied abroad in Kenya, and found linguistics in a William & Mary course catalog. He knew right away: "That's what I'm doing with the rest of my life." He spent five years with Rosetta Stone's Endangered Language Program, earned his PhD at UC Santa Barbara, and works today with the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana to revitalize their once-dormant language.
Danny opens by rejecting the idea that language works differently at work and in social settings. "Business is a social context," he says. All day long we move between formal and informal registers, adjusting to the person, the relationship, and even the room. Problems start when two people read the situation differently. A small business owner may keep things casual to welcome a new hire, while that new hire, nervous on day one, is actually looking for structure.
The same thing happens with conversation styles. High-involvement speakers jump in to show they're engaged. High-considerateness speakers wait their turn. Each can read the other as rude or disengaged. Even filler words have a job: they signal you have more to say. Henry shares how his direct South Florida style came across as brusque to customers in Texas, and how he learned to "speak toward" the point.
Accents raise the biggest blind spots. Danny cites studies in which people were turned away based only on how they sounded, often by people who didn't realize they were doing it. He reminds us that everybody speaks with an accent, and that an accent says little about education or ability.
The conversation closes on writing, which Danny treats differently from speech. Standard written conventions matter for credibility, and they can be taught.
As Danny puts it: "Your attitudes about the way people speak are never really attitudes about language. They're always attitudes about people."
This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com