Expense Management Flipping Sucks, But Fintech Is Revolutionizing The Game with Nate Meadows: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:02Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down expense management flipping sucks, but fintech is revolutionizing the game. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Nate Meadows and to EO Fire Studios. Nate is the head of marketing for ClearSpend, and he carefully crafts marketing campaigns, voice, and reputation with the ease of folding a burrito. And today, for Nation, we'll talk about how if you have the right DNA, are passionate and driven, you can be successful.

0:35How one of the biggest challenges a small business has is cash flow, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Nate and our sponsors. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white-label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Nate, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:19What's up, Fire Nation? Thanks so much for having me on today, John. Something that I believe about becoming successful that most people would disagree with actually is something about you don't have to be an expert in your field or an industry or a particular topic. I really believe, and this is something that's been instilled in me when I was in the Air Force, if you've got the right DNA, right, you're passionate, you're driven, you have that tenacity, that grit, that resilience, that you can be successful in just about any role, pursuing any particular passion. And I think so many of us today have this imposter syndrome, this fear of, I need to be a subject matter expert in this topic, at this industry, and so on.

2:01And I don't think that's the case. I've had people take chances on me and my career that I'm incredibly grateful for where I didn't have any experience in, but they saw that same drive, that passion, that tenacity, that grit, that resilience. And I really believe that if you possess those, if you chase after those, building those characteristics within you, I really believe that really the sky's the limit for you. Well, first off, thank you for your service, Nate. Much appreciated. And secondly, Fire Nation, I really hope you do understand the words that Nate's saying because it is so important.

2:35And if you do put in the work, there is something where effort meets opportunity. There is that intersection and somebody will give you a helping hand. Somebody will be there for you because they can see that you're looking to do things the right way. And now most of my listeners, Nate, most of Fire Nation are small business owners. So let's talk about the subject of today, which is how expense management flipping sucks. What's wrong? with expense management today, especially for small business owners? Honestly, I think it's better off asking what doesn't suck about expense management today. You know, the list is long, my friend.

3:15And I think as an entrepreneur myself, I have started my own companies. I've been in startups. I have many friends who are small business owners. I think we all do. And more times than not, before you have dollars coming in, you have dollars going out, right? As a small business owner, every dollar matters. And as one of the biggest things that are challenges that really face small business owners is cash flow. You think about cash flow, you think about, okay, I need to scale, I need to grow, I need to do this, I need to buy that. And you have a team who more times than not, everyone's sharing one credit card or they're putting things on their own personal cards.

3:55And then you're trying to get a receipt here that is wrinkled up and smells like, you know, French fries, right? To some, you know, and you're trying to make sense of it later on at some point in time or another. And so there's this massive disconnect for small business owners and some of the platforms that are out there today who are trying to provide expense management solutions because they weren't really designed with SMBs in mind from the very first place, right? They didn't, a lot of, more times than not, didn't go out and chase after that voice of the small business owner or the voice of their bookkeeper, their accountant.

4:29And with that said, a lot of times we're seeing big platforms trying to force fit their solution that was geared towards medium corporate or enterprise solutions, trying to force fit that into the small business space, which John, I think you and I and everyone listening would agree. That's just that doesn't work. It doesn't work well at all. I would definitely agree with that. And I've seen it firsthand. And I know that my listeners do love case studies. They love actual examples. Can you maybe rack your brain for maybe a situation where you struggled with expense management or you've seen other companies and small business owners struggle with expense management?

5:09What was that time? Tell us that specific situation so we can kind of understand exactly what that would look like. A few years back, I started a digital marketing agency. And we started with$600, me and my co-founder, and we turned it into a$2.5 million business in under two years with zero debt. but in that and during that time as you're trying to scale you're trying to grow we would have employees who are going out and buying things or i would go out and buy things and put you know and make purchases with a software computers or whatever the case on our own cards and then you know we would outsource that to an accountant and at some point in time or another that would get reimbursed to us and i think one of the things that's really important to remember is, you know, 72 % of small business owners see their accountant as a really a strategic partner in their business.

6:06And what's challenging is, as you're scaling and grilling a small business, a lot of times you're, as a small business owner, you're wearing every single hat. So you're doing some ad hoc accounting, you're doing some ad hoc bookkeeping and so on. You're trying to reimburse employees when you can get to it. You working evenings, your dining room table is cluttered with papers and receipts and so on. You're trying to make sense of all of it. And so I can remember feeling so frustrated and I remember feeling having employees being frustrated like, hey, it's taking way too long for me to get reimbursed.

6:40Or, hey, I'm, you know, I'm supposed to fly to Phoenix. Am I supposed to put that on my own personal card? And, you know, A lot of times we're putting the upfront burden on an employee in a small business to make a purchase or have an expense that they simply just don't have the capital, the working capital or credit to do. And I think we've all been there. And so what I really think really matters most is how can expense management be less sucky? I think is the overarching question that I kind of look at on a daily basis. How can we make things really more expedited in terms of getting not only financial insights into a small business owner's hands, but also getting employees reimbursed faster, taking the burden or not shouldering the risk of having to upfront so much credit for an expense.

7:45and really just allowing them to go back to doing what they do is instead of playing accountant, instead of playing, you know, receipt manager or playing the receipt game or who's got the credit card game, going back and being the dreamer, the maker, the doer, the creative entrepreneur that they are. And that's really, I think, at the end of the day, all that I have ever wanted was to focus less on the stuff that doesn't matter, right, like expense management. I wanted to focus on growing my business and doing what I'm passionate about and doing what I love. And I think so many of us can agree to that.

8:18So many of us can agree to that, Fire Nation. And I love that whole concept of having more time to be the creator, the maker, the doer, like what you were meant to do, Fire Nation. That's why when you can focus, follow one course until success and do what you were meant to do, what lights you up inside, what really just creates that spark, that flame, that fire, then you know you are going to be doing the right thing, going down that right path. I love that specific example and I love it for another reason too because I want you to be thinking, Fire Nation, about how look what Nate did. He saw something that was really not working well in the world that was sucky.

8:57And guess what? He made it less sucky. He made it much less sucky. And so there's so many things in this world that frankly stink right now. And if you can step up and say, hey, not only can I fix that, but I want to fix it. I have a passion for fixing it. There's a huge opportunity. Now, we have so much more to talk about when we get back from thanking our sponsors. I know firsthand it's easy to get hung up on all the things that need to happen in order to bring an idea to market like a great website. Without knowing how to code, how are you supposed to build a beautiful platform that attracts people to your brand?

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12:35High level, join the revolution. Now, Nate, in the intro, I was teasing to Fire Nation the reality, which is fintech is revolutionizing this game. It really is. So how is fintech solving this dilemma of just terrible expense management? It's so accurate. Expense management, I feel like when we say that, it almost leaves a sour taste in our mouth. You kind of got that, like you took a shot at tequila and you've got that cringe that kind of overcomes your body. More like Jägermeister is that bad. Well, right. Exactly. And so for me, it's like when I came into the fintech space and I started working with Clearspan, we tried to figure out this is a space that is just quite frankly, it's awful.

13:26And not only that, but realistically, I was saying earlier, the SMB space, their voice really hasn't been heard. And for me, as a really passionate entrepreneur, small business advocate, I just felt so passionate about we have to go out and talk to every single small business owner, every single bookkeeper, every single accountant that we possibly can. And fintech, one of the things that kind of going back to your question, John, like one of the things that's so important to understand is like 71 percent of people in a recent survey said that they want to use innovative tools. But they feel like small business owners, they feel overwhelmed by the options, the choices, the things that are out there.

14:10What is what is right for them? And they're really leaning on their bookkeepers and accountants to help kind of be that that digital Sherpa. for them, so to speak. And I think one of the things that it's important to understand how fintech is making this expense management less sucky and kind of revolutionizing the game and making it more automated is to understand that at the end of the day, when we know the cash flow is so important, we know time is so important, we know every dollar in, every dollar out is so important when we can find ways to automate really trivial things to make our lives everyone's life easier from the employee to the business owner to the bookkeeper and accountant that's what matters and so there is like a 40 to 70 percent cost savings like that can be made through automation and i think that at the end of the day hey if i can if i can carve out 40 to 70 percent of a cost savings from an efficiency and time and money standpoint, sign me up, coach, put me in.

15:11I'll sign up for that all day. Sign me up, coach. Agree with that statement as well. And you did mention ClearSpend a couple of times. And I did introduce you as the head of marketing over at ClearSpend. But who exactly is ClearSpend? What exactly are you doing? And maybe most importantly, Why are you doing it? Oh, man, such a great question. Our CEO, Jeff White, very successful fintech entrepreneur and others, a really, really powerful leadership team, really well high pedigree in the fintech space. Everyone's been involved in some capacity or another in fintech companies from big and small, from PayPal to others.

15:53and we all collectively have this just unrelenting desire to find a and build a product that is absolutely geared to the small business owner because we are a small business we are absolutely a small business and quite frankly we experience some of these same challenges ourselves so like we know that we can build a solution because we we're in that space we fill these same challenges. We talked to hundreds of accountants and bookkeepers and small business owners. They're feeling the same thing. And so we know that if we personally, ourselves as a company, can save so much through automation, through leveraging technology that's proactively smart spend controls and expense management, why would we not do that?

16:42But more frankly, why wouldn't we give that same tool to every SMB out there and make it free for everyone forever. That is where our heart is. That's where our mindset is. And as you can tell, that's what we're really passionate about. So ClearSpend, we're absolutely an expense management, spend control platform, but I want to just hone in on the fact that it is, unlike other competitors out there, every aspect of our platform is free so you get the same like tools and tech that is not overly complicated and bloated with things that you don't need you get all that for free and that's really again at the end of the day that's where our heart is this really is a passion project and we're so excited about what we're building fire nation this is the kind of passion the kind of excitement, the kind of businesses that you want to be building, the ones that you can hear, the excitement, the passion, just the overall drive in Nate's voice.

17:43And I love when I talk to entrepreneurs that have this, and I love when you, Fire Nation, say that you maybe had an aha moment, an idea, a spark, a flame that came from a conversation like this, because you're like, wait, if Nate's doing this in the expense management area, maybe I can do this in the XYZ area, field, whatever that might be. Because what it comes down to is, are you the number one solution to a real problem in this world? And ClearSpend is obviously the number one solution to a real problem in this world. And that's why they're rocking it. So Nate, take us home, brother. What do you want Fire Nation to really walk away with from everything that we talked about here today.

18:25Then let us know how we can connect with you with ClearSpend, any call to action you have, and we'll say goodbye. Fire Nation, I'm so happy to be chatting with you all. And I really hope you see and hear really what we're trying to bring to the market. Quite frankly, we would love your feedback. We would love to hear from you about what you think we're building and how that would fit into your space, your industry, your business. And if you go to clearspin.com and sign up to get on our beta wait list, we actually would love to have a conversation with you and love to send you a free Yeti just for having a conversation with us about what we're building, what you like about it, what you don't like.

19:08And let's just start having a conversation and building a community. Because at the end of the day, SMB, we want to bring enterprise level technology and tools to the S &B space without it being so overly complicated. Really making it easy for you guys to use and leverage. At the end of the day, saving you time and money. But more than that, saving your sanity, saving your dining room table so you can take back the dining room table and have dinner with your family. Worry less about receipts. Worry less about who's got the car to charge this, to charge that. I would love for you to learn more about us.

19:41I would love for you to actually follow us on social too. We actually, this is, John, This is one of the things that I think I take most pride in is that we are really, I think, speaking the same language as our audience. You know, if you look at a lot of other fintech companies, we're not like your typical bank where it's stiff, it's uptight. We're a little bit rebellious and witty, and we like to have fun and joke around. And so if that really resonates with you, we'd love to chat. I love all this, Fire Nation. Let me tell you, a Yeti will keep your cool drinks cooler for a long time. Your hot drinks hotter for a long time.

20:18So take the time, take the energy, have the conversation. And one more time, Nate, where do you want Fire Nation to go to make that happen? Fire Nation, please do me a favor and go to clearspend.com. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with NM and JLD today. So keep up the heat and head over to eofire.com. Type Nate in the search bar. The show notes page will pop up with everything that we've been talking about here today. Best show notes in the biz. And Nate, thank you, brother, for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today.

20:50For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks, John. Appreciate it. Thanks, Fire Nation. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Nate. And Fire Nation, are you ready to rock your very own podcast? Check out our free podcasting course where I will teach you how to create and launch your podcast for, you guessed it, free, freepodcastcourse.com. I will catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software.

21:30Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today.