Budgeting Series #3: A Guide to Building Your Financial Strategy

Awareness and acceptance lay the groundwork, but nothing changes until you take action. In this final episode of the budgeting series, Brian Thompson brings the framework full circle by focusing on what to actually do with your numbers. Because understanding your finances and accepting where you are is only powerful if it leads somewhere. This episode is about making intentional, strategic decisions that move your mission-driven business forward.

 

Start With Vision, Not Spreadsheets

Before diving into tactics, Brian starts with something that might surprise you in a budgeting conversation: vision. Your budget is more than a financial document. It's a reflection of the business and life you want to build. Do you want a lean lifestyle business with flexibility and freedom? A growing company with employees and systems? A business optimized for profit so you can invest, travel, or retire early? There's no wrong answer. But the budget you build should reflect your vision, directing your money toward what matters most to you.

 

The Three Financial Levers

Once you know your numbers and your vision, the path forward becomes clearer. Brian outlines three levers every entrepreneur can pull.

1. The Income Lever. Sometimes the most straightforward way to improve your financial picture is to focus on revenue growth. That might mean raising your prices, adding new services, improving your marketing, or increasing your capacity to serve more clients.

2. The Expense Lever. Reducing expenses doesn't mean slashing everything or operating from a scarcity mindset. It means asking thoughtful questions: Are there subscriptions or tools you're no longer using? Services you could renegotiate? Expenses that don't actually move the business forward? As Brian noted in the first part of this series on awareness, sorting expenses from highest to lowest can reveal a lot. Sometimes one or two adjustments can significantly improve your financial flexibility.

3. A Combination of Both. Most of the time, the right answer lives somewhere in the middle. A small price increase combined with trimming a few unnecessary expenses can create a surprisingly big impact on both sides of the equation.

 

The Profit First Framework

For clients looking for a practical system to manage cash flow, Brian recommends the Profit First model. Rather than treating profit as whatever is left over after expenses, Profit First flips the equation so you are allocating income intentionally across four key categories from the start: profit, owner's pay, taxes, and operating expenses. Setting percentages for each category and revisiting them quarterly creates guardrails that keep your business financially healthy and enforces a powerful mindset shift: profit is no longer an afterthought. It becomes a priority.

 

Give Yourself Permission to Have a “Building Year”

For anyone feeling pressure to make every year better than the last, Brian offers a grounding reminder: business growth is not a straight line. Some years are building years. Maybe you hired your first employee, invested in new systems, launched a new service, or restructured your client roster. In those years, expenses often increase before revenue catches up. And that's okay. Sometimes investing now is exactly what creates something better later.

 

Your Action Step

Look at the numbers you gathered during the awareness exercise and ask yourself one question: which lever do I need to pull right now? Do you need to focus on increasing income, reducing expenses, or a combination of both? Then identify one intentional change you can make this month. Just one. Small, consistent decisions are what ultimately build strong businesses.

Thank you for following along with this three-part budgeting series. If there's one takeaway from awareness, acceptance, and action, it's this: budgeting isn't about restriction. It's about clarity, compassion, and intentional decision making. When you know your numbers, accept where you are, and take thoughtful action, you give your mission-driven business the foundation it needs to thrive. If you found this series helpful, share it with a fellow entrepreneur — and as always, Brian welcomes your questions and insights on Instagram at @BTFinancial.

 

Resources + Links

• Episode 110: Budgeting Series #1: A Guide to Financial Awareness

• Episode 111: Budgeting Series #2: A Guide to Money Mindset Shifts

• Newsletter Sign Up

• Follow Brian Thompson Online: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Forbes

• Follow & review the podcast: on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

 

About Brian and the Mission Driven Business Podcast

Brian Thompson, JD/CFP®, is a tax attorney and Certified Financial Planner® who specializes in providing comprehensive financial planning to LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs who run mission-driven businesses. The Mission Driven Business podcast was born out of his passion for helping social entrepreneurs create businesses with purpose and profit.

On the podcast, Brian talks with diverse entrepreneurs and the people who support them. Listeners hear stories of experiences, strength, and hope and get practical advice to help them build businesses that might just change the world, too.