The Backwards Equation: Rethinking How Small Businesses Manage Financials

Most people who build businesses in the craft beverage industry got in because of a passion - the craft, the community, the creative challenge of making something people love. The financials came along for the ride whether we invited them or not.

Here's what most small business owners don't realize: the way our brains naturally want to manage money is almost perfectly designed to keep us financially fragile. Not because we're bad at math - but because the conventional financial equation most small businesses run is actually backwards.

In this session, we'll flip that equation. Starting with the psychology behind how we naturally make financial decisions, we'll work through a behavioral-based framework for managing business financials that's built to work with the way our minds actually operate. We'll use a real craft brewery's numbers to make it concrete, and you'll leave with a clear picture of the system, the tools, and a first step you can take the same week.

No accounting degree required. 

Key Learning Objectives

1) Identify the two most common financial thinking patterns that keep small businesses fragile - even when revenue is growing - and understand why they feel so natural

2) Apply the Profit First equation to create a financial system that removes the guesswork from business decisions and builds profitability from your very first customer

3) Match the right financing tools to the right business needs - and understand why getting this wrong is one of the most common cash flow killers in small business, even for profitable ones 

Recommended Experience Level

Intermediate 

Speaker Details 

Marshall Moore 

On Tap Credit Union 

Director of Community Impact & Financial Well-being 

Speaker Bio

Marshall Moore is the Director of Community Impact and Financial Well-being at On Tap Credit Union in Golden, Colorado, where he runs Making Money Joyful - a behavioral-based financial education and coaching program. A former high school math teacher, Marshall learned early that knowing the right formula rarely changes behavior on its own, and that the financial systems people actually stick to are the ones built around how they think and feel about money. His work spans financial wellness workshops for employers, 1:1 coaching for individuals, and small business financial education for organizations across the Denver metro area.