Financial planning is crucial for operating a business. A business needs a written business plan. This plan should be accessible to anyone who may need to manage the company in the owner/manager’s absence. 

The financial piece of the business plan should include the following:

• Budget
• Costs/Expenses
• Income
• Return on Investment (ROI)
• Designated checking and savings accounts for the business (even if a sole proprietor)
• Designated credit card for the business 
• Possible Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) plan (401)

To prepare a financial plan for 2026, review 2025’s financials and business, including products and services, pricing, and ROI. Specifically, look at those areas that brought in less income, cost more than you planned, or created flatlines between income and expenses. Also, look at areas, such as services and products, that generate a steady income. 

For example, consider factors such as marketing, which may include expenses for advertisements, exhibit booths at conferences or job fairs, or conference attendance. Look carefully at each expense and compare the cost to the ROI. Suppose there is no ROI or minimal ROI for a specific marketing ad, for example. In that case, you must decide whether the marketing ad is valuable enough for you to invest dollars into it during the following calendar year. Review the expense and choose to shift marketing dollars to another category or delete the expense. 

Perhaps you can speak to the ad owner and determine a less costly marketing campaign, or decide to discontinue the ad completely. Then you can compare the ad cost and any associated loss of ROI in the 2026/27 review period. 

Consider where else you may allocate funding, including items such as new education, credentials/professional development, dues and memberships, conference attendance, transportation, a new website, conference swag, and more. 

For areas that generate ample income, review the services, products, and marketing streams to bolster these income streams for 2026.  If you decide to stop an ad that did not deliver ROI, analyze the market and determine a new advertising course that will further promote those services and products that did deliver high ROI. 

Flatlines

If your business is flatlining, analyze the reasons to determine the cause. Consider the following:

• Marketing costs more than revenue
• You are not charging enough for the services provided (increase your fees and income; if you complete a new credential, increase your fees; if you attend a conference or obtain professional development, increase your fees). Charge based on the value you deliver
• You are targeting the wrong market/client population – reevaluate your target market and marketing messages
• The economy has changed – and you need to change with the marketplace

Budget

To build your budget, include the following: 

• Capital expenses like a computer, website development, smartphone, and office space
• Maintenance expenses like website maintenance, computer maintenance, software maintenance, QuickBooks (or similar platform)
• Recurring expenses like state LLC renewal fees
• 1099 expenses like a virtual assistant, bookkeeper, tax accountant, résumé writer, attorney, or creative artist
• Office expenses, including a printer, desk, ink, paper, pens, notebooks, or swag for conferences
• Savings
• SEP contributions
• Taxes

The Coffee/Fast Food Factor

Just a side note for comparison – if you drive through your favorite coffee house 5 days a week at $5.50 a day per cup ($1430 a year), or $8 for fast food at lunch every day ($2080 a year), that adds up fast. I am not saying don’t do it – I am saying look at the numbers. Do the math and determine priorities.  Where do you want your money to go?

Calculate Your Actual Hourly Rate

This is an interesting exercise. Many of my CPCC coaches ask me how to charge for services. They want to know the best hourly rate to charge. To calculate a good rate, consider the following:

• Create a family budget and determine how much money you need to live on each month at a minimum. Include mortgage/rent, food, utilities, car insurance, car payment, gas, extras, credit card payments, eating out, savings, lawn service, security service, and vet bills. Write down every expense (or use a budget tracker). 
• Create a business budget.
• Combine the two bottom lines of expenses. This number represents the minimum monthly income required to sustain yourself and your business. Divide that number by 4, and divide that number by 40. That is your hourly rate. For example, if your bottom-line income requirement between family and business is $5000 per month, then your hourly rate is $31 at 40 hours per week. (Some people find that they are only making $15 an hour – it is a very revealing exercise.) Therefore, you will want to double that amount to $62 an hour (or more) to effectively double your income for savings, paying off debt, planning to purchase a new car, taking a vacation, or adding to the business budget for professional development or a new computer. 
• Don’t forget that for every hour you spend face-to-face with a client, you are working several hours in the background to write a résumé, review an assessment, conduct research for the client, prepare for interview prep, write after-action reports, and more. So, 40 hours of face time may equate to 80+ hours of actual work time – be sure to schedule your time carefully. 

A Comment About Taxes

Don’t forget to save 30% of every dime you make for taxes. Taxes come along every March/April and quarterly, depending on your sole proprietor, LLC, 1099, or payroll status. If you save 30% of your income at the beginning, then you will most likely never get hit with a large, unexpected tax bill. And, if you find yourself in a lower tax bracket, then any savings above your tax bracket are savings for next year’s taxes, and for use in investing in marketing, business expenses, purchases, or the SEP as needed. 

Annual Review

Schedule a time to review your 2025 financials and prepare for 2026. Determine your best income streams and ROI, and enhance those services; remove services/products or budget items that do not provide ROI, and speak to your bookkeeper and or accountant to make decisions for purchasing capital equipment and spending marketing dollars for 2026. 

Your blood pressure. Your pulse rate. Scores displayed after Olympic competitions. Box office revenues. Albums sold by Beyoncé. Your income. My expenses. Climbing Mount Everest. Just about everything in life comes down to results. And most of the time, the best way to measure results is to look at the numbers.  

The kid’s name was Bruce – true story.  He bought a delicatessen called, ‘What’s Your Beef,’ in Peabody, Massachusetts. He knew nothing about the business and, apparently, had little interest in learning it. Perhaps he thought he knew it all. Here’s the thing, he’d purchase a side of ham for $100, divide it into 10 equal sellable slices, and sell each slice for $9.95. I told him, “You’re paying $100 for the ham and selling it for $99.50 – you’re losing money. As a ‘result,’ he did not address and fix the numbers, and eight months later, my youngest brother closed the business. The result of not knowing his numbers was three-fold: 1) He lost $65,000. 2) He could have earned $50,000. 3) The time lost can never be made up.

Budgeting Time and Money

Chanel lost her job, it doesn’t matter why. What does matter is how Chanel plans to spend her time and money to get a definite result… a job within 90 days. She said, “I used to spend 50 hours a week at work and work related activities like commuting. So I budgeted 50 hours a week to conduct a transition campaign. I had limited financial resources, so I made sure 50% of my campaign was going to be aggressive networking. That’s 25 hours a week, five hours a day, Monday through Friday.”  The other 25 hours were invested in target marketing (15 hours a week) and working online venues (10 hours a week). Chanel knew the results she wanted (a job within 90 days), and developed a measurable strategy to meet those goals with timelines and a financial budget, as small as it was.

Most Resume Writers and Career Coaches Undervalue Their Value

In the three decades I’ve been coaching resume writers and career coaches, if there’s one constant that rings true almost every time is that 1) they do not get paid for the full value they offer their customers, and 2) they do not know how to optimize their resources of time, money, and energy to ensure they optimize their sales and income – to get paid full value for the services and products they offer.  

In attempting to correct this, most resume writing and career coaching pros, as well as most business coaches,  would begin to address this “undervaluement issue” by budgeting. This is the time of year where most will begin to explore how best they can maximize their value and income. What do I anticipate my sales (income) to be and should I increase my prices? Can I add any new services to improve sales? What do I expect my expenses to be? How much money do I need to spend on upgrading my technologies? What are my fixed expenses? What are my variable expenses? What are my inevitable expected-unexpected expenses anticipated to be?   

Then there’s budget methodology itself, because different methods work for different people and different enterprises, and selecting one that works best for one’s short and long-term success is important. This would include the 50/30/20 strategy, Zero-based budgeting, the Envelope system, and the Pay-Yourself-First method. The goal, again, is to optimize potential sales, earnings, income, reputation, and value.

But that’s not where we begin. In a profession where most resume writers and career coaches are undervalued, earn less than they are worth to those they serve, and fail to achieve the level of respect they deserve, the transformational process to reverse this, and earn the money and respect we deserve, begins with evaluating and changing our own job search processes. 

Start with Your Processes and Systems

Sue’s Questionnaire

I have written before of a highly successful resume pro who hired me to help reduce the time it took her to write C-level resumes. I knew Sue’s process and knew I could help her. She had a 3-step process: 1) clients completed a detailed questionnaire, 2) Sue spent two hours with each client to review and discuss their responses to the questionnaires, and 3) she spent significant time with clients on the final ‘review, edit, revise, and complete’ portion of the process.  

I asked her, “When was the last time you thoroughly reviewed and updated your questionnaire, as this is one-third of your resume writing process?” We had just discussed the strategy of asking higher quality questions, because asking higher quality questions results in getting higher quality, more focused and precise answers. Sue’s answer was, “Never.” And she had been in business for over 10 years. Once we totally revamped her questionnaire, she was able to knock off almost two hours per client. 

From a budgeting standpoint, consider that in 2025, the process of writing a C-level resume took Sue 7 hours, but in 2026, armed with new tools and strategies, she will be able to do the same high quality job in 5 hours… and this will have a substantial impact on her budget! 

Rachel’s Free Advice 

Rachel had a resume writing company and 100% of her income came from writing resumes. Before she put together her next year’s budget, she reflected on every aspect of her business, and how she spent her time. And she had a major breakthrough. Rachel realized she was spending a lot of time giving away too much “interviewing” tips to her resume clients – for free! She realized if she could change her process, she could get paid for the free hours she was giving away. With a new component in place, Rachel added a new income stream to her budget, and sold interviewing services to 30% of her resume clients.  

By investing time reviewing, evaluating, and revising our processes before we begin budgeting, we’ll find unique and easy ways to reduce expenses, increase sales, and earn more money in ways we otherwise would not have considered. Rachel said, “I knew what my rent was. I knew what my cell phone bill was. I knew what my car payment was. But I didn’t really know what my hourly rate was, when I thought about all the free time I gave away and didn’t charge for. I thought I was making $125 an hour, but I now realize that every minute counts, and when I think of all the additional free stuff I gave away, I realized I have been making less than $90 an hour.

TMR – Saves a Lot of Time and Aggravation

In hidden circles it’s called TMR (Test Marketing the Resume). For every resume I wrote over the years, I saved between 60-90 minutes per client by never taking final responsibility for proofreading.  Like a printing company, I delegate this to my clients. Believe what you want, but I wrote 12 books for McGraw-Hill, and had five editing proofreaders for each one. You can’t believe what is missed. My personal belief is that the writer cannot be the final proofreader.  

When my client and I are pleased with the final resume, we then go into TMR mode – I ask them to test market the resume. I ask them to show it to four or five people whose opinions they trust for feedback, typos missed, or any other potential changes. When they return, they know exactly what changes they want to make – and are more confident in their resume because others were impressed with it. Using the TMR method, you can reduce final proofreading time by as much as 85% with less stress and hassles. This will affect your budget and provide more time to earn more money, or to spend with your family. 

Bottom Line

Whatever your overriding objectives are, whether it be more income, free time, less stress, working with ideal clients – or all of the above, before you can do a budget, you first must review, evaluate, and improve all of your systems and processes – like the iPhone does every year. What improvements can you make that can justify higher prices? What new services could you add that you don’t want to perform yourself, but can offer by creating a colleague referral system? What new upgrades and AI advancements do you need to integrate to be more efficient, productive, and to operate optimally? Once answered, then create a budget based on your new, revised processes, systems, and strategies. It makes a significant difference to how you budget and how you achieve your bottom line goals.

If you’ve worked as a career coach or resume writer, you’ve likely had a client slide their resume across your desk and say, “Can you just fix this for me?” Sometimes it’s just a resume or cover letter, and other times it’s their whole career direction. The request often comes from a place of stress, and while it’s tempting to wave a magic wand and solve everything, doing so leaves you carrying the whole load. Not only does this risk burnout for you, but it also robs your client of the chance to learn, grow, and build confidence. The key is finding balance.  How can we stay supportive, set healthy boundaries, and still guide our clients toward real growth?

Your Path

Start with empathy.
When a client says, “I can’t do this, you do it,” it usually comes from stress, anxiety, or discouragement. Acknowledge their feelings to ease resistance and show compassion. Simple responses like, “I hear how stressful this feels for you,” or “I get it—resumes and job searches can feel overwhelming” validate their emotions without taking on their burden.

Clarify your role and set clear boundaries.
Position yourself as a guide, not a fixer. For example: “I’ll create a strong draft for your resume, but I’ll also need your input to make sure it reflects your voice and experiences.” Boundaries can be supportive when delivered with care: “I can revise this section for you, but I’ll need your accomplishments, so it truly represents you.” This helps clients understand you’re a partner, not a replacement.  This sets limits while showing you’re invested in their success.

Shift the focus to teamwork.
Frame the process as a collaboration: “We’ll work on this together, you bring the details, I’ll bring the strategy.” You can also invite small contributions: “How about you give me your top three accomplishments, and I’ll help shape them into strong bullet points.” This empowers clients and reminds them they’re capable of meaningful input. 

Use small, doable steps.
Large tasks feel overwhelming, so break them down into manageable parts. Instead of saying, “Rewrite your whole work history,” try: “Today, let’s just focus on your most recent job.” This keeps progress moving while building the client’s confidence.

Teach, don’t just tell.
Rather than handing over a finished product, explain your edits and the reasons behind them. Showing why you adjusted phrasing or formatting helps clients build skills for the future and feel more ownership of their career tools.

Protect your own mental health.
It’s easy to carry clients’ stress home with you. You can be caring and professional without overextending yourself.  Protecting your time and energy ensures you can keep serving clients well without burning out. 

Coming Home 

Remember: Your job is not just to “fix it.” It’s to empower. When clients participate in the process, they leave with confidence, not just a polished resume.

Here’s to mindful moves, 

Felicia A. Shanklin, M.Ed., CPRW

Licensed Mental Health First Aid Instructor (Adult)
Balanced Harmony Master Series Director