The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast

44 ⎸ Best Advice from Accounting Course Creators

April 15, 2022 Serena Shoup, CPA Episode 44
The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast
44 ⎸ Best Advice from Accounting Course Creators
Show Notes Transcript

In this special episode, I’m bringing in 3 very special and powerful women in the accounting space: Katie Ferro, Keila Hill-Trawick, and Noemi Aguilar-Horta These three women are some of the other accounting/bookkeeping specific course creators that I asked to provide their top advice to you as course creators in our specific niche.

This is a continuation of a series I’m putting together around creating courses, as so many people in our community have asked about creating courses. These women bring real solid not-sugar coated advice about creating courses.

I’m honored to have these women on the podcast and being able to provide more perspective. I’m linking all of their info in the shownotes for this episode so you can connect with them and their programs.

Katie Ferro - Owner of Orderly Accounting by Katie & Creator of Become a Bookkeeper & Life By the Books

IG www.instagram.com/orderlyaccountingbykatie

Podcast www.katieferro.com/podcast

Keila Hill-Trawick - Owner of Little Fish Accounting & Co-Creator of The Accountants Of Color Community

Website https://www.accountantsofcolor.co

Noemi Aguilar-Horta - Owner of Tikal Tax & Accounting and Mama Counts Bookkeeping Course

TikTok www.tiktok.com/@noemiaguilarhorta

Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/mamacounts/?ref=share

Grab your Course Niche Guide here: ambitiousbookkeeper.com/niche

Thanks for listening. For more information about the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:

Visit our website: ambitiousbookkeeper.com

Follow the Blog: ambitiousbookkeeper.com/blog

Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/ambitiousbookkeeper

Connect on LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/SerenaShoup

Connect of Facebook: Facebook.com/serenashoupcpa

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[00:00:29] Welcome back to the ambitious bookkeeper podcast. I'm Sarena Shupe your host. And today I have a really special episode. I'm actually bringing in three very special and powerful women in the accounting space. Katie Farrow, Kayla Hill Traywick and Noemi. Aguila Orta these three women are some of the other accounting and bookkeeping specific course creators that I asked to provide their top advice to you. 

[00:00:59] As course creators in our specific niche, this is a continuation of a series that I'm putting together around creating courses. As so many people in our community have asked about creating courses. And these women bring a real solid, not sugar coated advice about creating courses. I'm honored to have these women on the podcast and being able to provide more perspective. 

[00:01:24] I'm linking all of their information in the show notes of this episode. So you can connect with them and their programs or communities. Now without further ado here is Katie. 

[00:01:36] Katie Ferro: Hi, I'm Katie Farrow, CPA. Self-proclaimed reformed rule follower, corporate escapee, and mama to three little. I built my bookkeeping business to surpass my corporate tax manager, salary working only the hours I used to commute and without relinquishing my stay at home, mom crown. Now I continue to run my bookkeeping business while also helping accountants and aspiring bookkeepers build a bookkeeping business that actually supports their ideas.

[00:02:01] I've been in the online space and using Kajabi since 2018. I have two courses I'm most known for at this 0.1 that teaches the technical skills of bookkeeping for a simpler in demand industry. That program's called become a bookkeeper. And I affectionately call it. And then I have another program that teaches those who are strong in their skills, how to turn them into a profitable part-time bookkeeping business.

[00:02:25] That program is life by the books, which I nicknamed Libby outside of those programs. I also have a course that I built in 2018 to educate US-based solo preneurs on the financial side of their business. And one of my favorite things is my library of templates for sale, mostly catering to entrepreneurs who are not bookkeepers.

[00:02:44] Serena asked me to give just one or two pieces of advice for anyone interested in creating a course. It's so hard for me to narrow that down. The truth is that I actively pursued passive income for almost a year and a half in the form of a course before I finally realized that bookkeeping had the potential to be more stable and passive than.

[00:03:05] It wasn't until I booked out my bookkeeping business, that courses really started to succeed for me. I think that they're an excellent addition to an already stable business and absolutely have the power to stand on their own, but the same principles that helped me grow my bookkeeping business also helped me have successful courses.

[00:03:23] Be good at what you teach deliberate in a way that is simple yet effective and marketed, honestly. And with real human connection at its core. Oh, and definitely use Kajabi. You can find me most on Instagram at orderly accounting, by Katie or at my podcast, profits and Prosecco.

[00:03:41] 

[00:03:46] Keila Hill: Hello, ambitious bookkeepers. My name is Keila Hill, Trey wick, and I, along with my co-founder Kelly leu founded accountants of color and late 2020 accounts of color is a community of BIPOC accountants. And we're really aiming to revolutionize our industry with diversity. AOC operates both a free Facebook group as a safe space for BIPOC accountants, and then a paid membership for all entrepreneurial accountants, looking to start a grown-up.

[00:04:12] In terms of our course, if you will. And we have an ongoing membership that, accountants pay monthly for, it includes ongoing videos, guest, speakers, community calls, all about the things that you need to kind of build your own accounting firm. And we specifically have a focus on black and indigenous people of color because we know that a lot of them.

[00:04:33] Don't get access to that information. Kelly and I often talk about how much easier our lives would have been starting our firms if we had just had some of this advice. And so we're really honored to be able to bring that forward, both through our voices and the voices of other accountants in our country.

[00:04:49] In terms of advice. My advice, my first piece of advice would really be to recognize that courses are not passive income. I know that that gets thrown a lot around a lot. And you listening to this podcast, you know, that that's not true, but I want to reiterate that they take a lot of work, especially at the beginning.

[00:05:08] And a lot of that work is active planning and builds. Me and Kelly were on marathon phone calls, just kind of laying out what this would look like, what each week should look like, how can we make this consistent and efficient? And I think starting from a place that we knew it was going to be work, it was easier for us to assess our bandwidth and our desires to figure out what this membership would like.

[00:05:32] That plan can help you to make the outline easier and create content on a schedule that works for you. I mean, Kelly and I both run our own accounting firms. So this wasn't our only job we had kind of some downtime and November where we built out a lot of it. We laid out a schedule for ourselves taking into account our own busy periods.

[00:05:51] And I think if we initially thought we could just show up, we would have undersold, but we would have also. Not really provided the experience that we were hoping to give people. It's a lot of the backend is what do I want this to look like? How often do I need to show up? How often do I need to check in?

[00:06:09] You know, it's not just building the thing. You also have to tell people why they should come. So just knowing that I'm being real about the fact that it's more than just showing up and you gotta be willing to do the behind the scenes work to make it XSS can go a long way at the beginning of helping you build out what this even looks out.

[00:06:30] All right. Can I give two pieces? If I give two pieces, the other piece of advice would be keep building and recording and creating no matter how many people are watching or listening, whether that is audio, because you have an audio only, or a podcast as part of your course or it's videos that you are making as content.

[00:06:50] You want to keep making it cause you never know where it's going to end up. I would say that our ability to host a resource library, a video resource library within the AOC membership was really because of how many videos we made every single week as we were building an audience. So of course, then we didn't know that this is where it would end up, but as the membership evolved, we were grateful for the videos that we didn't think we knew.

[00:07:14] Those videos that we were like, ah, nobody even watched last week. Do we have to make one this week? We're looking at the stats and being like, ah, nobody showed up for this call, but them being able to rewatch it later, being able to now tag it and filter it so that people can find the videos that are helpful for them.

[00:07:32] All of that was built out of this content that we were consistently making so that when this resource library came about, we had over a hundred videos. All right. So if you want to find out more about accountants of color, our mission and our community, find us@accountantsofcolor.co and on Instagram at accountants of color.

[00:07:51] We welcome BIPOC accountants to join our Facebook group. And if you join our newsletter, you can submit to be in the directory, which was built to amplify black and indigenous people of color by acting as a. For those looking to hire us. The directory is really cool. We've gotten a lot of great feedback and accountants who have gotten hired from there.

[00:08:10] It allows people to filter by various tags and identifiers, and it also gives some guidelines of how people should use it, that they're not negotiating you down from your worth, that they are treating you with professionalism. It's important that our community get built up in all of the ways that we know how and that free directory is one way for us to do so. You can find out more about the directory@accountantsofcolor.co slash directory.

[00:08:37] 

[00:08:41] Noemi: 

[00:08:41] Hey everybody. My name is Naomi . I am the founder of the mama counts bookkeeping course. My course is dedicated for moms who are starting off, trying to master and learn the skillset of bookkeeping without a degree fancy office or having to spend endless time wasted on trying to figure this out on their own.

[00:09:01] If I could give a piece of advice for anyone interested in created, in course I would a hundred percent. Sell it before you make it right. I think when we're starting off a course and we're doing something, we want to first know that our audience wants it, right. That this is what they need. And the best feedback for you to get on creating your course is when you can have beta students come on in which number one is going to money motivate you.

[00:09:29] Create this course. And as you have beta students coming in, they're going to help you, make sure that you have an idea of what your crowd, what your audience, what, you know, the people that you're speaking to throughout this course actually need. So definitely. Sell it before you actually make it.

[00:09:50] And again, I think that's, that's a really, really good tip. And many ways you can connect with me, actually, I am on Tik TOK as noemiaguilerorta. I love, love, love sharing information for aspiring bookkeepers, business owners. Right? So completely held. Continue to educate ladies in that field so that they can be prepared to help their clients in the bookkeeping industry.

[00:10:13] And I also have a Facebook group called mama counts, bookkeeping community, where you can also connect with me there. And I am looking forward to, you know, hearing from you, girls that are creating your courses and you know, good luck talk to you soon. Bye ladies.

[00:10:29] 

[00:10:29] 

[00:10:36] Wasn't that just amazing to hear from these women and their advice for you. So if you are still considering creating a course, I want to remind you that you can get a course niche guide@ambitiousbookkeeper.com slash niche. N I C H E. And that will redirect you to James Wedmore's niche guide for course creation. And he's actually putting on a, nail your niche master class coming up here. So make sure you download that guide and you'll get the alerts for the masterclass. There will be two happening one on Tuesday, April 19th, and one on Wednesday, April 20th. And one last reminder, each week you can enter to win the workshops bundle, which is usually on sale for $79. You get access to the 10 99 workshop, a sales tax workshop, and the last round of the bookkeeping biz workshops. 

[00:11:37] All you have to do is snap a screenshot of you listening to this episode, type in one takeaway or aha that you had from the episode and tag me also, it would be amazing if you subscribed and reviewed as a bonus. It'll help more people find this podcast and get it into more people's earbuds. so thank you again so much for listening each week and I will talk to you next time.

[00:12:06] 

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