The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast

109 ⎸ [NICHE] Travel & Tourism with Kirstin Reeder

• Serena Shoup, CPA • Episode 109

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In this NICHE series episode, I interview Kirstin Reader, owner of Purple Sapphire Business Solutions - which specializes in Tourism & Travel companies. Listen in as we cover a wide range of topics for a smaller bookkeeping firm in this niche! Kirstin serves her clients with the help of a part time bookkeeper and only spends about 20 hours a week in/on her business, as she also homeschools her 4 school aged children (5 have already graduated!)

In this episode you’ll hear:

  •  How Kirstin uses GoProposal to price her clients 
  •  The specific pain points seasonal businesses experience 
  •  How attending industry conferences has helped Kirstin become more of an expert in her niche 
  •  BONUS: I share an idea on how to help DIYers in her niche — that you can apply to your own industry as well! 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

 Kirstin is a Certified Digital Bookkeeper, Enrolled Agents, and Certified Tax Coach. She owns Purple Sapphire Business Solutions, which provides tax planning and preparation services to business owners and bookkeeping services to businesses in the travel and tourism industry.

Connect with Kirstin:

 Facebook: @purpletaxes
Website: www.purpletaxes.com

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when I first started entering this space, I did write a blog post A guest blog post on, a blog that is put out by a particular website development company that, focuses on this niche and I got a client that way. Um, she read it and she said, it's like you're reading my mind, all the fun, all the questions that I had, all the problems that I've been thinking about, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. You said them in the blog post. that was a fun client. they were a tour and resort company in the Bahamas, I remember one time I was asking them, you know, what kind of fixed assets do you have? And she said, what's a fixed asset? And I thought I'm going to need to come there, I think, because. You know, I know that they had villas and they had equipment and all these things. I thought, I, I think I'm going to have to go and make a list. And I thought, but am I making up excuses to go to the Bahamas? And so I actually ran it by some other tax people. I said, I feel like I'm just making up an excuse, but I feel like I really need to go, you know, and everybody's like, yeah, it sounds ordinary and necessary to me. I never went though, Welcome back to the ambitious bookkeeper podcast. I'm your host Serena Shoup. This is part of our niche series as part of this series, spanning July and August. You'll be listening in on interviews with niche, bookkeepers and accountants. I thought it would be really inspirational and super valuable to bring on bookkeepers and accountants who have built niche firms to take you behind the curtain of what it looks like to get to the point of serving in a specific niche. My hope is that you'll gain the inspiration and information that will help you hone in on your niche. Or if you already have one. Find different ways to help your clients. I'll be asking some similar questions of each of our guests, like what their minimum fee is, how they got into their niche and what their firm team structure looks like. I'm super excited to bring this to you. And I hope that you enjoy. If you're ready to hone in on your own niche and build a bookkeeping business that gives you the life that you want, check out the bookkeeping business accelerator by going to ambitiousbookkeeper.com/bba the link is also in the show notes. If finding a perfect fit client is something that you've needed. Check out my mini course, the bookkeeping client closer, go to ambitiousbookkeeper.com/closer. All the links will be in the show notes. Now let's get into today's episode. today I have Kirsten reader on with us. Welcome Kirsten. How are you today? I'm good. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I am Kirsten Reeder and I own Purple Sapphire Business Solutions. I'm a virtual firm based out of Aurora, Colorado, and we do bookkeeping and tax work. On the bookkeeping side, we only work with travel and tourism clients. And, on the tax side, we kind of do, and any, any industry really, I mean, there are some industries that I won't touch, but, for the most part I work with any business owner. So, yeah. Wonderful. Okay. So before we hit record, I was like, would you like to talk about your story? And you're like, I don't know about talking about myself, but then we decided, it would be really cool to hear about how you got into bookkeeping. So, a long time ago in high school, I, those little, like career questionnaire things, I took one of those and, like I was a junior or something and, and it said I should look into accounting and I thought, I don't, what's, what's accounting. I don't even know what that is. So I took an accounting class my senior year of high school and I, and really it was bookkeeping, but I loved it. It was so fun. And we had like the paper checks that we would pretend to write and the T accounts and all that stuff. And I just loved it. And so when I went to college, I was an accounting major, but I didn't like all the corporate stuff because the further I got in my studies, it was like all this crazy stuff. And, and I remember having to learn about like present value and. And all this and I thought, why, why this has nothing to do with anything that I'm going to be doing. I don't want to work with like corporates. I don't want to work with small businesses. Well, I ended up dropping out of college to go to work while my husband was in veterinary school and I became a stay at home mom and I was stay at home homeschooling mom for 18 years. And then I decided when my youngest child was months old, I heard about, a bookkeeping course and I signed up and have not looked back and I started my business when he was that old. That was seven and a half years ago. And, added tax later and I just, I don't know. I just love it. Then I love all things bookkeeping and which. Makes me feel kind of nerdy, but I've You're in the right place. Yeah, exactly. I've always been like my mom will say, Oh, I balanced my checkbook within, you know, 500. And I'm like, no, it's like to the penny every time. Mom, what are you talking about? If I am a penny off, I'm going to find that penny because that means there's something wrong somewhere. So and same thing with like tax returns. I actually like S Corp and partnership tax returns because there's a balance sheet on there and that means everything has to balance and so I know that things are more right than if I didn't have that. So, anyway, I just love all of that stuff and I geek out about it, but Hey, like you said, I'm in the right place. I'm sure that there's are like, oh, yeah, I know exactly what she's talking about. But I have, I have 9 kids and I homeschool all of them. Well, I mean, 5 have graduated, but I, so I still have 4 at home, so working from home and having my firm all remote has been just perfect. So that's what I do. That's amazing. Okay. So, when it comes to the niche that you're in, did you start, when you started your business, did you know you wanted to go into that or like, how did you land there? I did not, I, I was like dead set. I am going to be, I'm going to work with sustainable agriculture because I have a passion for that. We don't live on a farm, but we do have land and things like that. And we were wanting to move that direction one day. And, and so I said, I am going to work with sustainable farmers and work, you know, they need me, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And it was a real fight because I figured out. Over time, that a lot of those people came from the corporate business world and moved into farming because they had, again, they had a passion for it, so they knew all the things that I was trying to teach them and they kind of liked doing all of the business y, bookkeeping y things on the side. So I never got any clients with them, even after like a year, because I was having to convince them of their need for me, period. So then I thought, oh... Another up and coming, niche would be cannabis and that's all whole world all on its own. And I, I fought really hard in there too, but I finally got tired of being the bookkeeper and the tax expert and the, the attorney and the person who had knew all the regulations. So I decided against that, but I went back so I sat down and I looked at what my clientele actually was like during all this time I was accepting clients. They were kind of all over the map, and I'm not in the niche that I was targeting so I thought, Okay, I'm going to look at who, who am I working with. And the first client that I got, was. or is, because they're still with me, a gondola cruise client, like Venetian gondolas with the boats and the guy in stripes and he stands on the back of the boat and sings. They have operations here in the U. S. There's several all across the U. S. and, I started working with one of them and I thought that's kind of a fun niche and so that's kind of where I started with them and I expanded. I don't just work with gondola companies because very many of them. But pretty much anybody that is an activity company of some sort, like canoe outfitters, kayak companies, Zip line tours, anybody like that, tour companies, they're like multi day tours, like I have a couple, tour companies in Italy or like a food tour company, and then travel agents, and actually it's more like travel agencies because individual travel agents usually aren't, don't have enough revenue, really need me or work with me, I don't typically work with anybody in the Accommodations space like glampers or, cabin rentals or anything like that. I have a referral partner that came from the hotel and accommodations industry, and so I, refer everything out to him and, but I still kind of am next to That niche because a lot of times the glampers will be right next to a whole bunch of activities and so I do still kind of like I attend those conferences and things like that just kind of be right there with them, but I it's fun. I, it's a fun niche and like anytime I've gone. Like I went. Skydiving. And so I was sure to buy the photo package so that I could use all the photos in my marketing and things like now I'm going to not do the one where like my cheeks are doing weird things or something like that. But yeah, or like kayaking or we just recently went on a BKX we went on a gondola cruise with my client and so I've got all sorts of pictures from that and. Um, So it's, it's super, super fun. And nobody is working with these people. And some of them are really smart business people. Like I know some of the outfitters, they are like, we want to have bonuses for our employees. And I mean, they're like into it. So it's, it's been super, super fun. I wish I could do all the things that my clients actually do, but I So, don't. so do you, um, mainly get clients from attending these conferences or is it a lot of referrals now? It's it's referrals, like I have a couple really good referral partners and since it is such a small group of people that work in this. Like I have a CPA referral that he doesn't do taxes. He does a lot of like high level analysis and he'll help, owners evaluate their pricing or their employee bonus structure, or, you know, just all these different things. I get a lot of referrals from him because if, if he doesn't have good numbers in the books, then he can't really do the, the analysis that he needs. I have a couple of clients that apparently really, really liked me because they are constantly telling all their people in their space about me. In fact, I was just, before I got on with you. I was replying to emails. from yet another, referral from one of my clients. I mean, she's constantly giving me referrals. So I, I, at this point, I attend the conferences. Just to learn more about their pains and what they're concerned about. I have not actually had a booth at a conference, although that is in the future. So I love doing booths. I just, I just love them. So yeah, it's mostly almost all referral and word of mouth. Awesome. So that brings me to another question. How many clients do you currently have? I currently have eight bookkeeping clients and then around 70, 75 ish tax clients, I think. I haven't looked lately. But yeah, eight Booking clients, two of them are pretty, pretty big. And, and then others are smaller. And then I've got a couple that we've been kind of dancing around starting with me, but they haven't actually jumped fully on board yet. So we just. Yeah. You to force them on the flip side. One in particular, she said, I'm going to need you to like, stay on me about things. I'm like, okay. But at the same time, it's your business. It's not mine. So there's a little bit of ownership there that comes into play, but I just, we're doing the dance right now. Yeah. So do you, are you working solo? Do you have anyone on your team helping? What's the status with your Yeah, I have, a bookkeeper. She's part time, but. I'd say she does about half of my clients right now. She does one of the big ones. And then two of the small, I do have two non niche clients that were from before, that I kept, I have like a tattoo shop and then, a camera, it's a camera guy actually. and, they're just super easy and easy going, easy to work with. So I said, Oh, you know, we'll, we'll keep you, but she works with them. And then the big. One, and then I can handle everybody else at this time, and then I have a part time tax preparer who helps me, with tax season, but it's primarily me with taxes. I'd love to hire another tax preparer for this upcoming season. Because, the guy that I have is, is good, but he's got his own business, and I know that he doesn't have a lot of bandwidth, and so I'd love to hire. someone else to really take on a lot of my tax clients for tax season. So I guess I should probably get on that, um, and get that lined up before January. so yeah, and also I only can work in my business about 20 to 25 hours a week with homeschooling and All the taxing that I do, although my daughter is going to get her license in a month and it's going to be fantastic because she'll be able to drive herself to work rather than me because she's been working since she was 14. So I've been having to take her back and forth to work and, ah, it's going to be wonderful. So I probably will have a little bit more time to actually work. Yeah. But yeah, I it's so funny. I hear people talk about. Oh, only work 25 hours in your business or something I'm thinking I would love to be able to work more. I'm coming at it from the different direction that everybody else is. But, oh well, that's okay. Yeah. That, that I have that too. Cause I only work about 20 hours and then there's times where I'm like, I really needed an extra five hours that I could work this this week. And so I ended up pulling an all nighter. Exactly, exactly. And then I wake up in the morning and I think, what did I do over there? Yeah, Yeah. Um, but you know, it's the season we're in and that's what is beautiful about this business is having that flexibility of not having to be eight hour office days. You know what I mean? Like where we're available for our clients. Like you can set it up to where you have availability for clients, but it's more in your control and then you have the flexibility to do life. yeah. Well, and it's, it's interesting because Right now is when a lot of my clients are busy like my outfitter people, I'm struggling to hear back from them just because this is their busy time of the year. Um, and then my gondola people it's February, February 14 man that is their Black Friday. Everything hinges around Valentine's Day. For them. So the rest of the year is busy, but everything is Valentine's day, all hands on deck, that's when they're going to be ordering pizza for their, for their crew. They really don't the rest of the time, but that's when all, you know, that's when they've got their gondoliers that work one day a year. That's when they work. So it's interesting to learn who's busy, who's not when. Et cetera. And so I try to gauge that with where I am and then tax season. Anyway, it seems like there's something going on. So do you find that your clients need a different level of service when they're seasonal like that? Or there's other things that you need to know or pay attention to, to help them through the, the off season. Do you change your pricing in the off season? What does everything look like? I don't change my pricing because it all evens out over the year. I am learning that I have to communicate with them a little bit differently. Like I may, I may insist on. You know, email or through my portal all the time, but if they are just going with their hair on fire in their own business because they're so busy and this is their busy time of year, they might not have time to check their email. And so I may have to text them and say, Hey, sent you an email or like, I've got a, I'm doing a cleanup right now with a guy that, it is his super busy season and I've got them on a retainer. Cause we weren't sure how much cleanup we were going to actually have to do. We've got a huge, huge mess that we're cleaning up from some previous bookkeepers and. I know, and so I sent him an invoice, and it hasn't been paid, and I finally texted him and said, hey, just so you know, this hasn't been paid yet. Normally, I would not do that, and I really try hard. Okay, we're going to communicate through email, Zoom meeting, you know, the messaging through my portal. But sometimes when I know they really, really do not have time, then I'll send them a text because they've always got their phone. So, but I don't like to do that. But, you know, I have to sometimes, or sometimes I know, okay, they are not going to be available for a meeting, but then they're more available, you know, in November, or, or that's when they're really doing a lot of their conversations. Thinking about the rest of the year. That's when they're working on their business is in October, November. also some of the clients that I have, they have to have certain reports, for their, it's not, it's called a franchise, but it's through like the National Park Service. And so they have to have certain reports. that are extra from what a typical client would have, I think. And so they have, I helped them with that. So it, it all just kind of varies on what they need, but I really, really, as As I'm learning more about these types of clients and learning that it's not just, oh, hey, I'm going to open up this business, they've got governing authorities saying you're opening on March 1st, whether or not you're ready, your doors have to be open on March 1st. Because they have contracts with, like, the city parks or whatever. Yeah, I live in Prescott, Arizona and so we have, like, 5 lakes Uh huh. This year, one of the kayaking companies has expanded to more lakes. They used to only be at two, but it's like, I'm sure there's contracts because they have like, you know, like a box car basically parked at all the lakes with all their equipment. Uh huh. so yeah, that makes total sense. So is that something that like you include in your packages to help them stay compliant with things like that? Okay. Yeah. Well, I don't. I don't usually have packages, although I don't know, I'm always all over the place when it comes to, my pricing and stuff. But when I do a, consultation, I'll find out, do you have that? Because I typically do a, custom quote for each, each prospect. And, that is something that I'll find out because that makes the difference in the pricing. You know, do you have this? I think it's called an, all I know is it's an AFR. What that AFR stands for, I think it's annual financial report. Maybe it would make sense. But I don't know for sure that that's what it's called. But I know that all concessioners, because that's what they're called, with the National Park Service, they need this. Or, you know, how are they doing their, they, it's a, it's a tax, but it's kind of like a franchise fee type of thing. And it's treated sort of some people treat it like a sales tax where they collect it from the. the participants, I don't know what you call them, the customers, but they, they'll, they'll collect it from them and then pay it other concessioners. They don't. So it's like, how do you handle this? I don't know. So it's really, I just really try and find out as much as I can in the consultation so that I can include that in my pricing if it's Also, do they want accrual? Do they want cash? Because for the companies, the activity companies that it's just real quick turnaround, you know, they're running 50 kayaks a day and the people have paid for it. Maybe, maybe the day before or the week before. Typically, cash works really good for them just because it's in and out, in and out, in and out. But if we've got a multi tour, a multi day tour that a customer books a year in advance, then I've got them on a cruel because they might have five tours during the year. And they might collect a whole bunch of money at one time, and, and they're also really focused on, is this particular tour making money, things like that. So I really, really work on my consultations to find out as much as possible. Of course, it never fails. I always am blindsided on the backside. I'm like, Oh, I should have known this. But, Have you over the years compiled like a running list of like the very important questions that, and that's where like, this is where it's beneficial to have a niche is like you really, and you've learned what their pain points are and what their requirements are by going to these conferences. And so you can continue to build upon. That questionnaire or that you're, consultation agenda, whatever you want to call it, like the list of questions that you have for them. And they're going to know, you know, the industry by asking these questions or even even things like what, you know, what booking software do you use? Do you use Fair Harbor? Do you use WeTravel? Do you use Peak? Do you, you know, I can ask them which one they use and they'll know Oh, she knows what she's talking about. And I'll even don't have to teach you. right. I'm like, oh yeah, I love the reports in fair Harbor and da da da da da. Oh, adventure office does da da da da da da da da. You know, and. And I also know enough about some of these softwares to know this one's a pain in the butt to use. I need to charge extra if they're using this software because I'll have to do this, that, and the other to get it into QuickBooks. Rather than, you know, there, there might be a direct integration. Of course, those never work either. But in theory, um, you know, I've learned, I'm learning how to get the information from here to there. And, or is it something that I have to do manually, which is never fun. So, yeah, I'm having a niche. Like this really, really helps because, or I'll ask them questions about their staff, I'll know a lot of times they're very part time. They're very, there's a lot of turnaround and sometimes they'll just have employees kind of ghost them and disappear and they don't know what happened. I mean one of my clients, they said, I think this, and you can probably take him off. I think he died. And, but I don't know for sure, you know, just heard it through the grapevine, you know, and so we can probably terminate them and look in the payroll. Oh my goodness. know, there's not really a quitting date. So I know that now to be work with kind of how the restaurant industry is. Exactly. a lot of the turnover people go, don't come in for their shifts and then come back the next day. Like nothing happened. exactly. That is what they run into. That's what they run into. Yeah, that's funny. So, okay. So we talked about client load, team size. You said, you don't really do packages. So what is like your pricing methodology? Do you do like a menu pricing where it's like they need this, this, and this, and you have prices set for that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I use GoProposal for my, software template, whatever you call it. It, cause I like it that it's got a calculator So And the proposal and engagement letter all in one. in go proposal, you can set up packages, but those are just kind of like the starting point of where to start and then you can customize from there. And so yeah, I have it based off of. Transactions, whether or not they're cash or accrual, and again, based on, are they going to be a multi day tour or are they one of these activity companies? Oh, I was talking with another guy who's just starting to, venture into this space with, he's a bookkeeper as well, and he has an activity company that wants accrual. Thank you. And that is rough because you've got so many ins and so many outs and it really doesn't make that much of a difference, but his guy wants it like this and oh, so really only makes a difference at month end. Like, during the month, it's like, whatever, but you just want to make sure you get things like anything that was paid in January. That should have, you know, that was for an activity in February, like, the month end cut off thing. So The thing is knowing, knowing how much that is and with the software and things like that. So I was showing him some things. But yeah, I would absolutely charge more for that because that's an extra month end entry. it is well and it's. It's a huge calculation to it's not just an entry because you can't just pull it up. and so, you know, things like that. what else do I take into account? I take into account. How many third party software things do they use? You know, are they using Fair Harbor? And sometimes people will run, they might sell like, cozies and, or koozies. What do they call the little, yeah, the merch, the t shirts, the hats. like concessions, like, I know our kayaking outfitters, they have like a concession stand right there, like built in. So like waters and snacks and things. A lot of times they'll run those on Square. And so, you know, are they using Fair Harbor? Are they using Square? What all do they have as far as that goes? I take that into account, because chances are I'm going to have to use SAS apps. somewhere along the lines with them. So I, I just look at all of those different things. Do a lot of, do any of your clients deal in like, actual cash? And is that a component that you add to the pricing? Some Like, not very much anymore. a lot because a lot of times they are booking online. And so I think probably the only place that cash might come in is with the merch and the concessions and things like that. they typically are not paying cash to rent the kayak or something like that, because usually they had to rent it ahead of time. I don't, I don't even know if any of my people take walk, walk ins. But I don't know. I think it all depends. I know my gondola people don't. You have to, because they have to like make sure that there's somebody there to actually do your tour. Our kayaking rental places take walk ins, but they, you still have to go online and book it. Like they have an iPad there in case you don't have your own. Yeah. that and actually that is probably so you can sign the waiver. Yes. That too. Mhm. And that's also built into their booking software. The whole waiver process is another big thing. And then also, and see, here's, how I talk to them because I'm like, oh, so like if they're talking about some random, software that they use that I've never heard of, I'll start asking them questions about it. Like Oh, so does it collect the email of the people that are signing the waivers because then you can retarget your marketing and reach out to those people and I'm like giving them ideas along the way that have nothing to do with accounting, but it's just like, it's, it's, I want them. add Yeah, it's the value add. I want them to know that I am business savvy I want them to know that I want to help them succeed and oh, here's this little idea that you can do and a lot of times they do know but then they're like, Oh, that's a good idea or that's something important to look for in a booking software that it collects the email address of the people signing the waiver and things like that. But, Yeah, I really, really try to do that sort of thing again to, to make them realize, yeah, I, I kind of do know what I'm talking about. Do I, am I an expert? No, but I'm not just some one though. Yeah. I'm not just some person who's like, so what's a gondola? You know? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I've, found that as I, get further into the niche that I'm in, when, You know, when I've spoken at some retreats and stuff for business owners in my niche and one of the questions from an audience member was like, how important is it that we work with someone that knows our industry? And, the host of the retreat is one of my clients and she was like, well, I will say firsthand that I used to work with a bookkeeper that said she understood the industry, but it was very obvious that she didn't once I met Serena. Right. Right. So it's like, there's less explaining you have to do less back and forth of like, what's this expense? What is it for? Like, we already know we, we see the same software across all our clients. We understand the payment processors you're using. We understand how all the systems function together and we don't need you to guide us through that. Like we are going to come to you with minimal questions at the end of every month. Exactly, exactly. Case in point, my gondola people, they have, I don't know if they have a contract necessarily with different restaurants in their areas, but they'll provide food on their cruises, but they buy the food from the little Italian place on the corner or whatever. So they have tons of receipts that come through for food, but they're not meals. They're not 50% Those are cost of goods. So, yes, that's cost of goods. And so, any other bookkeeper who didn't know that, they would see all these receipts come through, throw them in in 50% meals, Or owners draw. For owners draw, yes, and they would miss out on that deduction. But since we know, oh, here's what they're doing. Yeah, it's not even a consideration. I just, in fact, I assume for them because I know that they never buy meals hardly ever. Yeah, I know. Oh, yeah, these are almost always now if someone comes through like from subway or something that I'm like. That's weird. And I'll find out. Oh, yeah, so and so was traveling daughter daughter. Okay, that one's a legitimate 50% meal. But yeah, things like that or, I don't know, just like you said that there's just this expertise that you know Based on knowing this industry and don't have to ask tons and tons of questions and I think it, well, they don't, they don't have time. They do not have time, because a lot of these times it's not just this owner and everybody's doing everything for them. They're the ones out there slinging the kayaks. exactly, exactly. That's exactly. Yeah, driving people in the shuttle back and forth to where they put in and put out. Yeah, they're doing the things. Because they're a little mom and pop. yeah. The other thing that I found really valuable is, and this was the other thing that I said is like, Also, I work with lots of other clients in this industry and I can see trends that are happening across the industry and I'll know if something that's happening with you is an anomaly or whatever and we can talk about it. Or if it's like, yeah, across the board, our clients are seeing a dip in sales. Or for you, it's like, it's a seasonal business. Like you're already going to understand like how to price it. You don't want to, you know what I mean? Like, and if someone is inexperienced with a seasonal business, they might think that, maybe the window and history of stuff that they looked at when they did their analysis to price is during the slow season. So then they massively underpriced. Right. Well, like one of my canoe outfitters, he opens in March because, you know, that's what his contract says in March. They're done by June because that's when the river dries up and it's too low for them to do anything And again, in talking with them, I noticed that he wasn't replacing his canoes. He was buying. He was as they were getting broken or whatever. He was replacing them with kayaks and I talked with him and he said, yeah, kayaks are what's all the rage. The guy that I bought the business from, kept saying, oh, yeah, no one ever wants a canoe, but our kayaks are always sold out. And he said, I'm going to start buying kayaks so that I can meet the demand that's there. And so, I don't know, talking with them about that. just all the different things that they have going on, and it helps to just know, like you said, the trends, oh my gosh, 2020 was a nightmare for so many of these people. But at the same time, since they're outdoors now, the, the tour companies where they were like traveling to different countries, they did not do well. But my outdoor activity people, they really, I mean, some of them, I mean, they guess, I guess technically they qualified for PPP and stuff, but they really didn't have a dip in sales. And they grew because you're already outside, you're already socially distanced. Yeah. You know, they were able to shift a little bit easier than I think like a restaurant or something like that to do, but yeah, industry trends or. Any of that, it's helpful to know what's going on and to just kind of maybe anticipate, maybe you don't even need to say anything, but you just see it and you can expect to hear, Oh, yep, it's happening to them too. Oh, yep, it's happening to them too. And even though I may only have eight clients in this space. I'm involved in it like I'm, I'm in the Facebook groups and I just kind of lurk and listen and learn and see what's going on. And I don't know, kind of do like some recon. Yeah. just to help myself be more knowledgeable so I can help them, all that stuff. Helps. I think Yeah. So do you, do you create any content or anything specific for this niche that, I mean, I know you get most of your clients from referrals, but, and you probably don't need to create content, but do you have anything that I only because I'm terrible at it. That is so not my skill set at all. Also, my brain is always just in 15 million different places. I would love to, but I, um, my hair is usually on fire. So It doesn't sound like you even really need, need to, I mean. I did years ago when I first started entering this space, I did write a blog post A guest blog post on, a blog that is put out by a particular website development company that, focuses on this niche and I got a client that way. Um, she read it and she said, it's like you're reading my mind, all the fun, all the questions that I had, all the problems that I've been thinking about, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. You said them in the blog post. that was a fun client. they were a tour and resort company in the Bahamas, which normally I wouldn't take in a company outside of the U S. But they don't have income tax there, and they keep their dollar, the Bahamian dollar, equal to the U. S. dollar. So there wasn't all sorts of crazy multi currency, that's another thing that I add into my pricing as well. Are we dealing with multi currency? Because that's a whole thing. So. had them for a while till COVID hit and then everything tanked because they closed the entire island and anyway, it was a whole big mess. but that was a really fun client too. And I remember one time I was asking them, you know, what kind of fixed assets, because I had no balance sheet from them. And I said, you know, what kind of fixed assets do you have? And she said, what's a fixed asset? And I thought I'm going to need to come there, I think, because. You know, I know that they had villas and they had equipment and all these things. I thought, I, I think I'm going to have to go and make a list. And I thought, but am I making up excuses to go to the Bahamas? And so I actually ran it by some other tax people, I said. I feel like I'm just making up an excuse, but I feel like I really need to go, you know, and everybody's like, yeah, it sounds ordinary and necessary to me. I never went though, Yeah. I mean, that's like in, when I was in corporate, I used to try every month I would travel out to our lab and do the inventory count. So it's like the same thing. And there's usually like every year you do a fixed asset inventory too. So I mean, that's the same thing. was like, Oh, because, because, you know, here it is. It's just a resort and, and they do like the little, the swimming with pigs or whatever tours. And yeah, it's just, I don't know. It's a thing. doesn't sound fun. But yeah, and I thought, am I just really making up something, but I don't think I was, but never made it out there. But man, I really wanted to, but anyway, yeah, she, she found me through this blog post. And so that's, one thing. I would like to do that again. Write a fresher blog post for either this company or, you know, some other company that has a blog, not necessarily an accounting company, but like I said, they provide websites and they'll like, you know, create a website or, there's some other, like marketing or things like that, companies specific for this industry. And we all kind of work together. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good tip for anyone listening is like, if you're not up for doing podcast interviews or doing speaking, like doing a guest blog is great evergreen content because especially if it's on. A website that is well known or whatever in that industry. And doing your own blogging too. That's something that I've, been doing. I just do one blog post a month, but I'm like, I'm just building out resources based on questions that I get from clients or other business owners that it's like. there's a right or wrong answer, but so it's not like we need to evaluate your specific situation. You know what I mean? Yeah. do you just do it on in like in your niche are these like niche article blog posts or I try to tie them into my niche, like I'll mention, you know, cause my keywords, right? We want to use your, your niche keywords, but I mean, if we're honest, it's information that applies to basically any business. You just change the wording and the language and the lingo that you're using and use examples from your niche. And, and yeah, so it's like, it's a long game, but it's also a re I've gotten clients from my blogs by not necessarily them finding it on their own, but from me engaging in a Facebook group and someone is like, oh, I have a question about like, how do I handle employee versus contractor? It's like, oh, I wrote a blog on this. Here it is. And then they are like, maybe I should just work with you. Exactly. That's exactly right. Yeah. Or even it sets you up as an industry expert, even if They didn't find you because of that particular question as they go checking you out on your website, which I really update my website something terrible, but I don't have time and anyway. Well, I have a great person for you if you're interested. yeah, well it's one of those things where it's mostly the copy like the actual, the actual website I really like it and everything but the copy. Is the issue and I don't even know what I want to do. Anyway, it's this whole thing. As they're, you know, checking out your website and they're reading about you and everything when they go into your blog posts and read, they're going to know. Oh, yeah, she knows what she's talking about. Okay. It's she's not this general person that, you know, works with anybody or whatever. And so, I don't know, so far, most of the time, people say, I love that you just work with this industry, and I don't know, business owners seem to like that, One question I have for you before we hit our time. This has been an amazing conversation is, is there a size of business that you kind of require them to be like a revenue range or, volume or whatever to make it worth it to work with you? And do you have a minimum price? yeah, that's been an issue, because I don't know. One, I want to help all the people and that translates to no money for me because they can't afford me. Also one issue is especially the multi day tours that need accrual and they're, and they really need it to be able to figure out, is this even worth it? They can't afford it when they're just starting. So I have fudged a little where I probably should not have fudged and, you know, done like, oh yeah, we'll do like the 100 a month type thing and, but that ends up biting me in the rear. Because a lot of times those clients are the ones who are like super super needy And I hear from them all the time with every question under the sun But ideally my minimum is 300 a month. I have found that They need to be Around 100 to 150 in gross revenues in order to be able to afford that I do have A client, I think they're around like 70 ish thousand in gross revenues that they do pay me that the 300 a month. However, they're living off of love. I mean, they don't pay themselves anything. They, live very, very frugally and you know, I feel kind of bad about that, but at the same time they are building up their business too. It's not just that this is steady. I have also started some of these lower, the lower paying ones. I have started to let them know, okay, here's where your pricing should be. Based on all the things all the criteria, but I realize you're just getting started because some of these people just started their companies and like 2021 or something like that. So they might have like 1 or 2 tours a year. So I'll let them know here's where it should be. I understand that you're just getting started. You're a microclient. This is a unique situation. So I will give you a scholarship, so that your total that you're paying is, is a lower, but we're going to be reevaluating like every quarter. We're going to be increasing your price as you grow. And. Well, I'm still in the middle of all this, so I don't know how it's going to work out, but I want them to not get in their mind that she's only 100 a month because then they tell all their friends and all their colleagues she's only 100 a month and then they come in and they expect that because I've had that bite me in the rear where one of my good referral clients She's one of these smaller, companies and she's telling everybody and I had someone come in and just she fipped her lid when I said 300 a month. I mean, she really went off and then I said, well, okay, you know, if I'm not, I always have QuickBooks live in my back pocket, you know, if I'm not your cup of tea, which is fine. I'm not your, I'm not everybody's cup of tea. This isn't in line with what you were expecting. Then here's QuickBooks Live, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. They start at 200 a month. She lost it. Absolutely lost it. How could you refer me to them? Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. I'm like, this is my pricing, you know? So she's a client. but. I don't, I just don't want word to get out that, oh, she's only this much a month. I want to have that little bit of an anchor there that, oh, here's her pricing. I'm getting a special deal because I'm so small, but also we're going to expect it. But yeah, typically it's 300 a month is my minimum. I really, really look at what they can afford and Cause you know, I'm in their books so I can see, oh, this isn't something, but I also try to gauge what they're expecting Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like if they come in with, you know, 25 books a month or something, they clearly don't know anything about what they're talking about. And have never really looked at what an accountant or anybody like that costs. Yeah. My goodness. They can't even afford their, QuickBooks subscription, you know? So that's another thing. Am I going to have to pay for their subscription? Is that included in the fee, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard pricing. I'm not a good pricer. I'm really not. I need to a tough one, but that's one of the areas that, when I did narrow down my niche, my niche, a when I did narrow that whole thing down, pricing did get easier because you understand the needs of the business you understand in general, how long things are going to take with these softwares like you talked about. Right? So it does get easier. And for us, like, I know I've talked about this on previous episodes, but we only use 0 and. 1 of the things that we are able to offer is unlimited. Transactions, because for us, the way that the 0 reconciliation functions is I can reconcile 400 transaction lines super easily in the click of a button, if they're all the same, which with our industry, those transactions usually are because it's all they're launching a course. It's all the same price. It all goes to one place. Right? So it's like, we set up a rule. We click the button. We reconcile the bank in like 5 minutes, whether it has 10 transactions or 400. You know what I mean, if they're all the same. So it's like, for us, it's like, we're not going to penalize you for the launch model. It's, it's all, you know, and that has really helped our pricing, and everything, because you're more aware of what's going on and what to expect. So hopefully pricing will get easier for you and you have your go proposal set up and I do. I'm a tweaker. It's like, is everything ever actually set up exactly? Cause I'm always, I don't know. I'm always like, I really need to fix that or I need to adjust this or that or whatever. But yeah, I, and, or even just like the preliminary questionnaires and, My goal is to eventually be able to have them self select out of me, like, Oh, I'm not there yet. When I am, then I can work with Kirsten or something. But then again, am I going to end up with a huge cleanup whenever these people come on with me? I don't know, but I need to not be so nice. Cause like I'm trying to save the world and help everybody, even when they're just getting started. I can't do that. Yeah. That's not sustainable. it's not, it's not We've all been there though. But yeah, self selecting I've, I have this conversation with, I think Alyssa and I talked about it on a podcast episode, but, I don't offer free discovery calls unless they've already Filled out a contact form. And I have like, you know, they're, they are aware what my minimum price is, things like that. So I'm sure I'm missing out on a lot of opportunities because they never even get to the point of filling out the form. Cause at the top of it, it says, this is our minimum price. Are you okay with that? If so, continue on. Exactly. Well, that's exactly because. Tire kickers take up time and you don't have that. Yeah. Especially as we're only working 20 hours a week. Yeah. I do not have Don't have time to be on calls all day. But someone who's just, Oh, I just want to check out what your price is or something like that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. When they know upfront or, you know, here's, your minimum gross revenues in order to work with me. In order to make it worth your time and money to work with me, here's what you need to be making. If not, contact me when you are making that. Yeah. I don't know. Eventually, I would love to come up with some sort of, not necessarily a do it yourself course, but something to offer. Like a, you know, I forget what it's called, but like a second sale or something. I forget what it's called where, okay, if you can't work with me, here's a course. That'll at least help you get started. Yeah, like a down sell. Yeah, a down sell. Because that way it'll keep me somewhat in their mind a little bit in theory, but I know this won't be in practice. Their books won't be a mess whenever I do get ahold of them, but, I just know they Yeah. that's what we have cleanups for, but yeah, I am wanting to come out with that eventually. And again, have it be geared toward, this industry and they can even choose. Oh, I'm a multi day tour, I need this package or this course, or I am an activity company or I'm a travel agent. That way it'll gear it toward their industry. I am wanting to only work in those three verticals, so nothing else Yeah. Have you thought about offering instead of like a monthly package offering like a one time let me set up your books and train you and then you check in with them in six months? I don't like those. And I think because I don't enjoy training people. I have, I have tried that. It did not go well. I would rather grade video and then maybe have like something where they can ask me questions, maybe like a face like email questions, not even on person or something. I don't know, but I don't like live training, especially if it's on a time. Like, here's an hour of training because. It just has not gone well and I don't like it at So I have an, I have an idea for you then to help you build this course out the next referral that you get, that is like they really can't afford more than a hundred dollars a month offer to say, okay, instead, would you be willing to let me use you as a Guinea pig to record a course on how to set this up? Or to record some videos on how to set up a business like yours, I will blur the videos on their business name, but that way I can set up a process and help people like you in the future, and then either offer it to them for free or 100 you know what I mean, but would you be training them live or just using their books? just using them as the data to set up the books. Because I was like, I kind of tried that with some of it. It was all live training. And like I said, it just did Yeah, because this you want to be able to do it on your own time. You want to be able to take it slow, make the videos good quality, but you need real data. exactly. hard part and and then you can send it off to somebody to edit it, but also loom now has like, blur options and things like that. So and then you can really take it slow and be like, okay, what is my process from A to Z, setting up a client and. You know, chunk it into little videos and then you have your course. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I like And now everybody else has this idea because it's on a podcast. well, but it's the data piece because. That's where the trouble often comes in is this data. But yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. And well, inevitably on a live training, somehow the software will have changed in between because that happened on one of my live trainings and then the person I was training was like, well. We spent 10 minutes while you were looking for the thing because they had moved it on the software, and I thought, Oh, my goodness. Okay. So, yeah, I like that idea. Thank you. The other aspect is like, that'll show people how to set up their books, but to be able to like show them how to maintain it going forward, you would still need to stay in that person's books and have access for like a month or two to see transactions coming in and showing a process. So, You know, also, you're going to need a contract for that and a waiver from them probably of like, I agree to be allowed the use of my data, but I understand it's going to be blurred out, blah, blah, blah. But, but yeah, if you're up for it, like, that's an option. yeah, I like that. Thank you. Thank you. Because I want to help. Like I said, I want to help all the people, but I can't help all the people. it's a struggle all the time, especially when they keep coming. Oh, I want your help. Yes, I know you do. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing your experience and about your niche with our listeners. I know there's going to be some valuable, nuggets in here that people can take away and kind of apply to their own business. So if someone wants to connect with you, refer you clients that they can't help that you can, where's the best place to do that I do have a website. But it's not updated severely. That's purpletaxes.com. that's, you know, just per all one word. purpletaxes.com. And then I am on, Facebook it's also just facebook.com. I guess it's a slash or backslash, whatever it is, forward slash, I don't know, purple taxes. Again, all one word. and my business name is Purple Sapphire Business Solutions, but that is too long for a URL. So I went with purple taxes. And now everybody thinks my name is purple taxes. So, whatever. I answered everything. Just like my real name, I answered everything. So, Well, thank you so much. I appreciate the time you took today and it's always a pleasure to get to chat with you. It's been a while. has been a while. I can't wait to see you again in person. I know. All right. We'll talk to you soon. Okay, thanks.

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