150 | [Q&A] Thinking Outside of the Box

In this Q&A episode, we go over effective onboarding strategies to reduce turnover, and the importance of creating engaging content for your niche. Plus, get advice on how to communicate effectively with clients through structured emails and reports.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• some 1099 tips
• tips for onboarding & training new employees
• LinkedIn content & communication
• how to provide & explain monthly reports to clients
• offering calls/meetings to clients
• working with insurance brokers

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The Bookkeeping Business Accelerator®
• Elevate

Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram stories and tag me, @ambitiousbookkeeper

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

• Visit our website: ambitiousbookkeeper.com
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• Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/ambitiousbookkeeper
• Connect on LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/SerenaShoup
• Connect on Facebook: Facebook.com/serenashoupcpa

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Podcast Publishing Tools we use:

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I do not just hope people can swim. That's a great way to have a lot of turnover. Um, This is one of those things that, even if it's just a contractor or someone working just a few hours, I would put thought into how you're going to train. If you don't have time to make pre made videos, that's okay. Schedule time with your new teammate, especially the first few weeks. Schedule lots of face to face time with them and do have them shadow you and then hand over the reins and have them drive. And then, like, just so that you can and then record those sessions, obviously, on Zoom or whatever so that they can refer back to them if you don't have processes created. If you have processes created, that's awesome but sometimes that's not the reality of it. So I would rely on, like, face to face training on Zoom and shadowing and stuff like that. welcome to our monthly live Q& A. Okay, without further ado, Please ask questions. I'm here to answer those and then I was going to in case we don't have any questions, I was going to pull up some things that were posted in the Facebook group. great. Hi Laura. I signed up for the 100 First Leads. What are your suggestions on using this for bringing people in for services? It seems for more digital products. Yes, it is focused on digital products, but it also applies to like coaching and one on one services too. So I would say take what applies and, and apply it. And then the other stuff, just leave it as is. I know there's some talk in there about like putting on, like webinars and things like that, which actually are a great option for even one on one services. Cause when you think about it, if you can cast a wide net, and get 10 people that need your services and convert one of them. That's a really good conversion rate. So I wouldn't just say it, it only works for digital products. Like that's part of why I shared it with, this audience as well as my bookkeeping audience, because I want to challenge everyone here to do things differently than is the norm in our industry, because that's going to help you stand out. And also, in case you are considering a lower ticket or some sort of digital product in the future, you're laying the groundwork now of building that list. And yeah, so think outside of the box. Obviously, like, you don't have to implement everything that's in that training, but take the things that you think will work, or test the things that you think may or may not work, and try to prove yourself wrong, like your thought process. That's, that's what I do. I like to play games like that and be like, well, this industry does this. I'm going to test it out on ours. And like, even if I'm skeptical about it, it's like, I like to be like, okay, I'm going to allow it to prove my mindset wrong, but, I hope that's helpful. All right. Rebecca says, any tips on onboarding and training new employees? Do you have pre made videos, specific QBO Xero training, or do you just start assigning and hope they can swim? No, I do not just hope people can swim. That's a great way to have a lot of turnover. Um, This is one of those things that, even if it's just a contractor or someone working just a few hours, I would put thought into how you're going to train. If you don't have time to make pre made videos, that's okay. Schedule time with your new teammate, especially the first few weeks. Schedule lots of face to face time with them and do have them shadow you and then hand over the reins and have them drive. And then, like, just so that you can and then record those sessions, obviously, on Zoom or whatever so that they can refer back to them if you don't have processes created. If you have processes created, that's awesome but sometimes that's not the reality of it. So I would rely on, like, face to face training on Zoom and shadowing and stuff like that. It took me some time to get to a point where I had this, but I created a an onboarding course for new employees where I talked about the goals of the business, who we serve the culture and things like that. And then there's also training videos on like how we use Asana and how we use Clockify and how we use Slack and all and Spark, which is our email. And if you're in BBA, You have access to essentially those same videos and so if that's how you're going to use those tools in your business to put your team through those videos in the tech vault, like by all means, or create your own with your own process. But it is very important to teach your team how you're using the backend tools and how you expect them to use them as well. So that You're clear on expectations. And so in that onboarding course, I also explain like these, we have our team meetings, you're expected to be on them, they're on whatever day, time, blah, blah, blah. And all of that. And yes, it takes time to build that out. But once you have it built out, you can put people through it on their own time. And that's great. I also have the team go through the Xero certification so that they're learning the most up to date. Xero features and all of that. And they're expected to keep up on that certification, too. So there's quarterly webinars that Xero does. Actually, now I think they're async. I don't think they're actual webinars anymore. But but yeah, so setting, take some time to really think through, like, the culture that you expect. Like, do you expect your team to be problem solvers and things like that? So when you onboard people, you can give less guidance because you are hiring for that. but definitely don't just like throw people in the deep end because that's most, we as entrepreneurs, we survive like that. And that's why we're the entrepreneur and the business owner, because we're capable of swimming and being thrown into a mess and rolling up our sleeves and all that kind of stuff, right? But most people who want to be employees aren't. They don't have, like, not everybody has that desire or capability to just figure everything out. So set your team up for success and Train them. Yeah, for sure. that's one area that, , if you follow Alyssa, Workflow Queen, her program breakthrough goes really in depth on all that kind of stuff of like hiring, job descriptions. training, SOPs, all that kind of stuff. So that's also a good path to take for sure. Yeah, I hope that's helpful. Michael, hello. I have been focusing on connecting on LinkedIn with my clients within my niche. I have added over 80 ideal clients in the last month. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. But I'm struggling to figure out the content side. I had purchased some monthly pre made bookkeeping content, but it was too generic for my niche. Any thoughts or ideas on the content and or. Other interaction to have with my new connections. Oh, I'm, I'm assuming maybe I 80 ideal leads. But anyways, see if you can take the content and tweak it to be applicable to your niche. And if not, maybe even just see if any of those 80 leads that you have like make sure you're sending emails But like send an email and invite some of them on to like a 15 minute Coffee chat or a call to just so that you can find out what their pain points are and let them know like this is not A sales pitch. I'm just working on developing some content be willing to hop on a call for 15 minutes and let me know where you're struggling, blah, blah, blah, that kind of thing. My other suggestion, if you haven't done this already, I think I've mentioned this before. Liz Wilcox has an email marketing membership. That's 7 a month, I think. And every week she sends out an email template for you to email your list. And I would, Jump on that. If you have all of those people's emails email them every week. Warm them up and use those templates to create. the email content, or you could do that the same thing like on Substack or something like that or LinkedIn. You could write like LinkedIn articles or whatever. Yeah, so I hope that gives you some ideas. I would start definitely like ref When you talk to clients or potential clients, even current clients, take notes on what your current clients are asking and what they're struggling with and things like that and just start creating content around that. And the other thing too is you'll start to see patterns and there might be like three or four main topics that you're constantly like talking to clients about that you can create content around and don't be afraid to recreate the same type of like around the same topic because not everyone's going to see every piece of content that you put out there. If you give different examples or case studies or tie it in in a different way, a different story, you can still like reuse that same topic and just approach it from a different angle. That way you're not having to think of all these different topics. You're just reusing the same stuff and then you'll start to see like what's resonating with people and what's not and how you're approaching it and all that kind of stuff. So don't be afraid to just have like four main topics that you're always talking about. You're going to get tired of it, but not everybody's going to see it. And that's where like a lot of misconception is people are like, Oh, I have to always be creating something new. And And the truth of the matter is, is like, once you start getting bored with the stuff that you're putting out there that, and like, it's getting traction, that's when you know you're like, consistency is what gets you further, not like just creating all this new stuff. So don't be afraid to reuse content. Look at where, what you've posted that has gotten some engagement. and built connections and take that same topic and talk about it from a different angle or give a different example. And things like that. And I'm like, I'm giving you this advice and I'm like, I need to take this advice. It's just the time. Like, sometimes I just don't have time. I have lots of ideas, but it's like, if you have the time to go back and look at your analytics and stuff, like definitely start there first when you're trying to think of where to create content and just do a different angle. Like, If you follow me on Instagram, you'll notice a lot of my, especially recently, because I've been promoting that 100 leads thing. Most of those reels are same call to action, same basic topic. I'm just approaching it from a different angle. And not everybody's seeing every single one. So. Just yeah, I hope that's helpful, Michael. let me answer answer Michael's question real quick. Thank you. That was helpful. I guess I will jump in again. I really liked your year end package. I was curious if that is that the only for year end or do you also do something similar for quarter ends or planning meetings? How different is that than your monthly report package? Yeah, so the year end, um, Okay, I had grand aspirations to do that slideshow that I do at year end for my clients. I had grand aspirations to do that quarterly, but that hasn't happened. And honestly, like, we can, I think it's better to save that for year end. But if you have the capacity to create those things quarterly, By all means, like I'm sure your clients would love it because my clients love the year end thing. If I did it quarterly, they would probably love it. On the quarter end though, we do offer additional reports to their monthly reporting package where we report quarter over quarter results as well as month to month. So on the monthly P& L, we have each month on the P& L, but then we also have a P& L that shows each quarter by quarter. And we'll. point things out like, oh, this quarter was higher than the same quarter last year and things like that. So we give some different information on the quarter end. Yeah, and then different from the monthly reporting package, the year end stuff is that we do that slideshow, which I don't do on the month end quarter, or the monthly or the quarterly packages, but we do show the dashboard on Xero, the business snapshot that shows some graphs and visual things. And so, yeah, it looks different at year end because we're giving them a picture of the whole year and we add, we make it prettier than what we do on the month end. I hope that's helpful. Okay, question on the podcast. Valentina, so you start the podcast as part of your marketing and then how you got leads from the podcast. I'm not sure I'm clear on your question. So my, the Ambitious Bookkeeper podcast is, one way that I attract leads into the Ambitious Bookkeeper brand, which is other bookkeepers and accountants And it actually, like, it was never meant to be like a lead generator. It was, like, I started it because I didn't want to create blogs anymore. And I wanted to share information with people. so, the benefit has been that, like, some people do find me through the podcast, but a lot of people. have already been following me like on social media or whatever and then they start listening to the podcast and it's just a way to like warm up an audience but as far as like Bookkeeping clients. I guest on other people's podcasts for that. I don't have a podcast created for that audience. I don't want to have to create two podcasts. So my, the way that I market for bookkeeping clients is I guest on other people's podcasts that are, that have the same, you know, ideal client as me or general same audience. I hope that answers your question. Um, Ashley says, For your base package, that includes reports, balance sheet, P& L, cash flow, AR, AP, aging. Are you just sending the reports without going over them? And no, we never send reports without giving some other piece of information. So even on our base package, they get monthly reports and they get a little summary email that has bullet points of here was your total revenue. Here was your total cost of goods. Here's your gross profit margin. Here's your operating expense. Total. Here's your net profit margin and net profit. And so it's just like a very simple bulleted list. If you're in BBA, you have access to that email summary. For some clients, we add additional information. But on our base package, that's pretty much it. And then Even that package gets a quarterly Loom video where we visually go over the reports. Every, any client can always respond with questions. They can book another call or whatever to talk about it if they want to. But, for the most part, Yeah, that's pretty much it. And then our next level up gets a monthly loom video and that summary email. So every client is getting the summary email with their reports, just depending on what other package they get depends on, are they getting a monthly loom video or are they getting a monthly meeting? And are they getting additional reports added to that and insights and things like that? But yeah. I hope that answers, and then the second part of your question, and if you're just sending them and someone emails back with questions about what the report is saying, do you have a boundary for what's reasonably answering questions versus a paid service add on? So, let's say someone in MyEssentials, my base package that only gets a monthly report and a summary email and then quarterly they get the loom video. That's how I have my packages set up. If they were to email back, which actually that happened today someone emailed back and, and said, thank you so much. This is way more than my previous bookkeeper was, was doing. So I'm amazed. Can we do some reclassifications? Usually it has to do with like, oh, this, this belongs in a different bucket. Can you move that? And usually it can be achieved in an email. But if that client were to have emailed back and said first of all, she's a numbers person. And so she understood the reports and she understands what she's looking at. But if someone emailed back and was like, I don't understand this. Can you walk me through it? I would do that one time for free, for sure, especially if they were a new client. And I do hop on calls with new clients as we're onboarding for the first set of, you know, reports that we're sending them. If they've never had this type of guidance before education, I want them to feel empowered so that when we, in the future, send them reports, they know what they're looking at and they're not going to have as many questions. But So, the first call, I would always include, and then after that, I would let them know, like, if you want to meet about this monthly and have me walk you through this on a personal, like on a one to one Zoom call each month, let's upgrade you to this service package. Otherwise, here's a link to book one off strategy calls or one off, you know, you could call them whatever you want. went off financial check calls or something like that. You can make them shorter. You can make them 30 minutes. You don't have to do a full hour, but you can, you can create a meeting link like that and have it behind a paywall, like in Acuity or Accountly. You can say, if you, if you want to meet further, need more explanation after the first meeting. First meeting is included so that I can go through this thoroughly with you and help you understand after that. If you want to meet in the future, you can add it onto your package or you can just book here a one on one call at your convenience. I would do something like that. But We want to empower our clients and we don't want them to feel like nickel and dimed, especially if they're brand new, brand new business, or they're a brand new client with you. And you're kind of like, I would try to include at least the first call. That's just my personal opinion. Obviously you can do whatever you want, but that's how it feels good for me because I don't want them to feel like blindsided. And the whole point of working with us is so that they are able to ask questions and learn about their numbers and feel more empowered. And some clients are going to have like the same question every month, and it's going to challenge you to, to explain things in a different way that makes sense to them. So if they are asking the same question every month, try not to get frustrated, but instead just be like, okay, well, how can I answer this in a different way that might make more sense? How can I apply different examples? And feel free to bring those questions to the Facebook groups that we have. Whichever one you're in, whether it's Ambitious Bookkeeper or the BBA group, feel free to, if that is a recurring thing, like, bring it to the group and say, Hey, I have this client that keeps asking the same question. This is how I have explained it. Does anyone else have like a different way to explain it so that I'm not continuing to answer the same question? Utilize this, this amazing, like hive mind that we have here. Yeah. Mm. Yeah, that makes sense. So your response was thank you. This is helpful. I have a background in analytics so used to walking through reporting but just struggling with how to break out the components so that I'm not doing lots of unpaid work. Yeah. So part of that too is like adjusting your pricing to accommodate the level of experience that you're offering and just include things. And that's part of why, like, , I just include monthly reports and that bullet point in every level. And our prices are more expensive than most other bookkeepers because that stuff is just included. And that's how it felt right for me, instead of having to like, be, have super hard boundaries. And most of my clients too, as you Start to work with people. You'll start to be able to filter out clients that you know are going to kind of be a pain in the butt and then bring on clients that are going to be very respectful of your time and not over then not take advantage of. the, you know, this type of stuff. So have faith. It will, you'll, you'll get your bearings and you'll start to bring on the right clients that don't walk all over you like that. And I don't know if that's happening yet or you're just kind of like trying to prepare for it, but it's good to think about for sure. So yeah. Okay, so I'm just going to answer questions that popped up in the Facebook book group. Recently. Sandra asks, what type of computer is everyone using? In my most recent job as an outsource controller CFO, my work computer struggled to meet the task of managing multiple remote desktop logins, various accounting systems, etc. Curious what has worked for others. Does anyone use a MacBook? I use a MacBook , but I do everything on the cloud. I don't have anything like installed as like, I don't have a QuickBooks desktop or anything like that, and it's worked fine. And I, have tons of windows open. I use editing softwares and all sorts of stuff and it's still fast. So I I have a macbook pro and I have one of the ones from before they did the m chips with the pros, so I still have the intel processor, but it's really good. So if anyone Also has that question. I will tag Sandra and have her go watch the replay as well. Yeah. Erin, I use a PC at home and a MacBook at my co working office. Yeah, I used a PC until a few years ago, and when I made the Switch, I was like, wow, I should have done this a long time ago. I still have like a regular like Dell external monitor, and that's what I'm looking at right now. It's a big Dell monitor. And then I have a Bluetooth keyboard that's not technically a a Mac keyboard, but it's set up like one, it's a cheaper one. It's a Mc, Macally Macally Macally. And then I just have like a little docking station. So my setup is the same as it was when it was a regular PC set up. I just have the MacBook Pro is my processor and everything's done. on the cloud Google Chrome. And then I download like the Slack app and Asana app and Notion and all that kind of stuff. And my whole team is on Mac too, so that's helpful. Internet is almost more important than the computer and cyber insurance. Yes, I also got my, I upgraded my MacBook, like when I ordered it, I made sure to get like extra memory and RAM and all that stuff because I am notorious for having tons of programs open at once and that's important for me. Um, yeah, yes. Awesome. oh, Jock is an insurance broker and his company is riskdesk. com. I had him on the podcast way back at the beginning, like one of the earlier on episodes, and he does, he's my insurance broker as well. And he makes sure that you Okay, you already posted in the group. He makes sure that you have the right policies. He tries to get you the most affordable one with the best coverage. He's great to work with and you don't pay him anything. He gets paid a commission or whatever based on whatever policies. You select. So he really does look out for your best interest. And so that's for business insurance, cyber, liability, all that stuff. If you need the same thing done for health insurance, I also have someone that I brought on the podcast. Her name is Carissa, I think. I'm trying to blank. Is that correct? And she does the same exact thing for, health insurance and self employed health insurance plans. And so definitely listen to those podcast episodes if you haven't already and reach out to them. They're great. And I work with her as well. She's my broker of record. I do the healthcare exchange thing purchase my own health insurance for my family and Work with her on that as well. So highly recommend working with insurance brokers instead of trying to figure things out on your own. They don't, they don't require a payment upfront. They get paid from the insurance companies. So do I have a podcast about grant writers? No, I do not. But I bet there's other nonprofit podcasts that do. And so I would search that. And if you are interested, I don't know if you're, if you're a grant writer, you're interested in coming on the podcast, let me know. Or if you're looking for someone that does that kind of work. I have definitely heard other podcasts about grant writers. One of them, um, One of them, I think, was on Biz Chicks, like back in the day. She's part of that community. and has like a whole agency of grant writing. I remember listening to that one time. It was probably a few years ago though, so. Yeah. Okay. I wonder if you could consider an episode concerning tax deductible expenses, just sort of an overview. We all know the basics, but having a helpful reminder episode would be wonderful, especially coming from a CPA. so I always refer to the notion that the IRS has in their guidance around, reasonable and What is the other word? Necessary. Necessary? Is it reasonable and necessary? Yeah. Okay. I think it's reasonable and necessary. Yeah. So especially with all these new industries popping up or an industry like musicians or artists and things, and like influencers, especially, this is where this comes up with, cause I have some influencer clients that they're like really nervous about deducting certain things. And then they're like, but everyone in my influencer group says to do. And so it's always a conversation of like, what is the client actually comfortable with? Because that varies. Some people are more comfortable being more aggressive and deducting things. And they're comfortable with being able to support that in an audit. So definitely listen to that episode I did with Andrew Campbell very early on in the podcast where we talk about, cause he used to audit small businesses and we talked about things that We're good in audits and bad and how all that shook out because it also just depends on that. It really is like a risk tolerance thing with clients and same with bookkeepers. And the other thing, and I, I have this conversation a lot with bookkeepers. It's like a lot of us want to make sure our clients are doing things exactly correct, but ultimately it is up to them to make the call. And so you don't have to chase down receipts for them. You just have to make sure they know that they need to be keeping them. You don't have to make the final call on it, whether something is deductible or not, and stick it in owner's draws because you don't believe it's deductible. If the client wants to support that and they can support it, leave it as an expense and make it, just make sure they know, like it's up to you to support this as an expense. You have to prove to the IRS that this was reasonable and necessary. making sure that it's ordinary in that industry where that's where it becomes a gray area for newer industries. And that's the conversation I have with like my, influencer clients of like, it's a new industry, so nothing is really ordinary yet. There isn't IRS rulings on certain things yet. There's not case law on it. So we just walk our clients through. If it is a gray area, make sure you're keep documenting why this was a necessary for business and also ordinary in your industry. So Yeah, I always have this conversation with potential clients as well, and this is something that I include in my presentation that I do in other groups. So this is something you can include in your presentation, like, here's some topics that are good to talk about and you should develop content around them. Whether you're doing podcast interviews or LinkedIn articles or blogs or talking to small business groups or coworking spaces or whatever, talk about the difference between, accountant, CPA, tax preparer, enrolled agent, bookkeeper, whatever. And learn that difference. Obviously, if you're not comfortable with it, do your own research and develop that content, and you will be really comfortable talking about it. talk about the tax deductible stuff, like, it's, and give examples of, like, the influence, or, like, buying stuff on Amazon to do reviews, but it's, like, only for that purpose, right? It's a marketing expense in that case. But like, they also have to be comfortable supporting that. So doing whatever they can, like, do the extra bank and then separating your finances. Only purchase that stuff through your business account. Um, that's for business and don't intermingle and things like that. So those are some of the topics that a lot of business owners are confused about. Nobody has really taught them. They're not going to go read the IRS guidance. So you read the IRS guidance and develop it in a way that makes sense for their industry. Yeah, so long story short, Rachel, I probably won't do a podcast episode on this because I do feel strongly that you all should do this research for like, for your own knowledge and be able to communicate it to your clients. And if you're ever unsure, like go to that small business publication. And then as far as categories, like look at a schedule C for your LLC clients and look at the different categories that are on the schedule C. And that's what you can build that categorization up. off of. Tax guide for small business schedule C is publication 334. this is where you could start when it comes to like developing like social media content or blog content or whatever and just reference, like just take pieces of it and talk about different sections. Like, vehicles and mileage and meals and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, there's so much in here that have I read through it in its entirety? No, I refer to it when I need an answer. Um, yeah I'm, yeah, I'm not that bored to where I would read this. Let's see how many pages it is. Well, it's not that long, actually. I should read it. It's 53 pages, but you can read through, like, the table of contents and realize, like, oh, there's stuff in here that there's 50 topics, basically, in the table of contents. That's a week. That's here. There's your weekly content for the entire year, basically. and that doesn't even really include, like, 1099s and stuff like that, so that's a whole other That's a whole other publication you can get content from. The IRS is doing our content planning for us. All right, everyone, we are about at time. Thank you so much for joining on this live Q& A. I hope that it was helpful. Thank you so much for, for coming. Everyone have a wonderful rest of your week and we'll talk to you soon. Bye.