90 ⎸ [STRATEGY] Getting time back when you're at capacity

Our on-air 1-1 strategy sessions are back! Listen in today as I mentor and coach a student of mine through feeling overwhelmed and at capacity while still wanting to grow her business.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• tips for deciding on what to delegate
• steps to take to create guardrails around your time
• introducing the waitlist & intake form to filter out prospects

Would you like a strategy session? You can book yours here!

Or join our Small Group Mentoring calls here.

About Ashly

Ashly is the founder of Precision Advising and Consulting. She focuses on helping service-based small businesses and family farms understand their finances and how to be current and accurate so they can make sound business and financial decisions.

Ashly loves to help others, especially other small business owners. She is passionate about the work and talent of each client and enjoys being her clients’ “go-to” person for all small business accounting, advising, and consulting needs.

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:

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Podcast Publishing Tools we use:

• Podcast Editing: Sabr Media LLC
• Descript (affiliate link)
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Transcript

[00:00:00] 

Serena: All right. Welcome to the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast. This is a super special episode. We are bringing back on air strategy sessions. So today I have one of my actual students, Ashley. Who is kind and brave enough to bring her, her roadblocks to the podcast and let me, coach her through them.

And hopefully this helps you as a listener get some ideas or work through your own roadblocks as well. So, [00:01:00] Ashley, will you please introduce yourself and let, our audience know who you serve, kind of where your firm is at and what you are here for today? 

Ashly: Sure. so I'm Ashley Linberg and I started my firm about two years ago. And, I'm currently serving, mostly transportation that's related to agriculture and agriculture clients. So it's a, I'm working on, , Getting defined into that area and finding all of the tech stack that is gonna work well for me. I still have a lot of the clients I took on just as random clients, when I first started out, but I now have about 42 clients and so my firm has grown, substantially over two years time. So, And I think that's all. I think I got all the questions. 

Serena: so what can I help you with today? What do you wanna focus on first? And then we'll see where we get from there, I [00:02:00] guess. 

Ashly: Okay. So, the biggest pro, the biggest thing that, is kind of causing me a roadblock is, , overwhelm.

So I am overwhelmed because I have so much work to do, but I also. Ha. Am very goal driven. So I see like, oh, the goal is to take three clients on a month. Okay, I can do that. But then getting all the work done without working 70 hours a week, So I'm right at that like, Hiring somebody, growing pains, I guess.

But then the overwhelm for me just is kind of a shutdown. So when I have so much to do and don't know where to start, I'm like, okay, I can look at my Asana tasks that has 121 tasks for today and be like, I don't, I just don't even know . 

Serena: I still don't know where to start. 

Ashly: So, That's probably overwhelm of expansion.

And also, talking through, like taking, not taking people who don't fit [00:03:00] in that don't meet my, yes, I'm gonna take them clients. I just need maybe some reassurance with that. 

Serena: So do you find yourself taking on clients that you don't actually want? Yep. Okay. So is it safe to say that could be adding to your 

Ashly: overwhelm?

A hundred percent. Okay. A hundred percent, and I recently started this tax season start took on tax. And I kind of, I walked that out to be, fairly. Simple. And I haven't taken on anybody that wasn't already my client to do taxes. And kept that fairly small, but it's still adding to the workload of the actual like reoccurring monthly people that we're adding on.

So, 

Serena: so, I just remembered that we did talk about that on a hot seat. . about doing a soft launch. So good job, 

Ashly: yes. And it worked because if I would've done the full launch, I'm afraid that, you would be [00:04:00] visiting me at some mental health facility at this point. 

Serena: Okay. So before we hit record, you mentioned that. One of the things that also is kind of adding to the overwhelm is the tax thing and trying to get clear on, do you wanna spend your time doing taxes or more bookkeeping. Now granted, the tax stuff isn't gonna be all year, right. But what is your, you have, do you have an employee already?

Ashly: I do. I have one full-time employee. And so she works for me full-time. she's a salaried employee and I actually just put out an ad for an admin assistant cuz we think that's gonna help both of us. She is a bookkeeper, so I'm hoping to kind of hand off some counts to her. So we could be in a better position for me to not work so much.

Serena: [00:05:00] So, have you had a capacity discussion with her about how much? 

Ashly: Yes, a hundred percent. Okay. So I have her, I mean, I don't wanna overwhelm her and I don't expect her to work more than 40 hours a week. And she's bumping right up against that. Okay. Cuz I've handed off a lot of things to her. She's very good about being like, Hey, I, you know, I got all my tests done, what do you need?

But then I look at my list and I have. really have that self-talk about, okay, it's okay to give her this and that and then not take it back. So I've been working on that Good. But I do think. at capacity for both of us to maintain, I don't know if there is work-life balance, but to try to keep it somewhere in there

So, so we, we do have the next steps of hiring somebody, moving forward and I think that will alleviate some of it. But then my biggest like roadblock is okay, [00:06:00] it comes to. If you hire an admin assistant, they're not billing, like, it's not billable hours. Those are things that you're paying somebody to do, so I just need to maybe talk through that or me. I, I just don't know if that I, that's what my first brain told me was. You need an admin assistant, but really what do I need another bookkeeper? Do I need, what do I need? ? 

Serena: So have you, and this might be, maybe this is your assignment after this call, but. Are you tracking your time to see where you're spending most of your time?

Ashly: Yes. So we actually, we actually track all of our time. I am not as a hundred percent good at it as my employee. And that's actually what we did is, my employee went, my, my executive. I don't know what she is. She's my everything. She's my unicorn. she went through and she actually tracked all of the time for our clients, and we just raised all of our prices on [00:07:00] all of the clients that weren't being profitable.

And we used that profitability. You, your, . Your spreadsheet gave us that. We did. We pulled the reports from clocky, put everything in, came down. I had her. Figure out what we needed to charge them because I have like an emotional checkbook with like, oh, should I do that or not? And she's like, they're $500 a month, they need raise to this.

And so she just did it all and then I reviewed it and we sent the emails out. So I feel really good about that. And I haven't, we did that a week ago and I haven. Single word from every anybody. And I think she told me this morning, there's only three that haven't signed their new engagement letters, 

Serena: so Oh, so people just signed the engagement letter? And said 

Ashly: Okay. Just didn't open back it. We just sent the email that said, Hey, we're raising our prices. They'll be effective April 1st if you need to discuss it with us. You know, she did a really good job of, of structuring that. I think we used. template you had along with something we [00:08:00] got from, you know, workflow clean and just merged it and, .

um, grace did an excellent job sending that out. and so I feel really good about that because that was a step that needed to happen. For us to bring on an admin to cover those hours, I guess. I really want to work on the business and not in the business, and I think that's where my roadblock comes, because I like to do the work on clients stuff, but I know to continue moving forward and get to the goals that I have that I need to.

On my business, not in my business. . But then I, then I get into like, will I make enough money? How does that work? What about ? It's all the money blocks. That's what they are. 

Serena: It's, it's a lot of things. So, when you say work on your business, I like to I guess get clearer on what part of working on your business do you enjoy the.

Ashly: I don't [00:09:00] know that I necessarily enjoy it other than I really like organization and systems and I want everything to be able to, like some random person off the street could look at my. My SOPs and all my things and be able to figure out what to do if they had some clue about the software. And I don't feel like I have that refined enough, and that's what holds me back from handing it off to a new person.

and so, but I don't feel like I have the time to refine those. Granted, I do have a ton of systems and I do have a lot of things in place, but I don't know that. It's perfection. That's my perfection. 

Serena: They're never gonna be perfect enough, right? . like they're never gonna be to that point where they're constantly up to date and perfect. The point is, to basically be able for it to be good enough to hand it to someone, right? That is intelligent and can kind of interpret things and then you [00:10:00] kind of fill in the gaps with answering questions and, and coaching them. So try to let go of it not being, because I know you have processes in place, like it's probably 20 times better than most people. 

Ashly: I know you. Yes. They, I mean, I have, we, we just revamped our entire Asana, project for, for monthly bookkeeping clients and it's really efficient and so I'm feeling really good about that. I think. What's holding me up right now is I need to have a team training, and I haven't worked on any of that at all because I don't have time to babysit somebody new to teach them how to do things.

and so that's probably my biggest one. The other thing is, is that, I like. I don't know. I get attached to the clients too, and I think I need to work on their stuff. I don't, I don't know. There's a lot of things, but mostly I think you're right, like letting it be good enough and letting [00:11:00] somebody else take it on.

 And then like, The other thing I know I'm really good at, I don't necessarily like it is the sales part of it. I have a lot of people in the industry like ag farmers, transportation. When I say that, that's like, you know, trucking companies that are hauling fertilizer and grain and things like that, that have.

Either asked me about it or inquired or, but I've never followed up with them and I don't feel like I'm doing my sales stuff justice, but I'm reserved about that because I don't have, like, I don't want 

Serena: too much . you don't have the capacity. Yes. So, have you set up like a wait list situation yet?

Ashly: Ooh, no. Tell me about this. 

Serena: Okay. So. In, in the interim until you can get more off of your plate and your bookkeeper's plate, and then kind of figure out like you know who you need to hire next after the admin in the interim. [00:12:00] Why not tell people like, we, you know, we're at capacity. We can put you on a wait list and you'll be the first to know when we're accepting new clients or something like that. And then, it, it buys you a little more time. Or you can e you can literally tell them, in order to kind of secure it, you could say, let's start you in June or July or whatever. and then you can. You know, go back in time and do a catch up or kind of however you wanna handle that. But I think it would be good to still capture those leads.

Okay. And, maybe do something like that. And also work towards filling the, the roles that need to be done during that time. That way you will have the capacity for them eventually. Because it sounds like you do still wanna keep growing. Right. 

Ashly: There's not really an end goal, but when I put down on paper two years ago what my vision was, I wanted to be a full [00:13:00] charge, bookkeeping.

 Accountant, tax provider. And so I have to keep going back to that and being like, okay, this is what I wanted. I even have it defined down to I need this many bookkeepers and this many tax preparers and this is what it looks like and it's a nice little package and it runs by itself. And then I can start on my next idea cuz that that's how my brain works.

And so I guess that's probably a pro, a pretty good thing to go revisit maybe, is to look at that and look at that roadmap. I just get like, like overwhelmed. That's the best that I can come with, with. And then I'm like, oh, I think that, I envision, I mean, I envision having at least two bookkeepers and a full-time, like two full-time bookkeepers and a full-time tax preparer and then filling in during tax season for my type of stuff.

I'm really nervous or, or I thought about hiring like contracted work for like cleanups and [00:14:00] things like that because that would take a lot, quite a. Chunk of projects off my, plate because most of what I'm dealing with is people who bring you a boot box full of receipts for the whole year, but they're ready to be on, you know, they're fine with going to, an accounting software. They just have never had one. And so I probably that might be a good process, like as we talk through this, for me to think about cuz that wouldn't be necessarily hiring somebody I need to keep forever, but I've never really had a contractor situation and I guess it makes me 

Serena: nervous. I don't know. And it's, it's kind of a preference thing. I, I am, I lean more towards the same as you where it's like, I. I, I wanna make sure my process is being followed. . And the best way to do that is to have an employee 

Ashly: control. Control. 

Serena: And, and also [00:15:00] that creates, you know, more, More continuity. I'm, I, I will say I do have a contractor bookkeeper. . that she's been with me since the beginning and feels like an employee , so, you, it is possible to find a contractor that is very loyal, so that's, I'm not writing that off as a strategy, but would it, Would it make sense to hire a junior bookkeeper and have your current bookkeeper step into more of the project and oversight role? Yes, 

Ashly: that like, that's what I foresee and that's what I'm like the admin assistant, like job description says light bookkeeping, because we want to pick up somebody who has that ability and it could eventually move them into a full-time role.

Serena: Kind of wherever is discovered that is needed most in the business. that's great. 

Ashly: So I headed [00:16:00] that forethought to keep that train going, that direction. And then like, Make sure, and I've always had a vision, for my employee. I have now to be the person who runs my business when I'm not there.

and we are that fit and she's worked for me for a year and some, I don't know, over a year. And and we've talked about those visions and how. What that looks like and the next steps and the roles that she's gonna have to take, to do that. I think I just, I just have a lot on my plate.

The other thing that I really am on the fence about, and I don't know if you can help me with this, we haven't really talked about it, but, so I graduated and got all my, college. Credits and all the things, and I have always, since I was like a high schooler, wanted to be a C p A, so, I can sit for my test if I apply for my notice of intent to test.

 And I haven't done it yet. [00:17:00] Because I have so much work to do. And so I'd like to get to a point where I can be like, Nope, I'm gonna get my c p a and this is gonna still, like, I still have to manage it. I still have to work in it, but I need to carve out that time, to study and to, to take, to take that test.

Cuz it's a, like, I'm goal oriented, I gotta hit those goals. And, and pass that test. And so I don't, I just. The, it gets down to numbers too then, because I start looking at like my profits and things when I'm not working in the business. Maybe I'm not paying myself enough . Like, if that makes sense.

 Like I'm not counting my, what my time is as well as I should maybe. Or maybe not counting my time as enough money. When we're looking at profitability. I don't know what that looks like, but pricing, the pricing stuff was, is huge and makes me super nervous and outside the box, but it [00:18:00] worked.

I mean it, no one even batted an eye. Um, so far, 

Serena: so you were able to increase prices enough to cover the wage of the new employee. 

Ashly: so what we did is we took the clock five for each client and figured out like what we would charge for, grace, who does most of the stuff. I'm just doing the, the review Okay.

Of the month end and then meeting with the clients usually. And then we figured my rate for that time that I'm spending doing that stuff. . and then looked to, and then whatever software we were figuring. To look to see what we were charging and you know, out of 40, well at the time we had 37 clients cuz I just took on more in the last few days.

That. Every, there were some of them and we were really sitting very well on and doing a really good job. And of course, those are the more recent clients that we bought on, [00:19:00] brought on. But a lot of the ones from the very beginning that I was either started out, hourly or . just had random whatever.

 Those are the ones we really needed to increase. and then, I think the new person will fit into some of the hours that Grace was charging for those, cuz they will be able to do them. so I think that I feel really good about that, but my biggest thing is like, how do I, I need to learn to tell people no.

And I have a discovery call with them, I 

Serena: think. So with the wait list situation, can you do. Like a lead capture intake. Are you using DeSoto or 

Ashly: something similar? We are not. We started out with it. and I, we just, we, we'll go there. 

Serena: It can be overwhelming for some, but what are you using in, in order to capture.

Ashly: So for a hot minute, we were in turn in the middle of randomness [00:20:00] and we were, it just had, we just had like a Google form for them to fill out. We now currently just switched, I use Tax Dome for everything, for taxes, and there's a process that we set up and it's, live actually maybe as of today.

Okay. We can do that. I have an entire Miro board set up of like, Step by step. I'm sure you're not surprised by this of onboarding and how I want it to go. The problem is, is like I can create all those things, but getting myself, like, if I hand it to drops to somebody else, execute it, be like, 

they can execute it and they can say no. And I, I just get vested in people. I just like helping people. And that's when I feel, so I need to just, I don't know, like. it's mostly media. It's like, do as I say, not as I do . 

Serena: So whatever your process is for Uhhuh, capturing information from people.

 . Part of it could be maybe the industry that you're [00:21:00] working with. People wanna just talk on the phone. finding a way to, so if it, if that wasn't the case, what I would suggest. And, and maybe this is the way that you go anyways, just right now while you're at capacity anyway. . is having some sort of like a Google form or an intake form that captures their information, the questions that you would want to know, like before you talk to them.

So like what's their revenue? So you can see if they can actually afford you and, you know, what industry they're in. What software they're using. All those basic questions that we do on our intake discovery call, making that just like an intake, an inquiry form of like, if you are interested in working with us, please fill out this form.

We will let you know whether or not we want to move forward with a discovery call. If not, you know, we'll keep your information or whatever. So it gives you, [00:22:00] the option to send an email back after you read through the stuff and be more objective before you actually talk to them. by just looking at the, the way that they answer their questions or whatever, and deciding like, do I even have time to service this client at this point?

 . Would it be worth it for. Type of situation. . That way you could just reply back and say, we're not accepting any clients at this time. We'll reach out to you in whatever, June, right? to see if you still need a bookkeeper. But that way, because I'm the same, like that's why I try to avoid getting on calls as much as possible with potential clients.

That's what I need, , because part of it is I don't really have time for the calls . Right. The other part of it is, I will try to help anybody and I know I, there's some clients that really I have no business working with because they can't afford our services [00:23:00] and they don't truly need them yet. So, that, you know, you can still get on the calls, but just.

Maybe this will filter some people out as 

Ashly: well. I think that might be the key is I don't believe that what we have going on in our automated stuff for them to fill out gives them the idea that we are also looking to see if it's a good wor working relationship with us. Like that it's two-sided, like, here it is.

We'll give you a call, blah, blah, blah. As opposed to, here it is, we'll see if we can fit. And so I think that's like super. Good advice for me because my brain is thinking, oh, but I need, need, need. And what I really should be is like, hmm, step back. Do I want them, is it a good fit? Like making that actual, like putting on that different hat of like, okay, is this gonna work out in the long term?

 I think that's maybe the skew in our [00:24:00] sales or you know, our prospect pipeline is we. Saying, we'll get back to you if this is gonna work for us. and, and seeing if that is the case. So I think I'll just need to maybe revamp a little bit of what communication looks like to those prospects.

Serena: The language in the, and I'm happy to share my, well, you can see my intake form. It's on my website. If you go to my website slash contact, and you'll see the questions I ask one of 'em. A couple of 'em are really key in me deciding whether or not to get on a call with them. And one of them is, if they value having a bookkeeper, if they see it as an important, hire or whatever.

I can't remember the language, but basically, do you value this in your business? . and I've legit had people say that they don't know or they've never. You know, they've never valued that in the past, but all their rich friends are telling them they need one . [00:25:00] You're like, oh no. So there you can still see red flags in a questionnaire.

 And, and whatnot. So, and then also like asking the industry, you can ask for their website so you can look at, you know, what kind of company they have before you get on the call. But our intake questionnaire, they fill it out. They immediately get an email that says, thank you, we've gotten your questionnaire.

You should expect a response back in the next 24 to 48 hours. . if we are, if we feel that we're a good fit, we'll invite you onto a discovery call. Something along those lines. And then, and then it gives, I, I have a day or two to kind of look at it, review it, sit on it, and then decide if I wanna invite them onto a discovery call or just reply to the email and say, I've looked over your stuff, or your questionnaire.

Thank you so much for filling it out. At this time, I don't think we're a great fit and I may give a reason or I may not. Okay. No. Is a complete sentence. So. And then the other response is, [00:26:00] I've looked over your stuff, your questionnaire. Thank you so much for filling it out. I would, I, I think we would be a, a good fit, but I would like to get on a.

A call first to discuss, you know, your needs and more details about your business. And then also so that they can evaluate, right? Like, we, we want it's too good. Working relationship. And then, and then I'll give them the link to my discovery call with a coupon that makes it free. 

Ashly: Oh, so you like, so if so, tell me how that looks, because.

I also have realized I need to have a diagnostic process before I'm doing a proposal, because I wasn't doing a very good job with that. And then I end up with somebody who has a thousand credit card transactions a month, and I only saw their bank statements that showed 25 transactions, you know, because 

so you charge for your discovery call then? 

Serena: So I do. If someone were to just go straight to my calendar to book a [00:27:00] discovery call without doing that intake form, they will have to answer the same questions and pay me $75 . So that weeds out a lot of people. Okay. Um, so those are my two ways to like weed people out.

It's all basically the same questionnaire. It's just a matter of if they want to book a call first and pay for it, or if they want the ball to be in my court to reach out to them to book a call. But they pay for the discovery call and that basically ensures that I don't get a no-show because I, I really have limited amount of time I can take calls.

Yes. And I think that you do too, 

Ashly: yes. Like it's happened to me and it's frustrating. 

Serena: I did not start out at 75. I just con continue to increase it and increase it. . based on. Like my availability. I think the first time I started charging for discovery calls, it was like $15 and even that will deter people from not showing up cuz they don't wanna lose $15.[00:28:00] 

So that was kind of where I started and I used to have them an hour long and then I also decreased the time on a discovery call to 30 minutes. Okay. The reason that I have the price so high is, like I said, to weed people out, but also because I always give advice on those calls. I just can't flip it.

Ashly: me too. And I'm, 

Serena: it's still a valuable call. I will give them next steps of, or recommendations or whatever. So that was my other reasoning for that. But to answer your question about the discovery or the diagnostic process, that is something. That you will want to talk about on your discovery call of Great this is, you know, great information. Thank you for filling out the questionnaire. However, usually we get into the books if you have existing books and realize that you might have forgotten about a B bank account. And so just to ensure that we give an accurate quote so we don't have to raise prices.

Immediately. . I'm going to ask for access to [00:29:00] your QuickBooks so that I can do kind of like a diagnostic look, take a peek under the hood. Understand really what we're getting into. And I charge if you're gonna charge for that. You would say? 

Ashly: I think so because like my, all my time is worth something at this point. I it is. Have to, it's, 

Serena: and we always say like, I'm, I charge $500 for that. But if you engage us either for a cleanup or catch up or monthly service, depending on what we find in the diagnostic, you can roll that into your first invoice. So it's very low risk for. It's only a risk if they don't engage us, but then I took on the risk of taking the time to look things over and then I'll give them a report of it at the end.

 Of like what we found. If there is corrections that are gonna need to be made and they can have us do them, or they can give it to another bookkeeper, I'm very detached from that. 

Ashly: Okay. And I, I, So what's [00:30:00] funny is I have the process for all that set up. I just wasn't utilizing any of it 

or charging for it. And it was just my mistake to be like just skipping forward, skipping steps do as I don't do, as I do . Do as I say. So I, you know, I think that's, I like the rolling it into the first invoice though, cuz for me, it makes me feel better that then. They're not just paying. If they are gonna just take it and do it themselves, cool, that's great.

I got paid for what I did. But then if they're moving into it, it gives them kind of a, not really a discount, but like a, a good. 

Serena: because we've already done a lot of the heavy lifting that's gonna be involved in that cleanup. . The analyzing of it, and so, so you're not gonna have to do that again once you on, you know, take over their stuff. And then that'll, that will absolutely weed people out. There's going to be people that don't wanna pay for that, but if they're not willing to pay for. [00:31:00] Then how willing are they gonna be to pay for your bookkeeping? Right. So, that's just something that you're just gonna have to, you're gonna have to be okay with people saying, no, 

Ashly: I am.

And in the, and I think that I, I kind of am past people telling me no, it's me telling somebody else, no, they're not a good fit. And maybe, I mean, the problem the other, I mean, I know what I, where I want to go, but then I have a few other little caveats that I kind of like, like I've recent, like I should have probably said no, but I recently took on, some two like Chamber of Commerce type, organizations, and they.

They were big cleanup jobs and they, and they're month to month and they're, they were very, Kind of hands off. I only am gonna meet with them quarterly, but they were willing to do what I needed to get everything in order. And I [00:32:00] still, you know, I'm in their books monthly. I'm just not doing a debrief meeting with them until quarterly because there's not a lot going on, but there's enough.

 So I'm always like, oh baby, I should switch niches. That's not like, no. So I just need to maybe revisit like, My clients that are, uh, I guess you say a hell or a hell no. So, I don't know. 

Serena: And just because you have a niche doesn't mean that you can't take on other clients that don't, that don't fit that niche.

Especially if they're good. Gonna be good to work with. And it's on the same software or whatever, and it's not too different of a process for you. I, I. Say that you can't, I mean, I still take on people that are not in my niche too, if I feel like they're gonna be a good fit otherwise. And so don't, don't let that make you feel like you have to now change niches or whatever.

The, the beauty of having the [00:33:00] niche is that like you're gonna just continue to get referrals. In that niche without really having to work for it. And or, and, or it's easier to market to one niche, but people will still come to you from other niches and you can be picky. And your excuse could be, you're not in my niche if you don't wanna work with them.

Ashly: Oh, yes. Okay. I never thought about it pegging it that way, because that would make it easier for me to be like, you're not a fit, because I mo I mostly only handle this, this, and this, you know? But then there are those people that I have brought on that I'm like, oh, this, this is great. Like, they're great clients.

They always, I mean, I just onboarded one of them. Well, we started onboarding on Monday and she had everything done by Thurs, by today, this morning. And I was just like, Whoa. I did a call with her before I got on the hot seat call this morning, and she's like, okay. And I was like, the only thing I'm missing is this.

And she just emailed it to me like, I'm, I'm in . So, so you're [00:34:00] right, like kind of get a feel for it, but really, I'll take a look at your, intake form and maybe that's where we start to. Help me do justice for myself, I guess. In making the right decisions and taking two days before I can, they can fill it out, get the call, book the call.

 those are all super helpful. . 

Serena: I think the most important thing is to, like, some of us just have personalities that we have to put guardrails around certain things. Yes, yes. Like some of us. Money things and we have to put guardrails, like profit first in place, , right? And some of us have like boundary issues and we have to put guardrails around our time.

So it's just a matter of knowing yourself and. if the, if you don't need the clients right away . But you need time in your day, then finding a way to filter out people that are not gonna be a good fit, that they can [00:35:00] self filter out by doing this questionnaire and then that, that way you're preserving the time that you do have.

To deliver on your current clients, train your new employees, and and do all that, doesn't mean that you can't turn that off later when you want more leads. You know what I mean? Right? You have the ability to, okay, now we're in a place where we all have capacity. I'm just gonna remove the questionnaire and get on calls again. You have the, it's your business. You can do that whenever you want. And, 

Ashly: and in my mind, I had set up like we could take three to four new clients every month, but that just snowballed. I mean, I've taken January, February, March, and now, right now, I already had decided, okay, I'm not gonna take anybody till May because I have so much work to do.

But I think, I also. Like the capturing of the leads and that, that questionnaire make gives me more confidence that in the [00:36:00] future or if they really wanna work with me, they'll wait. Type thing. and then I can feel better about giving value to my current and new clients and making sure all the work is done.

And obviously tax season will resolve itself in a little over a month, and that will help a lot of things too. But I don't really wanna fill that time with me working on client stuff. I wanna fill that with me growing my business . So, 

Serena: I was gonna say one, one other thing about that, and now I kind of spaced out, oh what you said about May. So you could put that at the top of your questionnaire right now when. Do this right after this call. Just 

Ashly: kidding. Yes, this ha you know me, it'll happen. 

Serena: You could put that at the top of your questionnaire and just make sure you set a task for yourself to update it in May or whatever of, we are currently booked out and, and not accepting new clients until May.

If you are, you know, if you wanna be on our list so that you're the first to know when we have a spot available, fill out this [00:37:00] form. And that way it's like you're just communicating upfront immediately. About your availability. And I, I think that's, it's better than agreeing to get on phone calls. When you know that you don't have capacity to serve them. 

Ashly: because, I'm gonna spend every, assuming I find a good fit for the, you know, for the new hire, I'm gonna, I need that extra time in April to get them up and running. And, you know, they might, I told I put it at five to 10 hours a week, but that could.

Pretty quickly if it's the right person, you know? So I think that that's probably gonna be grace and it's gonna be like, okay, Ashley was on a call. Serena we're doing all this stuff again. . But she's excellent. Like I literally will just be like, here's what I think, here's I wanna do. And she's able to do it.

And that communication factor is huge. I am not the executor. I am the visionary. I am the, all the [00:38:00] things and learning where I fit in that is huge. It's been big for me to know things I can and can't do. Like I can't raise prices. I need you to figure out what it is. ? Here's the tool. 

Serena: Um, it is totally okay.

We get in this, This trap of thinking that we should be strong at all of the things that we've had to wear our hats on or wear whatever. You get what I'm saying? Yes. I gotcha. We feel like we need strengths in all those areas because we've been doing them, but it doesn't. But once you start hiring people, then you can start saying, okay, this is actually not my strength.

I was doing it because I had to. This is now your thing. So that's great that you have a person that you can delegate things to. So the other thing that I would suggest is talking to her to see if she would be willing to train, a, a new per the new person in the bookkeeping stuff. You may, you may want to train her in the administrative stuff.

 . Or maybe she will, but maybe talking to her about [00:39:00] splitting the training so that she gets training with both of you. Um, oh and. Even if it's like the light bookkeeping, like just have her train her on bank feeds for two or three clients that'll get stuff off of her plate, and then she can take off more off of your plate as well. 

Ashly: and um, we've been working through that, like as part of our Asana, we have a tag that says ho, which means handoff. So anything we think we can hand off to the new person who has a tag on it. And I haven't ran the tag list, but I'm kind of scared to look, to see what both Grace and I have decided to hand off.

Cuz I'm pretty sure it's probably more than the five to 10 hours probably. But we have a system and it at least gives us an idea of what to, what we might wanna hand off. Good. And as far as that, that stuff goes, it's just, is I really think filtering and charging for my time, you know, filtering new clients and charging for my time is gonna make me fail.

Like, I am still doing justice of capturing people I [00:40:00] might wanna work with, but not wasting time that I don't have. So I think those are all baby steps of, but we are just working on that new onboarding pipeline for, for new clients and we haven't, We just need to tweak it a little bit to make it reflect that language like we talked about. So I'm really excited about that. So, , 

Serena: so your homework is to do that intake form, put a at the top that you're, you know, booked out until May. Basically, then you can reevaluate whether or not you wanna keep the intake form up in May or, or change the wording or whatever. Work on, you know, basically a list of things that you want this new person to do and who's training her on what or him.

And what was your other homework? I had one other thing.

They might come to me later, 

Ashly: the wait, the wait list [00:41:00] version? The the 

Serena: wait list? Which is kinda the same as the intake form. You can just put people on a, it's gonna capture, hopefully it'll be in a spreadsheet or something where it's gonna capture their information. So when you are, when you do have freed up capacity, you can go through that list and contact people and follow up with.

Ashly: Right. And then talk to, uh, my current employee about training my new employees. So that's not well, okay. Awesome. Wow. I like it. 

Serena: So I d I am so, so proud of you. You're doing amazing. Thank you. Thank you. And definitely keep me posted on. How all of that goes. If I think of the third thing, I will send you a message,

Ashly: Okay. I wanna let you know, you said you're gonna be traveling in June, is that right? so I like, this is total side note, but I ordered a new Bronco forever ago, like before I, we ever met in person and I finally have a production date for it. And when it gets [00:42:00] here, I wanna make, I'm gonna make a road trip and my sister lives in la.

but I'm gonna come down your way. Yay. Cause we have some friends that moved to Prescott and, see them. And so I would like to maybe have coffee or something and then I'm gonna go to LA and, hopefully, meet some other people in our realm, out that way and just. Kind of have a road trip and do that.

I think mine is gonna be July, but I don't know. It might be too hot for me then. We'll see. It's not 

Serena: too hot. I mean there it's not too hot here. If you stay up in the mountains, you'll be fine. Okay, cool. Just stay up in Northern Arizona. It'll be fine. 

Ashly: Sometime this, sometime this summer that I'm like, yep, gonna take my new vehicle and we're gonna go on a road trip.

Serena: So , that's so exciting. Congratulations, 

Ashly: hence the reason I don't wanna work 70 hours a week, 

Serena: so the other question I did not, we didn't talk about is the CPA thing. Oh, yes. So, yes, your first immediate thing [00:43:00] is to just free up your time, and I think this will help. You'll onboard the new person. If you can get your. Hours working in and on your business down to 40. You can absolutely do the CPA stuff as your side thing. 

Ashly: Well, and I honestly like this is why I am chopping up against 65, 70 hours a week is because I'm taking five hours a week to study for it already. Okay. But that doesn't help my overwhelm because who can maintain that for very long?

Not very many people, you know. So. That's why I need to filter and I need to like be okay with a wait list and all the things so that I can prioritize what needs to happen next, and that's one of the things I absolutely wanna do. 

Serena: So the c p a exam will always be there waiting , 

Ashly: unfortunately. I mean, 

Serena: it'll, it's not going anywhere, but I think focusing on getting more time back in your day so that you [00:44:00] can actually allocate the energy to studying. Yes. Yes. 

Ashly: Cuz it's getting the last version of it and then I, it's not, it, it may not even be doing me any justice at the end of the day, so. 

Serena: All right. Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much. So much. Yes, and we'll 

Ashly: talk to you soon. All right. Thanks. Bye.

Serena: If you enjoyed this episode and you would like to have your own one-on-one strategy session with me. Head over to the show notes, to click the link and schedule your own strategy session. You can also join our monthly small group mentoring calls. Our first one is at the very end of March. So head over to the show notes and click the link to join that as well.

All right. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I hope this was valuable to you and. You're able to implement something you've learned from today. See you next week. 

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