The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast

161 ⎸ The Alyssa + Serena Show Part 2

• Serena Shoup, CPA • Episode 161

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This interview episode is Part 2 of The Alyssa + Serena Show with my biz bestie, Alyssa Lang (Workflow Queen)! We talk about managing clients, offering advisory services, and the importance of SOPs in a bookkeeping firm. From practical business advice to lighthearted banter, you’ll wanna tune in to elevate your bookkeeping game!

In this episode you’ll hear:

  • the difference between consulting and advisory services
  • strategies for hiring and delegating tasks
  • how to efficiently communicate advisory services
  • the importance of acknowledging & embracing personal life seasons
  • different methods of documenting processes


Resources mentioned in this episode:


Meet Alyssa
Alyssa, aka the Workflow Queen, teaches bookkeepers and accountants how to utilize tech and automation to create better workflows, systems and processes. As a result they can run their practices on autopilot, stress less and save time!

Connect with Alyssa
🌐 Website: http://workflowqueen.com/
📱 IG: @workflowqueen
🎙️ Podcast: Conquering Workflows & Systems with the Workflow Queen

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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Serena:

Welcome back to. This is part two of my conversation with Alyssa.

Alyssa:

Back.

Serena:

Yeah.

Alyssa:

We'll. I was here the whole time. I thank you for welcoming again. Do your own home. Yeah, to my own home. Thank you for welcoming into my home. My own home. I should be welcoming you. Oh, thank you for joining me on today's Alyssa and Serena show. Yeah. At my home.

Serena:

Yeah. I'm pleased to be here. Yeah.

Alyssa:

And we'll come back to everyone who's listening who wanted to watch or listen to. Part two, we're very proud of you for being here. So we're so excited. This episode is going to dive into so much. Goodies and so many, I mean, it's how. Workstations.

Serena:

We're going to talk about, setting up SOPs in your, from proactively delegating.

Alyssa:

We talked about some seasons of life, just like how your business will go up and down and just the different seasons you'll be in. And some of those examples of things that we've experienced ourselves. And also the lovely topic that. Serena got so passionately involved in. And really loved, which was all about advisory.

Serena:

I know you want to hear me. In her opinion. Yeah,

Alyssa:

I love it.

Serena:

I got real passionate and she got excited about it. So her face. If you're into it, keep listening. There's going to be lots more laughs. In this episode and I even spring a fun little pop quiz and a game. At the very end of the episode. So make sure you listen for all the details on that. And if you enjoy these episodes, please, please, please. Share. Tag us share us on Instagram. Share

Alyssa:

all the things also just let us know. Maybe we'll start another podcast. Just us two. Oh, yeah. If you like it, or we just being to ego, ego, just what is it? Egotistical? Yeah. Thank you. Ego driven hardware, but I like

Serena:

to think that our conversations are very entertaining. So please confirm this. With a five-star review.

Alyssa:

With the five star review, plus tell us.

Serena:

Yeah. All right. Let's get into the today's episode. Oh, Harley wants to say something. Hello, I'm a dog. What do you think about this season of your life? Harley?

Alyssa:

He's like that my mom should be giving me more snacks all the time. He's like, I'm tired. I want to go to bed. Keeping them for busy being busy moms. I'm sorry. Like a dog mom. Uh, hello.

Serena:

All right. We're back part two. And we're talking about this. Seasons of life. I don't know where you were going with that, honestly. Oh, I'll

Alyssa:

take over. Cause I don't remember. And I don't remember things. So just for anyone who just kind of joined in on the episode and you have no idea what we're talking about with part two, There is a part one to this episode, which would most likely 99% will be aired before this one. Hopefully. So I'll see you out, man. So anyways. Um, so if you want to catch part one, we kind of just talked about a lot of just how we met what's going on in our lives, how to get re motivated back in the business when life kind of hits and all the things we talked about, what we would do different in the business. And now we just kind of wanted to let it flow. While we're here in person and just kind of keep the conversation going. So if you want to catch that. We're not going to brief you a little bit more. So just kind of go back and watch that episode. Um, but we're going to kind of take it from here. So where we left off on the last episode that we got together., well, part one, I guess, is what we're calling it. Is, we were talking about the different seasons of life, of like, Really where I would like to take it, which I'm sure resonates with a lot of people, especially because we, even though I'm not a mom, I know I'm a dog mom and I make jokes all the time about being a dog, mom. Like, I don't know what it's like to be a real mom. Like someone who has like kids and stuff like that. I don't know that struggle., But anyways, I definitely know that a lot of our audience is a lot of moms and a lot of like women, where we do go through seasons and especially when the kids are out of school and stuff like that. And so I'd love to. I just kind of continue the conversation of like what it's like to like manage the business in life during weird seasons and like what that's been like for you as. Chaos in life or just like kids.

Serena:

Yeah. Yeah, it, that is something that you have to, it's like, you get to a point where you have to like, Give radical acceptance to yourself And being a woman, I'm sure. Honestly, I'm sure men go through their own seasons as well, but I can't identify with that because I'm not a man, so I can only speak to. With who I am. Yeah, and we not only go through seasons and cycles on a monthly basis, but just like in general, in life, like. The season I was in, when I first started my business, I was pregnant and I had a toddler. You know, and now my, now I have a six and an eight year old and a, adult, I have an adult child. Child. I straight up have an adult child, which is crazy. Like she graduated high school. So like life looks very different. And. One of the things that keeps me grounded in like figuring out like what matters in different seasons of life is I actually recorded an episode on this and I'll have to try to link back to it. Was, Like doing a visualization exercise. For what you want your life. You're digging a video and it's really awkward now.

Alyssa:

It's to do with my hands and

Serena:

my friend. My end

Alyssa:

pulling a me from my speech.

Serena:

But, yeah. So I have this episode that I walked through, like how to, I don't even remember what it was called, like kind of planning out your year or whatever. It was like a goal setting episode., and I walk you through a visualization exercise and I do this with my students too, but one of the main things that pulls me back into like grounding in why I'm doing this and what I want this current season to look like Is looking to the future and kind of visualizing, like, what is my life going to look like when I have The two kids that are in sports and learning to drive and all of this, like kind of future pacing, like. And it, kind of forces you to be like, oh, wow. Time is really precious because I'm already visualizing that. And that's only five years away.

Alyssa:

Yeah.

Serena:

And so I look back and I've been in business now since 2017 and that's like, how many years? I've been, you have 2018. Seven years. Lots. Yeah. I'm like it's, I don't know how to count. Because I'm a bookkeeper. But yeah, there's calculators for a reason. I know. But yeah, it's like so dealing with the different seasons of life. which we kind of tapped into on the last department on the part, one was of the Alyssa and Serena show. Let's say it's already so proud of that intro. Yeah. And What a lot of it is, is being able to kind of like. Surrender. To like, this is just the season of life because a lot of us, and I'm guilty of this too. Like I'm ambitious. I don't know if you know this. Oh, wow. Is

Alyssa:

that

Serena:

why you called

Alyssa:

your business? That's so, and you're also a bookkeeper.

Serena:

Whoa, weird. Oh weird. Wow. Um, but I'm like super ambitious that I have all of these ideas and these goals, I'm a very goal-driven person. And so once I think of something, I'm like, I kind of sense. I've attached that as a goal of mine, it's going to happen. It will frickin happen. And I have to reel myself in to like allow more time for certain goals to accomplish them because I'm one of those people you are too. You're a sprinter. Yeah. Once you have an idea, you want to execute your life though. Let's be clear. I don't not like physically, I do not run upstairs for fun. Like my friend Nicole does. But yeah, like once I have a vision make it into a goal, I'm gonna make it happen. And sometimes to my own detriment. And so the last few years have been a real. Huge lesson in like yeah, letting go and not rushing the goal and not pushing forward. Through hell and high water. Yeah. It's like giving it more time in space, giving things, not piling too much on it once and not like burning myself out for

Alyssa:

all of us.

Serena:

Yeah. And just being like, well, in this season, in my life, Maybe this is not the correct season of my life to be pursuing that goal.

Alyssa:

Um,

Serena:

you know what I mean? Like, Because I've had visions of making my bookkeeping firm a million dollar firm, but that is not the correct goal for this season of my life. Because I have young kids and that is more important to me, but I have to continue to like remind myself of these things. Like, this is why I'm doing this. I'm doing this Tuesday. Maybe not now. Yeah. That's a future if you want it to, but that's. That's a future. Yeah. Not necessary right now in my life. Yeah. And so I don't know if that's where you were trying to take this conversation, but that's what I've got for you.

Alyssa:

Yeah. But I think that that's a good message for anybody. Who's just like, We all naturally put this guilt. Like I, we were talking about in part one about how, like, I literally thought that after my three weeks off of no business, I'd come back and I'd be in a back in my let's get **** done season. And it's not. And here we are. Uh, no, we're still here. Nope. You know, but I'm just taking one little step a day just to try to get Brie motivated and reinspired, and I think that's normal. And I think that we all go through that. Like I'm going through a season of really just wanting to DIY my house all the time. Yeah. That's it. That's all I want to do. I just want to like paint. DIY build things, just do whatever or like travel. And like, I just go through these phases are sometimes doing nothing. But then there's other times where I'm like, oh, I've got some big goals. Like I'm going to make it happen. And then I do. Yeah. And then I'm back in my other season. And I think it's just like the importance of everybody listening. Just to take a step back. And like, it's okay. Like, don't feel guilty, but like knowing and understanding that like it's just a season. It's like the yin and yang, the masculine, feminine, the ups and downs. It's like, there will always be the good and the bad on all ends of everything. There will always be inspiration and no inspiration, motivation and unmotivated.

Serena:

Yeah.

Alyssa:

And I think that we all go through that. And like, whatever that season looks like. And if you're listening right now and you're going to a rough season, because we've both been there, I think we both kind of were getting out of our season at the same time. Like if you're in a bad, weird season, like reach out to us. Come on Instagram, come say hi. And come do all the things and just like have a conversation and let us know what season that you're in, in your business. And like, or even in your life, because sometimes it's not even, like, when I explained to my people, it's like, it's not even about the business. It's just like, I'm in a season of life that like, I can't control right now.

Serena:

Yeah. It kind of, it goes back to that conversation, like whenever I'm mentoring or coaching someone one-on-one yeah. I do need to know like what's happening in your life because you say you want to do all these things in your business, but like,

Alyssa:

are you willing to reel? Are you willing to sacrifice all the things that you're going to need to in order to get that. Yeah. That's like when people like. Client matter how many times, like, and I'm sure people are saying too with your clients that maybe you consult with, tell us I want a million dollar business. I want this, I want like to make a hundred K or 500 K or 50 K could be whatever their goal is. And I'm like, are you willing to put in what it's going to take to get there? Because even if you're not the one doing it, you have to hire the people to do it because someone needs to do it. I always tell people like, you're going to give up a lot of things. I've had so many clients like ambitious as hell and like get into work with us and they're consulting and they'd tell me all these things that they want to do. I'm like, I'm telling you, if you don't have the people you're going to be working this many hours. Are you sure you're willing to sacrifice X, Y, Z, and this, this is going to be your season of life. Yeah, you can get there. But you're going to be in a heavy season and you're, going to have to give up a lot, but there can be balanced. I do believe that you can have it all. Like you really can't have it. Yeah the balance, but sometimes you have to sacrifice some things just to get there.

Serena:

There's yeah. There's always some level of sacrifice. And so it's kind of like checking in with, like, how much are you willing to sacrifice? Sacrifices.

Alyssa:

Like a lamb to like, The literal literal things. But what I mean is like the sacrifice could be. Is that when we think of the word sacrifice, we think of the word is being really dramatic is like this crazy. I got to give up this. It really could just be the sacrifice could be. I would love to have a million dollar business. Well, you need the people, the sacrifice could be. It's either the budget, your money. Or your time. Yeah. So the sacrifice can be as simple as it's either you or someone else's time. But then if it's someone else's time, it's your money.

Serena:

Yeah.

Alyssa:

So it's like your sacrifice doesn't have to be this crazy dramatic thing. Like throw babies off things like it doesn't need to be crazy. I'm just using analogies. We're not promoting that at any capacity. I'm just saying,

Serena:

yeah. You know, And a lot of times. It, depending on like where you're at with your money mindset too, is like a lot of people have, it's easier for them to sacrifice their time to do the things because they're saving the money, but then. But then I always ask the question. I'm like, well then. What are you sacrificing time with? Or who are you? My lead time

Alyssa:

with. Yeah. Like I said, I don't have kids, so like, I can sacrifice a lot of time. But at the same time, like I'm really huge on yeah. Or is it. I don't care. Personal care. Sacrificing your time at the gym. You're sacrificing the time you're able to cook meals. 2020 was like, I'm all healthy and I'm fit. And then all of a sudden it was like three years later, all that time that I spent sitting on the computer, I gained a lot of weight. I'm back on track to like get my self down, which has been really nice, but I had to sacrifice to get the success I did from both the firm and also workflow queen. There was a lot of sacrifices that I had to give up, but at that time I didn't see it. Because it's like the snowball effect where like, Yeah, one movement. can compile over time. You know, that whole concept. Yeah, the. That's no fun. That's okay. Yeah. you get through the season. just like winter. Just like fall. I'm just trying to be all. winter is coming, winter is coming. It's literally summer. It's we saw it fall. It's July. Yeah. It's pretty much Halloween. Just kidding. You know, when people say after 4th of July, It's literally Halloween and I'm like, that's me. I am that person. Who's like, it's almost Christmas. Like I'm literally counting down the days until it's Christmas. Because at what I'm going to do is hang up a tree. And I'm gonna sit on October 1st. What. September. September? No way real last year was labor day. Joking pretty positive. It was labor day. Last time we used. And everything. Yep. You can find ornaments that don't have to do.

Serena:

For wearing

Alyssa:

socks to bed. That's some serial killer stuff. Okay. People I want to know, we want to know. A real poll here. Please email us either support@workfowqueen.com or support@ambitiousbookkeeper.com or come on Instagram and let us know. Do you wear socks to sleep? I genuinely want to know how many people actually wear their socks and how high are they? Are they high socks? Are they low socks? Like explain the socks to me. Yeah. Don't your feet get hot. No. So right

Serena:

now. Really.

Alyssa:

I am the worst or my slippers. You can wear my slippers. You can't have one. We could show one, you could fit your foot in there to. It wouldn't be weird. Oh, Lord. So let's switch to some tactical things.

Serena:

Yeah. I had a train of thought and you totally,

Alyssa:

I'm sorry.

Serena:

Derailed it.

Alyssa:

That's my life. I

Serena:

derail a lot of things, but we're here. So. So we showed up. Okay. I had a question from one of my students about. there's two questions and they're kind of like hand in hand. So let's start with setting up standard operating procedures, AKA. SOP's in your firm. So that was kind of, it was a very broad, general question. Like, can you talk about setting up SOP is in your firm and so. Let's talk about that. Like what, like logistically. You need. SOP's in your firm. If you want to be able to hand anything off evil. For yourself. Yeah. Even for yourself, even if you don't want to hand it off, it's very

Alyssa:

effective. Human. Like you do something that you haven't done for every city. You have to only do it once a month. And then you go in just having the SOP there for yourself, even, even before I delegated to. Was so helpful because all I had to do was rewatch it or like reread it. And all the links are there. I had to rethink the whole

Serena:

thing. Yeah.

Alyssa:

Yeah.

Serena:

Like, how did I do this last time, especially for like complicated journal entries or. And then you're making. Calculators. Templates for it. Yeah. Yeah. Things like that. So, Step one is to like, just identify all the steps that need. Well, The real step one, the step one is just do it. We talked about this today. We were like, how did the answer for everything is

Alyssa:

to just do it? And I was like, oh yeah, It's a common, just do it. Just get

Serena:

your

**** Alyssa:

together. Do it just do it. Just document it. I don't know how, but we're going to do it. Be scrappy. Is that a theme scrappy as ours? last name. I think for SOPs, it's really just one being intentional. I think. We just kind of touched on it a second ago, but it really is. Everyone thinks it's for the team. It's really not. And it does not have to be for people who work for you. It could be for yourself. So I think that when you understand that you stop resisting doing it, if you're like, I don't want ever want a team. Yeah, it really is super helpful just to do it for yourself. The other thing too is just like, identify what you're trying to accomplish is what you were saying. so identifying what, you're trying to accomplish is kind of like. Like, how do I say this? So if I want to. I don't know. What do I want to do? I'm trying to think of something. I don't know why my brain is blinking. Maybe. Cause I've been off for three weeks. I don't remember what I do anymore to exercise that thing. Yeah. I definitely need to exercise my body and also my mind. Anyways. Let's just say that. I want to, I don't know, do a payroll journal entry for like, you know, something complicated for like a certain client. Like you need to identify, what are you trying to accomplish? What are you trying to do? And then you're like gonna go back and say, well, what do I need to do? And like, what are the steps in order for me to accomplish that thing? The one mistake I see a lot of people making is like, I'm going to document an SOP on month end. The whole thing. Which month end is like 15 individual things. And make up month end. Right? So month end is like, and various things. Yeah. First you're categorizing things. And then you're double checking that the work is there, making sure there's nothing left in the bank feed, then you're moving on to reports. Then you're moving on to studying the content set requests. You're doing all these things that the mistake I've seen is that. others in the industry will go and like document either written out or they'll like do one massive video. That's like 30 minutes of like a loom video and they'll go in and. Talk through for 30 minutes and I'm like, no one on your team is ever going to refer to that video ever again. And neither will you. Yeah. And so like when you are doing this, you're identifying a small portion of the process, not the whole process. And so if you're doing this payroll journal entry, then maybe it's just you recording on a video. It could be something as simple as loam, or even like, You can document it out as well. Like Lumina now has a new feature. I don't know if you've tested it out. But do you know, they have any feature where like you can record a loom video and now it like spits out all the step-by-step. It's called loom AI. And so loom AI, I think it's like an extra couple of bucks a month. And then when you record the video, you could say, write me a brief. You know, document this out for me. Like there's a bunch of different tabs. I haven't explored all the tabs.

Serena:

It's actually really

Alyssa:

cool. You could say like create the whole process with like summary and information. It's really cool. The actually process is so close. So on 0.2, it's stupid, accurate, like stupid, accurate. worth the investment in my opinion. So when you do stuff like that, doesn't need to be complicated. So people always think because corporate, especially yours, It's a document on

Serena:

a word document and take screenshots and do little red circles and all the things all manually. It took

Alyssa:

me like an hour

Serena:

to do ever. The

Alyssa:

process. So because a lot of your people are coming from a corporate and mine are coming from people who like haven't been educated on how to document these things. We think it needs to be written. That's like the old way of doing things. The new way of doing things is like, why don't we record it? I like to have different options because some of my team members like to watch and some people like to read. I'm one of those people who like just wants to high level bullet points. I don't want to watch anything. I'm just saying, I want to go to the part where

Serena:

I'm struggling with.

Alyssa:

And know that, like, if I like to timestamp parts of the SOP. So like, for example, it's like, if the SOP is like record the journal entry, they usually there's three parts of the recording. Right. It's like, The getting the reports. Crafting the journal entry. Inputting it into QBO. I like to split them and timestamp them. And that way I. And we'll do that for you. Exactly. Yeah. So then I'm timestamping but the new feature that they have, it will timestamp it on the steps, which is really cool. Can you click on this step? And it takes you to the.

Serena:

It's been awhile. Yeah. Well, There's another tool that I use to get, to get these visual Step-by-steps in a written format with the screenshots. It's called tango.

Alyssa:

Oh, I never heard of tango. I know. That

Serena:

was another option. If we want

Alyssa:

to

Serena:

write this down, cause we're going to forget all these things. But tango and scribe, how it's a Google Chrome extension.

Alyssa:

Oh tango. And you

Serena:

can, , you just dance around. Yeah. I don't even. Yeah. But like you just like, you turn it on kind of like a loom video and then you just do your process and it does screen grabs at all the clicks you make. How does that, but I

Alyssa:

think you have to like click a button to have scribe how screenshot it? No, it doesn't automatically someone in my breakthrough group. Just introduce like some other one that I forgot the name of it. anyways, the whole point of that was when you are documenting it, it really doesn't need to be crazy. But like SOP doesn't have to be like this fancy software and all these crazy things. Like we use Loom all the time. We do it for reports for our clients. We're communicating to the team about loom stuff like using Loom for that kind of stuff. So it's really just identifying, what are you trying to accomplish? Don't try to do your whole entire process. You need to identify. The one sitting either. And like, this is what I teach inside a break here is like a process is not the same. As an SOP. And I think that that's where people get confused. The SLPs are like the tiny little steps. So I'll give a great example for anyone who doesn't understand, like the difference. So we use and teach different efficiency tools inside of breakthrough. I know that you've been to my retreat. So like, you know, like the, the different efficiency tools. When you're looking at a process, we'll call the process. The onboarding process, the onboarding process is made up of so many steps. Like. Yeah, you can't just be like, I'm going to take right now in 10 minutes to do the whole entire onboarding. It's not realistic. So a process is like a bunch of steps together. Usually groups like the pre-onboarding during onboarding post onboarding. Let's usually like there's phases of things. The steps that are happening in the onboarding are the SOP is the best way I can describe it. So. For example. It might be send out the content snare requests of the questions that we have for onboarding. Like, I'm going to have an SOP for how to send a content set request. Yeah. And the cool part is I don't have to create, and this is where I see the other big mistake. Is a lot of people will be like, well, I need to create videos for every little thing. So, great example of that is that content snare. So for anyone who doesn't know what content Sarah is, it allows you the opportunity to like, it's like a Google form, but instead it's way cooler. And so with content snare, Essentially, what we can do is we can send out this onboarding form, but we also use content snare in our cleanup questions. So when we're about the, at the end of our cleanups, We send a form to our clients to ask them for, you know, things that we still might meet lingering or needing. We send out our monthly questionnaire about the questions that we have for clients, plus the documents we need from them. So on and so forth. So I'm not going to create three separate videos on how to send. Three different types of content, snare forums. The smart thing that you're going to do is, and this is what we lead in. All of our videos is, and this is exactly verbatim what I say at the very beginning of every SOP in this SOP, I'm going to show you how to. dot.dot what? Right. So I'm going to show you how to send a form through content snare. But this can apply to every form you ever sent. And I use it to say that, and I know it sounds really stupid cause everyone's like, well, that's common sense. You would be surprised how many people just skip that. And they're like, I was thinking that you're talking specifically about the onboarding one. So I have to say at the very beginning of my videos or in our SOP. the SOP might refer to. The onboarding form, but the process remains the same. You do the same thing., so instead of creating three separate videos, which is what I see all the time, people always creating separate videos per client is what I see all the time. Where it's like there is an appropriate time and place where your SOP should be. Client-specific I will say.

Serena:

Yeah. A certain process, but the entire client went, then there should

Alyssa:

be a lot of overlap, a lot of the same thing. Like there should be some, pretty straightforward stuff. So I get this a lot. Like if you have a great example is always payroll. Sometimes you get those really complicated clients that have like weird vacations and they use a different software. They're maybe using Gusto, but the other one's not right. When you find that it's way too complicated and you don't have the notes, like to be able to help someone in a different software. Then I say. Different, you know, SOP, you're gonna want to create it in a different software or for that specific client. and then the other question I always get on the backend of the SOP thing is always about, well, what about like all the, the details and all the notes and that's where me and you, both of us. And like a lot of my students is notion. So notion is where we refer to the, for the information. Cause that's why people get really confused of like, Well, if I'm not going to be client-specific, how would our team know about like the things that they need to get the thing done? Or the information, the information lives in notion. So we have client profiles inside of notion. That give information specifics. This is the software they use for payroll. This is what they use for this for receipt management XYZ. It gives the details and then we have the SLPs are like generic, but then they refer to notion. Accompanying the actual SOP itself.

Serena:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where like, cause I've, I've talked to a few students that have been like, yeah, I need different. first of all, I don't know how to hand off and delegate this because every client is different. And so I have all these different SLPs and it's like, that's when it becomes really important. And effective too, if you're not going to niche on your industry, at least say I'm only going to handle payroll in Gusto, or I'm only gonna handle bookkeeping in QuickBooks online. Yep. So that even if it's a different industry, the client like the general operating procedure is going to be the same.

Alyssa:

Yep. And I think that that's where people. Like that can go a whole nother conversation, but like a lot of people think because they've been told this, that niching means industry. Yeah, and we can go on and on about that all day that it doesn't need to be, it could be a software. Yeah. It could be a type of person. It can literally be like, I only work with multimillionaires. I only work with people who are cool as ****, like. It's so like crazy. Like you can actually drill into that. The beauty of the niche is really sometimes about the copy and like the way that you market. Yeah. Cause you talk differently when you're talking to a multimillionaire. Specifically what? To someone who's a brand new micro client.

Serena:

Yeah,

Alyssa:

I'm going to have way different conversations. So I'm going to have different reflecting copy.

Serena:

Yeah.

Alyssa:

Or marketing strategies.

Serena:

Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Alyssa:

Okay. So

Serena:

I

Alyssa:

hope that answered

Serena:

the question. I think it did. Okay. So if you're listening to this and you're still stuck on setting up, SOP's what's the best resource you could direct them to?

Alyssa:

Oh actually workflows in a weekend. Okay. Because we do, , it's like how to document workflows, which workflows are SOPs and it's a really easy intro program. It's like $37 and it'll actually have a video and also a resource of how to like document it. it also talk about the six essential questions you should always be asking, because like, I always say, you always want to answer questions before someone can ask you in all of your recipes and your information in general emails to clients. Yeah. You know, all that fun stuff.

Serena:

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. The other question. Kind of similar is, uh, proactively delegating. So before you can proactively delegate. You need to have your SOP's built out, but not always. Not always

Alyssa:

because then you don't want to get. I don't want to

Serena:

get stuck in that.

Alyssa:

Like I can't hire. Do we just say the same thing, jinx! you owe me a coke. Actually a root beer. Root beer. Stop

Serena:

pinch, poke you owe me a root beer! Doesn't even rhyme

Alyssa:

but we're going to make a rhyme. We're going to find a way to make it rhyme. I don't think that it always makes sense because this is where we both see the, a lot of people, especially in our, our programs and stuff. We see them all the time. I can't hire because I don't have all my SOP's and I can't hire because I don't have an onboarding program or, or I can't hire. There's always an, I can't hire, but just like me this morning was like, I can't do this because like, we all have like a reason and an excuse, like don't for anyone listening to this. Don't feel like you have to have that in place, because a lot of the times when you hire someone, they can help you as long as you have the confidence in the execution, because if they can't execute on it, then don't have them documented soapies. Cause then it'll create bad eggs down the line. but what I'm saying is don't let that stop you because usually when you are. Also you, when you have a fire lit under your ass, when you're about to hire and you're in like, okay, I have two weeks to prep for them. You'll get more stuff done. I can tell you this from experience. I get way more stuff done when I'm hiring someone. Same. When I hired my personal assistant, I was just like, oh my God, I have to get her like my license plate, my VIN number, my this and my that, and where my bills aren't what's on auto pay and what's not. Uh, you will do all that stuff when you know someone's coming.

Serena:

Yeah.

Alyssa:

And so if you want, you could take a couple of weeks to do it. It doesn't have to be like this crazy thing.

Serena:

Yeah. And just, and choose the bare minimum, like figure out, okay, what are the main things I want this person doing? Yeah. And create a checklist of those items and then create SOP is just for those first few items that you're going to hand off. And then, then they have the template for creating SOP is, and then you say, these are the other items you're going to be doing, but Hey, sorry. There's no SOP. So can you create it

Alyssa:

or it just like, Hey, can you flag when the task doesn't have information? Yeah. So we use a tag inside of a sauna that's called Nita SOP. So that way, like if it's missing information or missing details and like the rule on the team as they tag it into red, so we pull a report. So then we can just see on a monthly basis, what SOP's we need to create for stuff. So that's really helpful for anybody. Who's is a project management system. You can do it in most systems. It doesn't need to be Asana. But usually they're call it, some way to flag it some way to flag this thing. I had a really good thing that I wanted to say. And then it just like, like freaking butterflies, just flies away now. It'll come back to you, butterflies. We'll come back because it was a really good idea. And like, everyone always says what Alyssa, if it was a really good idea to remember, I'm like, no, That's why

Serena:

I take

Alyssa:

excessive notes. All these poses with ideas. It's literally over while we were talking about that today. I can't remember what it is, but hopefully eventually it comes back. It was really good. And it was a really good tip. I wanted to give. But anyways, it was about

Serena:

hiring and. Creating an SOP.

Alyssa:

Yeah. No, it's not coming. Not coming back. Or man, but idea. It's just like, Ooh, it just fell off the ledge that we're sitting on. Good luck with your rest of your podcast. It's going to drive me insane. I'm thinking about the whole time. Yeah. But what were we talking about a second ago? See memories. Problems.

Serena:

Yeah. Yes, proactively delegating.

Alyssa:

I remember what it was. Okay. I'm so sorry to interrupt you. I'm so excited. It was okay. So today me and Serena were working through, so actually right before this, because of my, my plan is to hiring a, hire a marketing assistant for workflow queen. That's like my new hire that I'm going through. And I was showing her something. I was like, can I show you some of the things that I'm doing right now? And I pulled up a quick little spreadsheet and the spreadsheet said all the things that I want to like, I want them to do on that same spreadsheet. I don't know if he noticed it, but there's a tab that says, SOP created. With a question mark and say yes or no. And so I actually, what I do is, okay, so just to give everyone context, this is such a great resource, actually give it, I think, inside of workflows in a weekend. If not, I plan to come out and I'm just going to tell the world the new program. It's, I'm very excited about it. It's going to be about the hiring. and it's just solely that because so many people asked me to just do a program and only hiring and not all the other pieces that we give inside a breakthrough. Cause breakthrough is more comprehensive. This would be like, just about the hiring, the interview questions, job description. But this was one of the resources that I want to provide. So once it gets out, we will tell the world until you guys, but anyways, until then, Just get yourself a quick little Google sheet or an Excel, doesn't matter where you put it. And what I did was I just created like, just a simple resource that says like task. And then it says, like, who would do it? Like the role itself, how much time is spent on that task? is there an SOP or a resource created for it? It's as simple as that, it's nothing complicated. Nothing fancy. And what I do is I actually bookmark. That spreadsheet on my tab whenever I'm about to hire. So with this marketing person, Every time something comes up. I just go in there and I'm like, like today you were like, oh, we reshare our podcast thing to your YouTube shorts. I'm like, oh, that's a great idea. I've never like, thought about that, but I would love for someone else to do it. Cause I don't want to do it. So I went to my little spreadsheet and I pulled it up and you're like, oh, what's that? And I was like, oh yeah, this is what I just brain dump the things I want someone to do. So for anyone listening, you might have never hired. So you might be like, I feel like I'm just. Throwing in random things. One's an assistant it could do in an account manager can do. That's great. It's really good. That's why you have a roll column that would say. Eventually you'd go through your spreadsheet and say, what role would actually be playing for that task? Like who would I assign this to? It not assigning names, it's the role. So it'd be like bookkeeper or assistant or whatever that looks like. So that's why I wanted to share that was because that's been really helpful for me. Yeah, because one, it helps me build my job descriptions because now I can go back to it helps be my roadmap, because I think I have like an easy, medium, hard tab, two. That pretty much like each task I can say what would be easy, medium hard. And this doesn't go in the project management system yet. This is just like my ideas of what I'd like for this person to take over. Will they write away all of it? No, and sometimes it goes to another person on the team, but it helps me get it out. And then it also acts as my own list. So when I do hire them, I'm like cool. That's all the things I need to create. Resources. Maybe the resource is, we're going to do YouTube shorts. Here's the link to the YouTube channel. Here's how often I want to do it. Here's how long the clips need to be. That's what we're talking about. Does it need to be an SOP? Sometimes it really is just like information. so it acts as a checklist. So for anyone hiring and wanting to delegate, you might not be able to afford it right now. You might not be ready for it, but I do say proactively just bookmark a spreadsheet. On on your tab, when things come up that you hate doing, or you don't want to do anymore, just throw it on the spreadsheet. Yeah. Use that as your list. And that will be really helpful for you.

Serena:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That kind of rolls into like what I was, I think of what I was about to say about like, being proactive about delegating. if you already have. Team members and they have capacity. But you're not sure like what you need to be handing off. that's what you need to be doing. Like, look at what you're doing on a day-to-day basis. Like look at things from a different lens as you're doing them. And. Like listen and pay attention to your own reaction of the task. Like you hate it. Like. Am I dreading this every time this happens. I look at it. Am I avoiding this task, like put, throw that on a list. And then like, if you already have a team, you can bring it up at your next team meeting. Like, Hey team. Like I, I got these, these off my plate. Who, who wants to volunteer before I tell you more

Alyssa:

things that you hate? What is it? The trash that's your treasure. Yeah, your treasuries. Someone's trash. Someone

Serena:

else's

Alyssa:

treasure. I mess up every slowly. It could be ever made. We're just like Tweedledee and Tweedledum. It's been a long day. We've been in the lake in the summer. I'm going to blame the lake in the sun. But yes, that's the thing is like the things that I no longer remember when you first started your business. And like categories. Transactions was like the most exciting part of your day. And it's like, oh, here's the bell guys. Just so you know, it's top of the hour. So it's going to go on for six rings.

It's 7:

00 PM guys. Yeah. So I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to deal with this loud ringing for a second. What was I saying? Oh, oh, people on your team. I have like the worst memory in the whole world. That people on your team, you'd be really surprised. And when we first started our business used to get excited about the stupidest little things that we hate now. Yeah, I hate pulling statements. Hate like a lot of different things. Like, I really like genuinely I'm like, Ooh, like I don't want to do that. But then, like, I also like new things. So like the same thing goes for your team. That's why they call it the S curve. The S curve means that you always have to keep your team. Wanting more and doing other things or else you're going to lose them. That's why people get bored and they leave for other jobs. money too, as well as another thing that. Yeah, in recognition or the culture. There's a lot of different reasons why the recipe for why someone would stay with you. But one of the biggest things is because people get bored in their spot. And so same thing. Imagine yourself, how you get bored of your own things you want to ask your team to. Hey guys, I've got these 10 things that I'd love to outsource. Anybody want to jump ship Burton on jump ship.

Serena:

Do you want to stay on the ship and stay up? The sip and go to a different department.

Alyssa:

What is it? The Bo. What are they going? I'm going to go on deck. You want to go down? I'm going to go to go down under. Do you want to be with the sharks or you want to be on the boat? And you ask, are you saying whatever? Anyways, but what I'm trying to say is that like a lot of the times. Just because you hate something like, and sometimes even the things that you think is hard. Cause I, a lot of people hate, especially in our industry, hate marketing. You might think everybody hates it, but not everyone does. Like people who get lit up. I used to, I remember like when I started breakthrough and I was trying to discern, if I wanted to like, create a job description for them for a bookkeeper assistant.'cause a lot of people were like, nobody wants to be like an assistant their bookkeeper. I can tell you right now, if I did not own my business and someone offered me a bookkeeper assistant where I could still answer the phone, plus do the bookkeeping. I would've jumped on it. Yeah. Cause when I was little. When, you know, when you're little and you play with sisters and your brothers and stuff, I was both president and secretary at the exact same time. I wanted to answer the phone and rule the world. Yeah. My sister, I don't know what she was doing, to be honest. And all the other stuffed animals sitting there watching.

Serena:

What was that stuffed animal last night, we were watching that.

Alyssa:

Imaginary was a movie, but his name was. Cola Claude clouds. Claudia. Well, Clyde. Oh, it wasn't quite, it was for sure. No, it

Serena:

wasn't.

Alyssa:

Chesney. Cheyenne. I know.

Serena:

No. No, it was a C

Alyssa:

Chauncey John Josie.

Serena:

Okay.

Alyssa:

We're done with that.

Serena:

Yeah.

Alyssa:

Um, it's a long day.

Serena:

Alyssa. Been making me watch scary movies and then getting mad that I scream.

Alyssa:

Every time never fails. She scares my dog to. And the whole process. It's a whole thing.

Serena:

Uh, okay. yeah, to answer the double. I think we've effectively. I answered the proactively delegating question. Okay. If we didn't just let us know. So, okay. So we've been chatting off your ears for so long.

Alyssa:

Hmm.

Serena:

Is there any other topic that you wanted to dive into?

Alyssa:

Let's get into some advisory stuff. He advised, it sounds like we've been talking for a while, but really this is part two. So. They might not think that it's actually, it's been 37 minutes. Yeah. That's not bad. Okay. They can handle more. If not, they can pause. You can come back. Tucker Jucker kids in. I'll be back for your bedtime story. What do you want to talk about winning? I feel like a lot of people are really overwhelmed by the topic of advisory. And I think a lot of times it's, there's this natural like, overwhelmed with like, they think it needs to be these like large chaotic corporate type of advisory. So I just want to kind of like dive into like, Why you went into advisory and I know that, I don't know if you want to share this, so I don't know if I should say it, but I'm going to say it anyways, because we've been transparent, just like I am. But I know that you have been pulling off of. Advisory because you're like, I'm not in that season, going back to. Yeah, the circle. Naturally being podcasters. We'll circle of the season of life, but because you are doing some of your advisory, I know that you have, one of your, team members. I forgot his name. I'm so sorry, Brett. Uh, Brett. And he does the videos though, but not necessarily meeting with the clients. Right? Yeah. As of right now, I would love to talk about like how, like, It's nice to have when you know, you want to push it, but then also it's okay to like, say I don't feel like doing it

Serena:

right now. I actually have definitely some thoughts on this and I think I've done a couple. Social posts about this. I definitely put it on threads. I don't know if you're on threads or not. But I can't keep her. I can give up. I've been enjoying, just hanging out on threads. It's like a new, it's just a change. But anyways, So. it sounds like I'm shooting myself in the foot because I literally have a program that teaches you advisory, but hear me out.

Alyssa:

But you can also crank it up. You could turn on that faucet so you can bring the clients in on advisory. I have every right to teach it,

Serena:

but my beef is with our industry. Is that. like all the other gurus. I mean, I don't consider myself a guru, but I know I'm like lumped into this like. Uh,

Alyssa:

people will look up. Yeah. We're lumped

Serena:

into this like accounting influencers type base. Space where like, cause we have a podcast and like we've evolved. Uh, every other. One of those people in that, in this space that teach other bookkeepers and are trying to create programs and courses and do coaching and all this kind of stuff. I think like a hundred percent of the other people are pushing. Like you have to learn advisory. You're obsolete. You're a commodity bookkeeping as a commodity, and I call bull**** on

Alyssa:

that. And also you, did you notice the word you use that they have to?

Serena:

Yeah,

Alyssa:

they put the scarcity that if you're not. Well, yeah, there is, you will fail. They're staring. Yes. Oh yeah. 100%. There is there,

Serena:

there, it's a scare, tactic to get you to buy their programs or to get their coaching or whatever, to someone who sells these types of things. We get the tactics like. Like I, we, yeah, I get it. And like I said, I'm probably shooting myself in the foot, but I also have like something else to say about this and. Like the whole point is.

Alyssa:

Like I'm glitching. Yeah, you are. You're glitching. I'm seeing it in your eyes. You guys can see her, but I think she's looking robotic right now.

Serena:

I get so worked up over this because I disagree. You were bookkeeping as an auto commodity. No, it's N it's wait. Can we. What is the

Alyssa:

definition? commodity. It's like when you need to eat. Right. Uh, commodity is working your pantry.

Serena:

Is it legit? Uh, resource. So like we have resources that are commodities. I'm really sorry. I swear, people like that, that the price of them are, is always low because it's like a necessity. So, so that's a commodity. Yeah. Economics is like, the price is always going to be driven down because there's so much competition because there's so many people producing this thing. That's got. So it's always, someone's going to look at it as something that's like exactly what. So that's where kind of, that comes from, but there's so much fear mongering about it, where it's like, bookkeeping is a commodity. You can't set yourself apart, unless you do advisory and you have to learn this other skill, but like, I call bull**** on that too, because how you and I were talking earlier about like, you can provide an exceptional level of service and charge more for it. Yes. When you're talking about really on communication

Alyssa:

and client like experiences, like you, you can literally charge. Double what the next A bookkeeper is charging just because you overly communicate and in obviously a healthy way, overly communicate and you give them a really good client experience. Yeah. Because you make them feel seen and you make them feel heard. Yeah. I am. AI is not going to give them that experience. Absolutely not. And not only that, but also, so isn't the other one who's trying to manage, like all these clients, like on their own. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like, yeah, I am right there with you because like, I go through phases too, where I'm like, I don't want to do. Even offer the advisory, even from like, cause now we have like our account manager. I don't want her to, I just like I'm so I'm over it. Like, not that I'm over it. I should not say that to the universe because the universe keeps giving me exactly what I say. Lately, and it's just all bad, but what I mean by that is like, we're going to

Serena:

choose to you. Don't have to offer it to every client. I have to pick and choose which clients you want to offer it to.

Alyssa:

And you don't have to make it complicated. The whole point of the question too was, There's this idea that it needs to be this really complicated thing. When, like, I'll give you the great example of the email I was telling you about this morning that we received from our client. So one of my clients emailed and was asking about, Hey guys, like she's currently in their cleanup phase right now. She emailed our team and she pretty much said, I have a contractor that wants to essentially charge me more. Can I afford it? And I said, you know, I had, I gave the guidance to our account manager. I said, you need to let her know that unfortunately, like we that's consulting. And I think that that's where people get confused because they think that, well, I'm just being helpful. I'm just answering the question. We talked about this this morning, literally, about which I even asked you. I said, would you, would this be advisory? I was literally being coached by you this morning. And you were like, no, absolutely. You were in the right to say it's $250 for an hour. Here's our consulting link because we're not welcome in the advisory package. Yes. She's not in the advisory package yet. She's just in a regular bookkeeping and also cleanup. Right. she gets monthly reports, but our monthly reports, aren't going to be like, Hey, this is, you can afford to hire you. More people. It doesn't do that. The conversation. It's so different because there's so many intricacies. so when we were talking today was a good conversation to kind of segue into what we're talking about now. I was just like, so is it weird? And I was like, you know, what would you do the same? She's like, yeah, because then the conversation, when it becomes a back and forth, that's how, you know, like you can't just like make a decision right now a yes or no.

Serena:

Yeah.

Alyssa:

Then, you know, that's advisory. And so then you need to be charging for it. If a client simply says, I feel like you can just email me and have this conversation. Yeah. I'm happy to charge you hourly via the email as well.

Serena:

Yeah, but

Alyssa:

like, it's really up to you, but for me, I'd rather have face to face or like on zoom because there's so many questions. There's so many layers to answer that question. Not just like an easy yes or no. So then what I sent her, I said, unfortunately, we're in the cleanup phase. So like, cause she asked me when we're going to get our monthly reports right after that, I said we're in the cleanup phase. So like you can get your reports at any time, but here's how to do it with a video SOP for her, my client, you can use SLPs for your clients to people. Um, and we sent her the video. I'm pretty much just said, this is how you pull your own reports. But just to clarify there one, not going to be accurate, cause we're still cleaning up. Cause we're waiting on your answers. And to like, you're also not just going to get a straight answer, looking at your own P and L. I said, but you have the confidence to make a decision and we're going to stand behind it no matter what. But I really do encourage you to get on a call with our team and like ask the question and like that way we can go back and forth with you. Yeah. And that is advisory. Yeah. And I think a lot of people think it needs to be like these crazy spread because they put it in our mind. Like you said, all these people that. These spreadsheets and all these things and all these resources. It's

Serena:

like, if you want to package it as an offer, yes. You do have to have certain things and structures behind what you're doing. If you're going to offer. a quarterly cadence of re forecasting. And looking at their profitability and structure it like an offer. You can absolutely do that. as a package and charge a really high rate for that. But for like the bookkeeping clients who are also getting advisory for free. Yeah. Like you just have to be really clear about like, yes. That was included in the top tier package that we offered you. However you selected this one and, you can still get access to.

Alyssa:

you still get the access, but you have to pay. Yeah. That's all you're saying. Yeah. And I think a lot of people struggle with that too, that conversation. So I'd love to hear from what you have to say. About what would you suggest to someone who does get, what if they like, think I'm being greedy? Because that's a big thing that people go through with the mindset of like, am I being wrong, my nitpicking, or like, what's the right word? Where like, it's like, nickel and diming. There we go. Let's say tongue and grooving, but I'm like, that's my ceiling. No what's happening right now. But nickel and dimed. Yeah. Yeah. It's just in my brain all the time.

Serena:

So, yeah, a lot of that. I would say if you're struggling with having that conversation, Number one. Your client likely knows that they're going to pay for this and are expecting it to, but you have to be the one to say, so. not every clinic is going to be like, how much, how much do I owe you for this? Like, that's not how that works. I am too. So

Alyssa:

like, Hey, I know, I understand that you have to paint the sexual part of my house. Like I'm not expecting you to just do it for free. So I mean immediately like make the conversation that like, charge me whatever you want,

Serena:

because I know that so many people have difficulty with that conversation. Yeah. And I don't want them to feel uncomfortable.

Alyssa:

Yeah.

Serena:

And so that's number one, they probably are expecting to pay for it. And you just have to be clear and bill them for it. Yeah. Like be clear upfront, and then also, still build them for it. Also,

Alyssa:

if you think that they don't expect it that's because you've told yourself that.

Serena:

Yeah, that's what I was going to say is you're number two, you're pushing your own. money, mindset and blocks onto your client. And assuming that they have the same issue. They are

Alyssa:

assuming that they're going to be offended that you asked him.

Serena:

Yeah. Yeah. But. This is all business people.

Alyssa:

Yeah. It's really, doesn't have to be all emotional. Yeah, unless you want to

Serena:

make it. Yeah. So anyway, that's my feeling on advisory. and not just communication and client service, there are other little things that you can do that are considered advisory. That you can add to your regular bookkeeping packages to elevate that client experience. And one of them. You just set his records and that's, your problem

Alyssa:

is a lot of people think that you always have to get on calls. Uh, some advisory doesn't need calls.

Serena:

Yeah,

Alyssa:

like your advisory can be like in a five

Serena:

minute loom video that goes over their financials.

Alyssa:

Or even like, simple, like, monthly reports that like have like written out context and details about certain things that, Hey, we also adjusted it here for us. We have like a goal planning, like spreadsheet that like, essentially at the very beginning, we want to know like, how many hours do you want to work? Because that really changes the way that you make money. Like, cause people think they want to make a million. It's like, but how much do you want to work? And it's like, but you don't got the team. So we're asking all these questions and then we put like our forecast. And then from there we put like different goals and stuff. And that we don't even have to technically get on a call if we don't want to.

Serena:

Yeah.

Alyssa:

They have access to everything, but we do like, but you don't have to, you could do that over a loom video and a

Serena:

Voxer conversation. And here's something. Yeah, it doesn't have to be complicated. Yeah. And like delivering monthly reports and then giving them bullet points of what's in the report like, oh, this expense was higher than last month. Ask the question. Why? Or if. You know why for. Yeah.

Alyssa:

It's like points things out and stuff like that. Yeah. It doesn't have to be an hour call. And if you are doing a call, I think a lot of people think that it needs to be, it could be. Like, if you give people an hour, people will fit an hour. Yeah. Yeah. What park park is it Parkinson's law.

Serena:

It is.

Alyssa:

Is it. The saying the word that was like the one where people forget things.

Serena:

That's Alzheimer's.

Alyssa:

No, but there's another word with a P

Serena:

Parkinson's disease.

Alyssa:

Oh, I knew that. Yeah. Yeah, that's very, very, why do they do this to us? Anyways, but like people will fill it. So like, if you give it 30 minutes, like the conversation with the client's going to be a lot faster, a lot swifter. They're going to come in prepared and. You're just going to say your clients will appreciate you cutting out.

Serena:

You're out. We're asking the other kids. I'm

Alyssa:

like, I don't want to know.

Serena:

After an hour, I started doing

Alyssa:

word stuff my own. I started saying weird things and I don't understand what's happening half the time. No,

Serena:

but like your clients are busy business owners, most likely. And they actually probably don't want to be on a call for an hour. And that's why we developed the five minute loom video. Yeah. Because we had so many clients that we just weren't booking their calls. Yeah, because they don't want to get on the frickin phone call with their account. And that **** stresses people out.

Alyssa:

Like I have a social media managers and I love them because they only do once a month monthly call, which I really like. Yeah. And we do both companies cause they manage both of them all in one call and I absolutely love it, but I remember my prior social media managers wanted to do a call like once a week or biweekly, like an hour. And I was like, dude, One half the time. Like when my social media Andrews are doing reports, I love it. Cause they do like this little presentation. I do appreciate it. But at the same time, like, I just want to know, like, I just want to be able to tell you what I want to have done, how you guys get there. I don't care about the stats. I just care that you are. Educated enough in what your zone of genius is to be able to tell me Alyssa we're concerned because I don't know what the numbers are. I don't want to know. I don't want to keep up with it. I just want to know that Alyssa, we are actually concerned about your numbers. We need to pivot. Okay. What do we need to do? Here are some ideas I've had, and that's what I appreciate about them. They will show me some of the numbers separate a lot of times predominantly the conversation. Is me word vomiting all over them. All the things that I want to do.

Serena:

You just said is so valuable from the perspective of our clients, because they feel the same way. They don't actually want to go all the detail of the financial statements. They want to know if something's wrong.

Alyssa:

Answered. And my clients do. And I think that's why they really appreciate our advisory. Like what we do. Especially when I was doing a lot of like our calls with our clients. Like, I really loved it because no joke, it would be, oh my God. You know, things are just going really weird. I feel like I just keep getting people wanting refunds or something like that. The real conversation, shouldn't be, oh, let's just like, get a refund back and send an email. We'll do you have good terms and conditions? Do you have a lawyer in your back pocket? Can I introduce you to somebody? Our advisory ends up being like almost business advice a little bit. but at the same time, it's like, I'm not going to tell them what to put in the contract. I'm not going to tell them how to build out terms and conditions. But because I have industry insight going back to full circling. back to like the niche and because I work in a very specific industry, me and, you know, those things, we know that like, well, do you have those things? Because then people can't back out of Their payment terms, like they're stuck in their payment terms. And so on and so forth. And I think that advisory can turn into it. Doesn't. I don't want to sit and look at a report to be honest, like I could care less. I could be like, you don't have to show it to me. You just tell me when there's a problem that I need to be concerned about. And then, let me tell you what I want to pivot and you give me the advice that I need to move.

Serena:

Yeah.

Alyssa:

Yeah,

Serena:

I like high level bullet points too. So for like all of our clients, we give the five minute loom video. actually, we opened up a new package because even not all of our clients were watching that. So we were like, okay, our base base package still gets all the reports, but instead of a loom video, you just get an email with bullet points of like, this is your revenue. This is your expenses. This is what's different over the last month. Yeah. Blah, blah, blah. And like, as a business owner, like we were just saying, I don't want to watch a live video. I want to see. High level. I want a glass. I want to skim and I want to glance and get all the information I need. Five seconds. Like snapshot. Yeah. I love that. So, Anyways, I teach all of that inside of elevate.

Alyssa:

She does. Oh, my God. We'll put the links to all the things below people. Cause I feel like we just dropped. So many tech, but it's

Serena:

not like necessary. That's the other thing too, is like your business will still survive without offering advisory, but there's all these little ideas that you can implement. That are still considered advisory and we'll elevate your client experience. And so, that resource is there for you. Okay, it's getting kind of late. I have to

Alyssa:

really go to the bathroom.

Serena:

Okay. But first I have a game.

Alyssa:

Oh, shoot.

Serena:

It was, this is going to be so much fun. This is the first time ever I am doing this.

Alyssa:

You didn't even tell me.

Serena:

I'm springing it on you.

Alyssa:

Oh, I love this. I like this game.

Serena:

So what I did. And I'm, I might start doing this with my future guests. Okay. So just be aware, anyone listening that wants to be, a guest, not for my strategy guests, but like interview guests. So. What I did is I Googled Alyssa Lang.

Alyssa:

Oh, shoot. There's a famous. Famous a sports reporter. I know.

Serena:

Yeah. That's where I'm going with this.

Alyssa:

No.

Serena:

So there is in case you didn't know there's a famous sports reporter. I think she reports on football for yes.

Alyssa:

uh S E C I've looked her up. I'm trying to beat her ranking in SEO.

Serena:

It's not happening by the way.

Alyssa:

I know it's not, but I'm telling you, that's my goal. So. We're going to know.

Serena:

So I Googled Alyssa Lang and was like, okay, cool. She has someone else with her same name that has a lot of stuff on the internet. And so this game is who said it. You have to know if this is something she said, or you said. Oh, the Alyssa Lang, the sports reporter or Alyssa Lang the workflow queen. Okay. Tell me. Okay. This is so freaking fun. Okay. Oh man, it's been incredible. It's a dream come true. Still for me. Sometimes I have to pinch myself like this morning.

Alyssa:

Nope, absolutely not. Not me.

Serena:

Oh, it was Alyssa Lang the sports reporter. Yeah. Okay. Is it right? You're right. I'm like, I don't talk like that.

Alyssa:

No.

Serena:

And can you do like special effects? Okay. Like she gets it wrong, do a buzzer. Okay. Delegating. It is kind of weird as a local reporter. You're kind of really fighting for that interview. And you're trying to get all the access you can. What I'm going to say. Freebie. Okay. Really that just gave it away. His literal reporter in there. I. I know. Yeah, that's too much. I should have mixed things up differently. Yeah. Okay. Whenever I'm deciding on big decisions of like I'm torn between. I gave it away. Okay, should I do it? Should I say yes or should I say no or whatever it is? I play this game or I make someone else play rock paper, scissors. Yep. That's me. Okay. For a bonus point, you have to tell me where that

Alyssa:

came

Serena:

from.

Alyssa:

Where you said that, uh, that was in the podcast episode that we did when I was in my trailer when I was in side of Zion and we, I had my glitchy. Zoom thing. And I remember, I couldn't see you on the thing.

Serena:

Holy shit.

Alyssa:

I can't even remember what I was talking about this whole episode. I told you, I remember really weird, weird things. I can remember every single interview I've ever done with anybody.

Serena:

Oh, link back on that. interview episode that was on Alyssa's podcast of, was it? I thought it was on years. Maybe we earned it on both then?

Alyssa:

No, we've never aired. Because I pulled that off of your podcast.

Serena:

Did. Transcript.

Alyssa:

I remember that cause it was glitching and like it kept Cutting in and out. That is so crazy. And that was like a year or two ago too, because I was in Zion. That was right after I bought my travel trailer and I came to visit you. Oh, my gosh. I love it. The um like gave it away in a heartbeat. All right. That concludes our game. You won. I am the new When of games, you. Let's just talk real quick. The fact that I beat you and Erin last night in Ono three times, three times, which guys by the way was the only times we played. So pretty much I really won

Serena:

yeah,

Alyssa:

they were really sad.

Serena:

We're both on the edge of winning multiple times,

Alyssa:

but did you, it doesn't count if you were almost there.

Serena:

The longest Uno games ever.

Alyssa:

Yeah. But I still won to stop making excuses. I want you to say that I won because I won. Oh, Alyssa wins.

Serena:

She's very competitive.

Alyssa:

Yeah. I am competitive that is true. It's okay.

Serena:

That's fine. All right with that. Um, wrap up the wrap-up is if you can. Maybe we should do a pop quiz. To a listener and be like, if you can answer all these questions, right. You'll get some swag in the mail. Ooh. Okay. I'll have to think about this pop quiz.

Alyssa:

Pop quiz. Isn't a pop quiz. You're supposed to ask the questions on the fly. Well, okay. Pop quiz. Okay, we're going to ask questions that have to do with the episode. Yes. What is the

Serena:

soda that we both drink?

Alyssa:

Ooh, that's a good one. Yeah. I was thinking about like, Like strategy things, but, okay. Okay. Um, how does Serena really feel about advisory and people? What they say in.

Serena:

Got a little bit passionate. Yeah, you

Alyssa:

did. I saw it on your face too like, I love it. You like hot when you do like when you act like that? Okay. What's another one. what was the thing that was going off in the middle of the episode and how many times did it ring? Oh ****. Well, how many times did it ring? They have to know that. Yeah.

Serena:

Okay.

Alyssa:

Because we said it was a certain hour.

Serena:

Yeah. Okay. And then, How did we meet? that's a third. It was a part line doesn't matter. They have to have listened to both of these.

Alyssa:

That's what I'm saying. They have to go back to part one. Yeah. So you have to know how did we meet? I think we did a really long story. Yeah. You can condense it. Bullet points. Remember people. We Like bullet points.

Serena:

Yeah. So, um, how are they going to get this? Swag. Oh, Oh, no. What you guys should do actually is you should put it in a podcast review.

Alyssa:

Oh, No, we can't do that. Oh, gosh. Fine Yolo. You only live once people. That's what Drake says. Okay. Put it in a review and be like, I really love this episode. They are so much fun together. I have to actually review the episode and please get it 5 stars. At the bottom and be like, here's my answers. Yeah. And then you have to screenshot it and email it. To either one of us, cause we'll share it with each other. So either support@workflowqueen.com or support@ambitiousbookkeeper.com. We've confused them thoroughly so hard that no one's going to do this, but I have a feeling that they're going to keep up with us because at this point, if they've made it to part two this far in. They have ping-ponged alongside us. But they are ping-pong you belong here. You are. This is your space. If you've made it this far. You are one of us. You have come to the dark side. Sounds really culty. Yeah. We talked about throwing babies off roofs and stuff. I didn't say roofs. I said the ledge. When I was talking about sacrificing people, I did not say it in a bad way. He caught the end of that. For context, listen to the episode because I don't need to be canceled.

Serena:

All right. And with that, that concludes this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much, Alyssa, for playing along with my silly little game.

Alyssa:

Thank you for being here in real life. Yeah. And making you money I'm gonna make you scream. Later to watch scary movies, people. Scary movies. We're going to watch scary movies, able to make her scream because that's what she does when she watches. Just fade this out. Bye.

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