The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast

LIMITED ⎸ The Bookkeeping Biz Workshops Day 3

• Serena Shoup, CPA

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Welcome to this special workshop series that will only be up for a LIMITED TIME (Till December 1st) where we're diving deep into what it really takes to start and run a virtual bookkeeping business.

This is the final episode of our three-part Bookkeeping Business Workshop series, where we're diving deep into designing the business. We're talking about your ideal business, your perfect-fit clients, and we're demystifying the sales process because I know that part freaks a lot of you out.

In this episode you’ll hear:

  • How to design your dream bookkeeping business
  • The exact framework for identifying your perfect-fit client
  • My four-step discovery call structure that makes selling feel natural
  • The complete roadmap for getting your bookkeeping business up and running

Resources mentioned in this episode:

  • Get the Templates & Workbook for $27: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/offers/VhYZ8Efs
  • Get the special code and the discount for 20% off the Bookkeeping Business Accelerator, Self-Paced before December 1st at: ttps://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/subscribe
  • Elevate: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/elevate

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

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In today's video or podcast, if you're listening on the podcast, this is the third and Final Bookkeeping Biz Workshops, and at the end of today's workshops, I am going to be talking about my program, the Bookkeeping Business Accelerator. However, I am talking about The VIP version of the accelerator, which is not open for enrollment right now, but you can jump into the self-paced version and if you are watching this while it's still live or listening, while it's still live until December 1st, there is a Black Friday special. So make sure you are subscribed to my email. Go to ambitious bookkeeper.com/subscribe so that you get the special code and the discount for 20% off the Bookkeeping Business Accelerator, self-paced. Now, without further ado, let's jump into today's final workshop. Today we are diving in to designing and selling, creating a business that you love. today is all about dreaming. big, building a business instead of a job. sometimes I call it a jobbie, which is a hobby and a job. And we don't want, to treat this like a hobby because that means you're not making money. And we also don't wanna treat it like a job because you're not looking to quit your nine to five working for one boss just to go and have 10 or so bosses. Am I right? I am okay with calling it a side hustle because honestly, even though I consider myself a CEO or a business owner, I still consider this a side hustle to motherhood. That is my main priority. and yeah. So are you guys ready to start dreaming? Yeah. Who here has done a goal setting exercise recently for your business? Or will this be the first. Awesome. First time says Sonya and Petra. Yes. Did some goal setting and need to revamp. It's always a good thing to revisit this. I try to revisit this exercise at least once a year, sometimes mid-year. And, uh, yeah, I've been working in bookkeeper launch. I've done one, but man, do I need to again and things change, right? Seasons of our lives change. We need to re-look at things and, sometimes pivot. So let's get into it. So today we are going to work on dream up your ideal business, and your perfect fit client, which is also known as an ideal client or ideal client. Avatar is something that floats around, in the space a lot as well. And then we're gonna dive into a little sales 1 0 1. And then I'll talk about details at the very end about the bookkeeping business. Accelerators, you are in no way obligated to stay for that. but I will be going through what's in that program should you decide to continue along on this journey with me. so today we're going to go through these, these two top things. The ideal business and your perfect fit client to help you stay focused on achieving what you really want out of your business. So I really encourage you to work through this exercise, keep an open mind, so that when you're deciding whether you think a, a client is a good fit or not, you can come back to this exercise that you've done and know it's in your workbook. So if you haven't yet, pull up your workbook, print it out. Grab a journal, whatever works for you. Like I said yesterday, I love actually writing these things down as we go through them. writing things down is really effective even if you don't refer back to it. can you think of an example when you've written something down for, completely forgotten about it, and then later found that list or that goal? and realize that it had come to a fruition without you really ever thinking about it again. Gonna pivot. Pivot with the couches. Yeah. so I've had this happen so many times throughout the years that when I write down what I want, like I, I talked about this briefly the other day, how I'll like do scripting and write things out. Sometimes I just do it once and then I go back to an old journal and I start flipping through things and I'm just like, oh my gosh, I wrote that down once and it came to fruition. It happened like maybe a year later, maybe two or three years later. and so yeah, that's always really fun. Also, writing stuff down solidifies it in your subconscious. So that's part of why. I'm asking you to write these things down. okay. I put a vision board on my desktop. I love that strategy. For a long time I would create vision boards, like in Canva and then put them on my phone screen. that's a really good way to get into your subconscious. It does work. My tax note, I cannot remember what I wrote years ago. I jokingly created a vision board. I giggle when, five years after I did it, everything there happened. Yeah. Isn't that wild when that kind of stuff happens? a vacation with fam on my vision board happened like that. Awesome. Okay. And also, when we go through these things, whatever you write down today and decide on it can change. Just like we talked about a minute ago. It can, you wanna revisit this, things change. Seasons of lives change, lives change. and sometimes you have to pivot. so just know that it's not set in stone. And just because you decide that today doesn't mean like as you start working in your business, you might decide that's not the right fit. So, my ideal client has changed since I started my business. Uh, so just because you write it down doesn't mean you can't change it., You can literally rewrite your story. so I'm gonna ask you guys to predict tonight through the chat so I can help you dream big. And with that, the easiest way to cast a vision for me anyways, this is what I like to share, is to begin with the end in mind because this will ultimately be your vision for your company and your why. and like I said, even though what you think is the end, what the end in mind now can change, but at least it's gonna give you a roadmap to move forward with now. and don't worry about like, well, what if I decide to change things later on or whatever. Don't worry about that, Right now fig, think about what feels right in your mind right now for the end when you're thinking about it. because when things get tough, 'cause they will, this is what I want you to come back to and that's why I also want you to fill out the workbook so you have something tangible to look at. Erica says, I have written down bookkeeping goals and have revisited it a year later, and nothing came to fruition, mainly because I ended up caring for my parents. Did a better process for sure, and that's okay. Things like that happen too. and now when you go back and look at those goals, like you can decide if that still feels right for you to pursue those goals that you wrote down or if they need to change because of current circumstances. so I want you to ask, answer these questions as we go through tonight, as if nothing were standing in your way. Don't hold yourself back with where you're at in your current circumstances. I want this to be, if everything worked out the way you wanted it to, nothing is standing in your way. This is the end in mind, remember, and there's no limits. This is, this is how big I want you to dream. So what is your purpose? And this is a good time to either write it down in a journal or, write it on the workbook or type it in their workbook. What kind of impact are you having? So just to like your wheels turning. I feel that my, and you can have something very similar. Don't feel like, oh no, I don't wanna steal your thing, but my purpose is to help other business owners and accountants like you guys achieve their dreams, get time back in their day with their families, and create an asset and a legacy with their businesses, not just income for one generation. And that can be impact with your clients, that can be impacting your community, that can be impact with your family. Remember, if nothing were standing in your way, this is the end in mind. This is the ultimate goal. We're dreaming really big. We want it to feel scary and maybe a little bit intangible. What qualities does your ideal client have? List out the qualities of your perfect fit client. This does not have to be the client's industry, but rather other qualities like. Fun to work with or easy to communicate with. Maybe willing to learn about their numbers or the type of business or entity they are, like solo entrepreneurs, or in my case, I work with online businesses. And then how do you spend most of your time each day at work? Are you reconciling accounts? Are you posting transactions or overseeing a team of other bookkeepers and meeting with clients? Maybe you're completely hands off at this point in your business. it's running like a well well-oiled machine in 10 years. you are basically collecting passive income because you've created a system and like I said, a machine. And remember, I'm speaking about the future. It doesn't have to start out this way, and it sure as heck probably won't. Uh, but if you hold a vision to not be the technician forever, then what do you want to be doing in or on the business instead? Maybe you're angel investing, maybe you're home with grandkids or traveling. and if you hold that vision, the decisions that you make along the way. We'll help you reach that point because it will always be in the back of your mind and you will make decisions based on does this align with my ultimate vision? It'll help you choose whether something you're doing is helping you move closer to that vision or further away and detracting or distracting you from that, I constantly have to come back to like, what is the main goal, because there's always cool new, shiny things that could be done. Keeper, for example, is an, is an example that came up yesterday in the tech workshop. that's something that's been on my list for over a year at this point to really sit down and explore and, it's just in this season of my life, like I, no one on the team really has had the capacity to do that, and it's not really. Like, we have a system that's working and is, we're pretty efficient with, and so it's not really part of the end goal or the vision at this point. It's kind of a distraction. So things like that, you can put on a list and then really like filter it through your vision of like, is this actually gonna help me get towards my vision? And on the other hand, exploring keeper could get us closer to the vision to make the machine more well oiled if I take the time. I'm not sure yet. So it's still on the list. last year I played some background music, but since we're in this new format, I haven't figured out how to share the sound on my computer. I'm sure there's a way, uh, but I couldn't figure it out before we went live. So here we are. It's nice and silent, so if you wanna put on some whatever inspirational music you want, feel free to, sometimes it helps with this unlocking this type of, creativity. And then how much time are you spending working each day, week, month, year, and how much time are you taking off for vacation? Are you working eight hours a day or eight hours per week? Are you taking quarterly vacations? That's something that's been big for me. And I try to plan out going to see family or, doing some sort of travel every quarter. And at this point I work under 15 hours a week in my bookkeeping business, actually pretty much between both businesses I work under 20 hours. It ebbs and flows depending on what's going on in each business. Sometimes it's more heavy on the firm side. Sometimes it's more heavy on this side with the ambitious bookkeeper, but. I try to keep my hours 20 or less a week. so yeah, anything is possible. The questions are meant to be in the end, like what do you ultimately want out of your business, whether if you want it to be five years from now or 10 years from now. Sometimes it's a little too intangible for people to think about like the end of their business. but yeah, so if it feels good to think about it in as, you know, within five years or 10 years, that's good too. Yeah, and my vacations aren't like extravagant, Natasha, it's like a little road, trip. I don't have family nearby. my closest family like. my immediate family all is at least one state away, so it's like a road trip to get to see family or a plane ride. so that's been one thing that I felt really strongly about when I started my business. I wanted to have the flexibility, to be able to take off and go see my family because they don't live here. And I worked so, so many hours in corporate and just like didn't have a lot of time off and missed out on some stuff. So. And then how much are you earning? Remember virtually anything possible, don't hold yourself back. if you're comfortable with it, you can share things in the chat. You can also just write it down in your, in your book. But I want you to feel uncomfortable with that number that you write down. I don't want you to feel necessarily that it's achievable. one of the online business coaches or one of my online business coaches, always says f the how for now. Meaning, don't worry about how you're gonna get it get there or how you're gonna make it happen. Just dream right now and the how will come later. Net six figures. Is that possible? Yeah, it is for sure. crystal, whatever works, net income, net, net revenue, whatever you decide. I always think in terms of what I wanna bring home, because when you like really delve into this exercise and start talking about numbers, it's best to base the everything off of like profit and margins and stuff, and then back into your revenue goal. but that's just kind of how I operate. And, in a, in general, a good rule of thumb, if you're pricing correctly in this industry, you should be getting like a 40 to 50% profit margin. and that's like if you're a single member, LLC and you're not paying yourself a wage, you're not on the, uh, wages line. Ashley, my primary re does my primary revenue come from my bookkeeping business or my training business? It's about 50 50. I actually, and just to be transparent, a lot of people think that the training side of things is like, it's passive income. And as you can see right now, like this, there's any nothing passive about doing live trainings. Right? and I spend more time on the ambitious bookkeeper side because of that business model than I do in my firm, because I have a team that supports our clients for the most part. it's about 50 50 with, with, the split of what I take home. And, again, that's what I like to talk about when it comes to numbers, because my profit margins are not as good in the training side as they are in the bookkeeping side either. So it's like, this can seem like a shiny thing to pursue for a lot of people, but it's definitely a totally different business model. yeah. Yeah. One of my concerns is the pricing portion of the business. I don't wanna overcharge or undercharge. Yeah. And that's why it's really important to, and this is an exercise I, go really deep into in the bookkeeping business accelerator around pricing is starting with what is the number you actually want to be bringing home and figuring out what your profit margins are and then having a target profit margin. Like I said, in this industry, you should be able to get 40 to 50%. And so, yeah. And then you back into your revenue goal there, and you back into what you should be pricing and your capacity and all of that. How many On my team I have, two part-time bookkeepers and an account manager in my firm. And we support 20 clients ish, give or take at any given moment. sometimes that fluctuates. It's more or less, Yeah. Ashley smart to have another revenue stream, so. that is coming up too. So what else can you dream up for your ideal firm? What is your company culture like? That was a big one for me, is creating a culture that I wanted to be a part of, creating something that I didn't have in corporate or some, some things that I did have in corporate that I wanted to share with other people and be able to create that culture as well. do you have employees? Do you specialize in a certain industry? Do you have other streams of revenue like Ashley was talking about? Yeah. Now I want you to, after you've finished writing some things down, close your eyes and visualize everything you just wrote out as if it has already happened. This is, this is the part where. I'm gonna ask you again to keep an open mind. Some of you have probably already tuned me out at this point, and that's okay. And now that you've achieved all that, how has it impacted your life and how does it feel? And if you want to journal on that, you can. And like we talked about earlier, if you wanna take, take it a step further, make a dream board. You can make it digital or a poster board of the things, the experiences, and the feelings that you wish to have in your life. So now that you have a vision for the type of business that you want to, now we need to get a little more granular about the types of clients we serve. I know someone asked about niches or niches, to help you achieve this ideal business because, it's gonna do you no good to create a business that you dread working on because your clients are horrific. So first let's talk about demographics. Things like what industry are they in? Do you have specific industry experience working in a certain industry? for instance. I worked in retail and manufacturing, so I started out with a lot of those types of clients when I started my bookkeeping business, just naturally because I had that experience. and when I was a kid, my father owned a heating and cooling business, which is where I got my actual start with bookkeeping in Peachtree and writing on paper ledgers. so I had an HVAC client initially as well. but if you have any industry experience, whether or not it pertains to accounting, like whether you did accounting in that industry or not, if you worked at a grocery store or something, for instance. That's my background too. I worked in the office of the, of a grocery store, but I also did things. Everywhere else in the store, uh, like stocked groceries, unloaded the produce truck worked on, you know, printing out the price tags and all that kind of stuff. It gave me operational experience that I was able to bring to my, bookkeeping business. And understand the whole operations of companies is really important. So if you have any type of experience or if you're passionate about something, those are possible niches as well. Another way to look at this and get clarity if you're not sure what you do want to work in is to look at what industries you definitely don't want to work with. for me, I, when I worked at a CPA firm early on in my career, uh, our niche was restaurants. And so I knew when I went out on my own, I did not want to work with restaurants or construction. But there is no wrong answer here. If you wanna share it in the comments. Mackenzie's niche is crypto. Awesome, awesome, awesome background is nonprofit. I did university accounting and now on the contracting side and universities. But it is a very precarious industry right now. Yeah, definitely do not want to work with restaurants. Yeah, most people don't. and then what is their minimum annual revenue. This one is important to consider if you do wanna charge premium prices because they have to be able to afford it. I see sometimes mismatches between what people want to be able to charge or make in their business, but then they want to serve micro clients that really can't afford it. So unless you can really, really streamline your operations, it's gonna be a little harder to, to get to that point where you're taking home what you wanna be taking home. So thinking about what your client's minimum annual revenue is for me. our lowest package, is designed for clients who are making at least a hundred thousand dollars in revenue. Holly, your niche is NetSuite ERP system. Yes. So that automatically puts you in a bracket of businesses that are probably over, over seven figures in revenue because most companies are not gonna pay for an E-R-E-E-R-P system unless they can really afford it. And if they really need it, because they have a lot of volume. Service-based businesses that align with the values of collaboration and growth contractors in home services. Awesome. And then will you focus on maybe a certain gender or ethnicity with the business owners? a lot of people will focus on maybe female entrepreneurs. I don't really ever hear anyone saying that their niche is bro entrepreneurs. So maybe that's available for some of you. uh, another one that's been popping up lately is 88 entrepreneurs, or, things along those lines. I'm drawing a, a blank on the other, uh, way to say it. Anyways, neurodivergent, there we go. Neurodivergent entrepreneurs. entrepreneur. Yeah, exactly. Neuro spicy. Petro says if we want to get into a niche, should we research systems that would help to streamline, become familiar with the client's needs? Yes, absolutely. That is one of the benefits of niching down, is understanding their operations, what their pain points are, and being able to speak directly to them in their language. and then figuring out which systems work best for that type of business. For example, when we started, narrowing down to online business, I also coupled that with going all in on Xero because I felt very strongly that Xero was the best accounting software for that industry because of the way it integrates with Stripe and PayPal, which are very common payment processors for that industry. So think about things like that. And if you're only, you know, working on that for one type of industry, you have the capacity, for it. But if you're trying to do that work on every type of industry that you're working with, that's, that can be cumbersome and it'll take a lot of time. How does one research and ideal client, I've heard there's a way, how does one research an ideal client? I would, okay. I think, I think I understand what your question is. I'm just trying to make sure like what your end goal is. client research, like ideal client research. I would go and if you know what industry you wanna work with or you have some ideas of them, start talking to business owners in that industry and do like a coffee chat and just like ask them questions about their pain points and things like that. that's a good way to do the research on your ideal client. I don't know if that's what you were asking Michelle, but yeah, I love that you guys are putting together little groups, have fun. and then location. Does location matter to you? I'm virtual, so I work with anyone in the United States, but maybe if you're on a specialized in, like brick and mortar type industries or, maybe you're not gonna necessarily niche down into an industry and you want to work with local businesses or you're gonna be specializing in tax services. You might only wanna work with certain states you're familiar with. Now we're getting into client views. deciding on these upfront will help you weed out red flag clients and clients that aren't a joy to work with ask me how I know. but it's almost like a rite of passage for everybody to have a bad client and then be able to really formulate the values that matter to you. You almost aren't gonna know until you go through a bad experience. And it's the same with employees, to be honest. I didn't know what values I really needed with an employee until I had an employee that was a mismatch and didn't work out. And so then I was able to really figure out how to write our job descriptions and find the right team members. And so yeah, it goes both ways. are there e-comm clients who work better with QBO? I don't. No, the question, the answer to that, because I don't use QBO even for our e-comm clients, we still use Xero. but we use a program called A2X to feed all of their Shopify and e-commerce transactions into Xero. and they batch 'em in instead of doing individual transactions. And so it makes it a lot cleaner. So here's a couple ideas. They're willing to learn about their numbers. This is a big one for me. I don't like working with clients who think they know more than I do. And it's not that like we butt heads or anything, it's a certain level of, humility. I guess when I, I guess it just happens whenever there's a client that like, it's not like they, they know more than me, but they act like they know more than me and I don't really care. But then it just, like, it undermines. What I'm trying to do. So, most of the time, like, I'm not saying that we all know more than the business owner because certainly we don't about their business, but when it comes to numbers, when we can consistently see trends and things like that, and we bring things to the attention of clients, like being questioned is not cool when it's literally facts on their, on their p and l. so being willing to learn about their numbers and understand them better, being able to take advice at a goal, that's a big one for me. I'm not trying to do anything shady for my clients or be involved with clients who are shady. and I, and this kind of is goes hand in hand. They value doing things the right way. and again, if you find this part hard, start with the qualities or characteristics that you know would be a deal breaker. Go ahead and share in the chat if there's any values that I didn't mention that you want. To make sure your clients have, the point of this exercise is to help you figure out what you really want out of all of this. And it will also help you figure out where to focus your marketing efforts. Like we talked about a minute ago with the, the niche. if you've nailed down your ideal client, you don't even have to necessarily have an industry. You can still have your marketing and your messaging designed around your client values, the person behind the business, because that's what's happening. We're a person over here, and the business owner is also a person, a human, and that's who you're gonna be interacting with. And, again, this is our, value when it comes to competing with ai, right, is being human. so being able to build a connection with them as a human is really important. and initially I only focused on finding clients, the people that I really enjoyed working with the first couple years until I found the, the niche that we're in. Now, what if we sign on a client that doesn't mesh well with us? How would you have that discussion? How soon would you let them go? And what if they give you a negative review? if you know that you're not meshing well with the client. I cut ties sooner rather than later. The same thing with the team member. Anytime there's like an issue and it's not the first time and it's like multiple things piling up. you have a candid conversation with a client and say, look, I don't think we're a good fit. Here's some other alternatives that I would, you know, recommend you work with. And that's it. Like, no is a complete sentence, basically. and so yeah, I would do that as soon as you realize that it's not a great fit and be okay with getting a negative review. Do what you can to uphold your end of what you agreed to do and then let them go. you can't really be concerned about what people might say about you on a review. like, if you feel like they're, they're not a great fit for you, they probably feel the same way. They're probably feeling the friction as well. I would like clients that have that value flexibility. If I am not looking to build another nine to five, someone who would be open to me having availability only on certain days for calls, not 24 7, but of course my email box would always be open. That is easier than you think it is. I am only available for calls two days a week, client facing. And for the most part it's never been an issue. And if it is, they'll just say, Hey, I didn't find anything that worked for me on your calendar. Can we work something else out? And if it's like a one-off thing, we can make something happen. But it just, it takes a lot of that, that out of there. And then we just have clear expectations with clients that. We get, we do unlimited email support and then we tell them that our goal is to respond within 24 to 48 hours on business days. and everyone has been very respectful of that. Do you put a 90 day trial period in your agreement in case you don't fit well with the client? No, I've never done that. but in my agreement it does say that either party can end the agreement with a 30 day notice, and leave it at that. I don't lock people into contracts. and I also have people stay for a really long time. So, yeah, if people wanna leave, you should let them. that's how I feel about my job right now. And at one time that was my dream job. What was it like in the beginning about expectations? well, in the beginning. I was not very clear with my expectations'cause I also didn't really understand what was gonna become an issue. So all of these things that we've put into our engagement letters and talk about on discovery calls with clients, all the expectations that we set are a culmination of just things going wrong all throughout the years. yeah. Did you try with any clients Profit first? Yes. for a while I was Profit First Professional, and so I have implemented Profit First with several clients and a lot of our clients use the method, but they manage it themselves and we just kind of do a light. I don't tell them when they should be changing their percentages or anything like, like that because I'm not a profit versus professional, but I do help them understand their numbers and help them figure that out if they do need to make adjustments. Yes, there is no such thing as an accounting emergency. As long as they are getting us the things on time, then we have ample time to do the work. and then when we get to the point where things like around year end and there's, there's always like a couple clients that are really slow at getting us things and we continue to remind them like, Hey, if you don't get it to us by this date, it's not guaranteed to make the deadline because we need a certain amount of time to turn it around. and that's okay to be clear like that. Nobody should expect you to like work overnight on the tax deadline. How long in your career did it take you to learn the boundaries you needed for yourself? That could be a whole entire podcast episode. We should save that on our ideas. Hannah. I don't know if I've still learned. there's some days that I'm good and some days not so good. are there trainings, information on industry specific bookkeeping since it can change so much example, real estate, nonprofits, influencers? Yeah. I don't have specific trainings on these. I have a workshop on, e-commerce for people who are interested in entering that as a niche, just to have some things to be aware of and be able to understand and go learn. real estate, there's income Digs is his YouTube channel and I can't remember his name, but he, he was on my podcast a while back. It's really hard to remember all my guests names. I'm so sorry. and I don't know if I've had anyone, I'm not sure if I'm aware of any nonprofit bookkeeping courses, but, but yeah. What is Profit First? Profit First is a book by Mike Michalowicz. I definitely re recommend if you like listening to books, listen to it so you can get an idea of what it is. A lot of entrepreneurs use this method for managing cash. It's basically the envelope method of all of your income comes into one account and then you divvy it up based on like your tax, your owners pay, your operating expenses and a profit account so that you run your business with the cash that's earmarked. am I also offering fractional services? Fractional CFO? yes, I do offer that. I have it. I'm doing it with like one or two clients. and I'm not advertising it right now because I just don't have the capacity to bring on more of them myself. Myself. This season of life that I'm in. yeah. Yes. Nick Baldo. Thank you. And Hector Garcia for real estate specific guidance.. And then, drop the link for the e-commerce course. Yeah, if you go to ambitious bookkeeper.com/store, you can see all of our mini courses and workshops on that page that are available. on the engagement letter, did you ask a lawyer? When I was in public, a lot of insurance companies have specific ask in these, on did I ask a lawyer? I had a lawyer review my engagement letters. Yes. If that's what you're asking. and then yes, insurance companies usually have templates as well. All right. Okay. So now that we figured out who we want as clients, let's talk about landing them, shall we? That way we can get into the little bit of selling 1 0 1 that I promised. so save me in the chat if you are a little anxious or scared of the sales process. Yep. Okay. So would you like to find a way that didn't feel salesy? So is like a of course question, right? And don't you believe that if you learn to be more comfortable with the sales process, that you could improve your life? I mean, that's why you're here ultimately to start your bookkeeping business and improve your life to some degree, hopefully to a large degree. Whether it's, quality time with your family, more income, both flexibility. We're all trying to improve the quality of our lives. And wouldn't you love to have a proven step-by-step strategy every time you went into a discovery call? Sounds so easy, right? It's simple. It's definitely simple. It's not always easy. But hopefully we're gonna break that down and, break down those walls a little bit today. Okay, so let's do it then. So by now I'm hoping you realize that a discovery call is a sales call, and I talked about this the other day. I call them discovery calls because they are just that you're discovering things about the client, their business, and whether you'll be a good fit working together. So, I have another note about the pre-call questionnaire. Don't need to repeat that. yeah, so already talked about that. So let's talk about the actual call and the structure of it. Uh, we have our opening of the call and then we have questions in the call. And then we are going to give some solutions. We'll talk about all of these in a moment. and then we close the call. Pretty simple, right? Four steps. Everyone, all accountants love like a good step by step. Okay. So in the, in the opening, we want to thank the client for scheduling the meeting, filling out your questionnaire that we just talked about having in your scheduler. It's really important to like, thank them for taking the time to schedule the meeting, talk about their business, fill out the questionnaire, all that good stuff. It builds rapport. and then you wanna ask them if it's okay to ask them some questions to get a better understanding about their business and evaluate whether you'd be a good fit together. and of course they're gonna say yes, right? Like earlier when I was asking you those questions of like, wouldn't it be great if you had a proven strategy? And you're gonna, of course you're gonna say yes. So we're doing the same things with the clients. so then we're gonna go into the questions, uh, in the opening. I'm gonna back up a little bit in the opening too. You don't wanna just dive right into asking the questions, like in between these two things, you want to, hopefully you've done your research on the client and understand a little bit about them personally, or you've done some research on their business. This is, you stand out a whole lot. I should probably add this to the slide here because I think it's really important, and I'll give you one of my most recent hacks on, someone asked the other day how we should be using ai. And one of the ways that I use AI is I use it as my research as assistant when I'm prepping for discovery calls. and I use it kind of as a coach for myself after a discovery call.'cause I record them all with Fathom and then I take the transcript and I pop it into chat GPT and have it critique me. but pre the discovery call I've been. Taking the information that I get on their pre-call questionnaire, I usually ask for their website and, and have their name and, and all that. So I can usually ask chat GPT to do some research on that person for me and give me a little bit of background, and link out to some things.'cause I work with online businesses, so most everyone has an online presence and so it's, it's very effective. I can use chat g PT to do the research, otherwise you can Google things yourself too. But it's really important to have done a little bit of work, on researching the client and under have a little base understanding about what their business does. That way you're also not wasting time asking them a question like that. so then once you get into the questions, this is where we're going to be asking them clarifying questions about the questionnaire that they have already filled out. and then deeper questions about their pain points and their goals. I really like to talk about business owners' goals because it not only helps me later sell the service, especially if we're gonna be doing financial reporting or budgeting or anything like that, but even just for bookkeeping, because a lot of times the clients have a goal to grow, but they don't know really how their business has been performing, if they've been doing their own bookkeeping'cause they're not keeping up with it. Things like that. So I do always like to talk about goals and pain points. They usually kind of go hand in hand 'cause they have a goal, but their books aren't updated. so they don't really know where they're headed and they don't really have a plan. so. Okay. For example, in our pre-call questionnaire, we ask them what system they're using for bookkeeping. And one of the options is that they don't have one. so none or whatever. And so for example, you might say, I noticed you have no system yet for your bookkeeping. How is that working out for you? And then you just pause and let them be like, oh, uh, I guess it's not working. That's why I'm here. but keep your questions open-ended not yes or no questions. unless you're like at the beginning. Doing the yes, yes or yes questions. and then staying quiet and letting the client talk. this is the, honestly, I feel like that's the easy part as an introvert. being a good listener is just like asking really good questions and then just being a really good listener. and then once they've told you their answer to whatever question and, you know, probably gone off on a tangent or, or whatever, I want you to repeat your understanding of what they've conveyed to you to make sure that you're on track. And hopefully this gets them like really buying into working with you because you're a really good listener. and then once you've gone through a question or two, depending on how much time you have, even if you haven't gotten through everything, that's the other thing. I don't want you to feel overwhelmed. If you look at that, discovery call blueprint and see, there's a lot of questions you can ask. Don't ask all of them, choose a few to work with. because you don't wanna feel like, you don't wanna feel like it, and the client certainly doesn't wanna feel like they're being interrogated. So use some of those questions to just start conversations and then move into solutions. And when I talk about solutions, I'm not talking about giving advice, I'm talking about the solution being your process for working with people. So a minute ago I gave the example of someone not having bookkeeping already. So you would say, okay, great. The first thing that we would do is get you set up on Xero or QuickBooks or whatever you're gonna use, and then we would, you know, roll you into our monthly bookkeeping package, which includes financial reporting so that you can see what's happening in your business, pretty close to when it's happening, you know, depending on what your promise turnaround is and, all that kind of stuff. So this is part of what, it's important to kind of think about how you want your process to look. yes. If you already have a client and you're kind of just winging it, that's okay too. but it's gonna help the sales process if you already have a pretty good idea of like what happens when someone onboards with you and how fast you can get them into a system that you're giving them financial reports and all that kind of stuff. so it's basically like this is what it looks like to work with us. and if you have examples of how you've helped clients, like case studies, this is a really good place to talk about them. This is something that I like to do now that I've had a lot of clients under my belt. you can say stuff like, one of our clients was facing the same thing. You are struggling to stay on top of their bookkeeping, managing their receipts, and she wanted to be held accountable to the plan that she came up with. So we got her set up on Hubdoc to make it easier for her to send and save receipts, and we helped her create a habit of sending those immediately when they came into her inbox. And then we started meeting with her monthly, comparing her spend to what she planned and helped keep her on track. And then, this is a real example. We actually saved, uh, one of my clients.$12,000 by holding her accountable to her own original plan. but this is also because she was willing to call and say, okay, I'm looking at joining this mastermind, but I know it's not in the plan. talk me out of it. And so I did, I was like, imagine what 12 K could do in your own pocket for your family instead of joining a mastermind that you didn't plan on joining. So, yeah. How long do your discovery calls last? Nowadays, I keep 'em 30 minutes. I used to do like an hour, at the very beginning, and now I have gotten, again, having a niche really helps because you, you kind of already understand what the volume and the workload and everything is gonna be like. So it's more about. Having the call to figure out kind of specifics of what you need to put on the proposal and making sure you're a good fit, personality wise. but no, I did not start out with them that short. Ashley asked, how do you respond to those people who say their tax accountant or CPA has been handling their books before filing the tax? they don't need a bookkeeper. if you have a client that is booking a discovery call for you and they still have that attitude, I would ask them why they book the call.'cause I'm spicy like that. Be like, obviously it's not working for you 'cause you're on this call. So what is it that you're actually looking for? yes, there's always gonna be people out there that say this, but they're not gonna be booking calls with you if they actually feel that way. Unless their CPA is not doing a good job and they just want you to do it on year end, or they wanna have it done cheaper. I wouldn't, I wouldn't price it cheaper though. Erica says, how long is a questionnaire attached to your booking link? I got feedback that my original questionnaire was too long, so I shortened it and it feels too short. Like I'm missing out on a ton of info I could easily get. When a client books a consult, I think ours is between 10 and 15 questions. some of them are dropdowns. yeah. But at the same time, like bookkeeping is an intimate relationship that you're gonna have with people. And if they're not really willing to answer 15 questions, are they gonna be a good client? Because you're still gonna need information from them. And so I use it to weed out people in that regard too. If someone can't be bothered to answer a 15 questions in. Literally it's gonna take them five minutes or less, then they're not gonna be answering our questions at the end of the month either. So we don't want them. it's a collaboration working with them. and then, so that's my take on that. Take what you will with a grain of salt on that one. But, I feel pretty strongly about that. And the other thing too is like if you've ever, or maybe like maybe you haven't had this experience yet, but when you get to the point of like, doing a branding session with like a marketing agency or something like that, the amount of questions and everything that you have to do for that is way more than, than like 15 questions about your financials, and what softwares you're using. Like it's so much more in depth and people are usually willing to do that. So that's kind of how I look at it. And then during solution, you also wanna get them to commit to your process. that might look like adopting the software you use. For instance, we always tell everyone that we only use zero. So if you're on something else, we're gonna do a diagnostic and then we're going to migrate you. We also have that in our pre-call questionnaire now that we only work in Xero and they have to acknowledge that. So a lot of people, probably don't even continue booking if they're not willing to switch. And I don't even know about them because they don't continue filling out the form.'cause at the very top, we also get them to agree if they're doing a package with a meeting in it, we are making, you know, asking them to agree to book the meetings and show up to the meetings. It's their responsibility. you know, talk about your response time. This is where you're setting all the expectations, all of that kind of stuff. And then you move to the closing is where you offer the next steps in the process. so this could look like, Hey, let's schedule a follow-up meeting to discuss the proposal that I'm gonna do right after I get off this call. When do you wanna book it or, I don't usually do a follow-up meeting. I actually just tell them after this call, I'm gonna shoot you over a proposal by the end of the day with a couple different options. X, Y, z being the one that I think is the best fit for you. But I want you to see what else we also offer. and then giving them expectations on how long onboarding will take. things like that. And some of this stuff you won't know yet, so don't, don't try to talk about it yet until you kind of figure it out. but you can still set the expectation of I would love to get you onboarded in the next two weeks. My calendar is free as long as you're able to get me all the information that I need in a timely manner. We should have you onboarded by whatever date. or you can go right into, based on our conversation, I believe you would benefit mostly from this package of service offerings. And the investment for that package is X, Y, Z. I don't usually do that on the call, unless like they're a very basic business and I know that their volume is low and they're gonna fit in our lowest package, and I can just. Quote them that package. If it's anything more complex, I wait until, I've really sat down with the proposal and all that good stuff and fit them into the package. so if you don't wanna quote people on the call, you don't have to essentially, is what I'm saying. Some people like that method. I, I don't, I like to have time to kind of like, decompress from what happened on the discovery call. Take my time putting together the proposal and really consider like all the things we talked about and the information from their questionnaire about volume. there's always more volume than they say there is. so add that in budget for that. so yeah. So what if they ask you questions that you don't know the answer to, or you discover that you were a good fit? Someone asked this earlier in the, context of discovering they're not a good fit after. You're already working together, but sometimes you just on the call that you're not a good fit. Sometimes I will know immediately and I will just cut the call pretty short and just be like, I actually, based on what we've talked about so far, I think that you would be a better fit for one of my colleagues or QuickBooks Live or something else. And then save us both. just be honest. If someone asks a question, you don't know the answer, or to just say, I don't know the answer to that. Off the top of my head, especially on a discovery call, they're not there to get consultations. Like, it's not a consultation call, it's a discovery call. So. Don't feel obligated to even give them answers, but you can say, but when we work together, I'll find out or point you in the right direction. and then if they're not a good fit, you can say, based on your needs, I don't feel I'm the best fit for the services, best fit with the services that I offer. So let me make a couple of recommendations. I get off the call, I'll shoot them over to you in an email, something like that. so selling really can be simple and, easy when you build trust and look at it as relationship building and most all, detach yourself from the outcome. And I know this is the hard part. If you don't land a client, it means nothing about you. It might just be a no right now, not forever. There's been so many times I've done a discovery call and felt we were vibing like, this isn't a bag, this client is mine for sure. I send the proposal, crickets. Crickets for days. And then even with the follow-ups. There's crickets. So it doesn't mean anything about you personally. just take it as a learning experience. so who feels better about selling already? I know this is a big hurdle for some people, but you guys are really ahead of the game now. And I know someone popped in the chat earlier that they weren't afraid of selling. They just are having difficulties finding clients and yeah, finding clients can be the challenging part. and that's the part that's like the numbers game. You've like, you've just gotta get out there and put yourself in front of as many business owners as you can in whatever capacity. Whether that's on social media, whether that's Upwork proposals, whether that's local networking. but getting the word out and getting visible is gonna be what gets you leads, feels doable. I do. Sounds like it takes time. Encouraged, yes. Practice, practice, practice. Erica asked, before sending a proposal, do you review their current accounting system or at least bank statement so you know the volume and whether or not it's a cleanup? yes. If they have existing bookkeeping, we require a diagnostic, so I don't give them a proposal for regular services. I give them a proposal for a diagnostic so that they can pay the invoice and invite me in, and then I let them know next steps. After the diagnostic, I will put together a proposal, based on what we talked about and what your needs and desires are for your bookkeeping. so I still talk about the, like all of that same stuff, what they want. So I have an idea so that after I do the diagnostic and have an idea of like the actual volume and everything, then I can give them a real proposal. Yeah. Do you use software such as Ignition for pricing? No. well I use Dubsado. so that's what we use for our proposal engagement letter and first invoice. Do you provide two separate engagement letters for cleanup and ongoing bookkeeping services? no, it depends. So I, like I said, I do the diagnostics separately and that's a separate engagement letter. And then once I create the proposal after that for cleanup and ongoing, I put that on one proposal and then it, both of those things go into the engagement letter. So I'm just like the, there's like a per the cleanup section and then the monthly accounting section and both have bullet points of what's included. So it goes into the engagement letter like that. Just had a call with the Xero team this morning. They are amazing. Xero's customer service is absolutely amazing. and when I migrate from QuickBooks to Xero, I use a system called Jet Convert. So I'm not manually doing, everything. How best to price a diagnostic. so I have a whole diagnostic, section inside of BBA on showing you how to do them, how to create a report for one and talk about pricing them. it, the pricing of one really depends on, what you're comfortable with. When I first started out, I did 'em for free and then I started charging very little, like a hundred dollars, and now we charge $500 for a diagnostic. and there's different methodologies you can use of rolling that into their first month service and all that kind of stuff to make it an easier yes. So with that, are you ready to find out what's next? so now you can focus on a few other things that need to be sorted out and put in place as you practice having these conversations with clients. but getting this fear out of the way is going to allow you to really set yourself up for success. So let's talk about the rest of what needs to be set up. If you're brand new, you haven't set up your business yet, whether you decide to continue working with me, you'll have this kind of step-by-step process so that you know what to do next. In your workbook, there's a business set up checklist. Follow that for sure. and then this is kind of how down the process of setting up your business. So there's the design phase. These are all the things that I cover inside of my programs, but the design phase, the attract phase, and then optimize. so with that, as I promised earlier, this is the process and the roadmap that I take all my students through. So module one is the design phase, and this is where we get clarity on further figuring out your values, your vision, and your ideal clients. We barely scratched the surface today. We go a lot deeper in that module. we cover setting up your service offerings and developing your pricing. I know someone asked earlier about backing into pricing with capacity and everything that is all. In the program. so we'll go over the business setup so that by the end of it you'll understand what needs to be set up as far as legal insurance engagement letters. I have templates in there for you. Plus we also go really in depth on what should be in an engagement letter so you have a good understanding of it, instead of just taking a template blindly and applying it, just understanding what's actually in an engagement letter and why it should be there so that you can also communicate that with your clients because most people don't actually read them. So it's really important for you to understand 'em. we also dive back into your goals that we started today. You have a great foundation here. Uh, but after these goal setting exercises, we break it down into tangible milestones in the program in order to get you to your five and 10 year vision. We also will work on your money mindset because that greatly affects your ability to charge what you really can. Someone had. concern earlier about overcharging or undercharging. So this is an area, that might be good for you. Plus understanding your own value and the value that we provide our clients. We'll also help you refine your niche if you're ready to do that. So we dive more into that ideal client avatar slash perfect fit client. and then like I said, we will help you decide on your service offerings based on your niche and your ideal client, plus what you love doing and are good at. So I don't give you a blanket like, here's all the services you should offer and here's how you should price them. I walk you through deciding for yourself what's gonna be the best for you and your zone of genius and the type of business you want to run. and then we're gonna talk about pricing those services and learn about different pricing methodologies that you can use. Then next in the attract phase, we are going to develop a marketing plan. We're gonna work on optimizing your website and nailing down your whole sales process. So today we just talked about the discovery call, but there's a whole process around that. we go into get different ways to get clients via social media marketing, your website and email marketing. and then the last phase, the optimized phase is where we work on optimizing your workflows for that sales process, an onboarding process, which includes diagnostics and cleanups, what to ask for from clients, ongoing client work and what to deliver your client. And when, and like I said before, many times during these workshops, but I'm gonna reiterate it again, I don't teach bookkeeping. So if you do not know the actual process behind these things that you are delivering, that's not gonna be in the, in the program. You're gonna have to find that in other programs. But I do teach some more advanced things that came from my corporate experience that I felt like were lacking for a lot of bookkeepers. so. One of those being like looking at the balance sheet and things like that. we talk about developing workflows. This is a bonus from my bestie Alyssa, the Workflow Queen. I also share my weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual processes, like 10 90 nines, and preparing for taxes to hand off to the accountant. and one cool little thing that I added in this year I will talk about later, but I'm super excited about some new stuff that we've added in. so in BBA you get access to a monthly live q and a on Zoom. if you're in my private Facebook group, the Ambitious Bookkeeper community, you can also access that monthly life q and a. but as a BBA student, we have a separate Facebook community, that you get lifetime access to. As long as we continue. Program. and then for anyone who thinks you don't have time for all of this, we've loaded all the lessons onto a private podcast feed that you can listen and binge anywhere on the go, while you're doing laundry, cooking, dinner, commuting to work, and real audios of client onboarding calls. So it's like a peek behind the curtain on what issues and conversations can happen during onboarding.'cause every onboarding situation is a tad bit different. and how to find 20 extra hours in your week that I truly think you can run your business on and start to grow it, because I've done it. I don't spend more than 20 hours a week between both my businesses. So if I can do that, you can do this. If you're worried about where and how to find your first client, I have a special lesson for you on how to find your first client on Upwork, where that's where I found all my initial clients, and then they became referrals to more and more clients. then you can work toward quitting your job with our Quit your Job calculator. That's also the pricing, thing built into also looking at like what it's gonna take to quit your job. It's all kind of combined in there. So, having the number and the data, the real number and the data, give you the clarity and the focus that you need to make this a reality because it is possible. you also get the template vault. I kind of talked about this a little bit before, but these are all the templates and examples that, I've used in my business that I know work. So plug and play client workflows. You can put those right into Asana or Clickup, or print out the PDF and have a checklist and recreate it yourself in whatever system. pricing worksheets. Not put your job calculator engagement letter templates. I give you a diagnostic report template, and I show you Upwork proposal examples that one clients. and then you also get the tech vault. And this is an area that I'm constantly dropping new, how we actually use tools in our business. Many of the tools we talked about this week, I show you exactly how to use them in your firm. like Slack, open phone, spark, all that good stuff. One password, And then some brand new features that I promised to talk about. One of them is already live in the program. The other is I'm building. I have a 10 99 assistant for you. So when year end comes up this year and you are stumped and need support on which vendors need 10 90 nines and whatnot. you've got that. It's a chat bot that I developed, using ai. And then we are working on an about page builder. So when you get to the point where you're ready to work on your website, this will help you write out your own about page. This is an area I see people, stumble on because none of us really like to talk about ourselves. So this is, this is gonna be really cool to help you write that. and then a niche navigator. So for those of you who want to try to explore, niching down this chat bot will, help you brainstorm on that as well. And there's nothing like the mastermind effect and the accountability that you get of meeting weekly while building your business. So we are starting a VIP cohort beginning September 2nd through October 24th. That is eight weeks of. weekly hot seats on Tuesdays. hot seats are basically group coaching. So you come, we meet and you can ask whatever questions. Deep dive to any issues you're facing with clients. I thought this, I didn't know this was gonna keep popping out at you. I'm so sorry. and then weekly coworking sessions again for the eight weeks. we're gonna be alternating Thursdays at 11:00 AM and the, the other time is not on the screen.

but I think it's 1:

00 PM I can't remember. Hannah, can you correct me? So we're alternating every other Thursday with a morning and a afternoon for anyone working like a, a day job and wants to co-work in the evenings. and then you get a special gift in the mail and you get a 500, dollars coupon toward Elevate, which is my advisory program. That teaches, budgeting and all that good stuff. So, I also have some special fast action rewards. If you decide to join and you're ready, um, in the next 48 hours, you can get access to, an exclusive bonus that will only be available to those who join in the first 48 hours. Um, otherwise you'll have to wait until year end to purchase it. And it's called the Confident Compliance, bundle. And inside of this is where I give you our secret sauce to handling client year end, prepping your clients for tax time and wowing their tax pros. I give you the templates and the walkthroughs of what we provide, including slide decks for their yearend presentation, our 10 99 process, email templates. With that, the whole shebang, I even, like I said, I've added that 10 99 assistant that's also built into this program as well. And that will be updated each year with the new rules and guidance in the 10 99, uh, assistant. So you can count on that. Yeah, you can ask it specific scenarios and it'll tell you what you need to know and watch for when prepping 10 90 nines, which is really cool. and then for the first five people join, we are going to, my web designer and myself will personally critique your website when you submit it for a critique. So we'll give advice on your existing website design. If you have one on the copy and the usability, we will be doing those at the end of the cohort so you still have time to get your website up and running. People in previous cohorts have absolutely loved these critiques and really improved their websites, that they have for their clients, and gotten lots of good feedback from that. So, so All right, so to work me is usually three times the price of this program, and I one-on-one. I don't usually take one-on-one clients anymore. That's pretty rare. or students rather. So this is the best way to get my brain on your business, to be a part of a cohort of people going through the same thing as you. And also get, take the path that so many have taken before you, there are, multiple payment options at checkout for through Afterpay or client or Klarna. otherwise you can pay in full. So there's no, like in previous cohorts, we've done like pay in full bonuses. It's like they all, you, you get all the bonuses unless it's those fast action reward bonuses, no matter what payment option you use. So it's 24 97 and you get lifetime access to the program. The program itself, the, the modules is self-paced. You don't have to go through that in the eight weeks though. It would help if you did, you'd be on the road faster, but you don't have to. And you can continue to come back to that, that content whenever you need it, for, you know, the future. and also as a member of VIP, you get access to future VIP cohorts. So you always get to join the calls that we have in the future. This is going to be the last cohort that I run in 2025. So after this eight week cohort, we're not gonna be doing any VIP calls until, next year. So if you are wanting extra support, and to be part of the group, they're usually pretty small. calls. I get to everybody on the call and their questions. So it's not like hundreds of people are gonna be in the room. It's usually under 15 people. So it's a small, tight-knit group, that usually shows up live. And I sat now and like, watch this time. It's like it becomes more, which is a good problem to have. We cross that bridge if we come to it. But, so b, BA is for you if you are in need of anything in this design, attract or optimize these. I put elevate on here just so you can see what is not included in BBA. and if you feel like this is more in line for you, that is on our website, you can access that anytime. But if you're a part of BBA, you get a $500 discount to that. So, it's for you if you have not launched yet. If you are just starting out, if you're growing and you need processes in place, you could be five years into your business and still not have some of this in place. so don't let that deter you from, making the moves , that you might need in your business. and it's going to help you get more confident in offering basic bookkeeping services. And let's see. All right, so enrollment for this cohort is ending on Friday, August 29th. So you have, some time to decide, but remember those fast action bonuses, their website critiques are limited to the first five and the confident compliance bundle is, is only for the first 48 hours. so that puts us on Friday, is that right? Yeah. So Friday at midnight I believe. or something like that. Hannah, can you put that in the chat just to make sure I don't say anything wrong? and then again, tomorrow I'm doing an information session on BBA, where I give you a backend tour of the program. So I take you. To peek behind the curtain inside Kajabi to show you everything that's actually in there. I know for me that's a big one. When I enroll in programs, I wanna know like, what am I actually buying? I wanna see the list of videos, I wanna see all the downloads that, like, I wanna see all the resources. So if you are one of those people that needs that too, come to that info session. I will be recording it. So if you cannot make it live, that's okay. I'll record it and I'll pop it into our portal here for you to access. and then make sure, that you check your email for a code that will apply what you've already paid for the workshops toward your BBA purchase. If you do so, choose to enroll. your investment for these workshops gets applied to, to BBA. If you join, so yeah, just a reminder, this is gonna be the last cohort for this year. We're not gonna have another one until 2026, hopefully in Q1, but no guarantees. so this is your chance to do the group, the group program. let's see. Let me go to the questions, make sure I get all the questions as we're coming up on the end of the night. Let's see. Oh, there we go. Why can't I find the questions? Where am I? There we go. All right. Do I need to know zero before taking BBA? No, you don't need to know. You don't need to be comfortable with a specific software and for accounting, but you do need to understand accounting. I do feel strongly that you should not be offering but keeping services if you don't have some background in accounting, whether you're self-taught and have years of experience, whether you've taken bookkeeper launch or the Acadian programs. but you do need that foundation of bookkeeping or accounting before you serve clients. So, I do feel strongly about that. I don't think bookkeeping necessarily is for everybody. I hope that my targeted marketing did well and brought in people that already had experience for the most part, or knew you were on that path. but BBA probably is not for you until you're ready to start serving clients. will your diagnostic mini course also include the diagnostic template? Yes. And can we opt into these bonuses separately? No. So, sorry, is the diagnostic training within QBO as well? Yes, that is, the part that's in QBO, the only stuff in Xero is inside of the tech fault separate. So everything else in the program, if it goes over, if I demo anything in an accounting system, I demo in QBO. what's the best way to find clients at the beginning? Do you re recommend running Facebook or Insta Ads? I've never run ads to get clients. I've done everything organically. but I know people who have run ads and have been successful. So you're either going to spend money or time or both to get clients and whatever you do, you need to give it time and consistency. So, keep that in mind. Give it at least three months of like actually doing the work and going forward and having conversations with people. Do coffee chats, go to local networking, go to online networking, do the things that are gonna put you in the room with business owners and talk. people are not just gonna come, like, they're not just gonna come to you if you build a website. You have to, you have to hit the pavement. I'm not gonna sugarcoat that. So, yeah. already answered that question. Let's see. I already mentioned using Upwork. What are your thoughts about FI or Fiverr? I don't know how to pronounce that. I've never used that. Fiverr. I've never used that. I know I do have students who have used it, and have found it to be okay. It's similar to Upwork. There's gonna be people on there that are charging ungodly low rates and then, and so it feels like it's hard to compete. So what you have to do is stand out. You have to find a way to stand out. so yeah, Ashley said I went to the BNI meeting this afternoon if I felt it helps my business. Yeah, that's also a good option if you have the capacity to be a part of something like BNI and show up to those, those calls and all that kind of stuff, then it works. BNI works. If you don't feel like you can go to a weekly meeting, then that's probably not the option for you. So, BNI is Business Networking International, I think is what it stands for. There's chapters in every single city in most even small towns, but they have, they limit the seats. So there's only one seat for each, like industry or trade. So there's one bookkeeper and one CPA in each chapter. Sometimes you can go as a guest though, and I've landed a client from going as a guest one time to A BNI. So it is, it is a cool thing. Yeah. So I'm gonna talk real briefly as you guys are still asking questions on some common questions that I do tend to get and maybe, someone is thinking this but isn't going to ask. So one of them is, can I actually do this? Is it possible for me? And like I said before, if you have experience in, accounting or background in bookkeeping, yes, I was exactly where you are. 15 years ago. I can't believe it's been that long. I waited so long. I really wish I had at least started a side hustle when I was in corporate when I first thought of doing this. but I didn't. I waited for another, like seven years to start my business and sometimes I look back and I'm like, I could have done it. I studied for the CPA exam while I was in corporate. I got that done and that was way harder. so also look inside just this group, there are probably half of you who have already actually started and are getting clients. Maybe things aren't perfect, but that's where we all start. It is so important to be in the room with people who are doing what you want to be doing. and, and this will fast track your brain and learning that it is possible and it will become your new normal to be creating and growing this business that's always been a dream of yours. So. Yeah, I can't tell you how quickly I started leveling up once I started hanging out with other entrepreneurs and accountants doing what I wanted to do. if you can step back from like the envy that you might experience and look at it as if they can do it, I can too. Like if it's possible for this person, that means it's possible for me to. so if you see someone else doing what you want, it's proof that it's possible. the other question I get is, do I have the time to go through this program? remember it's lifetime access so you don't have to crank through it. but one of the first things that I would recommend you do when you do jump into the program is to watch the 20 extra hours in your week bonus. This is the method that I use to be able to study and pass the CPA exam when I was a single working full-time mom. Single, full-time working mom, there we go. I also show you how I currently manage my time, plan out my weeks and make sure that I'm spending my time on the most important tasks. yeah, we have a couple more cues at the top. Okey doke. Cool. With Upwork, did you buy Connects as you went or sign up for the monthly charge plan? What do you recommend? when I started, they had a different way of giving connects. Like we would get free ones every month, and I don't know if I ever bought Connects at the, at the beginning. but I would buy Connects if I were you too, or do a monthly charge plan and then see how it goes. When should a business owner consider employees? Should we wait to get enough clients or hire before to be ready for more clients? How do you prepare for employees? This is not really in the capacity of these workshops, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna not probably talk too in depth about that. but I did say the other night, like , my story with hiring, I hired someone when I only had five clients. So I don't think it matters how many clients you have, what matters is how much time you want to be working in the business. versus other things like I was up against, I either need to hire a nanny or I need to hire a bookkeeper because I was getting to the point where I didn't wanna be spending as much time in the business because I wanted to be spending it with my kids. So my choice was to hire a bookkeeper. so yeah, and I usually. I, I usually hire when I am just on the cusp of needing the help. That's my rule of thumb. do business owners ever find it weird when you tell them you're recording discovery calls or any meeting? Nope. It's pretty normal in my industry, but, you can always just not record it if they don't want you to, to, you can also, yeah, you can also bring that up at the beginning and say, this is for my own purposes. I'm gonna only use this recordings for training. and for when, like the other thing that we use recording those recordings for is when we onboard the client, letting the team watch the discovery call so that they have the background. yeah. When you talk to your potential client, you will not take on a client under a hundred K, not know because they can't afford our services the way that we've priced. But we have, we have DIY options, so that's where they, they get sent to. Yeah. Do you have any advice for prof, pricing, bookkeeping for some, someone you're close to, like a partner or a family member who's just starting out a business feels tough, charging someone, you know, well, the full rate when their business hasn't taken off yet. yeah, I've done this and you just have to be okay with having a charity client. but the problem with that is typically what I've seen happen is when people don't pay for stuff, they don't take it seriously. So you have to decide for yourself if you want to mix business and personal. I've, over the years, had different experiences and some people say no mixing business and personal. Sometimes I do like charity cases, and that's okay. You get to decide what you wanna do. but yeah, I. Sorry if that wasn't a very clear answer. but you can also create an engagement letter that says, for the first six months, I'm gonna charge you this. And then our price goes up to regular pricing because by then you should be where you want to be in your business. And if not, we can disengage or reevaluate or something. Would you recommend Keeper or financial Sense to help with efficiency? I would recommend one or the other or something like Asana. I can't tell you which of those would be better because I don't know which one is better between Keeper and Financial Sense. so, but yes, definitely something to help with efficiency, some kind of project management. What's my favorite networking event? It depends on what I'm there for. so one of the events that I did this last year, I actually sponsored, it's a, it was a podcasting conference in Nashville and that was probably my favorite client facing event this past year.'cause it was like all my ideal clients and it was a small event too. So, and then I participate in a local young professionals networking group. and those are pretty fun too. I'm their treasurer, so I go to most of those. Yeah. Time management skills. Yes. So I also have a podcast on that, which just came out I believe in the last couple weeks. so one of the most more recent podcast episodes. I can't remember what I named it or what number it is. but yeah, it's on YouTube as well. So, yes. All right, everyone, we're a little over time and I wanna be, cognizant of you all and your own other commitments. Thank you again so much for joining me this week. at the workshops. I think it's been impactful. I hope it's been impactful for you guys. and I hope to talk to you all soon.

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