The One With A Shot
What are you waiting for...
TL;DR
Last week I was able to have a lunch with someone that I had been wanting to have lunch with for over 3 years. She is an accounting professor in Dallas that I’d heard as a repeat guest on a The Cloud Accounting Podcast. I’ve always had an affinity for teachers, because that is who I think I am deep down in my core.
I didn’t even live near her when I first heard of her, but because we are in the Navy, I knew that there was a chance I’d move close to her because Fort Worth has a Naval Air Station. I filed her away in the recesses of my brain with the tag “I would like to meet this person”.
And when I moved to Fort Worth last year, geography was no longer a problem.
The only problem was that pesky fact of life where doing nothing tends to be easier than doing something. I was going to have to DO SOMETHING to get what I wanted. I was going to have to do A LOT.
Ask her. Carve out time on my calendar. Do the schedule coordination dance. Shower and put on mascara. Drive my butt away from my house. It sure would be easier to not do any of those things.
But it all happened (via LinkedIn DMs in this particular case). We pushed through the inertia of doing our normal routine and did something different.
And who knows what fruit it will bear. Maybe she will invite me to accounting events in DFW. Maybe I will attend one of her classes one day. Maybe we will be plane buddies to a conference. And, of course, maybe nothing more will come of it other than a pleasant lunch where I enjoyed good and smart company. Even just that is good enough for me.
But the point is, I shot the shot that I wanted to take for a long time.
My guess is that you have some things that you really want to do. Something that you’ve tagged in your mind that resurfaces over and over.
Maybe there's someone that keeps popping into your head that you know would be a dream client. Maybe someone who would be a dream referral partner. Maybe there is a group you’d like to sign up for, but you continue to make excuses why now is not the right time. Maybe there is a charity event you’d like to sponsor and you have the money, but you always talk yourself out of it because you are being shy and modest. Maybe there is a podcast you’d like to be on.
I don’t know what it is for you, but if you have something you’d like to do, I encourage you to shoot your shot.
Another shot you might need to shoot is to invest in your education. Maybe you’ve had your eye on the resources from 5MB Academy by respected accounting instructor Veronica Wasek. Personally, her Paid Diagnostic Review course helped me shoot my very first shot at telling clients that I will not even look at their books unless I first do a PAID diagnostic review (she gives you a script about how to say that nicely, of course). She is one of the veteran bookkeeping instructors and has stood the test of time. Her library is vast.
There will be lots of deals listed below, but be sure to take a peak at hers. All her programs are 20% off for a short period of time.
Deals Deals Deals
💰 All 5MB Academy courses are 20% off*. I’ve personally purchased the Paid Diagnostic Review course.
💰 Seth David of Nerd Enterprises is offering 20% off all Bulletproof Bookkeeping* and QBO training with 10% of the proceeds going to Dachshund and Friends Rescue.
💰 Save 20% on all Gentle Frog* training and courses!
💰 Xero is offering a promo where they will do your client conversion for free. Details here. And if you aren’t a Xero User yet, you will need to get your partner account here*.
💰 Serena Shoup is offering 20% off all The Ambitious Bookkeeper programs*. Use code BF24.
💰 Justine Lackey is offering her Pricing Perfection training at a whopping 84% off ($79 versus $499). Scroll down her page to see all the bonuses that comes with your purchase.
💰 Tickets to Scaling New Heights will be 20% off for one day only. December 2 (Cyber Monday). I’m still hoping to be selected as a speaker for this conference!!! 🤞
💰 Future Firm Accelerate membership for only $7 for the first month. That’s right. Seven Dollars. This group is hosted by Ryan Lyzanis and I worked hard to convince him to extend his sale just for our group. Expires Sunday (tomorrow) at midnight.
💰 Bookkeeper Launch* is on sale with for 60% off with code gobble60. That is only $1,000 for full pay or $100 for monthly pay. This is the course I took to start my own business journey.
💰 Fast & Easy QBO Certification Bundle. Get the Basic (Level 1), Advanced (Level 2), and Payroll certification study materials in one bundle for 59% savings. You can also add their clean up course for $997.
💰 Get 30% off your first 3 months of your membership to the “Ask A CPA” community, run by Nancy McClelland, the Dancing Accountant. Use code WORKFLOWCON2024 though Nov 30.
💰 Kellie Parks is offering 33% off everything in the Cloud Accounting Templates Store. This is the place to go if you need help to get your systems and processes tightened up. Use code BLACKCYBER24.
💰 Get The Bookkeeping Side Hustle Guidebook for 50% off with code JOY.
💰 Get the very popular T-Account Cheat Sheet Mousepad (and all other items on my community store) for 15% off with code blackfriday24.
💰 Get the “Should You Convert Your Clients To FreshBooks in 2025” webinar and 3 follow up monthly Q&A sessions with ME for $50. Price goes to $100 on Dec 1.
💰 Accounting stickers. I’ll be treating myself to the “If In Doubt, T it Out” sticker to put in my Christmas stocking. 🤓 Starts 11/26. Use code BF2024.
💰 Stretch your year end donations by donating to the Accounting Cornerstone Foundation (non-profit I started to send bookkeepers to their very first accounting conference). I'm going to give a $2,000 matching contribution for every new donation received between now and Giving Tuesday. 🙏
💰 MediaBooks is offering 30% off their lead magnet library with the code BLACK30.
💰 The CFO Accelerator is announcing their Black Friday Deals on Monday. Watch here*.
💰 The Payroll Mastermind Group run by Shannon Theis is doing a free VIP membership upgrade through 2024.
Be There or Be Square
Items with a “+” are hosted by me. All these events can be viewed and registered for in the DESCRIPTIONS of each event on the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Calendar.
📅 +December 3: What Happened to Fast & Easy QBO? Did you hear that Fast & Easy QBO is no more. Get the scoop and understand what that means for all their students. RSVP in the Facebook group so you don’t miss this!
📅 +December 5: The Solopreneur’s Ultimate Year Close with FreshBooks and QuickBooks Online. Sign up HERE* I’m doing this free session with Mariette Martinez. As far as I know, this is the very first live webinar about how to use Freshbooks that wasn’t put on by Freshbooks HQ. Accounting pros like you are invited.
📅 + December 10, 19, and January 7 (pick one): After 3 years of becoming the world’s leading FreshBooks expert, I’ll be teaching a webinar entitled “Should You Convert Clients To FreshBooks in 2025”. Every attendee will also be invited to 3 support sessions in Jan, Feb, and March 2025 to help you with your transition. Y’all, I’m shooting my shot! Teaching accounting pros about FreshBooks!
📅 +December 17: The Tax-Ready Bookkeeper with Nancy McClelland. Why learn about tax? By learning some foundational tips and tricks to handing off the annual books, you can add value and build lasting relationships with both your client and the tax preparer (your new favorite referral partner). Because everybody loves a Tax-Ready Bookkeeper! RSVP HERE.
Featured Posts
🌶️ How do you break up with a client who needs you but can no longer afford you? You see the bloodbath that is their financial statements. You know you need to raise their prices because you aren’t a charity. What do you do?
🌶️ Bookkeeping will almost certainly lead to back pain, as evidenced by all the comments Christy C received on her post about suggestions for chairs to help with her back pain.
Help You Hustle
💪 Did you catch “Website 101 for Bookkeepers” live stream?
As you listen, grab this workbook you can to brainstorm your text for your web pages, including a prompt to put in ChatGPT to write your bio for you! 👀
Websites begin on paper, not inside a website builder tool.
Even if you know you will hire someone (which I will probably do in 2025 for a refresh because I can afford that now), listening to this webinar will equip you to interview potential web designers. Now you will know what kinds of questions to ask them to stay away from the Lame-Os.
I know my own business website isn’t great and needs an update, but it gets the job done. It was painful to build, but I’m very grateful for all the pain and suffering because I am not dependent on someone else to make changes. It forced me to really increase in my general technological competence and that has continued to bear fruit as I’ve learned to do fancy things with Calendly, and creating buttons to sell digital resources like my Accountable Plan, and collect email addresses with free downloads I continue to create.
💪 I saw that Kellie Parks (who did our awesome “Roast My Client Intake Form” session earlier this year), is offering laser focused “Fix My Process” sessions to accounting pros. See this post on LinkedIn for details. Christmas gift to yourself???
💪 Intuit’s ProAdvisor training has gotten such a huge makeover (largely thanks to an accounting education rock star named Jaclyn Anku). And with change comes confusion. Use this newly updated “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About QuickBooks ProAdvisor Academy and Certification”* to quickly understand what it means to be QuickBooks ProAdvisor in 2025. It’s free!
Jobs
The BSH Job Guide had a few jobs added to it. Check it out! Don’t forget to use #jobopp when posting your jobs.
Don’t forget the standing opps on my Find A Freelance Job article. 1099 and W-2 opps.
My Family Circus (43F, 39M, 13M, 11F, 10M)
🎪 Last edition I mentioned that we went to the movies because we do “coupons” as Christmas presents to our kids.
Well now I want to tell you that you simply must go watch the movie we saw.
I hope you carve out time and budget to go see “The Best Christmas Present Ever”. I hear that it might be pulled from theaters soon, so go watch it tonight! I guess they are doing one of those limited release things to drive demand. 🤷♀️
If you have never heard of this book with the same title, I encourage you to get it, too. It is even better if you read it out loud. It takes about an hour or two to read. We read it aloud as a family ever year.
However, the movie does a great job telling the story in its own right.
If you go see it, let me know what you think! If you are reading this in the future, chime in down in the comments and tell us where folks can find it on streaming.
Kate Builds In Public
🎢 Operations Coordinator Update:
Many of you have been following my journey in hiring my first part-time help. Lots of info here and here and here.
Well, I officially can introduce my Operations Coordinator, Liz Cotton! And she is local and we’re meeting in person on Mondays and it is wonderful! I’m sure I’ll provide a lot more behind-the-scenes of what it is like to get help with systemetizing and delegating.
🎢 Selling more to existing clients:
I finished a FreshBooks clean up in record time. And with this clean up client, I made the decision to never do a clean up again without also requiring folks to do another hour of training with me. Even though I always scheduled a meeting after the clean up anyway, this time I thought I should pitch it as a paid hour of training and simply part of my process. So the clean up engagement letter had a line item for a training session. Granted, this is not a huge money move, but I’m proud of the mentality behind it. I want to sell more to existing clients rather than getting a new client. And you might remember that I already don't ever do a cleanup without a paid diagnostic review. So I have technically sold this client 3 services ($275 diagnostic, $2k clean up, and $140 training session) . And she is the absolute perfect candidate for my office hours, so that's the next thing to convince her of. Maybe I have an idea of a “customer journey” after all.
🎢 New place to get client reviews:
You remember in the last edition I told you my cautionary tale of how Google shut down my Google Business profile and I lost 22 reviews? Well, no use crying over spilled milk, right? What I’ve done in the last week is use the “Request A Recommendation” feature on LinkedIn. If you go to a connection’s profile and hit “More”, you’ll see that option in the drop down. I’ve already gotten 3 from people I’ve requested write me a review and 1 from an accounting pro friend who is always supportive of me.
From The Vault
I have a website cheat sheet that you can use if you plan on building your own website. Or even in preparation to hand off to a web developer. This would be a great compliment to the recent website 101 live stream in the Help You Hustle section. Get your copy HERE (use code blackfriday24 for 15% off) and watch my short explanation HERE.
Letters To The Editor
✉️ Dena M. responded the last newsletter with this:
There are very limited few (probably only one) newsletter that I always read and it's yours. I love the personal stories, the quick scannable information after the story and how you always have something new and educational to share.
I’m always grateful for encouraging words and feedback!
Classifieds (Clickable)
Keep hustling!
Kate
-Chief Hustler-
I am down right rabid about transparency and full disclosure. If a link has a * beside it, it means it is either an affiliate link where I might receive compensation if you make a purchase, at no additional charge to you. Or it could be a tracking link that another business provided me to see how many readers click on that link.