The One About Curation

The One About Curation

TL;DR

During the first year of the Covid shutdown, everything went virtual. Including a little tech-loving group called Accounting Salon. They normally host a private get together each year, but they opened their event to the world for free, because, well, their event had to move to Zoom anyway, so not much extra work to just make their teaching sessions public.

I was an eager beaver and wanted to capitalize on the chance to learn from some of the best and brightest in our industry, so I listened to several sessions. But only remember one.

It was done by Will Lopez (from Gusto) and Blake Oliver (from Cloud Accounting Podcast) and it was all about how to get more mileage out of any content you create. I’m not 100% sure they used the words “slice and dice”, but that is what I took away from it.

Slice and Dice.

Whenever you create any sort of content, always be thinking about how it can spin off mulitple pieces of content.

This is somewhat of a mindset and skill that you have to develop over time, but I hope this “slice and dice” seed gets planted and grows in your business brain.

“But Kate, I can’t even create one piece of content much less spin off multiple pieces. I don’t know how and/or I don’t have anything to say”.

Ah…allow me to offer a rebuttal!

That is where CURATION comes in. When you can’t create, CURATE!

Don’t steal. Don’t plagarize. Give credit where credit is due.

But don’t be afraid to piggy back off of the people who are saying things that your ideal clients need to hear.

I’ll share 2 examples of how I did this in just the past week.

• I sent an email to my (small but mighty) email list recommending this podcast episode from the Fish Food Podcast (produced by Bookkeeping Side Hustle Community Member Keila Hill-Trawick). Her podcast is for the exact type of clients I would love to have. All I did was layer on a few sentences in an email and said that I thought the episode was worth a listen. It was perfect content for my ideal client.

• A client in my FreshBooks Office Hours group wanted some info on how to start to transition from hourly billing to value pricing for his Salesforce developer business. Now, for ME to create a really great “piece of content” about that topic would have been a heroic effort for me. BUT, could I recommend two resources from experts on that topic instead? Yes. Yes, I can. He didn’t need ME to create a resource. He just needed a resource.

  • BUT, I went even further and asked my other clients to recommend a resource on the topic and one did. And it was even better than the two I recommended. Everyone is better off.

My head is spinning with some other ideas relevant to creation…

• Name and claim the things that you AREN’T an expert in. Just state it and say, “I am not an expert on XYZ but, I know the topic is important so I found an expert for you (Mr(s). Ideal Client).” For me, I feel completely comfortable saying “I leave the tax stuff to the tax experts”. But obviously I can’t avoid tax topics all together, so I need to rely on other folk’s content on those topics. One of my favorite tax guys is The Self-Employed Tax Guy. Again, he is kinda targeting my ideal client, just like the Fish Food Podcast is. So you need to find resources to help your IDEAL client.

• Interview experts about topics relevant to your ideal client. You are the facilitator, not the brains. But you can still be a hero by making sure the people you want to help get the help they need.

• There are going to be marketers that try to tell you that they will create content for you. Before you do that, I think you’ll sound a lot smarter if you just add 3-4 sentences on top of a reshare (via email or social post or or DMs) and say “I saw/heard this and knew I had to share it”.

• Start paying attention to social media and you’ll see how some others piggy back on other content. When you see it, you’ll go “ah…this is what Kate was talking about”.

• Current news for your niche is a great thing to reshare. Let the reporters and the industry associations do the heavy lifting and you just make sure to pass along the resource, perhaps pulling out a sentence or two that you found important.

  • Maybe a new labor law for your industry

  • Highlights from an industry conference

  • General business news like the SVB bank collapse

  • How artificial intelligence like chatGPT has applications for your niche

Basically, I’m giving you permission to consider how you can RIDE waves, when you are not able to make them. 🌊

And speaking of riding waves created by others, the team at Keeper is always on the leading technological edge for our industry. So it is no surprise that Keeper is launching a chatGPT powered AI in the bank feed via their Chrome Extension. Have you connected Keeper to your QBO or Xero files yet?

What are you waiting on? 👇

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Deals Deals Deals

💰 Bookkeeper Launch is on sale for $780 off!* That is quite a bit higher than the normal sales they do. Looks like only for a few more days, though. This is the soup-to-nuts course I took to get my business started.

💰 Two deals from the Workflow Queen, since so many of y’all have just been through her free 5-Day Workflow Challenge:

• Get $200 off Kickoff with Asana until April 7th! Sign up HERE*.

• Get $1,000 off her Breakthrough Coaching program. Sign up HERE*.

Please always send me any news of deals that you hear of that others might benefit from.

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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.

📅 +Mondays in April: Bookkeeping Side Hustle Community Co-working Hour. Join me on on Zoom Mondays at 11am EST. Zoom link (password: HUSTLE).

📅 April 4: Credit Cards in Business and QBO. Join Royalwise to learn about taking credit cards for your customer payments, as well as using credit cards for you own purchases. Sign up HERE*

📅 April 4: How to Grow Your Accounting Firm in 2023. In this livestream, Mark Wickersham and head of marketing at the Value Pricing Academy, Emily Cross, will discuss what’s working best in marketing. Watch HERE.

📅 April 28: How Hector Garcia is using ChatGPT in Accounting. Register here.

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Featured Posts

🌶️ Rachel W confessed that she struggles a lot with pricing in this post. She received both empathy AND really practical advice in this post.

🌶️ Does your bookkeeping suck? As a tax preparer, Jack Workman gives his top 5 problems he sees with bookkeeping files. Everyone needs to read this.

🌶️ How much should you budget for launching a small bookkeeping practice?

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Help You Hustle

💪 Do you need hands-on practice and real life monthly bookkeeping scenarios to practice QBO? Then the QBO Gym is for you. There is NO comparable product on the market for people wanting hands-on practice in QBO. It takes A LOT of practice to become a GREAT bookkeeper, y’all.

• Watch this interview I did the the creator of The QBO Gym. I am so impressed with what she built.

• Start your 7-day free trial of The QBO GYM here*. No risk!

• If you have a staff, reach out to her about getting a membership for your entire office and add it as a professional development component.

💪 Catch the replay of the Top Time Saving Hacks for Accounting Professionals (straight on YouTube, so no email required to watch it…you’re welcome!). I had the privilege of being on this panel. The chat for this webinar was non-stop! People were very excited about the little hacks they learned. Guarantee you will learn something.

💪 Military Members/Vets/Spouses: Bunker Labs is a free business incubator for veteran-owned and military spouse-owned startups. They are accepting applications for their next cohort. Apply now! What do you have to lose!?! Incubators can be life-changing for new business owners.

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For Fun

😹 Famous QuickBooks YouTuber and Instructor Veronica Wasek wrote a rap about why she is not worried that AI will replace humans in our industry (written with the aid of ChatGPT)

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Jobs

💼 More jobs were added to the Jobs Guide in the facebook group. Check it out HERE.

💼 Saw a job on CPAMoms.com job board.

💼 Need experience, but can’t get a job? Can’t a job because you don’t have hands-on experience? Be sure to watch the interview I did with Margie Remmers-Davis about QBO Gym.

Don’t forget the standing opps on my Find A Freelance Job article. 1099 and W-2 opps.

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Kate Builds In Public

🎢 You know up at the top of this newsletter when I said I sent an email to my little email list with that podcast recommendation?

Well, there was a typo IN THE SUBJECT LINE. I was writing it while sitting at the kitchen table calling spelling words to my daughter. Note to self…don’t hit send on an email while apologizing to your child for the English language for words like “though” and “enough”. There was no reason for me to have hit send at that moment. If it is important, always give myself time to review.

🎢 I shared in the Facebook group that the longer I’m in business, the more I’ve felt myself wanting to be pretty broad with what I consider a business expense for myself. I shared two examples of expenses I’m facing that I would not have thought should/could be business expenses in the past. I always want to be completely ethical and legal. Lots of folks gave technical advice related to my specific expenses, but any also gave general feedback about similar feelings and how to approach decisions like this. I am only going to be face with MORE grey areas like this in my entreprenurial journey.

🎢 Life is busy. The kids and I went on a train ride to DC to visit my husband AND I am putting my house up for sale this week. Gah! My calendar is completely blocked off from any client calls. Just doing my regular work load.

I did land one more paid diagnostic review this week, but told them I would not even be able to look at their work for over a week. They were fine with that.

🎢 Thanks to everyone who voted for Bookkeeping Side Hustle Community in the Accounting High March Madness Challenge. Unfortunately, our community lost in the Sweet 16. You can still play the game and get a chance to win a trip to Hawaii even though I’m not in it. I’m rooting for the Cinderella team, Uncat!

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From The Vault

⚡Anyone else getting ready for Spring Break? Here is a throwback to my interview about bookkeeping in an RV! Watch it now.

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Letters To The Editor

✉️ Some comments on the “Passive(ish) Income For Bookkeeping/Accounting/Tax” video:

• I've created a variety of spreadsheets for clients and myself over the years. I've considered offering them for a fee as passive income for awhile now, but your video encouraged me to actually do it today! Extra bonus- the service that I found to help facilitate this only charges when a purchase has been made and has a referral link! ~ Jessica Winkler

• Thanks for the great ideas. I love when you said create it and put it behind a pay wall, someone might not buy it but what if they do. I think we are often our own worst roadblock. ~ Cindy Schroeder

• This is such an excellent video! I need to watch it again and take notes next time. I love the idea of a subscription based software Q&A. I think that might be the first thing I implement from this video. Thanks for the idea! ~ Smooth Sailing Business Solutions

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Classifieds (Clickable)

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Keep hustling!

Kate

-Chief Hustler-

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