The One Where I Take Control
TL;DR
Oh how I love to be in control. Just ask my mom, or my husband & children.
What a fool’s errand, though, right? We all face things that are beyond our control.
As I fight against the futility of thinking I can ultimately control my circumstances (I believe God is sovereign…ask me about it sometime), I do love it when I figure out something that let’s me feel like I have just a little more control over whatever situation I face.
So let me tell you how excited I was the first time learned that I can annotate on a client’s screen during a zoom screen share and also TAKE CONTROL OF THEIR COMPUTER.
Muah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…
Actually, it is not that nefarious. The client can stop permitting someone else to have control of their screen at any time.
I love teaching sessions and have been actively trying to do more of them (for $125 per hour, thank you very much). It really is a beautiful service offering because I don’t fret about pricing, or ongoing relationships, or scope creep, or any of that. Since I do not want a lot of ongoing monthly clients, training engagements are very nice and lucrative for the effort it takes.
But I was getting so frustrated by saying “just move your mouse an inch higher…to the left…no, no, no, that’s too far…the word in the grey text, not the black text.” You get what I’m saying, right? Painful.
So for the last 2 months I’ve gotten pretty good at using just a SINGLE annotation feature in zoom and it has improved my screen share interactions with clients.
I tell you exactly how I do it in this short video.
I even show you how you can even just take complete control of their screen. 😲 🤩.
And both features are totally free!
I typically avoid taking control during trainings because I don’t think it is the best way for the “student” to learn, but sometimes there are tasks that are less about teaching and more about accomplishing a task and “Request Remote Control” is very nice in those instances.
In that video you’ll also be introduced to my first official employee. He is 11 years old and happens to look a lot like me.
He got paid $15 an hour to record this and half of his paycheck will go into his Roth IRA.
Oh, and before you continue reading the rest of the news here, make sure you check out the Payroll Certification from our newsletter supporter Gusto Payroll. You could definitely get it knocked out out over the holidays. It took me less than 5 hours total when I did it with our recent Bookkeeping Side Hustle Study Group. 👇
Deals Deals Deals
💰 Tax Business Launch* curriculum and support group is on sale for $1,000 off. It is a comprehensive training that teaches you how to build a tax preparation business, but it mainly preaches/teaches how to ADD tax prep as an additional service line to become a one-stop-shop for your clients’ financial needs.
💰 The new tool RightTool that is causing QBO users to lose their ever-loving minds is still free right now. BUT creators Hector Garcia and Mark Corum just announced RightTool Pro will be released in January and you can get 66% discount using coupon code BETATESTER.
💰 Intuit is giving away a $3,000 AirBnB gift card to one lucky winner who completes either their QBO ProAdvisor Advanced Cert or their QBO Payroll Cert by December 15. Deadline is tight, BUT you might be able to crank out the Payroll one with the help of the Fast & Easy QBO Payroll course. Don’t forget to actually go make sure you really, really know what you are doing after the course (y’all know I don’t think that getting any of these free software certifications means you know what you are doing inside client books).
Fast & Easy QBO Payroll Course* can be completed in 8-10 hours.
Please always send me any news of deals that you hear of that others might benefit from.
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 December: Co-working hour has been going strong, and I will be having them at 11am EST on Mondays in December EXCEPT for the 26th. Join me and fellow Bookkeeping Side Hustlers on Zoom (password: HUSTLE).
📅 December 13: Royalwise is have a Full Service Payroll in QBO class. Join them to learn Payroll Subscription options, settings, and even how to do a payroll run. Register HERE.*
📅 December 14: Intro to Xero. Looking to grow and scale your business further? Join Xero for a demo of the platform and learn if you want to start serving clients on Xero. Register HERE.
📅+December 15: Western Governors University: Accounting Program Panel. I want to highlight good, affordable accounting education - and I will be interviewing a panel of recent WGU grads to get the REAL details of the program. 4pm on the YouTube channel. Please comment below with any questions you have about this college accounting program.
Featured Posts
🌶️ It is the holiday season, which leads to this question from Daniella about sending your clients Christmas gifts? Do you send client gifts? If so, what do you send? Comment on Facebook or below on the newsletter.
🌶️ Suzanne asked for advice on how to handle when a client has had a (relatively) bad business year and asks for a lower rate for bookkeeping services but still pays herself $20,000. People had thoughts.
🌶️ William asks for examples of how many clients a part time bookkeeper can serve? Man, talk about a wide array of different ways to build your business.
🌶️ Stacey asked for feedback on what All-In-One practice management apps people are using? Or if folks are piecing several together. This is for her 2-person business.
Help You Hustle
💪 Should you serve Real Estate Clients? Well, this episode should help you know some of the sub-niches and some of the pitfalls of serving Real Estate Clients. Long time expert and Top 100 ProAdvisor, Gita Faust is our expert guest. In the episode she also shares how to get her free eBook “10 Real Estate Accounting Mistakes To Avoid”.
💪 Consider creating a “Peace of Mind” checklist for you clients. I took a stab at building one. Mine is for smaller businesses than what Ryan Lazanis explains in the podcast episode. I have not finished my checklist yet. I’m thinking naming mine a “Year-End Peace-of-Mind Checklist for FreshBooks Users”. That is a mouthful. But I’m going to keep trying!
💪 If you have never been to an accounting industry conference, I truly believe it will be game changing for your business. But how can I prove it to you before you spend the money to find out for yourself? Well, I found a free QuickBooks Connect Wrap Up session for you to hear for yourself how valuable a conference can be. This is hosted by Cindy Schroeder. Go be a fly on the wall this Thursday afternoon and then set a goal to attend your preferred accounting conference in 2023!
For Fun
😹 2P Bookkeeping made me laugh with the changes to this meme. Can you grab attention with this kind of humor?
Jobs
💼 Morgan Padgett is looking for a bookkeeping specialist. This is a contract job, but could lead to growth. Go check it out ASAP - they are looking to hold interviews next week. (search her name inside the Facebook group)
💼 Ana Daniela posted that her firm is looking for an experienced, QBO certified bookkeeper. (search her name inside the Facebook group)
💼 Intuit is hiring, hiring, hiring for QuickBooks Live and TurboTax Live. Apply here. And please be sure to tell me if you get hired so I can send you your “Accounting T-Account Cheat Sheet Mousepad” so I can celebrate with you (and so Intuit can track the hires from people who benefited the job fair).
💼 I spy 4 part time openings at CPAMoms. You don’t have to be a mom to apply!
Don’t forget the standing opps on my Find A Freelance Job article. 1099 and W-2 opps.
Kate Builds In Public
🎢 Over the last few weeks, I have spent A LOT of time watching tutorials and practicing a new video editing app called Descript*. It is actually the perfect time to start learning it because they just completely overhauled their system and all the old Descript users are really mad and screaming “Why can’t I find the blah blah blah” or “These changes are terrible” and I’m over here just learning on the new system. So if you do decide to start learning it, don’t watch any tutorials that were made before about November 2022.
Here is the selling point for Descript*. You edit videos just like a WORD DOCUMENT. You talk and talk and talk while recording. Then you get a free transcription in a mere moments. Then if you don’t like a sentence, you just put your cursor at that location on the transcript and start deleting and it is gone from the video. So very different from Camtasia Video software which I have been using for the last 3 years.
🎢 Our little hybrid school has a FULL THREE WEEKS OFF for Christmas. Gah! So in addition to the kid swaps I have arranged, I developed this “Christmas Break Anti-Boredom” list for my three kids. For context, my kids are 11, 9, and 8. I’m hoping this list buys me about 2 hours of kid-free time per day. How do you keep your kids busy when your school/family schedule changes and you still have work to do? Please share your ideas below!
🎢 I secured another “clean up”. Really it is a “start over”. $1,290 for 10 month rebuild on a new FreshBooks file since there was not a lot of point in saving her old file based on how she had been using it. Plus all my clean up projects include another service for another $250 for 2 hours of training after the clean up is complete. I think this will be my last bookkeeping project for 2022. I’ll tell prospects they can hire me for hourly training or join my office hours if they want access to me.
🎢 I moved my office hours for FreshBooks clients to a free Facebook group from the special paid platform I was using called Mighty Networks. Mighty Networks just didn’t work out like I had hoped, so when my year subscription ended I did not renew. I’m comfortable on Facebook groups (obvs…hello Bookkeeping Side Hustle Group!), and I never could really get comfortable with how this other platform worked. There was a lot of friction getting my group members to use the group for written support. They basically didn’t engage on the platform at all. I did have to figure out a recurring billing situation, so now all those clients are moved to recurring ACH on Ignition.
🎢 I received TWO reviews this week on Google My Business! One of them felt particularly good because she ASKED where she could leave me a review. The other was a training client. Remember, if you are looking for reviews, even just doing a brief training for someone constitutes as service they could review. Even unpaid training or light consulting for those of you who are brand new could be a great activity in exchange for a review. If you helped someone, ask for a review.
From The Vault
⚡So, you know I have been finding ways for my oldest son to gain some work experience, maybe one day he will be like this 13 year old QBO ProAdvisor. Pretty neat to see this working family relationship.
Letters To The Editor
✉️ “Yeah I designed it LOL, now that we have income, We can afford a real designer.” ~ Hector Garcia, in response to the previous newsletter where I said the landing page for his app RightTool was “ugly as sin”.
✉️ I can’t quote the response because it is so long, but if you visit the recent “Intuit Academy Bookkeeping Course" video we did and scroll through the comments underneath it to find one from Sarah H, you will get A LOT of information about the new learning platform and the new testing platform. The release of this course has not been without its bugs. If you plan to take this course and test from Intuit, you need to read her review.
Classifieds
So, I’m testing out the classified ad section before selling this ad space starting in January 2023. Let me know in the comments what you think! And let me know if you want more info on putting a classified ad in this newsletter!
Keep hustling!
Kate
-Chief Hustler-
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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.