The One With A Board of Directors
I hope you caught the live stream we did in the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Community about forming a mastermind group to hold you accountable and help you reach your goals. Thanks so much to Jodi, Carissa, Martha, and Rachel for sharing all the juicy details about how they formed their group and how they run their group. My hope is that it inspires you to form something similar.
One of the things that stood out to me is that Rachel said that she felt like this mastermind group was like her Board of Directors for her company.
And what do Boards of Directors do? They are basically the boss of the leader of the company. They provide accountability to the leader. Give her performance reviews. Fire him. Give her hard feedback. Tell him his idea is bad. Celebrate milestones with her.
Do you ever crave any of that (o.k. maybe not the “firing” part)?
Sure, we all started our businesses to have more freedom and to ultimately do what we want when we want (otherwise we’d have gotten a job, right?). But I propose that most folks who aren’t certified narcissists will soon get to that point where they realize it is really uncomfortable flapping out there in the breeze all alone. You look over your shoulder for that friendly and trusted hand to help you navigate a difficult situation or help you decide between two good alternatives (or whatever else you might face), and there ain’t no one standing behind you. Sure your family and friends are hopefully cheering you on and you appreciate them, but you know they are not the sounding board that you need.
Listen to the interview. Form a group. Go get what you need.
But Kate, how do I find these amazing people to form a group with? Ah. Good question. Glad you asked. The ladies on the interview shared some ideas. And here’s another idea for you that I think has merit.
Sign up for a serious program that you know you need that also has some hurdles to it. By hurdles, I mean, some hard work and commitment. Some level of rigor. This will help you avoid getting entangled with someone who is not aligned with you and will just be dead weight. You’ll have a good chance of finding like-minded people.
One great example of this would be to sign up for the upcoming Breakthrough Bootcamp from the Workflow Queen Alyssa Lang that starts next week (thanks for sponsoring!). The program is free, but it is serious work for smart and ambitious people. Read her landing page. Is this program targeting the kind of people you want to surround yourself with? Actively participate and pay attention to who else is actively participating. Who is showing up? Who is asking the most insightful questions? Who is acting like a professional? Then figure out how to stay in touch with them, and go from there.
Deals Deals Deals
💰 Mariette Martinez has $200 off her Accounting Lifecycle Bootcamp* if you register by Monday, August 21.This is accounting literacy training that teaches her 4-stage Accounting Lifecycle model. There are also guest instructors Seth David, Alicia Katz Pollock, Cash Flow Mike, and Ana Calderon. Heavy hitters.
💰Basic ProAdvisor Exam course is on sale for only $59 is STILL one sale for the month of August (that’s a rich discount at $100 off!). Grab Margie Remmer-Davis’ course now! Use my link* and code SUMMER59 to get the discount.
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 August: Bookkeeping Side Hustle Community Co-working Hour. Join me for the weekly co-working hour on Zoom at 11am EST. Zoom link (password: HUSTLE)
📅 August 21-25: The Power to Breakthrough Bootcamp is for bookkeepers & accountants who want to scale their firm. Hosted by The Workflow Queen. Sign up for this FREE event HERE.*
📅 August 29-31: Profitable Lifestyle Firm Summit. This summit is designed to shift your firm from the traditional expectation of long hours, demanding clients and stressful deadlines to a profitable, sustainable business that allows for freedom and autonomy. Get your FREE ticket HERE*
📅 Aug 29 - Oct 12: Accounting Lifecyle Bootcamp* with Mariette Martinez
📅 Sept 14-15: Bookkeeping Buds Retreat. I’m speaking at this one! Let’s hang!
📅 Sept 30: Deadline for Scaling New Heights conference presentation topics.
📅 October and November: Woodard Company is having 4 mini-cons this fall. In California, Georgia, Texas, and NJ/PA. Should you go?
Featured Posts
🌶️ Julie L. wanted advice on how to handle clients that contact you outside of your business hours. The responses to this were 🔥- go add your stance to this dilemma.
🌶️ Virginia R. shared her success in getting A2X certified. I mentioned this cert in the previous newsletter and she took immediate action! Respect. Now it is your turn!
🌶️ Tyler H. asked about getting credit for your bookkeeping business. Now, in general, I’m anti-debt and credit cards are a hard NO for me. But I know not everyone feels the same way, and I think these comments are informative. I will say one thing. NEVER invest in any sort of coaching or training program or consultant that pushes you to take out debt to pay them.
🌶️ Clay B’s post about the fears he is feeling creeping in after being in business for 3 months is encouraging. And the comments validate why this is the best community in all the internet!
Help You Hustle
💪 Do you ever wish you had peers to “work” with? Ask questions, problem-solve, celebrate with? Be sure to watch my latest YouTube video on being part of a bookkeeping mastermind. This might be just want you need.
💪 Two very smart people named Megan Tarnow and Luke Templin are teaming up to do something called CAS Chat every 4th Thursday at 2:00 Central Time. Details here. I’ve got my eye on this one. (Ummm…this could be an interesting little place to find folks for a mastermind. Not a high hurdle to participate, but you typically learn a lot about people from their twitter accounts).
💪 Social media was abuzz last week about something called the TaxTwitter Retreat. Just take a peak at the highlights here. And also search #TaxtTwitterRetreat for more. I know some of you love taxes! Perhaps these are “your people”. This is just a large, ad hoc group of people from the accounting industry who found each other on social media and help each other and decided to meet in person. They are already planning for next year.
For Fun
😹 Who else does bookkeeping math when you go places? Thanks Byron P. for sharing!
Kate Builds In Public
🎢 I attended a webinar co-presented by Bench and FreshBooks. The target audience was SMBs who use FreshBooks and are looking to outsource their bookkeeping. FYI, Bench is like FreshBooks version of QuickBooks Live, though it is a separate entity from FreshBooks, instead of being in-house like QuickBooks Live is for Intuit. But FreshBooks markets it to their subscribers.
A few observations that you can possibly apply to yourself:
I want to hear the language that the big bookkeeping firms are using so I can discern what types of messages I can use in my own marketing and then what kind of messages I can use to distinguish myself from them.
Listening to the presenters was a confidence boost for me. Instead of feeling like “golly, this competitor is so much better than me and knows so much more than me”, I felt like“there was nothing said today that I don’t understand and no service I can’t provide (except I don’t do tax prep), likely better”.
I hear from my FreshBooks prospects that they know about Bench and have taken a peek at them. By paying attention to the marketing directly from Bench, I can better distinguish myself as different. “But when you work with me, you get XYZ…” Many of you newsletter readers are going to hear from prospects that have received ads and pitches from QB Live. That is that parallel here.
All of the major accounting software companies and their outsourced bookkeeping divisions are undergirded by the world’s best marketing experts. No messaging gets shipped out for public consumption without major vetting and testing and validating with data. Their messages (webinars, website, email copy, social posts, etc) work. So we would be fools not to observe.
Find out who the mega-firms are that are serving your ideal client and watch/listen to their messaging. If you crawl these companies website, you should start receiving their social media ads. But also just follow their pages and get on their mailing lists. Here are ones you could start with:
Collective - small solo-preneur types. Notice how they use the word “member” for their customers. 🤯
Your Part-Time Controller - large non-profits
Paro - They serve practically everyone and their mother
Bench - they are their own GL with no client access, so they are for SMBs who really don’t want touch their own bookkeeping
What other firms could be on this list? Comment below with others you know of.
🎢 I am realizing that it is hard to have a business that you can unplug from if you have monthly recurring clients, but are a solo operation. That might not be earth-shattering to those of you readers who are much smarter than me, but it is just sort of hitting me. I know that when I started learning how to do bookkeeping because I wanted to increase my family's income, I also wanted to make sure I had control of my time. I wanted to be able to take extended breaks to visit my parents or to have my kids home in the summer. I certainly didn't want a business that added a lot of recurring stress or deadlines.
I sure this is a cautionary tale for those of you who are starting out and have mentors who are teaching you to go get those recurring revenue monthly clients. Those are great and lucrative. But it comes at a cost. But the world still spins and the month ends every darn single month.
Just be aware of what you're building. Make sure you're building something that is in line with your goals.
I either have to build a real business with actual systems (and which probably means investing money into having systems and software that work well and enable people to work for me), or I have to find revenue streams that align with my goals. Handling more monthly recurring clients by myself is not in line with what I want my life to look like.
So teaching and training on FreshBooks is where I've currently landed.
🎢 I had seven people register for my monthly free drop in Q&A time. Hoping to convert at least two of them to paying clients and my paid office hours membership. But man, answering complete strangers’ questions live and in public is such a rush. Some people buy motorcycles to help them feel alive. I answer FreshBooks questions.
🎢 Speaking of my free monthly FreshBooks Q&A, I used ChatGPT to create the embed codes for calendar links for Google, iCal, and Outlook. I see that a lot in emails I receive for virtual events. You know what I’m talking about. The “add this to your calendar” note at the bottom of a reminder email as the event approaches. See after folks register for the event with zoom, I want to communicate with them a couple more times leading up to the event to remind them and start to make them feel welcome. I thought the additional easy calendar links would help increase attendance.
From The Vault
⚡ Check out this video with Alyssa Lang to learn more about her! Watch this video if you’re still on the fence about joining her FREE bootcamp.
Classifieds (Clickable)
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Keep hustling!
Kate
-Chief Hustler-
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