The Successful Bookkeeper Podcast

"What I realized only years later, in doing collaborations is that I had to stop assuming I knew what someone thought I was worth, or what they were getting is worth." -Tanya Fox There exists a damaging belief in business that if we aren't the ones handling every aspect of our work, that we aren't successful. As much as we might like to believe we can do everything alone, trying to live this way i...

"You're meant to lead the way and if your plate is so full that you're only doing things halfway, and not feeling really good about the job you're doing, and how you can impact others, we need to really take a holistic look at what's going on." -Tonya Herb When our cars break down, we seek out a mechanic. We visit the doctor when we are sick. Yet in our businesses, we feel pressure to see to every...

"You're not your client's bank. Contrary to some beliefs, you're doing work for them and getting paid. There are different ways to structure your payment terms that limit your exposure." -Michelle Bomberger We know as bookkeepers just how much relationships matter in business; we want our clients to invest in us to fill their gaps. But we often don't want to invest in others to fill our own. This...

"The job of a good embezzler is to become the trusted bookkeeper." -Ruth King The pace of change is exponential, and keeping up with all the new technologies is a real challenge. But it doesn't have to be that way. We don't have to chase every new invention; we need only to find the tools that make doing business for ourselves and our clients a little bit easier. The desire to keep up can lead us...

"We're actually biologically positioned and programmed to receive stories. For most of existence, for the hundreds of thousands of years humans have existed on the planet, we have not been able to transfer information in written form from one person to another." -Matthew Dicks As bookkeepers, we love the details. We find patterns in them others struggle to see. But sometimes our love of numbers ma...

"Walking is our common denominator in terms of movement, almost all of us walk. It's a really great place to begin, to teach people about movement." -Bruce Fertman Our role as bookkeepers gives us unique insight into the health of a business. We can make sense of the figures in a way our clients would struggle to alone. We find the problems and successes and help our clients to make changes to the...

"A lot of people say, 'Oh retirement, that's for old people. I don't need to be thinking about that now.' But it is just good cash flow management. It's good financial planning. To be thinking not only about what I am spending my money on today as a business owner but also what does this look like in 5, 10, 20 years." -Courtenay Shipley As bookkeepers, it is our job to help others understand how t...

"Oftentimes, we're our own worst enemy, and so we listen to the one negative comment or the one negative undertone that someone gives us, and we hold onto that." -Trixy Castro Every challenge provides an opportunity for growth. A chance to build a mindset of resilience, that will let us face any problem with a mind to solutions. That bias and barriers to success exist, is not in question. What is...

"All of a sudden, the customers no longer perceive us as valuable because we failed to reframe the value that we created. The accountant and the bookkeeper's job should be giving the business owner confidence in their number." -Hector Garcia For as long as we define our value by our skills alone, we will have to bear the threat of replacement. If all we are communicating to our clients is the comp...

"Innovation means always doing it differently, always doing it better. Innovation is not always technology; innovation is providing a different point of view to the status quo." -Hector Garcia There will always be people more successful than we are. This is only a problem if we decide it's not worth taking any action to better our lives because we'll never be better than those we idolize. Success...

"If they don't have the right mindset and the right willingness to adopt the technology, it's just not going to work." -Tim Sernett Everyone is different. There will be those who love trying new things and those who are more hesitant to leave their bubble of security. One isn't better than the other, but when it comes to business, you must consider who is best for you and your business. If you are...

"Nowadays I fire people. I fired one client last month. They didn't even make it two months in. But the way they talked to my staff and scope creep and demanding a lot of things that we never agreed to, I let them go within a month and a half. Where before I would suffer those clients for a year." -Tyler Otto It is natural when starting a business to want to take any clients, no matter how much th...

"The number one marketing strategy for bookkeepers, people would say, is 'do a good job and referrals will come.'" -Debbie Roberts Finding the right people to work in our businesses is tough. Managing expectations on both sides can be challenging, maybe our systems and processes aren't as great as we hoped, or maybe they just aren't the right fit for us. No matter what happens, mistakes are only a...

"You don't have to know everything, but if you can ask the questions and then if you can figure out how those tie into the financials, you can say 'here are the numbers, but here's what they mean.'" -Jeff Bartsch All of us have a story, but few of us embrace the ability we all possess to change the narrative at any moment. There is comfort in familiarity, but it can also imprison us. If we keep sa...

"A story is where a character wants something, overcomes obstacles to get it and experiences transformation as a result. Identity, desire, obstacles and transformation. And then we as providers of services and products, we are the guide, we come alongside to help that hero get what they want." -Jeff Bartsch Being a bookkeeper is about more than our ability to do the math. There are plenty of techn...

"I think there are three main things that are super important for running a business. One is knowing how to be a great leader and a great manager of people. There's learning how to hire the right people for your business and how to build a team. And then there's knowing how to follow the rules and stay out of trouble!" -Jackie Koch As with all things in life and business, the earlier we get plans...

"Spend 15 minutes a day every single day on something that matters to you. I don't care if it matters to anybody else, but something that matters to you, and preferably do all this before you check your email." -Sam Bennett Habit building is hard, especially when we aren't always sure which way to direct our energy. The more we build a habit, the more momentum we gain, and the less we want to quit...

"The sales conversation isn't about the details of how we do the bookkeeping, it's about, what are the benefits of that for a business owner." -Peter Cook Most of us would say that referrals have been our best avenues to new business. Yet when quizzed about how we get them, many of us have no system or proactive approach in place with which to attract them. It's a fine line, make too many cold cal...

"We are in a supply/demand economy that favours the suppliers. And it's economics 101, if you have a supply shortage that can't meet all the demand of the market, then you increase price." -Joe Woodard Compliance is one of the biggest realms of challenge for bookkeepers, but it also provides consistent opportunity. The rules and regulations change so frequently that it can be hard to keep up, and...

"If you want to stay viable in your bookkeeping business, you're going to have to make that shift, and make your customers understand that they need you, and value you and your thought process that AI can't do for them." -Lora Lonesberry There can be no doubt that AI is changing our world. Yet we are not all as doomed to be replaced by technology as some would have us believe. AI, like all new inv...

"People do that with their bookkeeping business, they start, they want to get some clients and they want to make some money, but they actually really have no idea what the journey looks like and where they are trying to get to. It's a very different experience if you don't know where you're trying to get to." -Peter Cook There is a common misconception among business owners, that we are never trul...

"You have to be willing to think a little bit differently about your business. If you follow what everyone else is doing, you're going to get the same results everybody got." -Racheal Cook Building a business is hard. There are so many barriers to success that the last thing we need is to get in our own way, either by supremely undervaluing our skills, or dramatically overestimating the market for...

"The importance of your own personal achievement needs to be equal to the importance of everyone else's achievement. We are all just harmoniously and fortunately moving towards the same thing: survival." -Mike Michalowicz Are we working with the business or for the business? A great way to find out is to pay attention to the way you speak about the business. Are the successes and failures 'ours' o...

"You don't have to be the best salesperson in the world. To be good at marketing a bookkeeping business, you just need to be good enough that you stand out in that crowd. You have to get good enough, you don't have to become the world's best marketer. " - Peter Cook We might be excellent bookkeepers, but that doesn't mean we are automatically great business managers. It's important to take the tim...

"Don't just ask for the referral, deserve it. You deserve a referral, and you earn a referral by who you are and how you show up in people's lives." - Curtis Lewsey Referrals are a huge part of our businesses but despite this, we often don't spend as much time and genuine effort as we should investing in the relationships around us. How well we are referred by others is a direct testament to our c...