We’ve all had shady clients. The question is what you should do when encounter one? For Ben, he gets rid of them as quickly as possible. [1:15] There isn’t an easy solution if a shady client makes up a good portion of your business’s revenue, but working with an unscrupulous person can put your business in jeopardy. [1:45] The first signs of a shady client will come up when you’re marketing. When you connect with a potential client, you should try and get a sense of how they feel about...

Getting online reviews is the lifeblood of a virtual bookkeeping business. Reviews are one of the first things people look at when considering whether to buy a product or service, without them a certain element of trust is missing. [1:35] Where are you already? We want to make sure you’re being reviewed where your clients can see them easily. Your Facebook page is one avenue, the Better Business Bureau is another. The BBB is a very commonplace that potential clients go to find reviews....

Everybody needs to be marketing, but that doesn’t mean you have to take on clients. One of the cardinal sins in this business is to stop marketing. [1:10] Your message needs to be going out into the marketplace all the time. It takes time for the marketing engine to warm up, so you want it running once things start to slow down. [1:45] We don’t want one way to get ten clients, we want ten ways to get one client. If you’re relying entirely on one channel to get clients, you are vulnerable...

Niche marketing is one of the keys to success for 21st century bookkeepers because you have to go deeper with your clients. If you’re working with a number of different niches, you won’t be able to fully understand your client’s businesses or offer them your best service. [1:00] Marketing is about three important elements: your market, your message, and your medium. Most people start with the least important which is the medium. The very first thing you have to do in all of your marketing is...

Heather has always had a desire to help people and that’s reflected in the jobs she’s had in her life. Once her daughter was born, Heather decided she wanted to stay home with her. After a few years, she wanted to explore working again. She looked into becoming a financial advisor before finding Bookkeeper Business Launch but once she found Ben she didn’t look back. [3:05] Heather currently has four of her own clients plus several others that she subcontracts for. The freedom of being able...

We all face difficult things in our lives, but on the other side of difficulty is usually some victory. For example, getting through the Air Force’s basic training and passing the CPA exam. [1:20] It wasn’t what I expected, but I persevered, followed the system, did what I was told and pushed through it. When I graduated I was very proud. It was a similar story to passing the CPA exam. [2:15] It doesn’t matter where you are in the evolution of your bookkeeping business, there are difficult...

Kelly wears a number of different hats. She’s a mom of three little boys, a wife to a husband who travels a lot for business, a landlady and real estate investor, on top of her bookkeeping business. [3:30] The real estate side of things were happening before the bookkeeping business came into the picture. Kelly and her husband were both working full time and had a couple of rental properties but having kids really changed things. They made some big moves, sold their properties and that was...

All the things we do in bookkeeping are generally historical, but where we want to take it is in interpreting the data so that you can actually give your clients advice. [1:55] Before starting with advisory services, you need to be able to produce financial statements in a consistent, timely, and accurate manner. If your client isn’t getting you the info you need, that’s going to be a problem. A good rule of thumb is to not work with people who drag their feet. [2:50] Financial statements...

Erin has had her bookkeeping business for just over a year. She was a stay-at-home mom facing a divorce and needed to figure out something flexible and lucrative. In many ways, bookkeeping seemed too good to be true. [3:00] Erin was formerly a school teacher, so she never had any experience with bookkeeping before getting into the business. After getting into Ben’s program, she had an aha moment where it all came together. Bookkeeping is like learning a language; it takes some time and has a...

Scope creep is not a good thing and it tends to run rampant in most client relationships. The question is what do we do when a client asks us to do something that we didn’t agree to do? [0:45] If you’re working with exceptional clients, this shouldn’t happen that often, but when it does it’s actually a compliment. The client trusts you because you are their trusted advisor. [1:20] Once it gets to the point where they are asking you consistently to do extra work, you have to bring awareness...

David started out like most entrepreneurs, looking for painful problems to solve. He worked as a freelance marketer and saw a lot of accounting firms struggle with various aspects of their business including project management. [3:45] He realized there was a gap in the market because if you’re a firm owner with a number of clients to manage, the average project management tool is not client centric at all. Sales tools are built for handling a pipeline, not for dealing with tasks. A...

Randy started her bookkeeping business after the age of 50. She had been working in a dance studio for over ten years until things went awry, and she felt that if there was no security in the traditional job market anymore she might as well do things her own way. [3:25] Freedom means being able to go out for lunch with her son completely unplanned, without having to run it by a boss first. [4:25] Randy is currently working with attorneys and has between 15 and 20 clients, depending on how...

Once you’ve documented your processes and created the checklists, you need to put yourself into a different frame of mind and ask “how do I improve on these?” [0:55] One of the biggest traps that people fall into is documenting their processes while trying to improve them at the same time, which is a recipe for disaster. You have to clearly distinguish between documenting your processes and working to make them better. [2:00] Just like advisory services, you need to set aside time when you...

One of the most common questions that Ben gets is around documenting processes because they are often all over the place. [0:35] The first thing to do is to distinguish between process documentation and process improvement. Whether or not you have your processes written down, you will have processes in place on how you do things. [1:00] The reason you want to document your processes is to do more with less time and improve the quality of the services that you offer your clients. It also...

Jessie has a background in education and actually worked as a history teacher. One day in her third year, she wanted to teach some new classes and was given a flat refusal from her boss. At that point, she realized her days as a teacher were numbered. She stumbled upon Bookkeeper Business Launch on the Penny Hoarder and it seemed like a good fit. She enrolled in the course in August, launched her business in October and got her first client in November. [5:25] Before jumping into...

Brooke started off in the industry as an account manager with a construction company, until one day she got fired which was a first for her. Brooke was a day trader for a few years after that but once that became stale, she started looking for other opportunities. She had always wanted to start a business and after doing some searching, she found Bookkeeper Business Launch and decided it was the right fit. [4:10] Brooke’s business is now one year in and she serves a number of clients, some...

Dave and his wife have been working together for a long time. She took on the bookkeeping side of things, while Dave had been running his pharmacy. After selling off the business and traveling for a while, they got into real estate investing and eventually started looking at bookkeeping itself as a business. [4:30] Dave knew what his niche was going to be even before signing up for Bookkeeper Business Launch. As real estate investors themselves, they understand their needs and pain points,...

Kevin has been hustling his entire life. Multiple streams of revenue have always been a focus for him and that has manifested into multiple businesses during his adult life. [6:00] Math had always been a favorite subject for Kevin, and he worked with his father in an accounting role during high school and college, but eventually wanted to do something different. He decided on teaching as a profession and did that for a few years while growing his side businesses at the same time. Bookkeeping...

Kevin started off in the IT world and he quickly got pretty tired of getting yelled at all the time. One of his friends started a business, and Kevin started doing the IT stuff for it, which eventually developed into business management. After that Kevin went back and got his MBA, graduated in 2016, and along the way, dabbled in real estate. The real estate led him in a roundabout way to doing a few bookkeeping jobs via Upwork, and finding Ben’s Bookkeeper Business Launch course. [8:20] In...

Prior to bookkeeping, Annette was a dental hygienist for 35 years. Her life was very structured, and every minute of her time was accounted for. Her journey into bookkeeping was pretty tumultuous. After her husband suddenly died, at the age of 56, she took over his business and realized that the books were a mess. In the process of trying to figure everything out, she saw Ben’s ad for bookkeeping, and it seemed like a way to kill two birds with one stone. [5:35] Eventually, the chemicals in...

Jackie’s family had always wanted to live in America so her family moved to LA, but for various reasons, it didn’t work out. She needed to set something up that was relevant to her degree in order for it to be seen as successful in the eyes of Immigration and be able to stay in the States. She stumbled across Bookkeeper Business Launch in 2016 and it showed her a way to make her plan real. [4:50] Jackie officially launched her business in January of 2017, and she landed her first client a...

Jessica’s personal style is hyper feminine, but deep down she likes math and numbers. That synthesis is where the moniker Sparkle Bookkeeping came from. [2:50] When Jessica was in college she had an opportunity to work for a cannabis tax firm, and got a feel for the industry as well as learned bookkeeping directly. After a while, she wanted to try something new. She felt like she would be able to do it on her own and she discovered Bookkeeper Business Launch. [6:20] The mindset aspect of...

Jenna used to work as an auditor, but the position involved being surrounded by negative people as well as physical demands that didn’t work with her family’s schedule. After getting denied when she tried to adjust her work schedule, Jenna realized that she should probably venture out on her own. She found the Bookkeeper Business Launch program and once someone she trusted vouched for the content, she signed up. [5:00] Jenna currently has 10 clients and is not looking to build an empire....

Kerrie went into corporate accounting after getting her accounting degree. She decided after 5 years that it wasn’t her cup of tea and opened her own business that lasted for a couple of years. A major move meant she had to find something else and she ended up working in a public school for 13 years. During that time, Kerrie’s husband developed a chronic illness and Kerrie knew she needed to find a job that gave her more flexibility. She discovered Bookkeeper Business Launch and that’s where...