Beating the Odds: Megan Schwan on Smarter Pivots and Sustainable Growth| EP170

What does it take to beat the odds and build a business that lasts? Megan Schwan, CEO and Founder of Sidekick Accounting Services, is on a mission to change the statistic that 8 out of 10 small businesses fail.

Megan shares the key factors entrepreneurs should evaluate before launching new offers or entering new markets, along with real-world examples of how shifting a business model can help companies thrive in challenging seasons. She explores the mindset shifts CEOs must embrace to scale impact, the blind spots service-based businesses often overlook, and the powerful questions leaders can ask themselves when feeling stuck or uncertain about their next move.

Tune in and walk away with practical strategies to rethink growth, avoid costly missteps, and make confident pivots that position your business for long-term success.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmschwan/ 

Website: https://www.sidekick-accounting.com/ 

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Transcript

Megan Schwan 0:48

The thing is, is if somebody can do what you do at like 80% or seven, even 75, 80% of how you can do it, that's enough for you to let it go because your capacity is only so much, right? And if you're filling your capacity with things that other people can do, you're really stunting yourself and your business from growing.

Kelly Leonard 1:08

That was Megan Schwan. Megan is the CEO and founder of Sidekick Accounting Services, a virtual accounting firm that is working to change the statistic that eight out of ten small businesses fail. In today's episode, Megan shares strategies to tap into new markets. I'm Kelly Leonard, and this is the Boost Podcast.

Announcer 1:34

Welcome to the Boost Podcast, the podcast created to ignite your business and career potential. In each episode, host Kelly Leonard and her guests dive into one aspect of Kelly's signature and boost framework, ensuring you get practical, actionable insights, tips, and takeaways to build your brand, optimize relationships, obtain more data, secure thought leadership space, and happen to new market. And now, here's Kelly Leonard.

Kelly Leonard 2:05

Hey Megan, welcome to the Boost Podcast.

Megan Schwan 2:08

Hey Kelly, thanks so much for having me.

Kelly Leonard 2:11

My pleasure. So for folks who are hearing you for the very first time, share a bit about yourself.

Megan Schwan 2:17

So the long story short is I'm Megan, CEO and founder of Sidekick Accounting. We're a virtual accounting firm that serves business owners across the U.S. We provide bookkeeping, tax prep, tax planning, and profit first services. We're a certified profit first firm, which is a casual management system. And we do some business coaching related to that as well. And uh I've been in business for almost 12 years now. And I'm a solo mom of four, live in north central Florida, but my team's all remote. We our clients are all remote, and it's been a really fun journey.

Kelly Leonard 2:51

So wow, congratulations. 12 years and four kids. You got your work cut out for you. I do. And so, Megan, let's just jump right in, like especially because with everything that's going on in the marketplace and with the economy, so many business owners are rethinking their product and service offerings. You know, the pivot, the pivot is the thing. And so before launching into a new offer or entering any new market, what are some of the key factors that folks should evaluate in order to avoid wasted effort or missed opportunities?

Megan Schwan 3:28

Yeah, the best way to do that is honestly to do some uh concept proof proving concept, right, as they call it, which really boils down to doing something like pre-selling. Um so if you pre-sell your offers or your programs or, you know, even your products ahead of actually taking the time to fully create them, like you can have a concept in mind and you know, maybe an end in mind, but or an outline in mind, if you will, but without building the whole thing. So you might hear terms like, you know, build as you fly kind of a thing. That's kind of where that concept comes from, is like you have an idea of something. If you pre-sell it, you prove or you're giving yourself proof of concept. But doing that will save you a lot of time and energy because if you're not able to sell it, you know, then you don't have proof of concept. Then you can go back to the drawing board and say, okay, maybe I need to change the language or change the outcomes, you know, so that my client better resonates with it. Another thing that I recommend doing is taking a look at the market because, you know, there's the saying that there's nothing new under the sun, right? So, like somewhere, somebody probably has done something similar or the same-ish as what you're doing. And so finding those people, kind of taking a look at what they're doing, looking at your competitors, um, having conversations. Like, I know some people are like, oh, I can't talk to other business owners, but in my experience, most business owners are willing to talk about their own journeys and experiences and services and products and what they pay and you know, kind of a thing. So, like having a conversation with somebody you can maybe see as your competitor is really helpful because you can gain a lot from that. And anybody who has, you know, more of the abundance mindset, kind of this like overflow mindset isn't going to stop you from talking to them. They're not gonna avoid having that conversation. Um, and it can be really, really helpful because you can learn things from people that maybe made the mistakes so that you don't make them. That's like the best way to learn is from somebody else's mistakes. So having those conversations or giving yourself proof of concept by pre-selling are some really great ways to enter a market or to kind of shift or pivot without having to spend a lot of time and energy and money on building something new.

Kelly Leonard 5:47

Thank you for that. And then one of the things that I heard you mention is like as you're um sort of chatting with other folks in the marketplace, you talked about a mindset of abundance. And so, what other mindset shifts perhaps does a CEO or founder need to embrace when they're evolving their business model to reach new audiences or scale the market?

Megan Schwan 6:10

Yeah, there's this, there's so many of them, I think, because it really what I think it really comes down to, and especially like in my own experience of being a business owner and an individual for so long, is like it is you have to have this personal growth and development, which I think a lot of that comes back to your mindset. And so some of the things that I know are really big are, you know, not being afraid to delegate. Like if you want to grow and you want to scale, you have to have people on your team and you got to be okay with letting go of the reins. Um, I know that can be really, really difficult for people because they're like, I can, I'm the only one that can do it as good as me, which a lot of times is actually true. But the thing is, is if somebody can do what you do at like 80% or seven, even 75, 80% of how you can do it, that's enough for you to let it go because your capacity is only so much, right? And if you're filling your capacity with things that other people can do, you're really stunting yourself and your business from growing. So that's a big one. Um, the other thing too is I think when, especially when we're starting out in business, we're just we're saying yes to everything. We're saying yes to all these clients and all these programs and you know, all these kind of things that we think are what we're supposed to do. Being a strategic CEO requires us to be okay with sometimes saying no, you know, to the things. If it's not in alignment with where we're trying to go, if um a client is no longer in alignment with where your services are, you have to be okay with being like, nope, that's not that's not the right person. And I can attest to this that said yes to clients and that just were not a good fit for us. But you know, I was like, I need the client kind of a mindset, you know, for myself. And often, like most of the time, those are the clients that cost you more in money and time and stress. Because, like, if I would have just said no and kept it moving, like I probably would have, you know, I would have felt so much better and had like all this, like instead of having all this stress, like I would have had like all this peace. And sometimes that's worth more than the dollars, you know, that can come with a unaligned client or program or whatever it might be. So being okay with saying no, if it's out of alignment with where you're trying to go is a really big mindset shift. Like you you can be strategic, you can say no and still move forward effectively.

Kelly Leonard 8:33

So yeah, and I I find that so to that point, um I think it all goes back to what you led with in terms of just having this abundance mindset, because oftentimes the reason why we're saying yes to things that aren't the best yes for us is because perhaps we're like, well, I don't know where my next client's gonna come from. And so because of that, let me just do this work because at least it's something. Um, and so so yeah, so I think it's full circle moment back to the abundance mindset.

Megan Schwan 9:03

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and then the other mindset that I would share is uh you have to be intentional about looking at your data. So when you are growing as a CEO, like you have to kind of lean into like not even just financial data, although, you know, I agree that's like number one priority on my side of the um aisle. But you have to be okay with data in many different facets. So understanding your numbers, having your bookkeeping in order, your reports is definitely like the foundational piece for that. But you also have to start looking at, you know, your conversion rates and your ROI, you know, on customer acquisition costs and things like that, so that you're able to make better, more data-driven decisions to move your business forward versus always playing uh the reactor, you know, like you want to move to being proactive, to being the, you know, the person that's taking action versus just the one that's waiting for something to happen, waiting for the shoe to drop, you know, or something to go wrong before you take action and start to fix things. When you have data and systems in place, you're gonna be able to identify red flags a lot quicker, oftentimes before they become red flags, so that you can start making those adjustments and shifts to move things forward um in a good, healthy way for your business to be successful.

Kelly Leonard 10:29

Now, I know you work really closely with um service-based businesses. Um, and you've alluded to the importance of like data and systems. What are some of the other like common blind spots that folks are facing when they're trying to grow or diversify their offerings?

Megan Schwan 10:46

Yeah, uh, kind of along the same lines is that they're looking at it from more of a solo provider versus like a CEO perspective. When you're a CEO, you're not just looking at here's my service and this is what I'm doing, and that's it. They often are create looking at what are the verticals, you know, across services because that opens up new markets, it opens up new partnerships. They're looking for the next opportunity to further whatever's going on. But you got to have this, you know, frame uh or mentality, mindset, you know, if you will, all of the things to really be like this is my business and I'm the CEO, not just I'm the person who's delivering. And that's true whether you have a team or you don't have a team, because if you want to grow in scale, you gotta start thinking that way before you become like a full CEO, right? Like you got to have that vision to go forward with. And that can that's definitely, you know, something people have blind spots about because they're so caught up in the day-to-day. You really like the saying is true, you really gotta have time as a business owner to work on your business, not just in your business, right? It's very cliche, but it's very, very true. But you gotta have that time to be able to think and strategize and look forward in a in a bigger way versus just only trying to get the task done every day.

Kelly Leonard 12:13

Now, can you share? I know in the years, the 12 years that you've been doing this work, can you share sort of a real world example of how shifting a business model helped a company thrive during challenging seasons in particular, especially because of just the way that the marketplace is right now? So can you share a real life example?

Megan Schwan 12:34

Yeah, yeah. I think one really good example would probably be one of our clients has been in business a long time as well. She's been in business for around, I think, like eight years. And her business model had been um she's a consultant. So her business model was always like, what are the hours? You know, and this is like when she brought a client in, you know, it was they thought they were coming in for this solve, this issue for her to solve. But once she got involved with them, it really ended up being like all this other stuff needed to happen before she could even solve that issue, which I'm sure if there's coaches or consultants on the line, they probably know exactly what I'm talking about, right? It's like they think the client thinks they have one problem, but they actually have all this other stuff first. Yes. But what she was um neglecting to do was to account for that. So she would come into this project thinking, and the client, you know, would get kind of frustrated, which, you know, led to her not renewing contracts or continuing contracts. And um her, you know, on her side getting frustrated too, because she was like, Well, I'm trying to help you get here, but you're not ready to be here yet. So what we did was we worked together to kind of flip her business model. So now instead of her just bringing in clients, she does an assessment with them and they pay for that assessment. And then she can identify, okay, this is actually what you need. So kind of coming in as more of like that advisor versus the one that's like, tell me what you need. And she's flipping it to she flipped it so that it was more like, this is what you need. And then she was able to create packages, which helped on her efficiency side and delegating side, where it was like, these are the different things that you're gonna get in each of these packages versus it just being like a scope of work. That doesn't work for everybody, but it's one way to kind of take a look at like, okay, what are the consistencies? And that's what we, you know, went through is like, okay, with all of your like current clients or the clients you worked with over the last years, what were the things you had to work on for them? And is there some repeatable things happening here? Because it can be difficult when you're working with clients, right? It's like you got to customize all of it. Um, the analogy that I use, well, we're not on a video of this recording, but think about like a customized um like cup, like the cup that has like your name on it or whatever. The cup is always the same, but you can customize it for the color and the words that are on there. You gotta think about your services kind of the same way. It's like, what are the foundational things in your services? And how do you make these little adjustments to quote unquote customize them for your clients? And that's usually a better business model because you gotta, again, you gotta have the systems in place. So you gotta think about like how do I get systems in place so that I'm not the one stuck doing everything all of the time with our clients. There has to be some kind of a base, you know, foundational thing. And that's often one thing that you can switch because then I guess to go back to, you know, getting unstuck and dealing with the economy that we've had, you know, you can start to identify the pieces that you can maybe sell. So maybe instead of it being a nine-month contract, you do some the small little piece for a month and you get a you know, a payment there. Or, you know, you have that assessment versus like the whole package. So you can kind of start to identify where are those entry points into your services that maybe are not as obvious unless you're really sitting down to like figure this stuff out.

Kelly Leonard 16:05

So yeah, that's a great, that's a great example. And so for folks who perhaps are listening and they're like, you know what, I need Megan in my life. What's what's the best way for them to connect with you?

Megan Schwan 16:16

Yeah, I'd love to connect and have a conversation. Um, you can go to chatwithmeg.com. It actually takes you to my website, but it's easier to remember. So chatwithmeg.com, and you can book a call with me. You can have connect with me on all the socials or email me. I'd love to have a conversation because I love helping business owners figure all these pieces out so that they can be successful and sustainable because that's what it's all about. Awesome.

Kelly Leonard 16:45

Thank you for your time, Megan.

Announcer 16:46

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