58 ⎸ The Honest Truth about Running a Business with Alyssa Lang

 In this interview episode, I have my biz bestie (and actual friend) Alyssa Lang, the Workflow Queen back on.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• How your business is a reflection of who you are
• how to get re-inspired
• Creating the intention to be a removable CEO
• Life updates from both of us

Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram Stories and tag me & Alyssa, @ambitiousbookkeeper @workflowqueen

For more information about the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:

Visit our website: ambitiousbookkeeper.com

Follow the Blog: ambitiousbookkeeper.com/blog

Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/ambitiousbookkeeper

Connect on LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/SerenaShoup

Connect of Facebook: Facebook.com/serenashoupcpa

Thank you for your support of our show. If you haven’t left a review yet it’s super simple. Please go to: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/podcast and leave your review.

Join the Workflows Made Simple 5 Day Free Challenge with Alyssa and her team:

Ambitiousbookkeeper.com/workflows

• Podcast Editing: Ian Gilliam: iangilliam.com
• Descript (affiliate link)
• Buzzsprout (affiliate link)

This episode is sponsored by: LiveFlow
Receive 20% off your first 3 months by using code AMBITION at checkout:
http://www.liveflow.io/partnerships/ambition

Transcript

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Serena: 0:29

Welcome back to the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast. Alyssa, thank you so much for coming on again. It's been way too long. So in case our guests have not met you, would you mind introducing yourself?

Alyssa: 0:43

Yeah. So if you haven't already met me and you follow Serena, then there should be a problem My name's Alyssa Lang I'm the owner and founder of Workflow Queen where we help book keepers and accountants from around the world to implement tech, systems and automation. We help you hire the right people, do the right thing to really scale your business. And I've been doing this since. February of 2020 and kind of made like some sort of a ripple effect. If you wanna say that in the way that we help people create those systems and give them the time off and all the things that they need. So that's me in a quick little tiny nutshell, but that's just the business about me.

Serena: 1:17

Yeah. So Alyssa and I-- I think that's around when we met I don't know if we went over this on the first podcast episode we did together. So I'll just give a brief, like little rundown of how we met. We met on Instagram. I've actually met a lot of really cool people on Instagram. So you can't can't hate the social media too much, but I think I found you. Hashtag and I started following you. And that was around the time I started posting for Ambitious Bookkeeper and kind of building that brand. And I went out on a limb and sent Alyssa a DM. And she did like--

Alyssa: 1:57

You slid right into my DMs.

Serena: 1:59

I probably, yeah, I slid right in. I probably still have it like, honestly, I should probably dig it up and post it. On Instagram when this episode airs, but it was something around the effect of like, I love what you're doing. I would love to like, just collaborate or like hang out online together. It was a little awkward, but people ask me all the time, like how to find like they're Alyssa basically. Like how do they find their biz bestie? And so I figured I would just share, like, it does take some courage to instant message somebody that you have no idea if they're even gonna be cool in real life. Or be receptive to collaborating or even just having a conversation. Cuz people are busy. Some people are really shy. It definitely took some courage. And if you ever had that like bullying or mean girl thing happen in high school or middle school. It makes it even harder cuz you're like, what if she's a mean girl, you know? But that's how we met and we just, we started collaborating, which helped my, helped me grow my brand and we continue to collaborate all the time. And it's, it's just really nice to have. Even a friend. So today we're gonna get like more personal and talk about our friendship. Cuz I do consider you like one of my best friends. Yeah. Same. I can call you for anything, and I know you can call me for anything too. We talk a lot about other things besides business. So, so yeah. Is that pretty much the story

Alyssa: 3:34

Yeah, I mean, I remember still like reaching out and-- I think me and you had a conversation recently, like I think it's really important to chat with people about. Like you sometimes really need to make friends and like create some sort of a little inner circle, inner mastermind, whatever you wanna call it, like in business, cuz it really does change the way that you do things. Mm-hmm and it doesn't like you said, it doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen. We had to build a relationship. There's a lot of people that like have reached out to me. I'm same for you that you start you're all hyped up and then you never hear from them again. Mm-hmm it's like something was different with us because we both put in the same amount of effort. And I think that like, if anybody who's listening right now, is looking for someone that's that's can understand cuz your husband, your boyfriend, your best friends at home, aren't gonna understand what you're going through in business. Like me and you are so relatable because one, we both own our own firms. Two, we both are in the same industry for like ambitious bookkeeper workflow queen. So it's like we understand each other on different levels that nobody in my life can understand. And I think that that's really important, but I remember you reaching out and I was like, yeah, like I just wanna be friends with all the people. And then I think it was like a year LA, was it a year later that we met up in real life?

Serena: 4:44

I think so.

Alyssa: 4:45

Was it not? It wasn't Prescot what's the, where were we at?

Serena: 4:48

We went to Scottsdale. We met up with, oh, that's Scottsdale. It's kind of funny, cuz like when we first met, I was still living in California. And so I wouldn't have been that far from you but then we moved right at the beginning of COVID to Arizona and that's when we started talking all the time. And then when the restrictions like started lifting well in Arizona, there wasn't very many to begin with, but when they started lifting, like in the city, in the airports and stuff, you came out and I met you in Scottsdale. Like we got really close, really fast because we booked a king size room,

Alyssa: 5:20

Like we totally forgot. It was totally my fault. I think I was the one who got it right now. I was like, I think so. I swear. I thought that I got two beds. We were just like, let's do it.

Serena: 5:33

Yeah. So if you wanna get to know someone really well, just hang out with them in a hotel room and only have one bed. Yeah. But yeah. Now a few years, couple years later, what are we in? 2022. So yeah, a couple years later, I honestly feel like. We've known each other for decades.

Alyssa: 5:50

Oh yeah

Serena: 5:50

Because we talk so often, multiple times a week. It's funny at the beginning we were, we would talk, we would like voice note on Instagram and then we were on Voxer and then we would text message. We had like all these conversations going all the places. We still do,

Alyssa: 6:05

I don't even know when last time I boxed you, but I do use the slack cause we have like slack together, but yeah, the whole moral of the story is like, find yourself somebody. This wasn't even like the topic of what we were gonna talk about, but I already feel like people just need to hear it sometimes that you're not gonna get an instant, like click of like, oh my God, they're my, my best friend. But like Serena said, she, I don't just consider her just my BI bestie. She's also my, one of my best friends in my actual life. And I can call a lot of times. We don't even call to talk about business because life is our business as well. And businesses are life and vice versa that like, you need to be able to get this outta your head, because people like to tell you, you need to separate business from like your personal life, but you really can't. Even if like you're fully like removed from your business and you're not in the day to day, like your business is a reflection of who you are. And if you don't have someone supporting you, on that end and listening to you with whatever you're going through, it's never gonna help you in business. And I think it's just really important for people to know that.

Serena: 7:02

Yeah, that is so true. Oh my gosh. I'm like writing this down. I'm like, that's a quote.

Alyssa: 7:10

We're gonna like, put it on you know like those live, laugh, love little signs? We're gonna make one of those, but it's gonna be my quote and I'm gonna put it in your office.

Serena: 7:19

Awesome. Yeah. So since we're getting personal today, we were talking before we went live of. What should we jam on today? And we thought it would be really good to just kind of give a life update. So if you aren't following me and Alyssa, like on social media and all that, like this may be a boring episode for you, but maybe not, cuz there's probably gonna be some gold that comes out of this. Because this is just how we roll. Like we start a conversation and then we just take it wherever it goes. But do you wanna give everyone like kind of a life update of what you've been up to in case they're not following you on social media? Cuz this is pretty exciting and amazing.

Alyssa: 7:56

Yeah. yeah, of course. So if you aren't following me on social media you can find me at workflow queen that's where you're gonna get, like my Instagram. I've kind of disappeared a bit, and you're gonna see a little bit more of my team, which I'm very grateful that they can stand up and represent the company for me. But if you ever wanna get like, The real side of what's happening in my life. Like that's the best place to find me. Currently I'm in about what two and a half years of business here at workflow queen. I recently restarted a firm. I had one about for five years before going full floor. So workflow queen and then in January of this year Now have a business partner she's in Canada, her name's Alyssa Truelove. And so we started Magnetic Bookkeeping and Consulting. So that added a lot more to my plate. Well, in February I went through a big like life change split up with the boyfriend that I was with like great relationship. Great man. But there was some things I was missing, like in my life. Moved up to Lake Arrowhead, California. And that was just, I think how fast did I move? Was it like four days? And I like was like, gone yeah. It was like the fastest move ever. But it's because like, I don't like to wait like around and like, I just know I'm gonna prolong things. So I ended up moving and since before February, I drowned myself in work. Like I know me and Serena both like we're on this like two year of like just every day doing that, like hustle. And I'm doing air quotes, but you can't see me, but that everyday hustle that like got us to the point of where we're at and why our businesses are successful. But I felt really, really burnt out in February, like super, super, super burnt out. And I knew it was time to focus on myself and I had to. And so when I started moving, like since February, like we talk all the time, Serena about how, like I have not been working, you haven't really been working lately. Like, we're very grateful for that. But since February, I've just kind of really slowed down. Like me being involved. It doesn't mean my company's not running. The team is now stepped up. They do our ads. They do our videos, they do our content. They've stepped up and they're pretty much running the show is what I say now. Like they run the show, I just work for them now. Which is a great place to be in. But since February, it just has been like, just this life, like really just listening to myself and really what I want and where I wanna be and the kind of impact I wanna make. And I realized that like, I really wanted to travel. And so Serena invited me to come hang out with her over in Phoenix recently. And so we hung out, out in Phoenix and then I went to Prescot. and before I left, I actually packed up my dog and I packed up literally all the camping things I had at my house. I was only supposed to be hanging out her for like, oh, what was it like a week originally?

Serena: 10:26

Yeah. Yeah. I was like, come hang out for like a week or something in Prescot just get out and yep. Go to the mountains, come, go to the lake with me, which is really funny, cuz we like never ended up really going no at the lake.

Alyssa: 10:37

But we technically did on 4th of July, but that doesn't count cause we weren't at the water. And so pretty much like I was only planning to come out here and really almost, Serena knew, and she would not have been mad if I was like, look, I just don't wanna go because it was about a six hour drive for me from California. And it wasn't about like the drive. It was just like about the energy of going and stuff like that. But I knew I really needed to be around Serena because I needed my people. And so on my drive home, I was coming from my dad's house or so I actually was coming from my friend Brooke's house. Who's another bookkeeper. And we hung out for the weekend. And I was driving up and I was like, you know, If I'm already gonna go out there to visit Serena, I might as well just do a long term road trip, like with my dog. And I remember calling Serena, I was like, guess what I'm doing? Cuz she knows I'm very impulsive. So like come up with random things and like, it just happens. I was like, I'm gonna go and drop off my key. But thank thankfully, I'm pretty sure she's probably listening to this episode. One of, both of our students, her name's Amber so graciously is checking on my cat for me, cuz I have a cat. So I'm very grateful for her on my way up there. I had to go to Amber's house to drop off her house key cuz I was supposed to help her out with some traveling and I got her, got to her house and I was like, look, here's my key. Like dropping off my key. I have no idea when I'm coming home. So like, can you check on my cat and definitely, and like tell you I'm coming home? Definitely like, and she was like, for sure. And I was like, I'll pay you all the things. Obviously she would not let me, but I just love her forever for it. But anyways, I literally packed up my stuff. I took the time I cleared out my whole entire fridge. I actually cleaned up every little thing. I made sure my cat had like bags and bags of food. I knew someone was gonna check on her and I threw everything in my car. Like I thought I was just gonna camp on this road trip and I drove out here. And I've been here since what? It's almost been a month and like a couple days now, since I haven't been home. I think.

Serena: 12:33

Wow. Yeah. Does it feel like it's been that long?

Alyssa: 12:37

No, I don't know. It's like so weird because I usually like really get, I've been traveling a lot this year already, but like, I usually always wanna come home because I had just moved. It's like a new house, new area, but also my dog. And now that my dog's with me, it doesn't feel like I'm gone. If that makes any sense? Like he's my home. So, it's been like, I can't, I can't believe it the other day I was like walking my dog and I was like, oh my gosh, it's been like a month since I've been gone. So essentially I packed up my stuff, came out here, got to spend a lot of time with Serena. We went and spent 4th of July with her kids out at Watson lake. It was so, so awesome. And then I had a crazy-- I feel like I wish to have like really crazy ideas that like evolved into like crazy stories.

Serena: 13:17

Yeah. You messaged me like one afternoon, because even though you were here, like we weren't hanging out like all day, every day, cuz like I, you know, I have kids and everything and like life happening. And you messaged me one afternoon and you're like, Hey, where is the nearest RV place?. Alyssa: And Serena's like, I'm just gonna already know she's doing something crazy. Yep. So I'm like, here it is. It's over here. Give her the little map link and then a few hours later. You're like, I bought an RV.

Alyssa: 13:49

Pretty much. Well, I wish it was that smooth. I did show up at the RV place and every single one I looked at didn't jump out at me, but there was this one guy showed me and it's a camper trailer. So I can, I have a Toyota TRD pro, so I can tow up to 5,000 pounds. So I can't really do like certain like lengths. So I got an 18 foot one and the back drops into a patio that's fenced, which is the reason I fell in love with this one, cuz my dog being able to have him out there and like just being able to drop it back on like a Riverside or something. So anyways, I was at the RV place. I send Serena pictures. I'm like, it's happening! Like I'm doing it! And so I actually applied, it actually took two weeks. It was almost a whole entire two weeks. Of just them having to go back and forth the lending company. It was just like, oh my God, I've never been so impatient in my whole life. But I ended up getting it and so I tested it. I stayed at Serena's house on her property, testing it out for about five days or something like that, I think?

Serena: 14:47

Was it that long?

Alyssa: 14:48

So pretty much that, yeah, I think it was like five.

Serena: 14:50

Just felt like one day. Just kidding.

Alyssa: 14:51

It's like, Hey neighbor, every day. Like we were so cheesy about it. Like, hi neighbor.

Serena: 14:56

Like, honestly, it was so much fun. Like my kids loved it cuz they love your dog. Mm-hmm and it was fine. Like I'm pretty like introvert. And like when we have family and stuff visit, they usually don't stay at our house. Like people will get like an Airbnb or whatever. And same with us. Like when we visit family, most of the time we go and get our own place because we like to have our own space. And so like, this was perfect because like you had your own space. I had my own space, but like, we could literally be like, Hey, meet me on the back patio for co-working.

Alyssa: 15:29

That's like exactly what it was. It was a pretty, pretty awesome, cuz Serena actually was like, why don't you just cancel your Airbnb and just stay with the trailer on my property? So that way you could test it. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's so brilliant. And so that's what I did. And I'm so grateful because it really showed me like, what was wrong with the camper? Cuz it's inevitable. If you're ever gonna do anything like this, something will go wrong. Like there's been a lot of problems already. I've been able to fix it. Yeah. And so I shipped probably every day, poor Serena had to like beat my Santa and gimme all my Amazon packages. I was sending to her house.

Serena: 16:05

Yeah. And my, my PO box, cuz it ends up, it actually ended up like getting there faster. If we shipped things to my PO box in town, cuz we live kind of like outside of town and there's actually a private company that contracts with the postal service to deliver packages. So everything takes an extra day to get out here. Then, like if it just got delivered to town. So yeah, a little side note of living in a small little rural area. But yeah, so you got an RV, you tested it out. There was definitely some things that if you had just taken it on the road, you would've been kind of screwed.

Alyssa: 16:40

Oh my gosh. And I was really nervous for like, To be a, like, I don't wanna pull the woman card, but like to be a woman by yourself, like hitching and un-hitching a trailer is really nerve wracking. Backing up a trailer. Like that's how things that, like, I had no idea that like was gonna come with this. What was I gonna be do about internet? Like this whole time? I was so grateful for like my team. Like, I was so busy, just dealing with all this stuff that like, I truly barely worked. Like I think I worked total of like two to five hours each week, because I was just so in my own little world, which was So incredible. Cause there's a lot of people listening that cannot, they're not in that place, which it is possible. You know, whenever.

Serena: 17:16

It definitely takes intention and planning to get there though.

Alyssa: 17:20

Oh, for sure.

Serena: 17:21

For sure. Yeah. But let's back up a little bit bit though, because before you got the RV, when you were just staying in an Airbnb, both of us were at the point where we were like not working at all, not inspired, really burned out, and just dealing with real life. And that was part of why I was like, just come out here and maybe we'll get like reinspired and that's kind of together happening because we would like schedule time to like go co-work together. And like, we were actually getting stuff done because we were: one holding each other accountable, but also two, like able to talk about things and get reinspired and like, and have ideas together and brainstorm and all those things. So for anyone listening, like if you're at that point where you're like, my business is not lining me up, I'm not inspired about anything. Think of who you can call upon. Like, if there's another business owner that if you do have a biz bestie, like maybe schedule a meetup like for a day or something, if you can swing it. Or half a day, if you're close by or something like that, and just start brainstorming ideas and, and see where it goes.

Alyssa: 18:32

For sure. I definitely think that even if like you guys wanna reach out, like if you have nobody to talk to like about that kind of stuff, because this is the reality of business ownership, like me and Serena are so transparent with people and so honest that like, it is not rainbows and butterflies and unicorns. If you follow my brand, it looks like that. I feel like, you know what I mean? It's not this thing that everybody hypes up and these things that people talk about that are constantly like, oh, business is great. It's always good. No, it's not like it really truly isn't. I have not felt inspired it and it's not because I don't love my business. Like, it's like the weirdest way to describe that. Like, I love what I do, but I'm not feeling inspired and I'm not feeling driven, but I love it. If that makes any sense. And I think that having someone to just talk that kind of stuff through-- because like, for me, I started to really get to the root of the problem. So Serena's the best coach ever. she pulls out her coaching, magic or whatever you wanna call it on me all the time. And she doesn't realize that she's coaching me. And then I don't realize until halfway through I'm like, oh, she's totally coaching me right now.

Serena: 19:34

It's just questions, right? Yes. Like I just end up asking you the questions.

Alyssa: 19:38

Yeah. But I just remember us like chatting, like a lot of this time through like, we'd be just like at a coffee shop and we're trying to feel inspired. And all of a sudden I'm looking up like videos of my phone, like, because I can't concentrate. What I was struggling with was I felt like I didn't have any structure around the big, large things that were moving because my life felt like it was so all over the place, but I needed that because I actually needed that way in my life. Cuz for so long it was too structured. And like I mentioned before, your life is literally a reflection of your business. So if in my life I'm feeling scattered, I'm gonna feel scattered in my business, which is weird because I'm the Workflow Queen. And a lot of people like lean on me to help them get the big picture, which I can help people all day every day, but sometimes it's really hard for me to do it for.

Serena: 20:23

Yeah, I think we all struggle with that in our businesses. It's pretty common for bookkeepers to have books that are way behind. But honestly, I would encourage people to treat your business, like your best client and focus on changing that around. Yeah, I've, I've been actually, since we started being reinspired and working together and stuff, I'm like, I've actually been doing my own bookkeeping like every week just to stay on top of where things are at financially. Yeah. Not that it's really necessary, but like, I just feel so much more in control when I'm looking at that stuff weekly now that I'm like, wow. Especially when you have a team. There's a lot more pressure of like, you have to be successful. Yeah. Really making sure you hit your numbers so that you can pay payroll. So it's like, I was finding myself like, worrying about that a lot. And so I was like, well, if you're worried about something, put a habit in place to get rid of that worry. And for me, I was like, it's looking at my numbers every week. So that means I need to do my bookkeeping every week so that I can feel comfortable that payroll's covered, my employees are happy and all that kind of stuff. So a little tangent there.

Alyssa: 21:27

No, but seriously though, honestly I think this is something that we also talked about is the stress of like, I need to start getting inspired again because my team. They need to be fed, but then like we took a step back and we were. If they could survive since February with me being in and out, like just who knows win a list is actually gonna check in on slack scenario, like, they're fine. The business is fine. They still get paid. We still have everything that we need, we're still paying all the bills, and we're still bringing in money, and I'm not the one having to deliver on it. And it's been such a good. Feeling, but I think that a lot of people, when you feel that stress, talk to somebody about it, because yeah, you might have a bigger solution or something easier that you can be doing or a strategy that you could implement that you knew in the back of your head, but maybe sometimes you need someone else to say it out loud. And that's what we lean on each other for.

Serena: 22:15

Yeah. I love how you said, it's a solution you probably already know within you, but you might need confirmation that that's a good move from someone else. Or you just need to get it out of your mind and, and talk it out. And even if the other person doesn't think it's a good solution. If you know, it's a good solution for you, then that's what you need to go do.

Alyssa: 22:36

Yeah. 100%.

Serena: 22:38

So I know this is gonna be a question for a lot of people, especially if they're not familiar with your work, how have you gotten yourself to the point where you're able to take off and be unreliable and-- Not unreliable, but--

Alyssa: 22:53

I'm so laughing because I am so unreliable to my team. It's not even funny. It's not a joke at this point. Because I'll be like on team meetings with them, cuz I still do my team meetings with them on Fridays, and I'll be like talking and then they'll say something and then I'm like, oh yeah, just go ahead and assign me a task. I'm like, wait, don't do that. You know, I'm not gonna do it. So just like send it off to somebody else. But it's funny because they, they, they're not sitting there like, like ducks, like waiting for me to give them all the information. They're like, okay, I got this. And I'm like, cool. I don't care if you mess it up. Like if you do like, it's a mistake that needs to be made. But I think that's a really good point. I should probably talk a little bit more about that. I used to struggle with I didn't want my team to make a mistake because I feared that like, well, I'll just do it or the big strategy, because then if they make a mistake, it's gonna be all bad. I think it was either you or Brooke that really nailed it into me. That you really need to give your people the opportunity to mess up, to actually do something wrong. Because think about all the times that you started your business and the first time that you did something, you screwed up, you put the wrong journal entry, you know, you sent the wrong reports, but you're fine. Your business is still running. So like someone had that conversation with me and I kind of let that go recently, like, oh, within the past two months. I kind of just stopped and let go of, if my team makes a mistake, they make a mistake. If they put the wrong date, they put the wrong date. They put the wrong link. It's gonna be fine. Nobody's gonna die. Like we're not surgeons y'all. Nobody's gonna die from our information. Yeah. Could they make bad financial decisions? 100%, but that's what your insurance is for which I'm not encouraging in any capacity to mess things up intentionally.

Serena: 24:24

Yeah.

Alyssa: 24:25

But to answer your question, that was a little bit of a tangent. To answer your question To get myself to this point, I think it's really hard to just say in like a two short sentence, if that makes any sense. For me, I think it was the constant intention of what do I need to do to get myself to a point where I don't have to work right now, especially in this place where like-- So I have this internet it's called Starling. So if anybody's doing the whole RV life, it's like totally worth it. Zoom sometimes goes in and out, but that's stuck neither here nor there. The internet that I have though is very in and out. Like every day, I never know if it's super cloudy outside. Sometimes it doesn't read or if there's trees or obstructions in the way I can't get internet. And so I'm way more unreliable than I ever have before, which there was two options either. I just go home, and just continue to work. Or I work really hard on the moments that I do have internet and actually outsource more work. Like document the information, hand over the videos, like whatever my team needs and I have this channel in slack called SOP update. At any time our team creates a brand new SOP. It's pretty much just a channel that we're like, Hey, just to give you a heads up, there's this new SOP or we've updated a prior SOP, even though they're never gonna remember it. It just makes people aware of it. And I have been on fire lately. Like the team on Friday was like, I want, we share wins about the team. Like everybody dominates each other. And the team was just like, Alyssa's just been cranking out a lot of SOPs and like really determined. And I think that looking back at your wire, why are you so determined to get yourself removed? Remember that, like right now I can't work in some instances, so I need to make sure that my business can still run. And so for me, that's the motivation right now.

Serena: 26:05

Yeah. That's so good. So. Back to SOP. So anyone who's listening, who isn't aware of, what an SOP is, it's a standard operating procedure. And Alyssa actually, I'm gonna do a little promo for you. in case you don't listen to the ads on my podcast. Alyssa has an upcoming free challenge on helping you get these SOPs out of your head and into a system so that you can start to remove yourself, or scale your team, or whatever you wanna use it for. It's just good to have them in place. So do you wanna talk a little bit about that?

Alyssa: 26:42

Yeah. So that's our five day free workflows made simple challenge. It's kind of become like a thing. Like everybody really looks forward to it. I think you, Serena talked about how, like, do we really wanna do challenges? Like, do people really like 'em, but we, me and you host them. People love them. They get so hyped. Whenever we put together our boot camps and challenges, like they're so much fun. So this is our Workflow's Made Simple Five Day Free Challenge. We've been doing this since 2020. We do it about once a quarter. But essentially it's a five. Session where every day we do a live teaching in the morning, and then we do a live Q and a at night, each day of the five day challenge there's a different topic. Day one, we actually cover like, what are workflows? Like what are these things that we're talking about? Why do we want them? The second day we actually go into optimizing them. So like the first day we'll teach you how to brain dump, like a process like to brain dump your SOPs. The day two, we're gonna show. Live student's ugly workflow pretty much. And then I'm gonna poke all the holes on screen and stuff. It's gonna be great. And everybody gets so many aha moments and we will break down how to actually optimize it for yourself. Day three, we talk about tech stack. So if you're really struggling with what tech stack to create and also what goals to set, we help you on day three with all that stuff. And then day four and day five. We really talk about getting all this stuff inside of a system. We do, disclaimer, use Asana to showcase all this stuff, but you do not need to use Asana. I have to repeat this over and over again to people. I don't care if you're using keeper. I don't care if you're using click up. We just have to use some software to show you all this information. But everything can be translated into a software as long as it has the right bells and whistles. So that's our five day free challenge. So much fun. We have Q and a at night where it's a zoom session where you can like unmute yourself. If you can't make it live, there are recordings and it is seriously such a good time. And so many wins from a lot of other bookkeepers.

Serena: 28:24

Yeah. I love the challenges. So okay. Back to life update, I just wanted to hear you talk about it, cuz I just love getting to talk about my things that I have going on. And so to hear it from like the person who's putting it on, to hear the excitement and how much fun it's gonna be. It just, it's different. So anyway, back to the life update. So you mentioned earlier that you started a new firm with a business partner. So I would love if you wanna give us a brief update on what's happening with, with that with magnetic, like what have you been doing to market, or however you wanna take the conversation? Like, yeah, give us the juice.

Alyssa: 29:06

Yay. The juice. So December I actually really wanted to get back into it. I remember calling you and you were like, you're really gonna do this again? And I was like, I really wanna do it, but this time I wanna do it with a partner. So I actually approached Alyssa Truelove and asked her if she wanted to partner with me. And so we started in this January had to go through a whole legal process. We actually did a sponsorship, which I actually really wanna share some tips from some peeps and some real raw honesty. So we. Sponsorship for something called social media marketing world. So our it's funny mine and Serena's firms are technically competition, but not. We don't see each other as competition. Right? Like we work in different softwares. We, we do help the same types of clients. But essentially social media marketing world is this really big event that like Amy Porterfield, like Vanessa Lao, like really big names go and speak at these big events. Well, anyways, we bought, we did a badge sponsor, which meant that on the backside of everyone's badge we did a freebie and I think our freebie was... What was it? I think it was like a, like a profitability track is what it was. So we did a freebie and they had like a little QR code to scan it. Well, we paid 20 grand. For this lovely QR code, like on the back of everyone's badges, but this event is huge. And we were told was gonna be our ideal audience based off the speakers that were gonna be there. The people that follow them, we knew were gonna be our clientele. Well, unfortunately, thank you to COVID. Things change a lot of this big speakers, the keynote speakers that had the audience that were our ideal client actually ended up backing out and they replaced a lot of the speakers with more of-- how would I say? Like more corporate people. So a lot of these corporate companies started sending their employees, which was bad for us because now. One, we're not gonna work with like large corporations. Right? It's just not what we're, what our plan is. And to top it off, like we were looking for the individualized business owner, like those social media managers or those individual digital marketers, stuff like that. And so we did our absolute best. Like we wore our t-shirts every day, we had our little badge whoever put the badges and like clipped 'em messed up and the weight was on the opposite side. So it kept flipping over to our like scanner thing.. Serena: That's funny. Everyone was like, oh my gosh, you're the one who everyone keeps calling me magnetic. Like it was just so funny.

Serena: 31:13

Oh, that's pretty cool. That would've been great if the right audience was there.

Alyssa: 31:16

Exactly. So we had a lot of like options, but we didn't have a lot of success from it. We had one client from them, like from the event itself.

Serena: 31:25

And that was back in, what month did you guys do that?

Alyssa: 31:28

I, I feel like that was like February or like March or something like that.

Serena: 31:31

So earlier this year.

Alyssa: 31:32

Yeah. And so that client, we charge her $ 895. I'm just gonna be really honest with everybody a month. And so a few times up by 12, we're still only making $10,740 for that year. So it really didn't give back what we put into it, which I just recently did a sponsorship for VTX to represent Workflow Queen. And, oh my God, we hit it out of the park, but this one definitely didn't and it was because of the change. And I was very honest with the people who hosted it. I was like, Hey, you should probably let people know. When like there's a change in speakers because like, Things like this, like I should have the opportunity to pull out because it's no longer our audience.

Serena: 32:07

Or pivot.

Alyssa: 32:07

We didn't have enough time to pivot. We were literally on site trying to pivot literally on our website the day that we got there, because we didn't have a choice, but granted we did, we didn't mop around and say, oh, woe is me. Like, everything's all messed up. We did pivot, but we couldn't pivot like the actual marketing itself. And so that was a bit of a bummer, but we had a really great time, a lot of, a lot of great memories, a lot of content too, a lot of content's coming from that event. But we started to pivot on site. So instead of targeting people who we thought were gonna be there. We actually started to try to make partnerships with larger companies that had that audience, for example, like Wufi is a company that does like social media management, like platforms kind of similar to Plan Lee.

Serena: 32:49

Plan only.

Alyssa: 32:49

Yeah, there we go. We hopped on a call with him. So we were supposed to be doing a webinar for him. We made really good friends with Mel How, she was at the booth for what's the thing that you use?

Serena: 33:01

Stream yard.

Alyssa: 33:02

There we go, stream yard. I was like, what's the name of it? Oh my gosh. We just started making partnerships and we just really pivot company and we didn't have a choice, but at the same time, like we just really leveraged our expertise of, okay, cool. I can't serve these people, but maybe I can find someone who has the audience that we can make friends with. So that's what we did and that's what we focused on. And then we went to the retreat right after that, I think for Workflow Queen, I think. Yeah. Yeah. January was.

Serena: 33:26

Oh, that right.

Alyssa: 33:27

Or March I forgot

Serena: 33:29

Yeah, cuz the retreat was in April, beginning of April.

Alyssa: 33:32

Yeah. So as for the firm we're just right now, we're working on a new initiative for marketing where we actually hired someone to pretty much, we call her our professional Instagram stalker. That's literally like what we call her. So she just goes in and is pulling information from people's Instagram to our ideal clients. And we're actually drafting an email. That's gonna go out to them and we're gonna offer something free to them that eventually we will get them to see our value and then push 'em in. And that's something that I'm actually working on today is creating that email and getting all those things ready. But as for now, we are pushing, whatever we possibly can to make sure we get this thing to be where we want it to be.

Serena: 34:09

Yeah. That's awesome. It's nice to hear like a real example of a firm at the beginning. So like, I there's a lot of my listeners that are either thinking about starting a bookkeeping business or at the beginning stages of it. So following along with your journey is gonna be really cool for them. Granted doing a big sponsorship. Obviously you have to have the budget for that.

Alyssa: 34:33

Oh yeah. You have to have the money.

Serena: 34:33

But the other things that you could be doing, like. It's so important to really spend the time on building your brand like you're doing And documenting things.

Alyssa: 34:44

And please, and please make sure that if you're at the beginning stages, I get this question a lot, especially in our challenges. Like the one that we're hosting, a lot of people are always like, well, it's just me. I don't care if it's just you or you and your hamster. You guys need to be having some sort of task management. Can you imagine all those nights that you like are sleeping and like you just wake up and you're like, I can't, I gotta remember to do this. Like I forgot to give this to this client or if you don't even have any clients. Oh my gosh, this is a great idea. I need to send out these emails. There are so many tasks that you need to be doing, even if you don't have any clients like creating a marketing campaign. And you don't have to be a copywriter. You don't have to do fancy stuff. Just allow the ideas to flow, but also don't steal people's stuff.

Serena: 35:21

Yeah. There's that there.

Alyssa: 35:22

There's that please don't do that. We have a lot of things that have been stolen copyrighted by, or was that copyrighted? The right word. Like people have taken our things and it's like a copyright.

Serena: 35:30

Plagiarized.

Alyssa: 35:31

There we go. Plagiarized like in high school, right? Like y'all might be at the beginning stages or really far down the stages. I've had it in both ways. You can take inspiration from people like you can totally like follow people like me and Serena and get inspired by the things, but don't blatantly copy and paste people's things like, please. That's a big message. We could go on forever on that topic.

Serena: 35:54

I know we could have a whole podcast episode, but--

Alyssa: 35:56

A whole series.

Serena: 35:57

We're gonna keep it positive today. So yeah. Awesome. We'll be right back after we hear a word from our sponsor. Have you ever exported a QuickBooks online report to a Google sheet or Excel spent time customizing this sheet, inviting others to collaborate, and then discovering that the QuickBooks online data has changed forcing you to restart the whole entire process over again, live flow has solved the problem. Live flow connects QuickBooks online to Google sheets and Excel, allowing you to save sheets that automatically update with the most recent QuickBooks data. There's even a zero integration coming soon. You know, I can't wait for that. Accountants and bookkeepers are using live flow today to create automatically updated budget versus actual. In any other custom reports live flow allows you to position yourself as an advisory partner by saving you hours of repetitive work. Fewer hours spent in spreadsheets. Give you more time to build deep relationships, offer quick insights and a high value offering. What I love about life flow is the speed and depth of insight and how it connects back to QuickBooks online. In real time, the powerful drill down feature lets me investigate any summary number in my Google sheet, offering a full breakdown of all QuickBooks transactions involved. And the best part is that it's. All done in my Google sheet, live flow, opens the QuickBooks transaction detail report in real time. So instead of going into QuickBooks every time you can see up to date underlying transactions together with your client, right in Google sheets, I'd highly recommend taking a look at live flow's. Free template library created with bookkeepers and accountants from across the us. Make a copy of any template in it's yours forever for free to learn more about using live flow and how you can save 20% off your first three months. Go to the show notes and check the link. Claim your spot with the promo code ambition. You can also head to live flow.io/partnerships/ambition. Now let's get back to today's episode. So you, you said also on the flip side, you sponsored BKX mm-hmm this year, and it was wildly successful. So in case people don't know. Like what that was and, and what you did, like, can you give a little bit of a brief overview of that sponsorship, just so that people understand like the, the BKX sponsorship was as workflow queen, so the audience was other bookkeepers.

Alyssa: 38:36

So BKX is, this was their second year that they did it. I was supposed to speak it this year. I spoke at last year's BKX, Serena. Thank you for being there. When I was having a mental breakdown about speaking guys, it's very nervewracking and I'm not gonna lie. But anyways, I was supposed, I got invited to speak at BKX this past year and I was like, you know what? I wanna do a sponsorship because I'd really love for our company to be there, but I didn't want a booth, but I had to have a booth. And like, I really didn't want one. I just wanted our, our team to be able to represent us. And we ended up just like winging it with the booth. We were like, you know what? Let's just make it fun. Let's just make it sparkly and just exciting. Like, we have nothing to sell other than if you wanna talk to us about our programs, and people had so much fun. I had people reaching out saying my team was incredible. Well, let me back up. I pulled out of speaking at BKX because I was honoring myself. Like I mentioned before, like I put myself first. So I backed out of a lot of really big things. So I actually didn't go to the event. My team actually went on my behalf and they freaking crushed it out of the park. And we just showed up and authentically were us. We weren't pushing any tech. We weren't pushing anything onto anybody. They just showed up and people were just like, I wanna be around those people. And we had so many people sign up for a lot of our stuff. We had a lot of people start following us. Like, I think that goes to show that like, sometimes you guys overthink going to these events that you have to have all these things, but like, if you just authentically show up, people will naturally just be drawn to you and wanna work with you.

Serena: 40:00

Yeah. Such a good message. So we're getting kind of near the end of our hour. Was there anything else, like actually, since we did a life update, I'd love to know like, what's next for you. What can we expect from Workflow Queen or Magnetic or from the Alyssa's, The Duals.

Alyssa: 40:21

I think for Workflow Queen, I'm starting to like, get my spark back. Right now I'm currently in Zion, Utah, I'm staying at like this awesome little river resort. My dog is really sick right now because he accidentally like drank. I think he ate something in the water. I don't even know, but he's fine. But I am then gonna be going up to salt lake city to host the live like event. I have to stay at an Airbnb just for really reliable internet. So for me personally, I'm just traveling all around, like the west coast states in my camper trailer with my dog. For workflow queen. I think our next big thing is our launch for we're gonna be doing a special probe on the back end of our challenge for kickoff with Asana. So if you've been wanting to be a part of kickoff with Asana, or you want like done for you, Asana templates or ones that you could use for any other software definitely join the challenge so you can get in on that special. Lovely special rate. And then we're gonna be doing it in like, I think September we're gonna be relaunching breakthrough, which is our biggest group coaching program, which by the way, Serena is totally one of our lovely teachers. We're gonna be relaunching breakthrough, which is really for like high level firm owners who are really trying to like hire teams and remove themselves in September and hopefully another retreat and every year usually, Serena is one of our lovely little guest experts at the retreats. It's so much fun.

Serena: 41:32

That was gonna be my question. Are you still kind of thinking of doing a retreat this year or maybe waiting until early next year?

Alyssa: 41:39

I go back and forth every day. I think that me and you, when we talked about the whole remaining part of the year's content plan, that it just might not work out this year. Because of everything that my team's traveling, I'm traveling a lot right now. I just don't even know when that's possible. So for sure, 100% at the very beginning of next year, but we're hoping to squeeze in another retreat at the end of the year. And they're usually like in a random state that we pick. First one was in Nashville Tennessee, and the second one was San Jose, California. I really wanna do new Orleans, but we have already agreed. It's gonna be way too hot in the summer.

Serena: 42:11

Yeah. Well, and then new Orleans is XeroCon at the end of August. Which by the way, I will be there. So if you're thinking of anyone listening, if you're gonna be at XeroCon, come find me. I don't know if my badge is gonna have Ambitious Bookkeeper or my of Course Bookkeeping name on it. Cause I can't remember what I filled out. You're just gonna have to know my name.

Alyssa: 42:32

Yeah, just my name's Serena. Wait, I have a question for you. If I'm to ask you questions. I know we like we're coming up to the end of it, but can I, can you give me a life update? I know your life, but the people don't--

Serena: 42:45

You know, my body.

Alyssa: 42:46

I know your body

Serena: 42:47

Yeah, so my life update. Ooh, where do I begin? Yeah, I just, I was kind of like where you were at, where it's like, just trying to like really work on myself, re get reinspired deal with my own internal stuff. While also being a mom and all that stuff. And yeah, so we're growing my firm and Ambitious Bookkeeper, which it can be a lot sometimes, but even though like, it feels like a lot when I look at my lovely time tracking because everybody needs to be time tracking. When I look at it, it's. I know, I forget to record sometimes, but it, I look at it and I'm like, wow, I am so fortunate to be only working like 20 hours a week between both businesses. And even though it feels like a lot, it just is always gonna feel like a lot when you're the owner, because everything kind of falls on you ultimately. Even if you have a team picking up and doing all the tasks and moving things forward, like ultimately it's still your responsibility. And so there's always gonna feel like that weight on your shoulders, and I was really kind of struggling with that, but I've just been really pouring into my team even when I'm not like-- Lately I've been more There was a couple months there where I was like, not posting really at all. At least on my feed, I, I try to show up in stories every so often, even if I'm not posting on my feed, but I'm starting to get back into the rhythm, by the way, I am the one that does my own social media, cuz people ask me that So that's why if it drops off, it's like, oh, Serena's busy. But that's part of why, like, I love having this podcast because in the whole year that we've been publishing the podcast, I've only missed one episode. And that happened to be like right at our year anniversary, which was not planned, but, you know, life. So, yeah, so I've just been pouring into my team, getting them up to speed and mentored and handing more and more off. So I've recently onboarded a couple new clients, and during that onboarding process of those clients, I've been handing that process, that entire onboarding process over to one of my newer employees.

Alyssa: 45:02

Yay.

Serena: 45:02

That we hired at the beginning of the year. And so we're still like we're still growing. I call it OCB of course, bookkeeping. That's my firm. We are pretty much onboarding like one or two new clients a month. So we will probably be hiring again later this year. If I hit my targets, but maybe not. I might just convert some part-time employees to full-time. We'll see.

Alyssa: 45:27

Got it.

Serena: 45:27

And that's yeah, so that's the update on, on OCB and on my Ambitious Bookkeeper stuff, we are still growing that as well. We are wrapping up when this episode goes live. We'll be. Wrapping up our Elevate Summer Sprint, which is kind of like a pilot program. So this is the first time I've launched or run this program. Really getting you the foundations of advisory because there's a lot of-- there's definitely other programs out there. There's some gaps in how they teach and filling in like the real foundational stuff. So if you are a bookkeeper that wants to get an advisory and you're just like really lost on how to even get started because there's some foundational pieces you might be missing, like analyzing financial statements and reviewing your team's work meeting with your clients on kind of a basic level, that's what this program is for it's to bridge the gap. And then from there on like, you probably don't need another program. You just need to practice what you've learned.

Alyssa: 46:34

They actually need to implement.

Serena: 46:35

Yeah. It really, it's not something you can learn overnight and just be good at like, it's kind of like sales calls. Like you're not gonna be good at sales calls after you do it once. Alyssa: Yeah. Oh, for sure. So it's something you're just gonna have to continue to practice. You're gonna make mistakes. You're gonna learn new things as you work with new clients because every client has their own little nuances and Pretty much every client struggles with the similar things, but translating it to their industry and to their language is what you need to be able to practice. So that's what we're doing there. I'm running it as a sprint, which means it's just a month long program. It's not this like eight, six week whatever program. It's all taught live so that you can bring actual questions and scenarios of your own clients and get answers on how to talk to them about it, how to forecast things out for them. So it's very hands on and we do a class every week for a month. And in between the classes, we have a group Voxer channel, which Voxer is like a walkie talkie. So you can ask questions in between the calls. It's not hosted in a Facebook group or anything, which I think everyone has really enjoyed if I can speak for them, like to not have to be in another Facebook group.

Alyssa: 47:54

Yeah.

Serena: 47:55

And like, I, I try not to really spend too much time on Facebook. So it's been really nice to be able to. Just be available for them in between calls like that. So that's what we've got going on for Ambitious Bookkeeper. We will be running another VIP Accelerator. The bookkeeping business accelerator will be starting another VIP round in the end of September. And it's gonna be changed up a little bit. Like in the past, I've been running it as a cohort, like a group that goes like six to eight weeks of weekly hot seats, and weekly co-working sessions, but we're actually gonna switch up the format. And after this VIP cohort, it'll be just like, forever monthly calls, not forever, forever, probably cuz like there's always an end to something, but like for the foreseeable future, instead of doing weekly calls, we're gonna have something going on every week, but it's not gonna always be a hot seat. So like the first week of the month it'll be a hot seat call. The second week of the month, it'll be a co-working session. The third week would be a live Q and A in our group. And then. We'll see how that format goes, but it's just, it's really hard to force people into a box of like completing a program within a certain number of weeks. So we're just hoping this format of support works for people and I'm always testing new things out. And that's another thing that you just have to be okay with testing things and knowing it may or may not work out. And then if it doesn't, we can pivot and go back to the old format and go from there. So, but yeah, I'll be hosting my workshops, I call them workshops, not a challenge, but it's kind of like a challenge at the end of September. So be on the lookout for that too.

Alyssa: 49:37

I'm excited.

Serena: 49:38

Yeah.

Alyssa: 49:39

I always like to go in and like hype you up every once in a while. And you're a little, when you do like your calls, I'll go in there every once in while and be like, hi, like my unicorns. And you always like,

Serena: 49:47

I know, I always know it's you. It's great. all right. So I guess this is the end until next time. But if you were--

Alyssa: 49:56

I'll talk to you right after. Just kidding.

Serena: 49:58

Right? So give everyone a rundown of like where the, I think you already did, but just in case they weren't listening, where's the best people for where's the best people for places to follow you. Where's the best place for people to connect with you? Online.

Alyssa: 50:14

Yeah, so online, probably the best, like I said, you're gonna most likely get me personally, is my Instagram, which is Workflow Queen. Other than that, like you can check out our website. We post a lot of blogs, a lot of tech information, a lot of details on workflowqueen.com. Other than that, without giving out my social security number and my phone number, that's about it.

Serena: 50:33

Awesome. And give us those challenge dates again. So people need to register. To sign up for the free challenge before what date?

Alyssa: 50:42

Oh, yes. So the challenge actually runs from July 25th to July 29th. You have to sign up by at least July 27th to be able to get all the recordings and be able to join and be a part of the group. There are workbooks assets, cash, prizes opportunity to win kickoff with Asana. It's gonna be great. It's always a fricking blast. And if you already aren't getting slammed at my facebook ads at this moment. There's like 50 million of 'em. I'm sure. You've probably seen one, like they're out there.

Serena: 51:08

Yeah, actually I haven't, but I haven't been on Facebook.

Alyssa: 51:11

Gotcha. If you see it and you're one of my students come gimme some love on that ad.

Serena: 51:15

Yeah, for sure. Not hate, love.

Alyssa: 51:18

Yeah, love. Let's just be very clear. Don't put an angry face, even if you do it on accident.

Serena: 51:25

Yeah. So the challenge, July 25th, make sure you get registered. The link will be in the show notes. You can also go to ambitiousbookkeeper.com/workflows, and it'll take you right to her challenge page to register. And if you loved this episode, I only wanna hear about it if you loved it. Just kidding. but take a screenshot and tag me and Alyssa. So I'm @ambitious bookkeeper and she's @workflowqueen on Instagram. Share an aha that you had from this episode. If you tag us, we can reshare your aha. So like, if you're looking for a Bisbee, maybe that's what your aha should be. You should be like looking for someone like Alyssa and Serena. Yeah. And so we'll share it and then our community will see that . Yeah. And hopefully, hopefully we can connect you

Alyssa: 52:16

Or maybe you could come to one of our retreats because I feel like every round of our retreats that you're a part of everybody's made really good, like lifelong friends.

Serena: 52:24

Yeah, absolutely.

Alyssa: 52:24

Like the Nashville retreat, it was almost a year ago, and they all still meet all the time. Yeah. Like. Just come to the retreat and it will help you. Serena: Yeah, absolutely. If that's not me selling my own thing,

Serena: 52:35

I know. Well, now you actually have to do one. Alyssa: I do. Well, they're coming. It's just, we just don't know the exact date of the next one, but they're like, everybody wants to be at the retreat. It's a big feat guys to put on a retreat. People think it's easy to like, just host. Programs and be mentors and things, but that's neither here nor there. Serena: Yeah. Well, I mean, if you don't do one this year, maybe I'll have to do one, but I can't do as big of retreats as you do. So it would be a very small group, like 10 people.

Alyssa: 53:04

Yeah, we'll do one. It'll happen. We'll just figure out the date.

Serena: 53:08

Yeah. So just make sure you're following Alyssa and you're on her email list, cuz that's probably the best place that you're gonna hear about that information? Maybe even just Instagram. Cuz we tend to, I mean, I tend to post things on Instagram that aren't in my emails and vice versa things that are in my emails that aren't on Instagram. So if you're not in both of those places, you might miss some great opportunities.

Alyssa: 53:31

Yep. Just follow me every day.

Serena: 53:34

Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We're gonna have to have you on again at the end of your journey to so that you can give us a new update and let us know how everything went.

Alyssa: 53:48

Yay!

Serena: 53:50

All right, so we'll see you soon.

Alyssa: 53:53

Yeah. Thanks guys.

Serena: 53:54

All right, bye.

Alyssa: 53:56

Bye.