06 ⎸ Scaling Your Bookkeeping Business with Alyssa Lang The Workflow Queen

In this interview episode I’m joined by The Workflow Queen, Alyssa Lang.  This was an interview she and I did on Facebook Live and we chatted about all things scaling versus just growing, setting a vision for what you want from the beginning. It's never too early to start thinking about scaling, because it’s all about how you want to be spending your time. We also chat about pay structure for contractors when outsourcing client work, 

Connect with Alyssa:  instagram.com/workflowqueen

Listen to Conquering Workflows & Systems with the Workflow Queen

Sign up for Kickoff With Asana for Bookkeepers + Accountants

Sign up for The Bookkeeping Biz Workshops August 22-26

Thanks for listening. 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

Transcript

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06-Scaling Your Bookkeeping Business

[00:00:00] Serena: [00:00:00] there's a difference between scaling and growing. So when you think about growing, you're basically adding resources in proportion to the increase in revenue and for us as a service-based business, that basically means you're trading your time for the increase in money.  so sometimes it is really hard to think about growing without putting in more time, but I

really encourage you to think ahead instead of just  trying to deal with the day to day and get more clients,  because once you really have your  vision set it's going to be so much easier to make the right decisions to move you toward that vision [00:01:00] 

Welcome back to the ambitious bookkeeper podcast. This is a special interview episode I did last year with Alyssa Lang the workflow queen. And in this interview, we had done a Facebook live and we chatted about all things, scaling your business versus just growing, setting a vision for what you want.

One from the beginning. Uh, and it's never too late to start thinking about scaling because it's all about how you want to be spending your time. So we dive into this, we talk about pay structure for contractors and generally just have a good time. So. Sit back and enjoy this interview. We did. Hopefully it's just as valuable now as it was back then.

And [00:02:00] if you want to connect with Alyssa, her handle on Instagram is at workflow queen. Make sure you take a picture of this episode, tag her and I, I'm an ambitious bookkeeper on Instagram. She's at workflow queen and. DMS, let us know what you took away from this live. So without further ado, let's jump in.

  today we're talking about Scaling a bookkeeping business. And even if you're brand new to starting a business, or just thinking about starting a bookkeeping business, this can totally still apply, right? Yes. You want to introduce yourself first?

Yeah. 

Alyssa: [00:02:39] Hey everyone. My name Alyssa Lang. I have been coined the workflow queen. If I could speak today I bookkeepers and accountants to utilize tech systems, automation, all the fun things to pretty much manage the behind the scenes in order to stay on top of all the client work.

So they can essentially make more room for more clients and take better care of everybody. [00:03:00] So that is what I do. And I'm very excited to be here. Because serene is like 

Serena: [00:03:03] my face. I know I love a jamming out with you. And if anyone has ever watched any of our lives together, probably you, you know how it goes.

So we're going to keep it today to like 30 minutes or less, probably less because Alyssa has got a jam packed schedule today. Thank you so much for doing this with me, I'm excited. And were any of you guys that don't know me? I'm Serena and I mentor other bookkeepers and accountants that are wanting to start a virtual bookkeeping business.

Like I have done and wanting to leave their corporate job or add some income to their household as a stay at home mom. Like my story was I left corporate to have more kids and then I didn't want to like, lose everything that I had worked so hard for. So I just like. Accidentally started a bookkeeping business as a freelancer to begin with.

But things would have gone a lot more smoothly. If I had found someone that had already done what I was trying [00:04:00] to do. And so that's what I'm here to do is help people speed up that process and not make all the same mistakes. Right. 

Alyssa: [00:04:07] Don't do all bad things. Right. We've done it all. 

Serena: [00:04:11] Exactly. So. I don't know if you want to go through some questions that you have.

Okay, cool. 

Alyssa: [00:04:19] I got all look good. Juicy questions for you here. Okay, guys, I, if you guys don't know, I'm like obsessed with Serena. We just happen to stumble across each other and we've made this like amazing connection. And I just want to say from the get-go that I am like truly honored to always be involved with helping Serena and to be here on these lives and to just be there and support each other.

She is a kick ass. Rockstar of a bookkeeper and really, truly takes this to heart. There's so many programs out there that sometimes they don't really do one-on-one stuff with you and really don't care as much. And Serena really has proven that she loves to care for her students. So y'all are in good hands just to say.

Serena: [00:04:57] Thank you. Okay. 

Alyssa: [00:04:58] So [00:05:00] Serena, why do you think it's so important to think about scaling when you're just starting out versus a lot of the times people are saying like, you should constantly be. Not thinking about three or four, two years down the road instead focus on what's happening right now. Why do you think it's so important from the get-go to focus on that?

Serena: [00:05:19] Well, for one, there's a difference between scaling and growing. So when you think about growing, you're basically adding resources in proportion to the increase in revenue and for us as a service-based business, that basically means you're trading your time for the increase in money.  so sometimes it is really hard to think about growing without putting in more time, but I

really encourage you to think ahead instead of just  trying to deal with the day to day and get more clients,  because once you really have your  vision set it's going to be so much easier to make the right decisions to move you [00:06:00] toward that vision. And if you haven't  really thought about it yet, and you're just like, I'm just going to get some clients and see how it goes.

 You'll end up undercharging because you didn't have  a revenue goal in mind. You're going to end up overworking because you're just going to continue to put more and more time into it and not like really be driving toward a goal.  That's why I like to talk about scaling even from the beginning, because this is when revenue is increasing without necessarily having to have the same proportionate increase in your resources, which is your time in this case.

Yeah. So I started basically scaling once I, once I realized I was spending more time. Then I wanted to in the business, and this is where it gets a little controversial. Like you'll ask in some groups like, Oh, when should I hire help? Or when should I like try to outsource or whatever. And a lot of people will tell you, you shouldn't do that.

You shouldn't think about hiring or adding resources until you hit a [00:07:00] certain like revenue limit, like a hundred thousand dollars or something. And it's like, okay, I don't subscribe to that at all. I actually started, I hired someone after I started working more than 10 hours a week because I was a stay at home mom and I wasn't like it was either that or Having a babysitter for longer.

And so I wasn't willing to trade off that time. So that's when I started really thinking about, okay, how can I actually scale this without me spending more time? So that's, that's one thing that I see come across a lot. I don't know about you Alyssa, but have you seen that, that answer a lot? Like, Oh, you have to hit like a hundred thousand dollars first and I definitely, wasn't not at a hundred thousand dollars yet.

It was more of a time situation. Yeah, 

Alyssa: [00:07:40] honestly, I think me and you have been on phone calls together talking about this same situation that it really doesn't matter. I don't think when I even hired my first contractor, the first person I brought on to help me with our practice, I probably could have done all the work myself, but I didn't want to, I just wanted more freedom in my life.

And I [00:08:00] think that, yes, you should have some sort of a budget and have some foundations and like some guard rails on how to actually make sure that you're not. Overspending on someone, but you also have to make sure you're getting your money's worth back. And I think a lot of times everyone's saying, well, you've got to have I've even heard people say $500,000 before you hire your first employees.

You have crazy like, Oh, you have to have 10 clients. Like, no, you can do it with one or two clients. I mean, if you're charging a client $500 a month, hiring someone for a hundred dollars a month to manage the whole thing. You just made $400 off of taking the hit on your company. If something goes wrong to me, I'd rather outsource the a hundred dollars than me have to do all the work for it.

So I can focus on the aspects of my business that are going to really help it to grow and to actually 

Serena: [00:08:47] scale. Yeah. I T I totally agree with that. And it is a mindset shift to think like Oh, I could have this whole $500 for myself, or I could share some of it and actually not spend [00:09:00] any time. Working on that.

So like, do you have to decide like how you want to spend it's really comes down to how you want to spend your time. So I really encourage people to start thinking about that from the very beginning, because otherwise you're going to end up, I could not imagine trying to get to $500,000 before. 

Alyssa: [00:09:19] Right.

And it's funny because I think in my last challenge, I think on one of the days that I was presenting on, I talked very transparently about. A hire that I brought on to help me with a larger project. Someone in not inside my normal niche that we happen to take on because someone passed along her way and I broke down the numbers of how much.

We paid that person, how much we were paid from the contract of the person we hired, how much I was able to make off of that. And then also what I was able to do during that time that wasn't me spent doing that. I think we went through our rebrand and we landed like four or five, four or five different clients.

And it brought in ultimately time's up by 12. If you, you know, you [00:10:00] retain them for a whole entire year. I can essentially bring on way more money by outsourcing a thousand dollars to a contractor, still making money off the contract and also building the business on the backend. So it's like sometimes you do have to take original hits to eventually make more progression.

But if you say that you're going to spend the time that you would have on that client that I just outsource on marketing, then you better be doing that because if you're just sitting there lollygagging and taking time off, you're never going to actually. Yeah, we want it to 

Serena: [00:10:29] be, you know, unless that is also what you're after.

Like for me, I don't know. I mean, I'm still always kind of building the business on the backend when I am outsourcing stuff. So, and I have this project, the ambitious bookkeeper. So it's like, there, I am definitely spending my time on stuff, but you can absolutely just sit back and just be the one that's bringing in the clients and then outsource the entire thing.

You're still like, You're effectively taking the risk. And so that's what you're getting paid for. Even if you're not [00:11:00] taking home, all of the profit plus you're creating jobs for other people. Yeah. 

Alyssa: [00:11:04] And that's in in of its own is, is the best feeling, know that you're supporting someone else's lifestyle.

And even Aaron here said I've had this thought, but never even considered. It would be a reality to hire someone on with only a few clients. I'm telling you guys. You can have even two clients or even one client, if you don't want to do it, the industry will just keep telling you like, Oh, you have to wait till you're 30 clients, 40 clients, a hundred thousand dollars.

Like that's not the reality. Like you could be making a hundred thousand dollars, but have like 10 times the volume as another firm because they're charging cheap. So that really doesn't, it depends on where you're at financially. If you can afford it, if you don't have the time where you do have the time, but after that, it's really up to you.

And it doesn't matter what other people say. Like, 

Serena: [00:11:49] you know, I hired a bookkeeper to help me with just one client when I only had five clients. So, and that was again, because I didn't want to work more than 10 hours a week. Otherwise [00:12:00] I would have to hire my babysitter to come even more days. And I was like, well, what's the point?

And I don't want to hire a babysitter or a bookkeeper. And honestly, sometimes it's easier to find a bookkeeper than a babysitter. So what, at what point did you actually start hiring? How many clients did you have a recurring clients? I think it was like. 

Alyssa: [00:12:23] 12 or 13, I have a timeline written somewhere. I kept a good little timeline of all my different clients, because inside of a program I took, we did, you would like list out all the different clients that you would have, like, and at what point you would make changes.

And then after that it was contractors and then this. Business came into fruition, workflow queen and I had to hire more contractors. I probably could have gone a longer time without hiring more people, but I didn't want to do all the work. And I still don't want to do all the work I want to have, you know, do the things that I want to be doing.

And some people, like, I just talked to someone today that loves doing taxes and contracts, all the bookkeeping, and she just likes to do the sales. So [00:13:00] that's her whole point is she wants to hire people. Just to do everything else so she can focus on the sales, which I know that you like to do the sales part.

So it's like depends on what your preferences are, what your strengths are. You can get away with doing all the things or you can get away with doing what you're really good at and just shine 

Serena: [00:13:16] it. Yeah. That's definitely something that I talk a lot about with my students is like, figure out. Your zone of genius, basically like the part that you love doing that comes easy to you and like you could spend all your time doing it and be happy and then try to outsource or find tools or tech or something to help you with the rest of it.

Yeah. So yeah. What was the first thing when you like, decided to start scaling? What was the first thing that you like implemented? Was it hiring or like a piece of tech. Systems. Yeah. 

Alyssa: [00:13:52] Like I literally was one of the team because I hated the idea in my own head that like, I couldn't even remember what I was doing.

[00:14:00] Like, and the thought of trying to have someone else come into my team and be like, okay, I'm going to hire you because you're a bookkeeper. But like, I don't know what you're supposed to do. Just go log in like that. Just to me scared me because I would hate if someone hired me because I have been as a contractor, I used to contract with other bookkeeper.

And she would just be like, okay, here it is. And I'm like, what's the details. Like, I don't know what's going on. Like, I didn't want to be that person through this whole process. So definitely systems, but it took a long time for me to like nail them down and then I didn't feel 100% ready. But I took the leap of faith and I had to take a leap of faith because no day is a day that you're ever going to be ready and system Curry.

And those workflows and processes is what changed the game for myself to easily capture whatever system or process I'm doing and easily outsource it to somebody else. 

Serena: [00:14:52] Yeah, absolutely. That's so true though. What you just said, you're never going to feel a hundred percent ready. With like anything, having a babies or to go business.

 [00:15:00] The same with hiring at some point, you're just going to have to say, okay, it's not like my systems might not be perfect, but my, like whoever I hire, like you just have to be transparent about that and be like, can you help me? Like, Get this. Perfect. 

Alyssa: [00:15:13] Yeah. So Wendy's question was around the thought of how to pay contractors. 

Serena: [00:15:18] Yeah. It depends so on like the first, the first time I hired out, I just hired out one client and I had really a good system down for that one client.

And they were on a flat fee, so I knew how much time it really should take. But I also wanted to like encourage my bookkeeper to be more efficient. So I was like, I'll give you a percentage of the revenue. And it was like one third, I think. Yeah. And then with future clients that we've brought on, we usually stick with hourly until we both kind of figure out like a rhythm with it and then what is good.

And then that also helps me figure out if I priced them correctly. And then at that point, if, if I decide I need to adjust their pricing [00:16:00] or, or something like that, then we'll probably switch to more of a like a percentage of the total fee. So. Yeah, that's, that's how I've handled it. You can really handle it either way, but if you're going to pay hourly, definitely.

Yeah. 

Alyssa: [00:16:16] I think first ever bookkeeping contractor was an hourly rate. And so we did an hourly and I believe it was $20. I want to say, I cannot remember. I think it was $20 hourly, but then I found that there wasn't room for efficiency because a lot of times, like sometimes things get dragged on because it's like why I want to make more money versus like, if you become more efficient.

So then we moved into the variable, I guess it's kind of variable pricing where we would pay based off of. And this was something that another bookkeeper had taught me where you take the overall fee that you're charging your client, then you minus out. All the different subscriptions. So for you use Hubdoc, if you're using QuickBooks, whatever subscriptions minus set out in times of by let's say [00:17:00] 30% and that's usually how much you would pay.

So we started to do some of our bookkeepers became paid based off of the client and the scope of work. And if the scope of work change for the client, that price would increase. And if I didn't increase the price. I would still have to increase the contractors because it would essentially be doing more work.

So it was a fail on my part if I didn't keep up with the scope creep. So that part's really important too. Then also, depending if you're hiring someone to do the client facing like the sales conversations, that someone that's 100% hourly, and that's only because they're doing more than just being in the books are typically doing a lot of different things.

So it really just depends on like your approach and also. I kind of had to figure it out just like you did. You kind of have to trial and error and you kind of figure out what makes the most sense for you. And everybody will say just like hiring, you know, when, when you hit a hundred, a hundred K whatever you want to call it, everybody's going to have a different opinion about it.

Just take what you can absorb, what you can, and then tweak it based off of what you think fits best for you and your [00:18:00] business. You get to run a show, nobody can tell you what to do. 

Serena: [00:18:04] Exactly. That's the beauty and you sort of the thing that scares people, right? Because that's like, Oh my gosh, what if something comes up that I don't know how to handle?

Who am I going to ask? And that's where,  it's really important to like find a mentor that you relate with, that you resonate with, that you like their style and like find out how you can work because you really do. Like, it really does help to have someone to bounce ideas off of like, I love that I can just like call you or text you and be like, all right, dude, what's going on with it?

Talk me through it. You know? So it's really important to have someone to lean on in, in that regard too. Yeah. Yeah. What else do you got for me? 

Alyssa: [00:18:48] Let's see here. 

Amy did have a quick. Yeah, it's an LOL. Amy says I have watched some other videos with Alyssa teaching Asana, and I'm still not wrapping my head around using it still. Any [00:19:00] suggestions that is normal, I'm going to say right now that is so normal to be overwhelmed by any project management system.

I have Amy, if you haven't checked out my website, I have a lot of resources online. Through my website, we also are having a five day free challenge, which we cover days four and five on Asana. We go through slides and people share their screenshots. So that's totally normal. You're not alone in that situation.

And that's why I'm here. Yeah. 

Serena: [00:19:26] And if you, if you haven't yet, Alyssa also has a challenge coming up where she really breaks down, like. How to wrap your head around workflows and getting into a system. Of course she teaches Asana. So she's going to also teach that, but it'll re like the way she teaches it really can apply to any system.

So exactly 

Alyssa: [00:19:46] students would click up and all that fun stuff, but it really is. The most important piece is not Asana. The most important piece is the foundation and the process and the workflow and the steps you need to take. The system can be tweaked. To work around that. So if anybody even here [00:20:00] in general is struggling, it's just like what you write on a piece of paper on how you need to do things.

It's just how thorough and the details and the information you have to perform the work as if you've never seen the work is how you assess you want to do it, but this is not about me. So we're going to go on to my next question, 

Serena: [00:20:14] which is really helpful in thinking about scaling, because that is one of the big mistakes that I made is I created the workflows based on my level of knowledge.

And I have. At that point, I had like 12 years experience in corporate and doing 12 years of year end, and however many months that translates to a month, 12 times 12, I don't even know right

Alyssa: [00:20:41] question for you is what did the onboarding process. Look like for 

Serena: [00:20:48] you. So that was actually, that's another kind of mistake that I made is focusing on creating like this amazing onboarding process, which is [00:21:00] important, but I could have probably use the time that I dedicated towards that and really nail down my monthly processes so that when I onboarded.

A team member, they would have been able to run forward with the work that they needed to do a lot easier and then That would have freed me up to then develop my onboarding process because the onboarding like it is a pretty amazing, but. It's not going to be very helpful if you're able to onboard all these clients and you can't then do the 

Alyssa: [00:21:31] actual work, it's just like writing out all your goals for how I'm going to work out for the whole entire year.

And then like, Okay. I don't want to do it. 

Serena: [00:21:41] Yeah, exactly. So, so that is an area that I could have like done a little bit better, which is another one that like, that's why I want to talk about this. So it is important to have a good onboarding process. And I did develop a really good one that automated some things.

I had like an engagement letter template that. The [00:22:00] client name pops into the proposal, information pops into it. So if I'm like, it still brings in all the information that needs to be in the engagement letter, even if the pricing is different on different clients, because it just pulls from their proposal.

And then I had like emails that would get triggered because I used as a CRM system. So when certain stages of the onboarding process were completed, a new email trigger would go out and ask them for more information or ask them to schedule a call and all that kind of stuff. So. That's pretty much what my onboarding process looks.

It still looks like that. I've tweaked it a little bit over the years to just like, make it more and more better. But yeah, I definitely, like, I spent a lot of time developing, that at the beginning and I probably should have. Focused that on actually developing my other workflow 

Alyssa: [00:22:48] because yeah, a lot of people think like I have to have this perfect onboarding, which is great.

It can help you to onboard it, but ultimately if you can't perform the actual work, 

there's no point in onboarding someone like can manage the work. But that [00:23:00] comes with time. A lot of people, if you're here and you're newer, like don't be discouraged by this because at the end of the day, you will learn.

We keep saying this and repeating this, that you will learn so much when you do it. And when you're actually on the fly and you are bringing on a team member, or you are onboarding your first client, or it's your fifth client, or you're doing the actual work, these things take time to kind of learn and absorb a lot of the times you can follow suit.

For example, for me, I like to fast track a lot of my stuff. So if someone's already done something that I want to already do. I will typically do whatever I possibly can to make sure, like I'm a part of Serenas program and I love her program, but it's because there's pieces of it that I wanted fast track that I just couldn't bear the idea of having to figure out how to set up the UBS auto myself.

If Serena already could tell me how to do it and had a program for it and did all the things. And it's just like all these different programs that you see out there. Sometimes it's better to let These other people kind of guide you those with [00:24:00] experience, but then you're always going to tweak those things to fit for you.

It will never be this molded piece that you're just going to fit right into. And everybody's right about everything. You're going to figure it out along the way. But sometimes it's good to look up to many people like lovely Serena. 

Serena: [00:24:18] Yeah. That is so true. Like everyone, like even every student that has gone through my onboarding course or my other courses, like everyone tweaks it a little bit.

For their personality, the voice, like you don't have to take my templates and copy paste them. You can, but like, you can, you can change the voice a little bit to match what your, you know, what you sound like. And all that kind of stuff. And, and even just like tweak the process of. oh, maybe I don't want that email sent out.

I would actually like to  personally call the client or whatever and ask for something. But but yeah, that's a huge, a really good point to remember,  your process is always going to be just a tad different. Yep. 

Alyssa: [00:24:58] Absolutely. 100%. [00:25:00] Then I think my other question would come down to what would you have done differently?

If you can go back in time and fix it, everything that you did wrong or right. But maybe reorder it. Like, what would you do differently if you were to start off today, maybe speaking to somebody who's just starting out, maybe kind of got their toes a little bit wet, maybe got discouraged, seeing like so many other people in the industry.

What would you do different to stand out and make sure that you were. Doing it as efficiently as possible. 

Serena: [00:25:29] I, like I said, I would probably switch over to like getting my monthly workflows down before I dealt with the onboarding. But I think to stand out differently, I was really afraid of trying to choose a niche.

And I still like, I still today teach like my students, like not to get overwhelmed by that. But. Things do really get easier when you focus on one or two industries. So I would say one of the biggest mistakes I made was taking like [00:26:00] also not listening to my intuition about clients that, and not just choosing, like choosing one software and choosing one One or two industries and just running with it because I spent so much time flipping back and forth between like the process for QuickBooks and the process for Xero.

And then yeah. Then I took on another client that was in a different system, not even those two. And like, just don't do that. You might like, here's the thing that happens when you choose one software, same with like a workflow software. Right? Cause I went through this too of like you pick it and then you're then you see.

Other people using a different one. You're like, Oh, did I pick the right one? Or maybe 

Alyssa: [00:26:46] like, I see that so often I can't even tell you, I can relate to that. 

Serena: [00:26:51] Just stick with the one that you chose. It works for other people. It will work for you. There's not once one system that has all the boxes [00:27:00] ever. So just pick it and go full throttle, fully implement it, use it to its capacity and.

Just go with it because there's never going to be a perfect system. I do that. I mean, it's the same with like between QuickBooks and Xero. There's actually some things about QuickBooks. I like better, but I chose to just go all in on Xero because it really does make a difference to have one system that you work in with your clients.

Alyssa: [00:27:26] Yeah, I could agree. And I think a lot of people who are here, if you are newer, we do have this pressure of everyone saying you got to have a niche, which is true. But later. Like give yourself some time. I think I went through probably so many different types of businesses before I found what I thought I wanted.

And then I found another niche. So it's like, even then you're, it's okay to switch your niches. Like something isn't serving. You remember you're the business owner. You can do whatever the hell you want. Like it does not matter what other people say. Like, if you want to serve people who have pet cemeteries, then that's [00:28:00] on you.

I don't know why I thought of a pet cemetery.

And then I decided for cemetery, don't ask me, why 

Serena: [00:28:08] do we even exist? I mean, I don't know. We've always, our backyard is a pet, so that's kind of scary. Well, the house we sold anyways, it's not this one. So have fun new owners, right. Anyway. Yeah. So that, that would be my advice of just like, not second guessing yourself.

Just go all in on it and yeah, you don't have to pick an inch at the beginning. Like it took me what I'm in year four. And I finally decided, okay, I'm going all in on one industry. And it's kind of scary because like, what if that ended the industry crashes and burns, like, then I'm out of work, but then if I'm not out of work, like I literally can do any industry like accountants, you can pick up any industry.

Okay. Accounting is all the same for all the industries. It's just like a little different nuances in each of them. So [00:29:00] I wouldn't let that hold you back because I know a lot of people are like, Oh, I'm glad I wasn't in the restaurant niche, like with COVID, but like, you can still find other clients  if that niche just implodes, right.

Alyssa: [00:29:13] Unfortunately. Yeah. So my last little jamming question for you, I know you have these amazing workshops coming, which last time I believe I was in Vegas, when you did one of these workshops and I was there like on vacation, like 

Serena: [00:29:29] you like get off your phone. 

Alyssa: [00:29:30] I'm like what I love you. So I'm curious to know, I know you kind of touched on it a little bit, but I know that this starts.

Give me some details. Give me the juicy, like tips last time. It was four days right now you're doing five. 

Serena: [00:29:43] No actually last time it was five days and now I'm doing four. Okay. So it's backwards. Okay. I, I ended up like with everything you should always get feedback from your clients, your customers, your students, whoever you work with, like always get feedback and find out like what worked and what didn't.

And for a lot of my [00:30:00] students, they were like, it was a lot of information and I didn't feel like I could like implement it all in that week. So I trimmed it out a little bit. And we're going in on day one, we're going to talk about like what it actually takes to run a bookkeeping business. So there's a little bit of mindset stuff that we're going to do because it's really important to like, be comfortable with,  you already have the skills.

So we're going to like talk about what kind of skills can translate into bookkeeping. Most of the people that come into my world already have some experience, but even if you don't, these are going to be good workshops. It'll set you up. For later when you actually have the, the accounting knowledge and the background and then day two, we're going to talk about systems because having a good tech stack can like really help you scale right from the start.

And so we're going to go through like my tried and true tech stack and a lot of it's free or really inexpensive. So you don't have to worry about like breaking the bank, buying all sorts of expensive software. And then [00:31:00] in day three, we're talking about like kind of what we touched on earlier, creating a business that you love by figuring out who your end goal and who your ideal customer is.

And so you're not making the same mistakes I did with like some bad clients. Right. And then in day four is a bonus master class and I'm going to help you figure out how to sell with all thesleaze. Cause I know like selling is a big roadblock for us accountants. So a lot of us, I identify as introverts.

I know, I know not all of us, but a lot of us identify as introverts. So I'm going to help you turn that introvert. Superpower to help you like have conversations with clients and to be a little more comfortable with that. And like, you don't have to pretend you're someone that you're not, you don't have to pretend to be an extrovert to be successful.

Cause I, that was me. Like, that was my biggest fear of like, Oh, I'm going to have to talk to clients and like sellreally not, it's really not that bad. So I'm going to show you how I do it. And then I will like [00:32:00] still have a day five, but it's going to be dedicated to just answering questions. 

Alyssa: [00:32:03] Oh, that's cool.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, that's something that a lot of workshops that you find online don't provide is a lot of times it's really hard to find them that like will answer your questions. 

Serena: [00:32:17] And actually every day is going to be an interactive Facebook live so people can drop questions and I'll answer them as I go.

But I also wanted to have. A full on like day just for like answering questions and making sure people understand the content and giving them time to like implement some more. So, 

Alyssa: [00:32:34] so where can they sign up? 

Serena: [00:32:37] BK workshops.online pretty easy. 

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