The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast

206 | 2025 The State of Virtual Bookkeeping & Accounting Industry Report with Alyssa Lang

• Serena Shoup, CPA • Episode 206

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Join Serena and Alyssa Lang, the Workflow Queen, as they dive deep into the results of the first-ever State of Virtual Bookkeeping and Accounting Industry Report! We collected over 200 responses from bookkeepers and accounting firm owners like you, and the data is honestly eye-opening. This isn't your typical corporate survey - this is BY us, FOR us small firm owners.

In this episode you’ll hear:

  • The advisory services reality check - Why 41% of you are probably already doing advisory work but not charging for it
  • The referral marketing machine breakdown - Since 41% of you rely on word-of-mouth referrals, we're sharing specific strategies to systematize and amplify your referral game
  • Team structure insights - Why so many are working full-time but haven't built a team yet
  • Client capacity breakdown - 26% are serving 20+ clients, and we're breaking down how that's even possible
  • Industry positioning trends - What people are calling themselves and their businesses

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Connect with Alyssa:

🌐 Website: workflowqueen.com

📱 IG: @workflowqueen

🎙️ Podcast: Conquering Workflows & Systems with the Workflow Queen

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 @ambitiousbookkeeper

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so here we are, third time trying to record this podcast. The first time we did hit record, but we were just all over the place.'cause I hadn't, we hadn't really analyzed the data.. The second time we recorded a really good episode and it was like, like two hours long. Um, but apparently I actually didn't hit record. So here we are again. Third time's a charm. Uh, so welcome to the 2025 State of Virtual Bookkeeping and Accounting survey results. And I wanted to have, Alyssa on here, the Workflow Queen, to just help kind of extract the data com, conversate around it. Mm-hmm. Um, is that a word? Yeah. Have a conversation around the data that we found and kind of what it means for our industry, things that we should take away from it. And it's just a lot. More fun to have someone else on, in, on the conversation for stuff like this to really think about things from different perspectives and angles. So welcome Alyssa. Yeah, thank you. Sadly, we are not in person for the third time's. A charm for this, but maybe this is better because we were not gonna, we were not recording on video the last time we recorded it, so That's true. Yeah, that's true. But now we are separated and we're very sad about it. A month and a half with Serena is very hard to leave. But hello everyone. If you don't know who I am, my name's Alyssa Lang. I own a workflow queen. I also own my own firm as well. It's called Magnetic Profits. I've been with Workflow Queen, been with it like I don't own it. Like I've owned Workflow Queen for about five years. Fun fact today when I went to go get a rental car, which 'cause that's a whole nother story for another episode, I went to go get a rental car today and the guy was like, who employs you? I was like, workflow Queen. And he was like, that's a really interesting name of places that you work for. And I was like, I own it. I'm so proud of myself to say that today. But anyways, I help bookkeepers and accounts around the world. We help them implement the right systems, the right team and offers to remove themselves from the day-to-day. And you're probably most likely hearing this on my podcast as well, and also at Serena's podcast as well. So we're really excited to be diving into all of the fun things. So before we dive in, what is the state of the virtual bookkeeping? What is this survey? When did you do it? Tell 'em all the things. Yeah. First I have to say hi. Hi to Harley.'cause I saw him. He misses you too. Harley's a dog. I got a wild hair months ago. I had been inspired by someone who did something similar for the online, business industry. And I thought it would be really cool to create a survey for the small firms in the, the bookkeeping and accounting industry. Because what ends up happening is big organizations like Thomson Reuters and Intuit and all these other, like really big names, we'll do industry surveys, but they're interviewing and getting data from really big firms that just, they tend to do things a lot differently than we do. Totally. And so when I've looked at those surveys, I just never felt like they mattered to me or really I didn't connect with them. So I thought it would be really cool, to do a survey from our industry and really, I had no. I didn't really know what was gonna come of it, and I had no expectations. I just was like, I think people will be interested in this information and this data. And it was the first time I've done this. So as we go through this, there's definitely bear with us. Bear with us because there's definitely things I wish I had done differently. Different ask different questions, ask questions differently Offered. More clarity around how to answer the questions. So rest assured when we publish the survey next year, it will hopefully be even better, but there is still some really good data that we've gotten from this. Yeah, 100%. So before we go on, how is someone in anyone's position as they're going through this survey, as we start talking about the results? One, how do people get access to the survey results that you did do? And I think the second piece too would probably be the most important part is why does this matter? Because we both know that if you give anybody metrics or information, a lot of times reading it is one thing, but actually taking that information to make changes, like what is the whole point of this thing and what is it supposed to do for our listeners as far as how they're going to take it and implement it and make changes within their firm. Yeah. So, uh, we will link in the show notes, where to go to opt into the results.'cause we're actually going to be publishing, today we're just having a conversation about the results, but we're gonna be publishing more in depth. Yeah, way more in depth. Yeah. With, you know, like in a digital format so that you can drill into things and, and see more and make better decisions. What was the next question you asked? So it's gonna be in the show notes. And then the other one was with this type of survey for the first time anyone's ever, like you said, most of these types of surveys are geared towards more corporate. How is someone with, where they're currently standing in their firm, whatever stage they're at, able to utilize this information and what is it gonna help them to achieve and how is today's conversation gonna help them really unpack that as they start to get the results themselves? Because I'm gonna highly recommend, like, I know that we've done this now. This is the third time, like now that we're doing this three times, I have it like ingrained, but like it's a lot of stats. So I'm gonna pre-warn everybody as we go through it. There's a lot of stats, a lot of information. Me and Serena, we'll go on little tangents to explain like what we think about this data, what we think that it's gonna help you guys do. but what, what would someone be able to take from this conversation to start to implement within their firm with the data? Yeah. So as you'll see, like we've we're asking questions about people's like average monthly fee and what the makeup of the firm is and what you guys call your firm and your position. So maybe this will help you in making a lot of decisions like that, like pricing. If you don't think that you can price a certain way. Well, if the results show that most people have an average price that's higher than what you're offering as a base price. Then, hopefully this gives you permission to change things. And I'm not saying that you have to do things the way everyone else in the industry is doing things them. No. Yeah, because that's certainly not the message I'm trying to convey, but in areas where you're unsure if you're on the right track, maybe it'll give you confirmation that you are on the right track. Or maybe it gives you permission to try something a little different if what you're doing isn't working. Yeah. Love that. Cool. I'm excited to dive in. Also, guys, I had nothing to do with any of this. I am purely only here because we were like, what? We were at breakfast and we were like, we should do a couple episodes while we were together when I was with Serena. And she was like, we should do the results and go through like, like an open discussion as me as if me and Serena were sitting in a coffee shop together. And having conversations around like things that we wanna shift in our firm and using data to make those things happen. So this just goes to show if you've been sitting by yourself in your own office, which I get it 'cause that's usually what I am all the time. It's really important to make connections with other people in the industry so you can have these brainstorming sessions.'cause I swear my business would not be where they're, where it's at if I didn't have my friends to be able to like bounce these things off of. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna do a redirect and you can go to ambitious bookkeeper.com/results. last time we recorded it was a full two hours. She means last time that we were just sitting there talking to each other because we didn't hit record. So we are pretty much just having an open conversation with each other where we thought you guys were listening in for two hours. So if it becomes two hours, then we will split this up, but if you have any questions along the way or you're like, I really like this or I wanna change your guys' perspective, or Here's what I thought that question means, come on Instagram at, Ambitious Bookkeeper, And then mine is at work folk. And if you ever wanna share anything, then we're always happy to like have this as an open discussion as well. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so should we dive in? Yeah, I'm excited. Okay. So of the survey, we actually collected 644 responses, which I was honestly blown away at. I did have a few different people helping me promote this survey that are in, you know, my community and also have audiences of bookkeepers. But 644 responses was really awesome. I donated a dollar for every response up to 500. So essentially I donated $500 to Charity Water, which is a charity. I will link information in the show notes on, so if you feel inclined, you can, you can donate more. But I thought that was really cool. And that was just, I, I wanted to do something that would incentivize people to actually respond.'cause it's like, what are they gonna get out of it? Other than the results? Yeah. Which are gonna be packaged up and sent out. But to just get people to participate, I thought it was a really good turnout. I honestly wasn't expecting that much. Yeah. Yeah. It was fun to even promote it. Like I had a lot of people emailing me be like, this is so cool that you put this together. I was like, wish I could take credit, but it wasn't me. Yeah. And shout out to Hannah on my team. She built the whole survey in, Airtable, which is a tool that we're starting to implement more and more inside of the business. So, okay. So first off, we did a section on like your business, like overall. And the first question I asked was, what best describes your current role? And so, the results. So what best describes your role? I had about 56 of you. 56% of you guys say that you describe your role as a solo bookkeeper, accountant with no team. And then about 39, or sorry, 36% of you said firm owner with a team. Everyone in between was just like an employee of a company or maybe just getting started. Very small, slim amount. So the majority of people were either identified as solo bookkeeper, accountant with no team, or a firm owner with a team. Which is funny when we get into the next part because it was very much opposing your guys' responses. But we'll get into that in just a minute. Yeah. And then the other thing, this is one of the areas where as we were unpacking the results, I was like, wow, I wish I would've asked a certain question like revenue range of the firm. However, that's not in here, but we do talk about pricing and either way, I think there's some valuable information in here. What do you call yourself in business? So we had the majority of people almost tied. We had people calling themselves and referring to themselves as a bookkeeper. Then we also had people referring to themselves, almost equal parts owner. Then, uh, those were at 28% each. Next in line was 14, or sorry, 15%. They call each other themselves accountants. Next in line was founder. Then we had CEO and then the smaller ones was like other, or CFO. And I think we talked about, I do wanna kind of touch on this one because we forgot to mention that because Serena's audience. So explain your audience for everyone who's listening, whether they're on my podcast or yours, of how that could actually have changed the stats. Yeah, so because the majority of my audience and some of the big promoters, the people that I had also promoting this survey, I think we all tend to attract, solo firm owners and bookkeepers, not necessarily, people that identify as accountants or CFOs or that type of, um, role. Like multimillion dollar firms. Yeah, exactly. So I think that has something to do with it. But I don't know, we'll find out next year as this grows. Oh yeah. This is gonna be exciting 'cause this is definitely not gonna be last year. Next year I really wanna be involved in like, the creation. I know we brainstorm on a lot of like, things that could be changed around this, but I found it to be really interesting that some of you guys called Bookkeeper and I, I did touch on this on the last time, so I'm definitely gonna touch on it. I decided to change my name to owner, like as the owner, founder of my own firm. And I think it's because I just stopped wanting to be identified as a bookkeeper because I feel like it is so. Like undermined and underplayed as far as like, my mom, my sister can do it. My cousin, like, it always feels like it's just my bookkeeper. It's almost like you're, you're just their assistant. So I actually removed it from my name. So originally we were magnetic bookkeeping and consulting and now we're magnetic profits.'cause I was like, you know what? I'm just, I don't like the identification of it, but that's also like my own thought process. I did the same thing.'cause I used to be, my firm used to be called, well, I've gone through a few iterations. I used to have the cpa, a designation in my firm name that attracted the wrong,, not who I was trying to work with. People were just coming for taxes. And then I moved, I re rebranded to of course bookkeeping and and then now I'm of course financial. So same thing, like at first it was, it was funny. I went from like CPA to bookkeeping and then yeah, kind of came back to somewhere in the middle and it feels a lot better. Yeah, it just feels like more balance. So for anybody who's like needs permission while you're listening to this to like call yourself whatever makes the most sense for you. I do know that, I think we talked about this as well, that like when I go out into public sometimes, like trying to explain what I do and like the type of business I have, like I'm not technically in the state of California, or you said Texas and California, right? You're not allowed to call yourself an accounting firm. I'm technically not allowed, allowed to call myself an accountant 'cause I don't have a CPA designation. But every once in a while it's a hell of a lot easier than trying to explain a business advisory or the consulting firm.'cause we do bookkeeping, but that's not our number one priority. It's mostly the business advisory and consulting. And so I'm not really allowed to, but sometimes I'll go out in public and I'll like introduce myself, like to make it easy. I'll just be like, we own, I don't, I own an accounting firm, like Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's what, and that's the thing too, is it's like. In different situations, you might call yourself something different. So it could have been hard to answer this question because it's like, well, the way that I look at I here, it's this. Yeah, yeah. The way that I look at this question is like, what do you call, like what does your email signature say or your business card? Oh, if you're saying mean system unicorn, it says unicorn, financial unicorn. Um, let's let, if that's what we're looking for here. Mine is, um, numbers nerd in, um, my email signature for magnetic or something like that. Oh, really? You don't have like owner anything? Nah, dog. That's hilarious. I mean, I have owner, so that's what I, or CEO, it might now say owner, but I know it was numbers nerd at one point where it was like I didn't really care. Like I got to a point in business where it was like this is not that serious. Like, I mean, it is serious. We're what we're doing guys, not to downplay anything that we're doing. It is 100% serious. But I got to a point in business where I was like, I'm just here for fun. And like the right people are gonna be like, that's a cute, that's cute. But I am officially, if I'm like on stage, I'm gonna o like introduce myself as owner, founder. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Love that. And then what do you call your business? So this is like what you call your business structure, like bookkeeping business. Bookkeeping firm. Accounting firm. We kind of touched on this before. Yeah. So this is 38% of you said bookkeeping business. The next in line was about 28% said bookkeeping firm. Next said, uh, 17% of you guys said accounting firm. Then next in line was other. And then after that was 6% said financial services business, which I'm surprised that that's what they called it. But only like 43 people out of the 644. So biggest was bookkeeping business and bookkeeping firm. Yeah. And so the other categories, that's gonna be information that we'll be putting on the report that if you opt into, you can get that way, you can see, and then I'm gonna take that information and kind of what makes sense, put them into options for next time. Yeah, I call myself an accounting firm, like when I'm talking to people and they ask what I do, I say I own an accounting firm. Because like, that's what people understand. And for me, I am a CPA, so it's not an issue to call myself that. But even so, like if the firm that you're working for or own like does accounting, like in a conversation, I think it's totally legit to just say that if you're comfortable with it. Yeah. Now I'd say like we we're mostly an, we just call ourselves, advisory firm. Yeah. And then the next question was, how long have you been offering bookkeeping or accounting services? So, let's see, 30% said three to five years. Next in line at 27%, or sorry, 22% is one to two years. 16% of you said six to 10 years, which we were very surprised by. 15% said less than one year. And then 14% said 10 plus years. Yeah. Which is crazy to think about. Like there's so many people here that are 10 plus years in business and Yeah. And perhaps like this is where we will splice the data further in the report to see like of the people who have been in business 10 plus year, how many of those are still solopreneurs? How many still have a team? And then the other thing that came up for me was how people interpreted the question Yes. Are they thinking like, oh, I've been in accounting for, 'cause I've been in the accounting industry as a whole. Since fricking 2007, I think. And so I'm like, I don't even know how many years that is at this point. Like I think that's 20 years almost nice. 17, if I can math mapping. Yeah. 17 years. Yeah. So that would put me in that 10 plus year range if I answered it like that. But if I answer it, as long as I've been offering these services under my own company Yeah. Or freelancing or whatever, you know, that's just like seven or eight years. So yeah, we don't know what the data, like, what everyone's, interpretation is, but it's like Serena said, this is only gonna get better every year. With getting a little bit more clear on like, like when you started your business, how long have you been offering these services within your businesses? Not as like a freelancer, not as like within another, someone else's company. So I love that. And the next question was, do you work with clients full-time or part-time? So we had 50% of people say full-time. Then we had fif 31% of people say part-time. Then 17% is on the side of another job. So I think for this one, we were trying to figure out what were we trying to figure out maybe that this could have been interpreted differently. Yeah. So part-time meaning like it also depends on like your, does your business work part-time? Like for, for me, I only work part-time in the business. My team is all part-time, so it would be easy for me to say part-time. Yeah. But it makes a full-time income, so it's like, yeah, there's that too. And then there's the other piece of it too is like, or are you just counting your own time, how much you're offering the service. So again, I can offer more clarification on the next round on how to answer these questions. But, still interesting information that only half are working full time. Yeah, which is great. I will say that, 'cause I know last time'cause we thought we were recording, you were gonna be able to come back and listen to the potential changes we can make. I would probably, if this were the future of the survey, ask the question around, especially at Workflow Queen, this is what we really heavily focus on is asking the question around how much time do you spend on a weekly basis as the owner in your business?'cause I'd be curious to see how many people are actually like working a lot of time in their business and then also looking at the results to say, now how many of those people like working only 20 hours are technically not even having a team, but that's like, but where they at in their revenue threshold. So that way people can like really leverage, like this is where you need to be at. And I'm surprised by the 50 per, wasn't it 50% for full-time? Yeah. 50% of you guys are in full-time. Mm-hmm. And I'm assuming we're just gonna make an assumption here that that means that you guys are working 40 hours a week on your client work. So I'm actually really curious to see how many of those people, and I know that we're gonna splice this state even further when you go actually do the like more official report. But looking at how many people who are in full-time and looking at how many of them actually have the team and how many of you guys are actually managing a number of clients Because some, or like what your struggles are. So if your struggles are systems and processes, but you're working full time, you could probably cut that in half without even hiring at first to then be able to like move on to the next stage to then hire and get you out of the day-to-day. Because I'm sorry, I'm never working full-time ever in my life ever again. I know. I could not imagine working 40 hours. Like right now, I'm like, God, eight hours, like, or five to eight hours a week feels like a lot of work. And honestly, like even though I used to work like 60 hours a week when I was in corporate. There was so much wasted time. Yeah. When I was in the office that like mm-hmm. Technically I probably didn't actually work 60 hours a week. Yeah. On actual, like doing work, a lot of it was like, you know, water cooler in the office. Yeah. The water cooler. Yeah. We had fricking puzzles in our office. We had some empty cubicles and we would like about puzzles. I'm like so much wasted time. Yeah. But that's like so different corporate versus like these type, this is where I will say, that's a really good point that you brought up because this just goes to show those types of surveys will not help the type of businesses that we're, that are listening right now. Mostly because we don't, we cannot afford inefficient team members. Yeah. We cannot afford inefficient owners. We cannot afford inefficient contractors because we are more, we have the ability to be a little bit more agile and pivot. With changes in the business and new clients that come on with corporate, as you know, 'cause you've been in corporate, I've never been in corporate for what I know from people and from you is that when a new initiative gets rolled out, it's gonna take months to even roll it out because of how many departments it has to cross. So in that case, like you guys can't afford for anyone. Like as we get into, like later on in the episode, when we talk about the issues that you guys are having in your business, you're gonna see how interesting this is for how many of you guys are working full-time. But then you're gonna say a specific thing that like, does not make sense why you guys are saying it in a certain way. Mm-hmm. And we'll get to that in just a minute. But I do believe that like we don't, we cannot afford to be an efficient at the type of level of firms that we're all running. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, now we're getting into, team structure and whatnot. So next question was, do you have a team. Yes. So 58% said no. 17% said yes part-time. Contractors three, oh, sorry, 11% is yes. Part-time employees for, sorry, Jesus, 8% a mix of contractors and employees, and then 5% said yes, full-time employees. So no for 58% of people, 'cause you guys are like working full-time, which confirms Yeah. It's like we're seeing a lot of people that are working full-time. Mm-hmm. A lot of solo firm owners, which there's nothing wrong with just totally fine. Please make sure that you are following Workflow Queen and that you're setting up systems so that you have like a plan, a contingency plan if something happens. Yeah. And you're the only one touching client work like you need to have. That's risky. It is risky. And hopefully you have some processes at least written out so that someone can step in if they need to. Yeah, definitely. And I do believe that like for 58 it was just crazy. 58% of people, we also don't know, like I think we talked about this last time, that. Someone might identify as a team is like they have to be employees. So I'm just gonna like let you guys notice that next year when you fill out the survey, a team can be a contractor or an employee. How we defined it last time was like if you were to add them to your communication system, your Slack or any way that they're more immersed in the business, whether they're a contractor or an employee, I believe is your team. Yeah. I would not consider working on client work for sure. Yeah, exactly. Like I would not consider my social media marketing managers as a team member because they're external. Like separate company, separate agency. Yeah. Yeah. And they're like an agency. They don't work on the client work. So if you guys, just because it's not an employee, 'cause I see this a lot where people always assume that like I, when I hire, it has to be an employee. It has to be full-time. No, you can hire for someone like two hours a week if you wanted to as an employee or a contractor. It really doesn't matter. That's a designation that's required by the IRS. But yeah, 58% of you said no team at all. I genuinely think that that's okay. As long as you are in alignment with that. But if you're working full-time and you're exhausted, something needs to change. Mm-hmm. But we can get into that a little bit later. Yeah. And there is something to be said of like the simplicity of especially'cause I'm sure there's someone listening that's like, I tried the team, I tried to do that. I ended up working more to just fix all the mistakes. And that's a separate issue. Yeah. 100% for sure. But also I've got plenty of episodes on that, on my podcast, so go to listen to those. But also there is something to be said about the simplicity of having, being able to control everything. And that's okay too, if that's the season you're in. So, well, not only that, but um, I will tell you guys, the bigger you grow, the more you wish it was just you again. Yeah. But at the same time, I know that we just talked about this recently, I would never give up my team. Like, because I love, like right now I'm like on this crazy, wild like adventure right now. And I can't imagine if I had to do all this stuff without a team, I'd be like freaking out. I wouldn't be able to do it. Yeah. You know what I mean? So like there are times when like, I'm like, God, that payroll hurts. Like yeah. But at the same time, like the team is what gives you the freedom to, to do that and life have space to create more parts of the business that give them more opportunities and give more people jobs. So like the more space I have as a founder, the more opportunities I can create for everyone else. Bonuses, new positions. Like it's only better if I am frolicking around the us. Awesome. Okay. next question was, how many clients do you currently serve? Okay, so this is all over the place. So we've got 26% at 20 plus clients. That's the highest amount of you guys are at 20 plus clients. 22% of you said 11 to 20 clients. 18% said zero to two clients. Then we had 17% at six to 10 clients and 16% at three to five. So to go back the biggest ones were 20 plus clients, and then right after was 11 to 20. yeah, it's crazy. So many, I, I'm interested to drill into the data on the 20 plus clients and how many people are still solo without a team versus having a team, you know? Yeah. Because even like that was a pick, people who were saying, um, no team at all was already 58%, so like 58% were saying no, but then there's like 26 that are already doing 20 plus clients. Yeah. That's crazy. I know so many people that we've, I know that me and you have privately coached these people that are like, I've coached a hundred plus clients before and it's just the founder. And I'm like, how are you not flipping out right now? Like, I can't even do like five. And they're like, I don't have a project management system. I'm like. I literally will have nightmares for them. Yeah. Yeah. Same. I'm like, well we have 20 clients and I have a team. Yeah. And there's no way I would do this. So I, I could have like one and I'd be like, I need a team. I know that you were big on like right from the get go, I had, I hired help when I only had five clients. Mm-hmm. So I tell your story all the time when everyone's like, well, 'cause there's so much bad, I think in my opinion, bad advice for like, I don't know what company it is and I'm not even gonna say their name. But, um, they are very adamant about saying that if you're, if for every a hundred k it's one employee, it's one full-time employee and I really am gonna call bullshit on all of that. I believe that like they're considering full-time employee when like, you can get part-time employees or part-time contractors. At literally one client, if you really wanted to. It's all about your goals, your alignment, what you need and your desires in business and the goal that you're trying to create for yourself. Yeah. And how much and your profit, like mm-hmm. If you price correctly, that's doable. And it's honestly like, we're often a tangent, and I know I've talked about this on the podcast many times too, is like, honestly, it's better to, if you know you wanna hire in the future anyway, it's better to start early so that you get used to pricing in a way that you can cover the team. Yes. As well as have the profit that you want and you're not feeling like you're giving up the profit. Yes, I love that point because that's something that we do in breakthrough. So inside of the break breakthrough program, we have them go through their client, their client profitability and look at like how much they're spending per client. And a lot of times they're in a really bad position where like now they have to raise their client's rates by 35 to 50% because they've been pricing. Because somewhere online someone told 'em it's just gonna be you. It's just a side hustle when like, I get it, I thought it was a side hustle and here we are three companies later, like full blown team. Like I get that, like I genuinely didn't think it was gonna turn into what it did, but then like I really regret the way I priced. So you made a really good point there, like price is if you were to have a team, so then when you bring, so right now it's just extra bonus money for you.'cause you're just collecting a, you're gonna have way higher profitability. It's gonna feel like you're taking, but you're really not. You're just preparing for better software, better growth, better team, better flexibility. But I can't tell you guys how many people are at the 20 plus client who cannot raise their rates because they're like, I can't raise it that much and now I need a team. And now they're in a catch 22. And then they wonder like. Do I raise my rates or hire the team? I'm like, well, you could have just fixed it from the beginning and been able to afford the team this whole time. So you're right. I'm glad you brought that up. Alright, now this question was, what is the typical revenue range of your clients? So this is going to play into the following question of like, what is your average monthly fee? So while I wish I would've asked your revenue range of the firm, I did not. Um, we're talking about revenue range of the clients that you serve. And so yeah, it looks like the majority is under a hundred K. Yeah, that was a majority was under a hundred K. But I think that we also were thinking that this might have been interpreted. Oh yeah. I also worded the question really messed up. Yeah, I just realize that, so the ty, I wrote the typical monthly revenue range of the clients. Mm-hmm. But then I gave options that look more like annual revenue ranges. Whoopsie. Uh, so we don't know if you guys were answering this as like yourself, like thinking like, this is how much money you were making annually for your own firm or like, so we just don't know Yeah. What this data's gonna tell us right about now. Yeah. So this might just be data that we have to throw out, but, 52, I'm gonna read it off anyway. Yeah. Yeah. 52% is under a hundred K. , 18% is a hundred K to 250 K. Then next in line was 13% at 250 K to 500 k, then 7% or 500 K to 1 million. And then we had, uh, 6% at 1 million to five and then 5 million plus. So if this is exactly what we were thinking you guys are answering would be the typical rev revenue range of clients, I think we made some really good points last time that I'd love for us to bring up again, which is all about I. The way that we price our clients and what we can potentially bring in from our clients is heavily gonna depend on the revenue that they're bringing in. And I think it's okay to be working with micro companies, and those that are under the a hundred K, but they're just not gonna be willing to pay the same amount that someone, or be ready for the type of service that we need to be offering them. I think we definitely touched on that. I think it was a really good conversation that we had around that. Yeah. because what I wanted to glean from this information is like, okay, if, if your clients are, only making under a hundred K and your average monthly fee is under 300, that I mean. Is more an alignment I guess with under a hundred k if that, that's what their revenue is. But like, if you're pricing a little bit more and you're also having trouble getting clients, but most of your clients are in this revenue range, like it all is interconnected. So I always try to use like a bit like a litmus test of when I'm pricing a client, I always ask on their intake Yeah. Another intake, but their questionnaire before I get on a call with them Yeah. For inquiry form what their revenue range is. Because I wanna get a sense of like, can they even afford my minimum price? Yeah. Because I'm not even gonna, like, some people will still try to pay it, but it doesn't end long. It doesn't end up long term. Yeah. Unless they are in growth mode and they know they're going to turn a corner. So, it's risky. It is 100%. We stopped working with businesses that weren't making at least 250 K. And we actually made that decision about a year and a half ago when we did our own profitability check on our own clients. And we looked at like the traits of the clients, what systems they were using, how difficult are they, and the common theme of like the favorited by like, not just me, but also our bookkeeping team was. Anybody who was making over 250 K. So then we just stopped, I think it was like, yeah, like about a year and a half ago now. And it's my favorite thing because they can, most likely, there has been moments where people are under the 250 K, but they're like, they have funding or they're coming in from a different position where they're like, I'm ready to invest. And you can like kind of tell that from the form, but typically, we'll usually just revert them to another firm. So like, it's okay. I just wanted to kind of touch on that, that like, it's okay if you wanna serve them more micro businesses. and I do think that they need to be served. I think they're very pivotal, but the majority of businesses that get even past a hundred K is very slim. Uh, I think we pulled the stats one time when we were talking, at a different point in time where probably we're on our own little tangents in life together, where we pull the stats to say that like a really large percent of business owners go into business never making, never hitting their first a hundred k or going beyond that. So there, there's a time and place, but just know that it's okay if you don't serve people at a hundred k or or under or that's all you wanna serve. Just know that. Yeah. It comes with issues of its own. Yeah. And it's like, is that in alignment with your, your revenue goals? Yeah. And that's something I walk through people through, in my programs. Mm-hmm. So that you are pricing like, and figuring out like what your capacity is, how much like bandwidth do you have to serve clients and how much money do you need to make? And then you figure out, okay, this is what my minimum price needs to be. I cannot go below this. Yeah, totally. It, it's really helpful to have that baseline because, especially when you have a team, 'cause you're like, okay, I know that like if we don't charge at least this, we have no chance of being profitable. None of this is gonna end up or to serve them. Because if I'm not profitable, then I'm just gonna eat it all. I know. Uh, Brooke will say this all day, every day, Brooke Swan, she'll say, I feel she'll call me and be like, how do I do this? Like our price? Or we'll have an open discussion around a pricing your client. She's like, but I feel bad. I always started with that. So I had to keep calling her out to be like, every time you say I feel bad, it ends up being lowering your price for someone. And so when we start to like, create things as more of like the science of it rather than the art of it, of the art of pricing.'cause we start to put feelings in there and then we feel bad because they're just getting started in their business. Like it, it can only like ter you and we could still really appreciate a business owner and respect them and still stand firm in our pricing. Yeah. Love that. Absolutely. Okay, so, this brings us to the pricing question. What is the average monthly fee of your clients, or typical monthly fee you charge your clients? typical monthly fee. Okay, this is my favorite one to talk about. 40% of you said your typical monthly fees are 300 to 500. Right behind you guys at 21% was 500 to 750. 18% of you said under 300. Then 10% of you guys said 750 to a thousand. Then we have 5% of you who said your typical fee for your clients is a thousand to 2000, and then 4% said 2000 plus. So I'm pretty happy about this, that the majority of people, which is the 40% said average monthly fee is, or sorry, what is the monthly fee of your client is 300, 500. I will say this probably could have gotten worded a little bit better 'cause I, I feel like. One, it could have been really cool to see what people's like minimum fee requirement is. Yeah. And then a separate question for what is your average client monthly fee? Because right now I don't know if people are answering that based off of like what their minimum threshold is or if that's their actual average. You know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. Mm-hmm. So I think, do we wanna touch on this part here? Because we did have some people who were saying 21% were 500 to 750, which I think is great. Yeah. I love that the majority of people are charging more than $300. Yeah. Except for 18% of you guys. Yeah. So that 18%, I'm sure a lot of you are serving clients under a hundred K. Mm-hmm. So maybe that is necessary, but. Also you probably, but not, can still charge at least 300 or I always say like you do not need to negotiate on your, on your types of services. However, it's okay to sit down with a client and say, here's what the scope would entail at this price. If we took away X, Y, Z, this is what it would entail. So like obviously I'm not gonna say you guys categorize transactions, it will do everything else. Like that would be different. Well you could offer that, but we just don't at my firm. But that could look like, I just won't produce reports for you. We won't do a Loom video overview and that's okay. I just don't think Neco negotiating on the price with what service you currently have is I think where inappropriate. Yeah, totally. And then the next question was how do you price your services? Again, some of the answers are pretty much similar, like monthly fixed fees, tiered pricing packages could probably be combined, maybe even value-based pricing. But what this did show is that people consider their pricing. to fall under these different types of umbrellas. Even if like the end is still like a monthly flat fee. Like their terminology in their brain Yeah. Is like very, which is actually good for more me and you, like, because of the way that they like speak to themselves as we serve the, the actual industry. But we had about 50% of you say that you, do, you call what you, what type of services that you do is monthly fixed fees. Then we've got 17%, like Serena said, it's pretty much kind of the same tiered pricing packages, 13% value-based pricing. So if you kind of put those together, I'm not gonna try to math right now that 67%, 70. 80%. Like I'm not gonna try to math. I think I did it right, but I think that's 80% of you guys, are pretty much, I would just say to lump it all together, like value pricing where you're not charging hourly essentially. Then 12% of you guys are doing hourly fees and then 2% are other. We just, you're gonna put that in the, the actual survey results monthly retainer is 16, of you guys, so about 2% and then another 3% for project base. So that's 80% of you guys are doing monthly fix, which is great, but the other 12 of you, I would, uh, get it together and not do hourly if you can, unless you're doing cleanups.'cause like if you're just a cleanup specialist firm, then like that might be appropriate to do hourly. Yeah. And this is one of those things too that it's gonna be interesting to splice this data and see of the people that are charging hourly, are these solo? Are these with team? Are these zero to two years in business? Like what does that makeup look like? Yeah. Because that's honestly understandable. If you're in your first couple years of business or maybe your first year. Yeah. Depending on how many new clients you're signing. Like it's understandable to charge hourly. Yeah.'cause you don't even know what you're worth. No idea. Yeah. I've done it. I did it too. I did hourly for a really long time until, yeah. You know, my first hourly rate was comical. 30. Yeah. It was, what was, it was $30 an hour. Yeah. Say mine was 30. That's so funny. I did not know that about each other. I got paid more than that in corporate, but for some reason I was like, so like in your brain? Yeah. About it. I was like, well, I've never done this on my own before. So I needed to boost my own confidence, but I totally, I did at least raise my rate for every new client. So if you are charging hourly, even if you are charging hourly. Or not. If you are low, low balling yourself, like at least increase your price on each client. Yeah. Yes. I love that. Thanks for that advice. Love that for us. Okay. What services do you currently offer? This is, this was like a multi, you could select multiple options. So this is where, I don't think the pie chart really works, but I'm gonna go with the pie chart 'cause I have it right in front of my face. So I'll start with that. I'm not even gonna say the percentages though. I'm just gonna go in order of what the biggest, most important thing is that most people checked off. So it's gonna be, bookkeeping following that is also cleanup catchup work. And then we have financial reporting, payroll sales, tax filing, AP ar. Other, which we don't know that as tax prep. Tax prep was only like, I will say that one 4% controller management accounting was only 3%. So those are quite small. 6% of you said budgeting and forecasting. And then, uh, another 6% in advisory CFO. So the majority of people are, are offering bookkeeping, AP AR cleanup, catchup financial reporting, payroll and sales tax filing. Which I'm really surprised by because, I'm actually not surprised by like the budgeting and forecasting and the advisory, which is interesting because like your audience should be working with you and elevate anyways, just to throw that out there. But I will also say like, there's so many of you guys that probably don't realize that you are offering advisory, but you do not charge for it because you don't think you're doing it. I can't tell you how many times people will get on calls and they'll literally be strategizing with a client and they're like, but I'm just reviewing reports. I'm like. It is one thing to read off a report to somebody and answer a question about that particular category than it is to start like actually saying, well you might wanna pay this person this much. Like, so I'd love like really quickly to touch on for anyone who might have not answered that correctly because they don't have the confidence that maybe they, they think they're not doing it. What would you say is that line between reading a report and what is actually advisory that puts someone in that category, but they might just not be charging for it? Yeah, so anytime you're like really analyzing the data and interpreting what it means for the client and their business. Like looking at a report and having the client say, okay, well what's in that number? And you're drilling down into the accounts and saying, oh, it's this software and that software that's not advisory. Even though you're kind of analyzing the numbers. Yeah. What I'm talking about is like looking at the p and l, looking at the trends, how things are trending and kind of doing some. Maybe you're doing some like forecasting or predicting of things with the client or giving them tips on things to change. Like for instance, if they're having cash flow problems, you're looking at the cash flow statement and saying, oh, you're cash is depleting every month because of whatever, like card bills or something. Yeah, yeah. And here's some ideas on how you can change that. Maybe charge your clients up front and maybe, yeah. Do a 50% deposit instead of waiting to bill them 'cause you're having cashflow issues. Those types of things are advisory. Yeah. And I think a lot of people, that's why I like really was like, I'm surprised a like not an, a lot of people considering how many times that I'm like in my own programs and stuff, how many times I hear people be like, I wanted to offer advisory and then they start to like look into advisory. I'm like. And we're still here three years later not offering it. You probably are, you're probably just not charging what you're worth, which, if we were charging correctly, would actually change the monthly fee that on average. So like next year, let's hope that next survey people will check off more advisory because they recognize it. Maybe based off even what you explained. If you don't know advisory services and you really wanna get into this one, I do think this is a certain type of skill set and a certain type of way that you need to be able to operate and think. And I do believe, like you have to be a little bit confident, like at first getting the numbers down before you can start advising. But one, you guys can totally do it more than you think. You, you, you can. And two, you're probably already doing it. You're probably just not charging for it because you think that it's basic information. I could tell someone about how to organize their Google Drive and they're blown away, but in my brain I'm like, how did you not know to do that? But like to them, they would've paid lots of money for me to say that, right? So like. If you guys wanna learn advisory, I'm gonna highly recommend Serena. It's like just blogging you in here. She has a program called Elevate. I think it's great 'cause our team actually went through it, which is awesome. So it's a really good program to be able to like, understand and learn advisory and more in like a practical way.'cause there's so many other like, offers out there around learning advisory, but they just give you either a glorified spreadsheet or glorified information, but you actually like, give them like more of like breakdown, which is what I like about Elevate. Yeah. So yeah, that's, that program is definitely designed for if you don't have the experience, like walking you through how to create a budget, conversations to have with the clients, the information you're gonna need from them. Mm-hmm. Um, so it's like step one. And the other thing too that I wanted to say is like, yeah, I was offering all of that in my ser in my $30 an hour stuff too. And sometimes I wouldn't even charge them for the phone. I didn't know I would charge like a hundred dollars extra on my, my fee. Not realizing that like, even though it's an only an hour call, like I'm giving them years of packaged information and like this brain that can like, identify holes really quickly and like fill them and like just identify this stuff. that now like, I guess like to go off on a little random tangent, if you were to say, sitting right in front of me, like I just wanna go a little bit more strategizing with reports with you, not just like producing reports, how much extra would you charge a client to, like, that's pretty much advisory, but not in like the fancy budgeting way. What would you charge extra on top of that fee? If we're meeting monthly for it? Yeah. Like on a monthly basis and like strategizing on the reports. No budgets, no forecasting. You're just genuinely advising on the call. Yeah. How much would you charge for that? Like between three and $400? Yeah, but I usually also include an annual meeting where we do create a budget and so like a larger thing? Yeah. Yeah. So that's all kind of encompassed in that. But yeah. And it also rolls itself over because like us, it's 250, but we don't do the annual budget prep. Yeah. So like it makes sense why you would do three to 400 because then you're kind of recouping what you're gonna do at the end of the year, which is gonna take a lot of like backend work. Yeah, exactly. And strategizing back and forth to the client and all that kind of stuff. And e and emails more like, Hey, should I, you know, convert this person to an employee versus contractor? What's that gonna like do for me? Yeah, that's, I was just curious'cause I'm sure other people would like very curious about how that goes.'cause we're the same. Yeah. Obviously if it's more comprehensive, like we're actually like creating spreadsheets and creating things, it could be like 1500 a month on top of Yeah. Booking. Yeah. I offer very basic advisory. Same at that level. Just because I am, I'm at a season in my life where I, it's just what works for me. And so I'm not trying to do like really complex, like ad hoc services for my clients. It's strictly like if you're in the advisory CFO plan, like you are getting an annual budget and then we meet every month, we compare budgets to actuals and then every quarter we reforecast. So that's included too in that meeting where we'll talk about Okay. Like what do we need to change for the rest of the year with what we know now? Yeah. Um. And that's it. That's pretty much it. And, and within those conversations, whatever comes up during that hour is kind, is kind of game is up to them. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like we'll go over the numbers and it sparks conversations like team where my clients will come, team. Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. My clients will come team being like, I wanna hire someone and like, what can we do now? Okay, let's pull up our budget because we didn't add that to the budget. Or maybe we're hiring later than we thought we would. Yeah. So this is how it's gonna look now. So, yeah. But yeah, I was offering those types of like conversations when I was charging like $30 an hour. Same. And that's part of why, like why my base fee is quote unquote high because I know that some of that is just gonna naturally happen with me. Yeah. And so if that's you too. If you're listening and you're like, I just can't help myself, but I don't wanna necessarily like be upselling my clients, well then you've just gotta adjust your pricing. Yeah. Account for it. Just like credit card fees. Just account for it. Yeah, exactly. Love that for us. Okay. Um, what accounting software do you use? Not gonna be surprised by this course, like it was a lie slide. 86% of you guys said QuickBooks online, 9% said zero. And then we right behind it, QuickBooks, desktop Wave, FreshBooks. So we're not surprised by this in any capacity. Yeah. And what other tools do you use regularly? We had lots of options and you could select multiple options. So, number one, number one was Google Workspace, right behind that was Zoom. Then we've got other, so we just don't know what that meant. And then this one was 10% for Clickup, Asana, Trello. We discussed this on the last time that we didn't actually record, but like, definitely putting things like. Project management in general with like keeper Asana, because that technically could be lumped in. So we don't know if some of you guys were saying other, because she explicitly said click up Asana or Trello, rather than like, it was like an idea of project management. So we don't know what those are gonna be. Then we had gusto at 12% of you guys. Uh, and then 8% was Slack, Voxer, loom, which in my opinion are wildly different things. Slack. Slack and Voxer I believe are the same. But I know that we discussed this last time. What was your idea of Loom? Because I think this is an interesting idea of how, why you put that lumped in with Slack and Voxer. Just any type of asynchronous communication. Okay. Whether it's, I don't believe Bloom is. Whether it's with clients or team. Oh, gotcha. Yeah.'cause I don't think Loom is back and forth. Like don't, well, it's not necessarily a back and forth, but it's a way to disseminate information and communicate to your team. Like, rather than a Slack message. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think it could have been messaging system like Slack or Voxer. Yeah. Or like Gmail workspaces, I think is what they call them when they, they're like kind of like Slack, but it's like the workspace. Yeah. Or teams I think is in Microsoft, because in my mind, yes, we technically send videos to our clients, but like we're not expecting a two-way street on it. And then also we use it mostly for like SOPs. Yeah. And communicating like, here's what I'm seeing on my screen, but not really like communication, you know what I mean? One of the ways that like the what, why I lumped that together is because like. Do you ever get those emails from Loom that's like, you replaced this many meetings this month? Because I look at it that way, like if we eliminated having a face-to-face meeting by Voxer Slack or Loom, yeah. Then like. I'm just curious like what people like, it was really just a curiosity like are people even using these types of tools? Because some people aren't. Totally. And we had like seven or 8% of you guys do relay, which is great. Hubdoc deck. So like a receipt management six and then all the other like additional smaller things. So like content snare was only 1% of you guys, which is interesting 'cause some of the things that you guys were saying that you needed support with. I'm like, can we get better at requesting documents? But I think there was definitely a lack of like the type instead it could be the types of tools. Mm-hmm Like drilling into like do you use like a project management system? Because I think in general a lot, you'd be surprised how many like firms don't use a project management system in general. Yeah. Um, or don't use a receipt management regardless if it, that's keeper.'cause there's now Keeper that does it too and Zen it. I don't know if Dennet does it now, but we we're using Hubdoc. But like Hubdoc XT and Keeper could be lumped into, once that might be where the other's coming from. Yeah. okay. The next question was, are you satisfied with your current tech stack? Okay. So we've got, before you answer that. Yes. I have a joke. Oh, stop it right now. Stop. I'm excited. Hold on. I gotta make sure I word it correctly because I can't remember. What do you call a factory that makes Okay. Products? I. Satisfactory. I only know this because Cha, JBT was telling us I know So would, 41% of you guys are mostly satisfied with your tech stack. About 30% of you guys are satisfied with your tech stack. 20% of you guys are still figuring it out and 9% is no, I need better solutions. Yeah. Love that. Okay. How do you currently, okay, now we're getting into like business challenges and whatnot. Yes. So how do you currently find or attract new clients? Okay, so we've got the majority of people at 41% was word of mouth referrals. Then right next to that is local networking at 13%. Right. Behind that at 8% is my website, SEO. Then we've got another 8% at Facebook groups. Then after that it gets smaller. So 6% at LinkedIn, 6% at Instagram and paid Facebook ads is 1% direct outreach. So like dm, cold emails is 3%. I'm not actively, marketing right now is 5% and other, and then email marketing is at 2.5%. Yeah. So the other aspect of this question, which I didn't say out loud was we asked what's actually working. So in case you're listening and you're like, well these people are doing these things, but like, is any of this actually working? The idea behind this question is that people would only answer the things that are actually working. Yes. So hopefully, that's what happened. And of course we already knew word of mouth referrals is always gonna be the top for our industry because it's such a, we need so much trust built that, it just makes sense. So this is where I think the conversation can get like. We're going to, we're gonna go off on this one. Yeah.'cause we did last time and it was such a good conversation. I'm really sad that that wasn't recording. Yeah. But I'm not gonna hold that over your head anymore. So how to like, take this information and, and use it is would be like, if you are one of the ones who your word of mouth and referrals is your top source. Like what are some other ways that you can bring more referrals in, like get creative. Like, one of the things that I do is like, I'm in a couple different, like, networking groups and masterminds and that's where I've decided to focus my time because you can either. Focus time or money on gaining clients. And so the idea is to build solid relationships in those groups. And they're not huge groups. And I'm an introvert, so it's like I, I I build really solid relationships in small groups. And then like those people will refer you, they will sing your apprais. Yeah. If you build the trust and, and deliver on it. So what I, what do you think can be taken away from this? Yeah. Well, number one, I recently did a business valuation back in December of last year. And when I went through the process, I learned a lot about the types of businesses that we run and the types, like as the accounting firm side of things. And in that discussion, I actually found out that. You're less, likely to get a higher price tag on potentially selling your firm if you are more reliant on word of mouth referrals. So I'll start with that. But that doesn't mean that you can't have word of mouth and referrals and pour into that. It just means if you are listening right now and your plan is to one day be acquired or to one day sell, and go that route, even if you don't think you will always build your business like you are going to sell it. And I would recommend like not making that your number one priority. And the reason why that is when you go to sell your business is because it is unreliable. Because if everything's word of mouth referrals, it's usually going based off the founder themselves and especially at our, our level of firm. And so I think that it's okay to leverage these types of things, but just don't always reli on on it. I did wanna touch on the, let's see, um, local networking website, SEOI think, where was it? Instagram.'cause we definitely had a really great conversation around this because a lot of people are like, how do I increase my word of mouth referrals? If this is where a lot of you guys are getting your clients, that just means let's pour some more into it. But don't make that your only place that you're getting new clients. If this were me, these are things like, I know me and you know these words. Some people might not know what this means. Like a campaign. So if you guys understand what a campaign is, that just means that you are taking an active amount of time to really push something in particular. So you can do a campaign for one week that's going out to all your current clients. That's saying like, and the campaign doesn't have to be big like freaking Nike. It's just like five emails that you're manually sending.'cause you probably don't have a email system that literally just nudges your clients over a week period to say we're doing something special. We are paying out referral fees. Usually we pay out 250 per client that you send our way that signs on to work with us, but we're actually doubling our referral fee payout for one month. But you have to have them sign on like by X amount of time. That's what we call like a campaign. It doesn't have to be a sale or anything like that, but. We don't have to be trying all these new things right now. If we could just push this one singular thing. But a lot of people just, the problem is with referrals is a lot of people are just waiting for them to knock on their door. And that is where your problem lies. It's okay if you have a referral business, but you have to have a referral system in place. Yeah. The machine. Mm-hmm. But machine needs to be working. Um, but I do wanna touch on the Instagram piece because I feel like me and you got like really, really? Because that's part of the machine. Yes. That's part of the machine.'cause like there's a difference between sales and there's a difference between marketing and I think everybody thinks they're two and this, they're one and the same. Marketing is what you're doing to actively put yourself out there. Essentially like walking up to someone, like if you were standing right in front of me, me, like me getting there. However you're pushing it. The, the, you put stuff you're putting on your website to walk up to AKA, that person is marketing. Once you start having the conversation with the person, now you're going into sales. That's like the easiest analogy. Then we start to actually convert them into being like, you wanna come to my, my house? Do you wanna make some Turkey and have some ice cream? Do wanna go into my van? Do you wanna come into my travel trailer and just hop in with me and my dog? That'd be cool. Um, that's how I accumulate people. Not in that weird way, but like, as friends, accumulate people, you know? I accumulate friends, like all over. Yeah. Anyways, um, that is the difference between sales and marketing. So when it comes to what, what's what we call the top of funnel in your marketing is all the different avenues at which people are finding you. And so one of those avenues is Instagram. And I know we both get this question a lot. I really wanna post on social media. I think I need to be there. Should I? What would you say to someone. Well, it depends on where your ideal clients are hanging out. Yes.'cause it's not like you wanna get the most bang for your buck. And like I said earlier, I'm pouring into relationship marketing that is part of, but I have a, I do have a machine behind it, so it's like, it's not just not, it's not one stop. That's all Serena's doing. Yeah. She's doing a multitude of things. I'm just, these calls like, but because I'm in these networks, I'm privy to some opportunities that are popping up that are visibility opportunities. So it's like of people that are my ideal audience. So I was strategic with the groups that I've joined, and I also have to do more work than just showing up to those group calls. Like I'm participating in bundles and summits and things like that, that are building my email list, which is part of the machine. Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, if your ideal client is a construction business owner or a doctor. Or a restaurant owner, um, they're likely not the ones that are handling their social media and therefore you don't need to be on Instagram to find them. Yeah, they're probably not gonna be like, actively searching you. Yeah. And so like, that's why when I get this question a lot people and I'm like, but what's working? So first of all, for any of you who are listening, when you have your intake form, wherever that might be, I'm gonna highly recommend that you add a line item, a question. We have like a two part for this. It says, how do you find us? Where they can actually check off like boxes. So it might say like, from a mastermind we're in together, or like it'll say, you know, from, you know, Instagram or it's from your website or wherever that might be. And then it has like a, a box for them to actually type it out. Sometimes like I'll have people tell me like, Instagram, 'cause that's actually where we get our number one conversions. They'll say, Instagram, I'll get on a call with them and sometimes I'll be like, what post? Like, just get all like content. They're like, uh, I don't know. But a lot of the times they actually remember, this is really interesting. And we have this one that we did that was, um. You what financial team you need to have to back back your firm. And so it had, like it said like if you are here, you might need a CFO, this and this. And like it was very informational. We actually had like several clients actually land and get brought on because of that one thing. And I remember last time we talked you were like, are you running ads to it? And I was like, no, I should like, but that's the thing, like if I didn't know that data, I wouldn't know that I actually therefore need to run ads. If I just ran ads to that one post, we'd probably gain more clients. Yeah. Because I got so granular in asking them like, what post actually converted you? Sometimes I might not remember. So highly recommend you put that in your intake form. Yeah, that I agree. And not just like your intake form when you bring 'em on as a client, but when you get, oh, what I meant is like sales intake. Yeah, yeah. The call. Yeah. So like your inquiry form, whatever that first step is. If they're booking a call with you, if you don't have a questionnaire before people book a call with you, please just do that. Just do it. Just do it. Just do that. So Instagram, 'cause we had a really good discussion around that. Yeah. Because I do get a lot of conversion, so I will be very transparent. I'm pretty positive. It's 1400 or 1700. I always forget how much it is. But I do have a social media management team. They take over stories. Like they do my stories other than like if I pop on and like share some stuff in my life, they handle all the posting. I don't have to do anything. I don't ever have to check anything. They're pretty, pretty accurate. Um, they get some things like off here and there, but then that's just the opportunity for us to work together. Um, they take over dms as well, so they help with that. But they're not like cold DMing people. They're just like interacting with people and then they're looping me in whenever something needs to be extra. So I do pay a good fee for that. However, we land a lot of clients from that. So therefore it was worth it. But then I wanted to talk about your way of doing things. Yeah. And let's go into how you do things and why you don't push Instagram. I want you to approach it the same way you did on your, I don't remember take too. But you had a hot take. You were like, I see everyone with the social account. Oh yes. I was heated guys. Okay, here's my take. Let me just be on my soapbox for a quick little minute. Um. All of y'all are doing the same crap and posting the same things. Love you and you all. And then I was like, hi, I'm one of them. Me. Hi, I'm Serena. It was actually a really good discussion. Yeah, it was great. A really good discussion came out of it, which is gonna come out right now too. Yeah. So anyways, I got a little bit like, I don't like when people are using these templated things from online. I know there's a really big company out there that does it for a lot of bookkeepers and accountants, and while I think they're great and I think they're awesome, if I'm scrolling through any bookkeepers and accountants, like I'm seeing everybody posting the same thing because they're on the same schedule with the same templates and the same, same thing over and over again. What happens is, if you guys don't know this, it actually is um, Instagram is SEO search searchable. When everybody's posting the same thing with the same copy, you guys are all competing against each other and no one's standing out. It's not gonna put you in front of other people. And so therefore what happens is. Someone like me who is not using templates, who is paying someone to do this. It is unique to me. It's consistent. It's up to the standards that I want. It's in my voice. It's, but I understand why people choose to do this. Um, but I'd love to hear your perspective of like, why you chose to do it. Because I would seriously tell everyone of my te my students like, do not use this company. Yeah.'cause you need to just hire it out. But I also know that not everyone can afford it. But let's, yeah. And then it also goes back to that what, like what is your goal with the social, what's the point of it? Mm-hmm. And like our, first of all, if your clients aren't on Instagram, this service is not gonna be transferable to LinkedIn. I already tried it. I've already gone down that path. Don't even waste your time to duplicate everything over to Yeah. To LinkedIn.'cause it's a totally different platform. The algorithm's different. It, it doesn't do well with like the picture and the caption situation, like Instagram. Yeah. So if your clients aren't ever on Instagram. Don't even, it doesn't matter. Don't do it. Just you don't need the templates even though it's only like $35 a month or whatever it is like, but if you do have clients that are on Instagram and you're not trying to be exposed and it's not a visibility move and you're not trying to like go viral or get new followers from these posts, then like, this is how I'm using it. Like I said, my Instagram is part of the machine, the marketing machine. Yeah. But that's not how I'm attracting clients. Like that's not how you're trying to convert that when clients come to Yeah, so my main goal with this was actually my main goal when I started this template service out was just to experiment and that's how I app approach a lot of things. I was like, I'm just gonna see what happens. Like I'm, I don't have any attachment to gaining new clients or whatever. And also, like I, a lot of people approach me wanting, you know, to like collaborate and do stuff and I am. I ha hold myself to such high integrity that I won't do a collaboration or promote someone else's stuff unless I've experienced it myself. And so I was like, well, let me experience this and see how it works for me. And then I'll come back and then we can maybe do a collaboration. Oh, with the person we're we're talking about. Yeah. So that was part of the driver. But also the other piece of it was that no one on my team really had the bandwidth to be creating social media for my firm, nor did I really want to spend the money budget on it. Yeah. So I was like, let me just, let's just see what happens. Yeah, totally. But what ended up happening is because I'm doing the work on. My referral relationships and my SEO. So I do blog every month and I do send out email newsletters, and I am working on that site. And my website has SE, like an SEO play. Like all these things play together as the machine. And what happens is, because I've had people tell me this that come to me when they find me on Google or they are referred to me, they go and look up my Instagram. Yeah. And there's a presence there, and they're, they're impressed with it because they're not seeing all the other same book they're on. They're not seeing the other bookkeepers with all the same posts. Also, I customize them with my branding colors. I put my own pictures in them, so to, yeah. To someone who's just glancing through, they're not gonna know. It's a template. Yeah. But I'm, this isn't how I'm attracting clients. So it's like, yeah. The way I'm using it is definitely different. If I was trying to get leads, like actual people on calls and bring more people into my audience through Instagram, I wouldn't use this as, yeah. And that's, um, where our discussion was like really, really good was the fact that. This goes for not just Instagram, this could be LinkedIn, this could be Facebook groups, this could be any of those ones that we had mentioned. All it is is like taking a step back and saying, 'cause when people tell me I want a presence on Instagram, or I want to be on Instagram, I wanna find clients, I'm, I'm like, what is your goal? Like, what do you actually want to accomplish with Instagram? If they tell me why I wanna land clients, then I'm like, then I'm not gonna tell you to go buy a template service. It's not gonna do the job for you. Right. You need someone to actually manage it, customize it, listen to what your audience is saying, listen to what they're asking. Like making it like to them where it's almost like reading their mind and converting them. And so my goals were way different because I know that we convert really well on Instagram. So like, therefore it is worth me paying 14 of 1700, um, for each account.'cause I pay for them for to two separate accounts and they manage the whole thing. And it's like, but they do convert. They start having the first initial sales conversation. They drop the link to get on the call and all I'm doing is getting on the sales call at that point. And so. It's all about no matter what platform one you wanna use, what do you actually wanna have as a goal? Like Serena said, hers is genuinely like, it's just a little landmine plotted into her whole marketing system that captures them. But it's not the thing that's gonna like fully get them to work with her. That's not our intention. So AKA templates are great if you just want a presence, but I don't think they're gonna serve you when it comes to actually leading. And to me it's gonna be worth 1400 if I can land two clients that pay me double that. Yeah. You know, it's also, the templates are also not the only way to have a social media presence. Mm-hmm. That like you don't have to constantly post on Instagram to have the presence. You can pin certain posts, you can do a nine grid where it's just like certain things about us, about your business and like there's your presence. You don't have to constantly post on it. So some food for thought on that too. And I actually, I don't think this month I post it, I didn't use the templates this last month 'cause I was too busy to even customize them.'cause I don't just, yeah. And that's why I don't do that.'cause I know that Yeah, I don't have, I don't want my team to do it. Their time is well, better spent. That's why it's like, so, so I get it. Like I get why people choose it because it's way cheaper. But you guys can't expect to be buying these templates, hiring a VA to go in and customize it and then expect like, incredible results. Like, you get what you pay for, in my opinion. And so like, when you pay someone who knows what they're doing, it's just like us, like you get what you pay for with the type of bookkeeping firm you work with. Like it's the same. Yeah. So it's to each their own. But I understand that not everyone's in the budget for something bigger, but I mean, I have good results, so like, it's worth the spend, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. the other thing too is like, you can do a few posts. You can create a few reels. Mm-hmm. And if you mm-hmm. Nail your messaging. You can then, like we talked about, run ads to those high performing posts and Yeah. Then it looks like you're everywhere, but you're not. Yeah. I have a friend of mine who's in a, a mastermind, that's how we met. Her name is, um, Kaitlyn Carlson, and she owns Theory Planners and she's awesome. Caitlyn literally like runs a multimillion dollar financial, like more a financial advisory type of stuff. So like retirement, stuff like that. Building your long-term plan. And she does not, all she has is an Instagram. She doesn't even have posts up. She's just like, you go to her website, it's literally like one pager. Not even that long. It's like one little paragraph that's like, here's theory, but like, she's so highly sought out. And the reason why is 'cause like her intention was not to be in all these places and was genuinely to be 100% referral. But then what she did was. Then she said, now how can I get that without having all this presence? So that's what this whole conversation is about, is how did she take a step back? So she said, I'm gonna go work with business advisory firms. That's how I knew her is 'cause we're referral partners together, business advisory firms. I'm gonna work with these other types of businesses to be so solid in our referrals to them and them and to us that she doesn't even ever need a, a presence and she's heavily sought out. And so like, that's just something that like goes to show that you could build it however you want, but you just have to have a goal. If you don't have a goal and you're just expecting everything without trying to like make it happen, like you're never gonna get there. Yeah, that's a really good point too.'cause I get a lot of students that, ask when they are like enrolling in my programs, like building out their business. They still work for another firm. They still work in corporate and they're afraid to post anything on social media because they don't wanna get fired for violating anything. And so, just so you know, like you don't have to have a social media presence to be to, it's just gonna take a little relationship building and Yeah. Delivering solid service so people are willing to refer you. So it'll take time. Yeah. But everything takes time. Even even social media takes time. Like even, even like word of mouth or, direct people were saying email and ads and Oh, even cold. Outreach or whatever. Cold outreach. Yeah. Everything. That also, everything takes time. So it's a matter of like where you wanna pour your energy, what lights you up. If you are really afraid to use social media, like use it in groups instead of like creating a social media presence. Yeah. Honestly, sometimes I'm like, I wish I could go back to that. For, for ambitious bookkeeper, that's kind of impossible to not have a social presence, social media presence workbook queen. But when's a one-on-one service? It really isn't as necessary. Yeah. Like workbook queen, like we do good work. Constant, yeah. Constant. Love that. Okay. Now we're getting into the final few questions and then we'll wrap this baby up with a nice little bow. Mm, love it. Um, what's your biggest challenge in your business right now? So this is a question that offered a freeform response. So there's a lot of responses that were similar. And so when we compile the results, I'll kind of consolidate that, information, but what was kind of the most common response? Yeah, most common result response was literally getting clients. Yeah. Like marketing, getting clients. There was some, like a couple of little things here and there about like, like setting up my monthly packages, but they were very slim. It's like one getting started. Yeah. Like little things getting started in the business. Growth like in general Marketing leads. Yeah. Leads, yeah. Marketing leads. Getting new clients, growth. All of these marketing essentially the same. Same thing. Same thing. Yep. Attracting new clients just said different ways. Yeah. Um, high management was one tech stack. SOP and workflows need to be updated since they have a team now. So like, some things were very specific, but yeah, the overarching theme was getting more clients. Getting clients. Yeah. So, so then the next question, this made us chuckle so hard. Yes. What is your biggest goal for the next 12 months and what was the most common response on, on this, That was growing my business. Yeah. So we just have to get more clients to grow the business. Yeah. Double my revenue, double my growth, get more clients, better tech stack. But yeah, it's in, it would be interesting, like as we drill down into the data, since these were freeform answers, this one's gonna take a little bit more to, analyze. Yeah. But, I'm curious to see if like, there is true alignment with like the people that were like. What's your biggest challenge and what's your biggest goal? So if your challenge was getting clients and your goal, it, like, some people basically put the goal as like the same thing as the challenge, but it shouldn't be. No, it's usually not. if your biggest challenge is getting clients, then your biggest goal for the next 12 months is to. put the systems in place to get more clients. Yeah. Instead of grow my business. Like that's so general. So anyways, maybe we should do a goal setting workshop. Yeah. Defining what a goal actually is. Remember when we did that for breakthrough and everybody loved it? We did it for like two parts. I do wanna get into the question that comes after, because that is really where we're gonna be. Like, you guys are so contradicting in everything you say. So, okay. Go ahead and read it for me. What kind of content or support do you need right now? So you guys would think that a hundred percent of you guys would say marketing, but here's what you actually said, which is very interesting. So it's like very odd to me that you guys are saying that your number one problem is marketing, but yet like you want support in other areas. So like. That doesn't make sense, but anyways, we're gonna get into it. Number one at 24% was systems and workflows. Number two is, but all three at 16% actually is pricing and packaging services, advisory and add-on services, mindset and confidence. Mind you guys, have you heard anything about marketing yet? No. Next is 10% of other 10% of hiring and building a team, and then the next was 5% at client communication. I think maybe part of it is that I didn't give, you've put marketing, I forgot that you didn't put marketing here, so they probably would've checked it off, but you could have said other. Yeah, you could. That's probably way Other was only 5%. 10%. Yeah, that was only 10%. That was 10%. Sorry. So the reason I kind of wanted to bring this part up is because everyone's saying that their biggest challenge, because me and Serena, with how many times we've get on calls on people, do q and As do bootcamps, challenges everything in between. During those conversations, a lot of the times, everyone is coming to us to say, I just need more clients. It will change everything. And I always say, if you have more clients, you will have more problems. And that's because I start asking, and we, both of us will start digging in and saying, how are your systems? How's your team? And everyone's like, I don't have systems, or I don't have team, or I don't have this. I'm like, great. So you're telling me if you wanna turn on the marketing machine right now, and when you do, you think that's gonna solve all your problems? That is not gonna solve, it's gonna magnify them solve the problem. It's only gonna, yeah, it's only gonna make it more prominent. And now you're gonna have a bad reputation and bad set of clients. I'll be out of desperation to just get new clients for no reason. But when we're looking at this data and we're looking at what is the biggest challenge, and you guys want more content around, for example, systems and workflows is number one at 25%. When we're looking at that, how does that make sense when you guys only want the marketing side, but we need the systems and before we start cranking in the marketing. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Just letting that sink in for everybody. Yeah. So if you've filled out this survey and you're like, oh yeah, I was one of those people that definitely did not align those answers. It's okay. Like we're really not totally, we're not judging because like sometimes, especially when it's like, oh, I just wanna get this survey done and like participate. Yeah. You start checking off, this is why we wanted to have this conversation is to kind of help like people unpack, Like what does all this actually mean? Like if this is a big challenge in my business right now, but I'm not asking for the support or content around that challenge, then is it, because like for me, I can speak for myself only on this, but I can say like, one of my biggest challenges is getting clients right now, but that's my own fault because I'm not promoting. Yeah, yeah, totally. But you, but you, here's the difference between you and the majority of people though, is you know, that. Most people will get on a call and be like, it's just not working. I need a new solution. I'm like, you probably just weren't working that, that particular problem or that particular opportunity enough or long enough to see results. Yeah, exactly. We're expecting, everyone's expecting now that like what? The consumption rate of everything, even like the way that people watch videos and how fast we want things is from I want it right now to like needing it the next day. That's not how business works. Yeah. That is not how opportunities fall in your lap and how they actually come to fruition. It really takes time to implement these little things and so yes, if you've downloaded a project management system and you're like, oh my God, I downloaded Asana and I started using it and it sucked, or I started and the next thing you know they're using Keeper and they're like, oh my God, the same thing. It just sucks. And then now they're switching to Clickup and oh my God, it's the same. It's not the software, it's you. Yeah. And meanwhile, if your biggest problem is getting new clients, why are you wasting time switching between software? That's what, that's what I'm saying is how much, like everything's so conflicting because it's like if all you need to be doing is marketing, then why are we struggling with then? If you're telling me your number one problem is marketing, then that should be your only problem and that is not pricing. Then you should have your pricing solid. You should have your team solid. You should have your system solid. But that's not really the case. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so this is not judging, I'm just very passionate about the way people ask for things.'cause we will give you guys the content. Well one, it exists. You have things for advisory services, you have things for how to start your bookkeeping business. I have things for systems. I have things for team building and offers and communication and everything, like everything that you guys are asking for. But I will tell you, and this is not in any way, I. I telling you guys to come give us money.'cause this is gonna sound like it, but this is genuinely putting in my friend hat of like what I would tell anybody to be, have a successful business. There's a time in place when free information works for you. Then there's a pivotal point in business where you no longer can afford to use free stuff to get you to the next level. Yeah. You have to make the right investment. Yeah. It could be a coach, it could be a mastermind, it could be a very particular advisor, it could be a program. It doesn't matter what it is, but there comes a time in place where you have to decide, am I willing to stay stuck in this current moment of where I'm currently at? Or am I willing to put myself out there? I understand the industry is very introverted, but I'm telling you my favorite messages are the ones that people Instagram me. They're like, how did you do that? And I'm like, I have some solutions for you. Here it is. Like I'm happy to give it to you. You can pay whatever you need to to get it done, but I'm not gonna give you a whole entire setup for like, for free. And if you do, it's not gonna be as as good. Yeah. You know? Absolutely. Okay. Last two pieces of information. These were optional on demographics. This is just interesting information to have, of the survey responses that decided to, share this information. 90% were women, which was no surprise to me with our audiences. The last one was what age range are you guys, which is actually really interesting. I love seeing like people's age range and I think this was also optional as well, right? Yeah. Okay. So age range were our top one, what? 35% is 35 to 44. Then we have, 32% of you was, 45 to 54. Then we've got about, 13% of you at 25 to 34, and then, 18% of you at 55 plus. So this is really, really interesting. That means that a majority of people are at least 35 plus. So I'd probably say around. 85% of our audience, which is probably better data for us than anybody here on like knowing and understanding who's actually listening. But this is actually really interesting. So 35 plus, I mean, I'm at 34 and I started at, I was, it was in 2018 or no, 2016. I'm not even gonna try to math. Pretty sure I was like 25 when I started the first, my first firm. Yeah. How old were you? it was after I left corporate, so I was like 31. Okay. Yeah. That's really interesting to see like age ages and seeing where everyone's at. And then the little ti there's a tiny slim under 25, which was two records only. So two of you guys had filled that part out under 25. That is so cool though. I know. It is. However you are. I'm so proud of you for like doing this, doing it. Yeah, at a young age you won't regret it. But also it's not too late for anybody. Never. What was it? Morgan Freeman started acting at like, I'm not even gonna say the age, but I think it's like 50 or something like that. There's like some crazy stories about like some really successful people who started really late. But I think there's just like this idea that like, oh, we gotta be young and we have to do this and all the energy. But I mean, I didn't even know, like Workflow Queen was gonna start when I started my business. Like, and then I didn't even know Magnetic was gonna start. And I'm sure you didn't even know ambitious was gonna start, but it's all about the areas, the opportunities, the gaps, and where we could fill them and where we could support people. Yeah. You know. I love this, the results. I think this was really fun. Yeah, it was. So if you wanna get a hold of the actual report, make sure you click the link in the show notes or go to ambitious bookkeeper.com/results. I think that's what I said. Yes, yes you did. And you will get those emailed when they become available. By the time you're listening to this episode, they should already be available, so you should get them right away when you opt in. And yeah, thank you so much for listening to this really long, I don't even know how long this ended up being, so I don't know when we started, but I think it was only like an hour and a half, which is way better than the first time we trimmed it down. For sure. Yeah, we did, we did get distracted.'cause when we're in person, Harley was jumping on us and it was so cute. And we got really distracted. I will also say that I. 100% download the results because this is only like barely touching the surface. And there were so many ways that me and Serena wanted to take this When we first, we did the first take where we were like, let's start splitting the data and being like, well of the people at this age, what were they doing and what were people at like this like range doing here? And like the people with no team, how are they here? Yeah. And you can get really complicated really quickly, but just take action with just what you need. Just from like what we covered, I feel like you could take your business in so many different directions. Yeah. And we didn't even have to get complicated, but like you can, but don't allow yourself to get too granular. But definitely download the stats.'cause if you do, you can sit there and like dissect it yourself and look at it and come into our communities if you're one of our students and like let's open up a discussion around. I mean, I'm always open to these types of conversations. Yeah, absolutely. Alright, thank you so much for tuning in once again and we'll talk to you guys next week. Bye.

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