CFO Chronicles: The Secrets Behind Success

Still Billing by the Hour? It’s Why You Can’t Scale - With Debra Kilsheimer

• James Donovan • Season 4 • Episode 62

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Most accountants are losing business and don’t even realize it.

In this episode, we break down the 3 silent killers that are costing firms revenue, retention, and referrals, starting with outdated pricing models and ending with what your clients actually care about (hint: it’s not your reconciliations).

Debra Kilsheimer joins to share what actually drives client loyalty, why she ditched hourly billing decades ago, and how she built her firm "Behind the Scenes Accounting" that runs on relationships, not reports.

You’ll learn:

  • The 3 questions that close high-value clients fast
  • Why your financial reports are being ignored
  • The hidden price of sticking to “industry best practices”
  • How small touches (like a handwritten note or birthday call) get remembered longer than your year-end package

📲 Want to connect with Debra? Reach out on LinkedIn or email her at debra@bsfaccounting.com.

This one will have you rethinking everything from pricing to client retention. Hit play now.

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Don’t miss out! Subscribe, rate, and review CFO Chronicles to help others discover these insights. Ready to transform your growth strategy? Connect with me on LinkedIn, and book your strategy call at accountingleadsnow.com to position yourself as the advisor clients truly need.

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SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to CFO Chronicles, The Secrets Behind Success, the must-listen show for fractional CFOs, accounting firm owners, and finance leaders looking to land high-value clients and scale through next level marketing, branding, and strategy. I'm your host, James Donovan, and today's guest is Deborah Kilzheimer, founder of Behind the Scenes, a transformational accounting firm. Deborah's a true visionary who's not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom in the industry. Today she'll be sharing her aha moment that led her to quit her job and build her practice exactly how she wanted it. She'll also reveal her biggest marketing challenge and how she overcame it, as well as her strong belief about the use of timesheets in the industry. Stay tuned to discover why Deborah believes that believing in your ideas is the key to success in the accounting world. Deborah, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you on here today.

SPEAKER_01:

Me too. Now, did you write that yourself? That was really good.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, thank you so much. There may have been a little bit of uh some help there with the team, but we can run with um, you know, me right.

SPEAKER_01:

I might have to keep that for my own to use that.

SPEAKER_02:

Hey, I'll send it over. That will be your new intro for all the podcasts you're doing.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, it's really good.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you so much for coming on, though, Deborah. I've had an absolute blast every time we've got to connect in person. I know we met um back in the spring at GrowCon and we had a chance to connect again recently in Arizona. Um, it's always a pleasure seeing you. So I'm again, I'm so excited to have you on here today and just chat and and have our listeners get to know you a little bit as well. Great. Perfect. So let's dive right into things. Can you tell us about your journey to becoming a CPA and how you eventually decided to start your own practice?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, how much time do you have? Well, I was um I grew up in an accounting family. My dad was a um my dad was a teacher, and he always kept track of all the money in our family. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. They both had master's degrees from my dad, Temple University, my mom, the University of Pennsylvania, and their big thing was to raise a family. I'm the oldest of four, and they did it on a teacher's salary. I went to Girl Scout camp, church camp, new school clothes every year, violin lessons, beach summer vacation, camping. We had a perfect beaver cleaver life, and my dad did it on a teacher's salary because I remember him sitting with my mom and my mom keeping all the receipts, and they'd go into the basement and they would do the budget, you know, and they'd say, Okay, we have money for this and money for that, and let's so I mean we didn't shop in the fanciest of stores, um, but we did survive on that kind of a budget, and that to me was what accounting was. So when I went to college, I didn't know what I wanted to be. So, and my mom told me, by the way, that girls were not good at math. Well, you believe your mother, don't you? So I thought, well, I can't be an accountant, I'm not good at math, you know. And in college, I had a roommate who was taking accounting, and I needed one more course. She goes, Take accounting, it's not hard, I'll help you. Yeah, but I'm not good at math. She goes, It's not math, it's logic. I'm like, Oh, all right. So I took it. I thought, this is fun. It's like a puzzle. I mean, if you're solving a puzzle. So I really liked it. Well, I go back for the summer and I thought, I just can't, I still don't know what I want to be. So I bought a car, I packed the car up, and I said, I'm moving to Florida. My mom says, Where are you going? I was in Pennsylvania. I'm moving to Florida. Who do you know in Florida? Nobody. I mean, I'm 21. You think you can conquer the world? So I moved, drove to Florida, got off in Orlando, and thought, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna be? Blah, blah. So I'm driving around and I saw the University of Central Florida. Back then it was called Florida Technological University, but it's changed to UCF. I walked in, I said, What's the major that will get me a job? And they said, Accounting is good. I'm thinking, well, I took that accounting class, okay, sign me up. So I that's how I started my accounting journey. Got the degree, got a job in a CPA firm, passed my exam, and thought, I absolutely hate this job. I thought it was dumb. It was nothing like I thought accounting was, like my dad taught me it was, which was forward thinking. What do people want? What's the vision you have for your life that accounting and the money can help meet? Because we were worrying about receipts and six-minute intervals and how much time did it take. And I thought, this is backwards. I remember having my um annual review with the partner, and he says, Debbie, we're really disappointed in you. Why? I'm I'm bringing in new business, I'm filling out my timesheets, I'm getting, you know, I'm I'm really whipping out these tax returns. I'm doing a good job. Why are you disappointed? He goes, Well, your billing rate is not as high as Tony's. He was a kid in the office. Yeah, Tony and I graduated the same year, passed the exam at the same time. We were equal on paper, but Tony took a long time. And he goes, and Tony stays every night till eight o'clock, and you leave at five. I said, Yeah, but my work's done. Why do I need to stay till eight just to make you think that I'm more committed than he is? I do more tax returns, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, but that's just how it's done in accounting. I said, Well, not for me. I hate this. I went home and told my new husband, my first husband, I got two. I traded him in for how. And uh I said, I really hate this job. It's nothing like I thought it would be. I mean, six-minute intervals that they track, you know, that's how they price the customer. Why don't we just charge a flat rate? If I get it done in 10 minutes, why does it, why is that worth less than a tax return that takes me two hours?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, it just made no sense to me. I said, you know, what are we after? We're after transforming customers into what accounting can do for them in their life. And I was 25 years old when I had this conversation. And uh my husband said, So what are you gonna do? I said, I'm quitting. I quit. I I I walked in my Bronzov said, You know what? I'm not doing this anymore.

SPEAKER_02:

I love it.

SPEAKER_01:

You just passed your exam. Yeah, but I cannot live like this any. I don't like it. I'm not having any fun. I always wanted to have a job where I liked getting up and having fun, where I wanted to go to work. You know, I um so I quit and I went into sales for 10 years, which I sold Mary Kay Cosmetics of all things, had the pink cadillac, had the the mink coat, the bumblebee, everything. And um I did I did that, very successful at it, and then personal computers started to come out, and I thought, well, these Mary Kay directors need newsletters. So I started a newsletter company, started to create newsletters for Mary K directors, and then um they realized that they could do them on their own. So I'm like, okay, well, you know, I'm be I was becoming the buggy whip salesman. So then I got a job teaching computers to attorneys in a big in big in a big firm that was all over the country. I loved that job. And 9-11 hits, and all of a sudden we're not traveling anymore. So they called me in my office and said, in their office and said, We're doing away with your department. What? I thought I'd have this job for the rest of my life. And they said, Well, we're not traveling, so we don't need you. So Friday morning I had a job, Friday afternoon, I did not. Well, in the interim, my first husband and I got a divorce, unfortunately. Life happens, and then I decided I wanted a boyfriend. So I put an ad on the internet and I said, I want a boyfriend. And I had a date like every night for a year.

SPEAKER_02:

Where did you go?

SPEAKER_01:

I I tell you what, I said, you know what? They all I'm gonna meet everybody, you never know.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So um I said, you know what? You sit through movies that for two hours that are stinko. I could have dinner with somebody, and maybe I'll meet somebody nice. So I just was looking for somebody to have dinner with, go to the movies. I wasn't looking to get married. I was just, I just wanted somebody to have fun with. And um, Hal called Hal was one of the people that answered. Hal and Pardon? Hal in the towel. Yep. And uh so when I when he called me, I he goes, he was 10 years older than me. He lived 50 miles away from me. He kept telling me all this I own a boat, I own a car, I had a motorcycle, I go on vacation all the time. I'm thinking, who cares? Are you nice? Are you decent? Are you kind? That's what I was looking for. And then he's so then I said, What do you do? Oh, I have my own tax and accounting firm. I thought he's probably as dull as dishwater. And then I said, What's your name? He goes, Oh, my name is Hal Hickey. I'm like, I I didn't laugh on the phone, but inside I was like, What? So I thought, no what? You know what? I promised I'd meet him all. So I met him for dinner the following Wednesday. He called me on a Saturday, I met him for met him on Wednesday. I said, Well, this guy's nice. I like him. He can complete a sentence. He he's just, I just enjoyed his company. And um that that next weekend, I went I came over to Port Orange where he lived, and we went out on the boat. We just had a nice time together. I really I really liked it. So a month later is when I lost my job. And I called him up, but I said, guess what? I don't have a job anymore. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I've never not had a job. He goes, Well, you're a CPA, why don't you work with me till you find something? I said, All right, only if I can run an accounting firm how I think it should be run. No hourly billing, flat rate pricing, use all the technologies that are available to streamline the process to give a proactive result to the customers. And he goes, Good, I like tax, you do you. I'm like, okay. So I got QuickBooks. So that was, you know, that was the software back then, and started to go build the practice. And it was like that was like 24 years ago. And uh he was smart enough to let me run with it. So I got very active in the the uh QuickBooks community. I started to attend conferences, I started to do all of that stuff, and it's turned out really well. We have um you know, I built the firm really big. We had a lot of staff at one time, and then I thought, I don't like I don't like having people work for me. I don't like getting up and getting dressed to go into an office. I like going from my bedroom into my other bedroom. This is my office. Yeah, and when COVID hit, we let go of a lot of our staff. Um kept one. So we still have one, Mary, who's been with me like 18 years now.

SPEAKER_02:

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

And uh, you know, have I still make a lot of money and do what we want when we want, and uh, because we I build I do the practice how I think it should be done.

SPEAKER_02:

That's what it's all about, right? You just you're building it the way you want to run the business. There's a million ways to run a business, and there's a so that's so awesome.

SPEAKER_01:

And my big thing is always making customers, you know, like what I like, like you said in the beginning, transform customers. That's always been my mission. Is how can what I do help them achieve their goals, transform their lives? And um, so I would I ask I ask questions. So, so why did you start your business? If I if you had a million dollars, what would you do with it? So they start to tell you and they start dreaming and all. Oh, so I see that they have little kids at home and they want to go to their soccer games, they want to pay, or they're older and they want to pay for their kids, their grandchildren's college educations. You know, it's beyond, I would say it's beyond the balance sheet, meaning the that gives them the everyday stuff they do. But what the when the profit they produce, what can they do with that? You know, I talk about what about your your employees, the people that work for you? How can we impact them so they can have the life they want to live? So it goes beyond just that. And they start to see, well, yeah, you're a little bit different. Well, that yeah, because I'm worrying about how accounting can impact what you do. And um, so I'm I always keep that top of mind with them. So we're always looking at that. I said, you know, your books speak to you through the transactions. My job is to interpret it. Just like some people read French romance novels, I read balance sheets and income statements. And now with AI, I can read them faster. You know, I can get more insights. I I can do the AI can take care of the drudge part. I'm not taking all the stuff and figuring it all out myself. Um, the AI can give me the insights into what I'm seeing. Um, and then I use all the technology tools. Like one of my favorite tools is Fanatical Software, which is a reporting software that connects with QuickBooks and exports it into uh at the Excel level. So I can customize the reports like I want. Restaurants, 445 reports, seven-day flash reports. I can customize them in Excel and it sucks the data in. Where before I was exporting it, manipulating it myself with all the transactions. But now with fanatical software, it's my favorite. I use that. Um, and then of course I use Sessant, which imports the data into the into the into the QuickBooks and uh Bill, which pays the bills for the, you know, so I use all the best of breed softwares, same thing with payroll, um, you know, make sure that all gets in. And then what do the numbers mean? How can we impact what the customer wants to see a difference? And uh, and when you do that, you can charge premium prices. I'm not I'm not competing with the guy down the street that says we do bankrupt. I'm competing with the guy that says we change lives. So we're strategic, more strategic than we are transactional. And when you move with when you talk about strategy and strategic, you chart can charge more. And a lot of people say, Well, I'm not, I'm I'm just a bookkeeper. Doesn't matter, you're still doing the same thing. You know, you're still looking at what the impact is, the technology, the freedom, all this, the space that you can open up so the business owner can have the vision to make his lawn care business the best there is.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, for his swimming pool business the best there is. They all started the business for a reason. Figure out what it is, how you can make it bigger and better. What they want, that's value pricing. A lot of people get that incorrect, I think, because what we value as accountants, I don't think is the same thing clients value. Give you an example.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, just just real quick there on that, because there's a lot of great points. And one, you mentioned Bill, so we'll just touch on that real quick because they're uh proud sponsor of the show, and we can't so shout out, shout out to Bill. Um, appreciate you guys, thank you so much. But Debbie, you were talking about um it sounds like a big piece of what you do and a lot of your success, and I'm guessing the client retention and just why the firm works so well is because you you care about people's why and you're not just reporting the numbers, like you're asking, well, what would you do with the million dollars? What like what is important to you? Why did you start the business? And you're you're asking the deeper questions, not just surfle surface level stuff. Would you say that has helped you? I I guess let me re rephrase that. How would you say that has helped you by asking those questions? I think that's one of like that's the biggest hack when it comes to sales is just asking questions and being a human who cares.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think I do think it gives people purpose. I think people need purpose. Why do I get up every morning and do what I do? So, you know, I do it because my for my family, you know, I I'm you know, what whatever. So I figure out what their purpose is and keep that top of mind. And then you do things to so you're I don't want to say in your in their face, but you do really hospitable things. Like I read that book by Will Gardera on unreasonable hospitality. Why aren't we doing that as accountants? It's so simple. You know, like remember their birthdays. Now, what we do here is we have all their birthdays because we have to have them on the tax return. Hal and I actually will call up the client and sing happy birthday on the phone.

SPEAKER_02:

I love it.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, they think we're nuts. Now, it takes what, five minutes, but you can hear them chuckling on the other end and they go, Thank you for remembering. I mean, you know, I mean, and or send them a birthday card. We said a lot of thank you notes. I like to, I like to handwrite the who does that anymore. Takes seconds, you know. So things like that, you know, if there's things are coming up, like I know with um the restaurants that we have with the tip, the over the tip credit, you know, I called up all the owners and explained to them as best I could what's going on with that. Um, you know, that takes extra time, but to me, that shows that we care about what they want, what they're on on target of what they want. Um, you know, we just talk to them. They're people. I mean, when people say this is business to business, no, it's people to people.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

People are behind every single business. So you find out what makes them tick, gives them purpose. And I think I think there was a study. What makes people live longer? It's that they have a social network and a purpose in life. It's not health or diet. So I thought, yahoo, you mean I don't have to lose weight to live a long time? Yay, I'm all for that. You know, so uh, you know, give people purpose. So it, you know, it matters. And if you see them struggling, you know, call stuff out. You know, I was talking about the value. You know, we think as accountants, we need to produce have a meeting with them every month to go over the balance sheet and the income statement. That's not a bad thing, but it's not what many clients want, what they want. What do you see that we can help make a difference in what's going on? So I'm looking at ratios, margins, everything like that. So if I know they're on target, I'll just come, we're on target this month, keep it going. Um, any new things coming up? Nope, everything's good. Great. I don't need to meet with them. It's kind of like, you know, when you go to the doctor and he gives you a takes the blood work and he says, Okay, let's go over the blood work, Debbie. And he shows me all these numbers. I go, uh-uh-uh-uh. I don't need to know that. Is there anything you must know? My goal is to live to 110. What on there is telling you that that's not gonna happen? He goes, No, everything's good. I go, and can I can I improve anything? Nope, improve it all. I mean, you're doing great. Perfect. If you see anything whacked, call me up, we'll take care of that. I use that philosophy when I'm talking to clients. Now, if they want to go over every line on the lab report, the income statement, absolutely, I'll do it. I have one guy, he goes over every line. Of course, he pays the most money to me, by the way, you know, but um I'm fine to do that because that's what makes that's what he values. It's not what I value, it's what they value. You gotta find that out by asking good questions.

SPEAKER_02:

Something that's really standing out to me, and I'm curious to get your take on this. But in a world where everyone's trying to automate everything, they're trying to use AI for everything and just like remove themselves from the business. It sounds like you're really taking that extra personal touch to work with your clients. And like you said, yeah, sure, writing a handwritten letter, it's going to take more time than an automated email. But I'm I can almost guarantee the impact your clients get from that handwritten letter or you picking up the phone and singing happy birthday.

unknown:

Yep.

SPEAKER_02:

They remember that stuff, they don't remember the email that went out as well.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't remember the email, you know, right. In fact, it's funny, many times I'll just do a handwritten thank you note. I will tell you between me and you, I I write down in chat GPT and the rest of the listeners. Yeah, that I'm writing a thank you note to this for this client. Can you come up with a really great way to say it? So ChatGBT will actually write the text.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you know, it's all your it's still your prompt. It's still my idea.

SPEAKER_01:

I just have to handwrite it on, and I handwrite it with my black felt tip marker, yeah, and then handwrite the address on the thing. It always smears because you know it never dries fast enough. I don't care. Put a stamp on it, mail it off. Looks more authentic. The number of times people will actually take a picture of the note and send it. Thank you for sending me this. And I'm thinking, what an impact it has. You know, I mean it takes so little time. Um, so anytime somebody does something special, I try to find out their address and might send them a quick note. Thanks so much. It was great meeting you at a conference. Love talking with you. Like I tell you, every podcast guest I have, I send a thank you note to. Because we have my on my own podcast with Donna, uh Debbie and Donna, Bookkeepers on Fire.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, yeah, let's let's talk about that real quick because you got the shirt on. For those, uh for those who are only listening on video here, go check it out on YouTube. But uh, yeah, let's let's hear about this shirt because it looks awesome. So I'd love to hear uh quickly. Tell us the story behind that.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's funny. My friend Donna Reed, I met Donna Reed doing kind of what I'm doing now. My the the host said, um, Brad, he said, you have to meet Donna Reed. We do an after show where we're not filming, but everybody comes on. You have to meet this girl, Donna Reed. I said, okay. So she comes on and we're just like, you know, like you know, two mothers from a two sisters from a different mother, whatever that phrase is. So Brad and Andrew left and we're talking. And uh, so but I just we just connected and she's in California. So I'm at QuickBooks Connect two years ago and I'm walking in the in the vendor hall and I see her standing there. Now, Donna is very quiet, she's an introvert, she's but she's brilliant. And I knew that because I've talked to her and I see her stuff, and I thought, this this girl's smart. I like smart people. I have a thing for smart people. So I see her standing there and I walked up to her and I said, Donna Reed. I'm Debbie Kilzheimer, I can't believe I finally met her in 3D. And uh she goes, Oh, great, you know, blah, blah, blah. I said, Do you ever think about doing something together? And she went, I'd love to. I said, Well, let's let's let's figure out something to do. Well, six months later, here's my number. Six months later, she texts me. Were you serious about doing something together? Because I'm a little intimidated. Am I that scary? And uh she goes, Yes, but you're well known, blah, blah, blah. I said, Look, I'm just me. So we decided about two years ago to start a YouTube uh podcast called Bookkeepers on Fire. And the goal was just to answer bookkeeping questions. One of my hobbies is I like to knit. And my favorite YouTube knitting thing is called um is is um they answer knitting questions.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So I thought, why don't we answer bookkeeping questions? So we get asked people, please send us your questions. So people would ask, how do you do this? How do you do that? And Donna would answer, and then I would give my take. And it so it went really well. So then Donna says, Why don't we do a YouTube channel? I said, Okay, we'll just talk, the two of us. And I said, Why don't we do bookkeepers on fire? Why don't we interview the people in our industry? Because we need to build it up to see, we make a difference. You know, we impact people's lives. So let's it we want to impact their life. So we have we go on once a week um live. We were on Tuesdays at three o'clock. And um yesterday we had Randy Crabtree on from uh Bridging the Gap. He was our guest yesterday. We've had Ron Baker on, Hector Garcia, Carlos Garcia, you know, Jeannie Whitehouse is coming on, and plus all of my my friends in the industry, you know, and we just chat for half an hour and everybody says, uh, I don't think I could talk for half an hour. I said, it's three people talking, it's three friends talking. You'll be amazed. And before you know it, the 30 minutes is up. And it's great. So um, so we started doing that. I forget we have about, we don't have any sponsors or anything, so it's organically grown. And um, Donna does all the work. I have to tell you, Donna does all the work, she's brilliant with it. And I'm I always think I'm the idea person. What do we do this? What do you think of that? What do you think of this? And uh she goes, Oh, I like that idea, and then she'll institute it. So she works very hard at it. I show up. So so uh it's it's a lot of fun. And Don and I meet, you know, every week to go over our plans, just chit-chat, where do you want to go with it, things like that? And we just have a ball doing it. We have a great time and uh bookkeepers on fire. Let's go.

SPEAKER_02:

Bookkeepers on fire, check it out wherever you get your podcasts, I'm guessing.

SPEAKER_01:

Podcast and YouTube, yep.

SPEAKER_02:

Perfect. Um so Debbie, I'm I'm really curious to know, just kind of tying this back into a marketing-related podcast so it's super actionable for the rest of the listeners. I got two questions for you. Um, one on the front end, what part of your marketing engine keeps you up at night?

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, what do I worry about?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, what from the marketing side of things with your business, is there anything that comes to mind that that it's that you're worrying about, or you got it, you gotta do it. Why worry?

SPEAKER_01:

Why worry? Make your wrinkles. Okay, perfect. 69 years old. I don't need any more wrinkles. Okay, I never worried about marketing, if that's your question. Okay, I never had a website till three years ago.

SPEAKER_02:

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

Now, what I do is I always am talking to customers. Who do you know that might need my help? When I'm out and about, you know, I ask people all the time, you know, um, I I like to talk to people. You have to step out of your comfort zone when you're a business owner, whether you're an introvert or an extrovert. People think you need to be bold and loud and a salesperson. No, you just have to like people and be interested in them in your own way, whether it be a quiet way or a loud way like me. Because everybody likes talking about themselves. So find the question. So, so who are you? Like I introduced myself. My name is Debbie Kilsheimer. Who what's your name? And they'll tell you, Oh, my name's Oh, great. You know, so what's good in your life? I never like to say, Well, how are you? Oh, who cares? You know, sometimes they'll tell you and go, I'm never asking that question again. So um, I go, Well, what's good in your life? You know, how do you know this wherever we are or what whatever it is? And they'll start, oh, and they'll start to talk to you. And then they'll usually say, Well, what do you do? or something like that. Say, Oh, I'm an accountant. I do have a great accountant. I always say great accountant because everybody has an accountant. Yeah, but they have a great one. And they go, Well, I have an accountant. I said, Yeah, but do you really like them? Are they great? And they go, Well, no. Well, I'm a great one.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that.

SPEAKER_01:

And they I they go, Well, I'm thinking about switching. I said, I don't want to take business away from anybody. I think there's enough business for all of us. So I'm never stealing clients. So they go, Well, my accountant doesn't do, you know, I had one guy call me up one time and he was upset with his accountant. I said, Well, do you like them? He goes, Yeah, they're really good. Then why don't you tell them this? Don't switch. Tell them. If you like what they're doing, talk to them. Don't be switching because unless, you know, I if if you come to me, I might not know something that's not making you happy. So talk to them. Call them up and talk to them. They they we're here to serve you. So um, I I talk like that all the time. And because of that, people want to work with people like like me. Don't you want to go to a place that welcomes you in and makes you feel good? And oh, how are you doing? Instead of, I can't tell you the number of clients we've picked up because we answer the phone with a smile on our face. Well, my last accountant, they always were grumpy, or I always had to go to they never returned my call, or their voicemail was always filled. So we made it a practice in our firm. Of course, we have voicemail on our cell phones and everything like that. Every single client has my cell phone number. Of course, I get the pushback. Well, they're gonna be calling me all the time. They don't. They respect your time when you respect them. It's a give and a take. Now, I tell them all the time, I said, you know, if it's an accounting emergency and that would qualify the IRS is at your door with guns, you know, 911 me. But other than that, I've never had that happen. You know, you know, I want to make sure you get your questions answered. I will get back to you. Maybe not in that instant, but I get back to you. So I I keep my phone on silent during the day because I get distracted easily. So I focus, put my head down, and then at the end of the day, I'll pick it up and go. Well, now I kind of have to keep it around for the dumb code you got to get for everything you slugged into.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But um, I put everything on Google Authenticator, so I just have to look up the number. But um, when I get a text or something, I will return the text to call at the end of the day. A lot of times when I get a text, I pick up the phone and call them. I got your text. What do you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, now you kind of alluded into what what that next question was gonna be, but I was I was gonna ask, you're not you have nothing to worry about on the marketing front, you're a very relational person. What's been your secret to success? I think you kind of alluded to some of it already, but for those, for those who are starting out, for those who are running a firm that aren't having as much fun as you, because I get the vibe, you just have a ton of fun at work, your clients have a ton of fun with you. What's what's the secret to success for you?

SPEAKER_01:

I think that realize that you are like that you what you do as an accounting and a bookkeeper matters. That you have value in the services that you do. So you have to really feel good about who you are and the service you provide and go out. And find those people that will value you. Many times I think, especially newbies, they'll take anybody that walks through the door. So, you know, be discerning, kind of like when I was dating. I think it's the same thing. I met a lot of guys, but none of them were mine.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, they were decent people, but I thought, you know, just not clicking. And then I met Hal said, that guy I like. So I did the same thing with clients. If I if they were aligned with my values, and you can tell when you meet them for the first time, you know, do they talk about, well, I really don't want to pay my employees much because I make more money? That's not aligned with my values. You know, I don't want I'm going, I I had one guy come in one time. It was a pizza place, and I'm sitting there talking to him, and I go, Well, I need your POS system, point of sale. Oh, I I don't use that. Well, somebody's ringing that stuff up there. Yeah, but I only record the sales that are on credit cards, so I don't have to pay as much sales tax. Okay, well, what about your payroll? I don't pay I the cash that I get for the sale of the pizza is how I pay my people. So no one's on payroll? And you only pay, then we can't. That's not a client I want.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't care how much they paid me. The guy wants to cheat, lie, and steal. Not my customer. You know, some I talk about, I said, look, if you're coming to me because you don't want to pay any income tax, wrong girl. I said, if you don't want to pay any income tax, yeah, if you don't want to pay income tax, stop working. I said, or the other, the secondary route we'll take is on December 30th, we will see what your profit is. And I will create an invoice from me to you for that exact amount of money. You pay that invoice, and then you have no income tax income, so you'll pay no tax. How does that how does that work for you? Oh, well, then I won't have any money. Yeah, but I'll pay the tax. So they seem to get it. So I said, if you're here to not pay income tax, quit working because I want people who realize that the more income tax they pay, the more money that they're making, the wealth that they're building, I'm after wealth building, not tax, tax, no tax. Now, we will get with you in November, December, whatever, and do tax planning to make sure we can minimize the taxes that you pay. But if you're going to try to cheat tax by not recording sales or not paying your people what they want, you know, you know, not being, you know, not being a really great business person, then you're not we we won't work well together. And they go, oh, and sometimes they switch.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, they go, I love that piece about hey, yeah, just write me an invoice for the take me up on that, but I'm w one day, you know, one day. You gotta keep asking. Um, so last question for you. Um, I'm really curious, and I think this is gonna be an amazing answer. What is the best piece of advice you've ever received?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh god, I got so many good pieces of advice. I don't know to tell you the truth.

SPEAKER_02:

What comes to the top of your head when you hear that?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, this has nothing to do with accounting, but the best piece of advice I ever got was from my husband who worked for the Salvation Army. And, you know, sometimes when you want to serve people, you know, um, you serve you wind up serving bad people. Meaning he goes, you know, in the Salvation Army, you know, they wanted to serve people what that were had problems. And they realized if they had ten people, you know, maybe one was a crook. They knew how to work the system. But to serve the nine, they had to also serve the one. And um, I thought that was the best piece, that's the best thing I've ever heard. Like, you know, you're gonna sometimes serve people that don't see your value, like, especially like if you give charity, I think of like um, you know, the 9-11, the towers. We all now have to go through TSA because there were a couple of bad guys. You know, don't I don't want to live my life on the bad guys. Yeah, I don't want to worry about the people that might take advantage of me. Well, I don't want to give them my cell phone number because that guy might take advantage. I don't want to do this because everybody else. I think in a positive mode, if the stuff doesn't align or doesn't work for me, I'm open to, you know, this just isn't working for me, you know. Um, and we part ways. I mean, they're big boys and big girls. Yeah, um, I don't have to serve people that don't serve me and make me grow up and you know, wake up and want to come into work and be happy. And um, other things I think is don't be afraid. This is only money, no one died. Take a chance, take a risk, spend the money. You know, I see so many times accountants especially worry about the nickels and the dimes and not worrying about the bigger picture. Think about it. I mean, you know, QuickBooks Online now, if you get a plus version of what$115 a month, no one likes price increases. No one. But it's basically four dollars a day for the brains of your business. You spend more than that at Starbucks every day. Yeah, so you could go back to paper and pencil. If it was that much of an issue, you could use paper and pencil. So invest in the technology that will serve you to free up your time. I'm willing to spend the money to save me time. Anything that saves you time costs you money. That's why people drive cars because they don't want to walk. It does the same function, it gets you there, but it takes a lot longer.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that analogy.

SPEAKER_01:

So I'm willing to spend the money to get for convenience and speed. And if it doesn't work, you know, one thing nice about apps use another one. You're not married to it. It's not like, you know, it's uh the only job you can never quit is being a mom or a dad. You know, once I had the kids, oh I don't like these kids. Can I give them back? Uh-uh. I'm stuck.

SPEAKER_02:

No return policy.

SPEAKER_01:

There's no return policy on them. But everything else, I mean, you can you can say, you know what, this doesn't work for me. I fact when I was the CPA starting out, I said this this career does not work for me. I need another one. So I switched until I found how. I said, now I'm running it how I want. So don't be afraid. That's a lot of advice I'm saying. Don't be afraid. Take a chance. You won't, you can't lose. And make sure you join a community, like bookkeeping buds, ask a CPA, you know, um, reframe a society, you know, round table, something where you're around other colleagues that think like you. So when you're struggling, meaning I really don't know how to handle this, or what do you think? That they lift you up, that they say, look, I we're you're not in this alone. Um, that was one of the best things I did was join a community and um be around other people that get as excited about bank rects as I do. That if I have a pricing problem, how would you price this? You know, how would you handle this situation? You can get your the tried mind comes in. So join a community. That was that's I think that's another great piece of advice. Oh, I can go on all day, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

But uh I I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Community community is so big. Um, and I I I love what you're saying, don't be afraid, take the risk, like just do the thing, do the thing. Um Debbie You won't die.

SPEAKER_01:

You will not die. No, what's the worst that can happen? A lot of times I play that game. If I made this choice, what's the worst that can happen? If I raised, if I doubled my prices, for example, and every single client left me, what would I think? Could I handle it? I'd handle it. I mean, but then I think then I would think I can start over. I can start over and do it a better way this time. So I always think, okay, if I can handle the worst, and everybody's had something they've gone through terrible in their life, every single one of us. So you handled that, you can handle the risk and the chances you can take in your business. So that do it.

SPEAKER_02:

I love it. I love it. I'm I'm I'm feeling very motivated and inspired. Thank you so much. Um, Debbie, thank you so much for coming on. I always have such a blast connecting with you and chatting, and I can't wait to see you at the next event, wherever that may be in the future. Um, yeah, I really appreciate coming on, and I'm sure the listeners got a ton out of this. Do you have any final any final thoughts before we wrap up this episode?

SPEAKER_01:

No, but I I tell you what, all the people in this profession are just wonderful. It's the only place I found that if you have an idea and I have an idea, we each have one. But if we share it, we both have two. There's no competition, I find, between all of us in this space. And I really love that. Um, so make friends, you know, go make your colleagues. We're all rooting for you to be successful. So um reach out, don't be afraid. We all love you.

SPEAKER_02:

What's the best way for people to get in touch with you, Debbie, to continue the conversation?

SPEAKER_01:

On LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn. Find me on LinkedIn, I'm getting much better at LinkedIn. And uh, you know, of course, my bookkeepers on fire YouTube channel and my email, Deborah D-E-B-R-A at B S Faccounting.com.

SPEAKER_02:

Perfect.

SPEAKER_01:

The best way is LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_02:

Perfect. We'll put those links in the show notes so people can get in touch. Debbie again, thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate it. My my pleasure. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of CFO Chronicles, the secrets behind success. I hope you found value in today's conversation. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, make sure to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss any future episodes. If you enjoyed today's discussion, please rate and review the show. It helps others discover the insights we share here. Second, if you're ready to take your business to the next level and attract the high-end clients you deserve, head over to accountingleadsnow.com or click the link in the show notes to book your strategy call. It's time to position yourself as the advisor your clients need. And don't forget, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to stay up to date on what's happening in the world of accounting and financial growth. We've got exciting topics coming up, so stay tuned for the next episode of CFO Chronicles. Until then, keep pushing forward. Your growth is just one strategic move away.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for listening to CFO Chronicles, the secrets behind success. We hope today's episode provided valuable strategies to help you attract more high-paying clients. Be sure to subscribe, follow, and share with fellow professionals. Connect with us on LinkedIn and leave a review or comment to join the conversation. Your feedback helps us bring you the best insights in finance and marketing. Until next time, keep striving for success and unlocking your business's potential.