Can You Start A Bookkeeping Business With No Experience?

Can you start a bookkeeping business with no experience?

This is one of the most common questions I get from aspiring bookkeepers, and the answer might surprise you.

In this video, I break down the biggest myths about starting a bookkeeping business and explain what you actually need to know before getting your first client. We'll discuss bookkeeping experience, certifications, accounting degrees, client expectations, and the fastest way to start learning bookkeeping.

I started my bookkeeping business from scratch and eventually grew it to more than 80 recurring monthly clients. If I were starting over today with no experience, this is exactly what I would do.

In this video you'll learn:

✅ Can you start a bookkeeping business with no experience?
✅ Do you need an accounting degree?
✅ Do you need to be a CPA?
✅ What bookkeeping clients actually care about
✅ How to learn bookkeeping as a beginner
✅ The fastest way to start a bookkeeping business
✅ Common myths that hold new bookkeepers back

This is Week 2 of my 10-part series on how to start and grow a bookkeeping business.

If you're interested in starting a bookkeeping business, becoming a virtual bookkeeper, finding bookkeeping clients, or building a profitable work-from-home business, this series is for you.

Next week's video:
How To Set Up Your Bookkeeping Business

Subscribe so you don't miss future videos on bookkeeping, QuickBooks, bookkeeping clients, pricing, marketing, onboarding, and growing a bookkeeping business.

Learn more about my investment fund targeting 8% to 12% fixed returns
https://www.zipcapitalfund.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back, everybody. Week two of our 10-week series, Everything You Need to Know to Start a Bookkeeping Business. In this week, week two, we're going to talk about can you actually start a bookkeeping business with no experience? If you missed last week, the very first video, I will link it in the description down below. Definitely check it out. A really great introduction to this new 10-week series, everything you need to know to start a bookkeeping business. Let's jump right into it. Topic number one, the biggest myth about starting a bookkeeping business. Number one, you need years of bookkeeping experience before getting your first client. That's not true. That's the opposite of the truth. In reality, most successful bookkeepers actually started with zero clients and very limited experience. In reality, honestly, you learn the fastest by actually working with real businesses. Yes, you can take intro to accounting, maybe you can buy a course, you can watch YouTube videos, but honestly, the best experience you're going to get is actually doing the job, actually doing bookkeeping for business owners. You absolutely do not need any experience. You don't need a job working as a bookkeeper before you start your bookkeeping business. And guess what? I know that because I did this exact thing. I started six years ago with no experience. You absolutely do not need to have any experience before you get started. Myth number two, you need to be a CPA or have an accounting degree to start a bookkeeping business. Not true. Most small business owners are not looking for a CPA to do their bookkeeping. Most entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners, don't have a college degree. Whenever you are searching for a job after college, employers care a lot more about your college degree. If you're trying to get a W-2 job, then yes, you might need a college degree. They care a lot more. But in the wild, wild west of entrepreneurship, business owners don't really care about a college degree. They care more about your customer service, your organization, your Google reviews, maybe a word of mouth referral. Business owners don't care about college degrees. And you definitely don't need to be a CPA to do bookkeeping. Now, if you were doing taxes, that's different. You need to have a tax identification number. You need to have maybe you need to be a CPA or maybe an enrolled agent. That's different. But we're just doing bookkeeping. We're not representing clients in front of the IRS. We're not doing audits. We're not preparing tax returns. I'm just talking about doing bookkeeping. I don't think anybody has ever asked me if I have a college degree. Maybe in the very beginning, but it's really not a big deal. I will share some other experience and some other credentials that you can get to replace your college degree. I don't have a college degree in accounting or business or finance or economics. I have a college degree, but it's in psychology. Totally unrelated from anything accounting, business, or finance. You absolutely, you don't even need a college degree. Business owners care more about are you organized? Are you able to actually perform the work accurately? Are you timely? Are you reliable? Are you trustworthy? Do you have integrity? Can you communicate well? Those are all so much more important than a college degree. Myth number three: clients hire the most qualified bookkeeper. Not always the case. And this is good news because if you're brand new, unfortunately, you're not very qualified. You are not highly qualified if you are brand new. But there are some other personal traits, there are some other soft skills that you can acquire that will make you a highly qualified bookkeeper. Business owners usually hire somebody who responds quickly. Communication is so important as a bookkeeper, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur in general. You gotta be able to communicate. That means answer the phone if somebody calls you. Respond to emails if somebody sends you an email. Do what you say you're going to do. If you schedule a meeting for 9 a.m. on Thursday, make sure you show up to the meeting. And if you're gonna be late or if you can't make it for whatever reason, let them know 24 hours in advance. If some if you tell somebody you're going to send them a proposal or a quote, make sure you actually do that. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to pay somebody, I wanted to hire somebody, and they told me they would give me a quote and they dropped the ball. It's like, what are you even doing? Are you even trying to maintain your business, or do you just not even care? Because right now, with your communication in this hypothetical situation, it feels like you don't even care about me as a customer. So genuinely care about your clients, communicate effectively, communicate quickly, respond quickly, and follow through on your promises. So, yeah, you might not be the most qualified bookkeeper, you might not have a college degree in accounting, you might not have 20 years of experience, you might not have 20 bookkeeping clients, but you absolutely can respond quickly, communicate clearly, and follow through on your promises. Okay, last myth. You need to know everything about bookkeeping before you start. You need to be a bookkeeping expert before you start. That's not true. And I know that because I was not a bookkeeping expert when I got started. You only need to be a few steps ahead of your first client. So you need to know how to use QuickBooks Online, you need to know how to record transactions, you need to know how to look at a bank statement, you need to know how to create a profit and loss and a balance sheet. You need to know how to reconcile accounts. Here's the key: continuing to learn while you build your business. When you first get started, you're not gonna know anything, but I still encourage you to try to get clients in the very beginning because it's gonna take you 30 to 60 to 90 days to even get your first client. So don't wait until you feel like you're a bookkeeping expert until you get your first client. You want to do this kind of simultaneously. It's kind of a really difficult sometimes dance to do because it's like I don't have enough experience, but I don't have any clients. I can't get experience until I get a client, but I don't want to get a client because I don't know what I'm doing. Listen, you're going to make mistakes. Let's just face reality. I promise you, I guarantee you are going to make at least one mistake. There, I said it. Now we can all acknowledge the fact, we can all have a sigh of relief. I guarantee you're going to make a mistake. And I know that because I made mistakes. Here's what you can do. Here's the only thing that you can do. Learn from your mistakes. Don't make the same mistake twice. That's all we can do. We're all human, we all make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. The oldest person makes a mistake, the youngest person, the smartest person, the person who works the hardest. Everybody makes mistakes. Learn from your mistakes and don't make the same mistake twice. That's really the only way we can learn. If we never take a chance, if we never mess up, if we never try something new, are we really growing? Are we really trying to get better? Probably not. So take a chance, take a risk, take a calculated risk, try something new, try something different, make a mistake, figure out what works, what doesn't work, and just do more of what works and don't do what doesn't work. That's how we learn. Okay, so that's topic number one. We got four more topics to cover in this video. So there's a lot of things that we have to unpack, but first, I want to talk about zip capital, my investment fund, targeting 8% up to 12% fixed returns to accredited investors. It's called Zip Capital. There's a link in the description down below if you want to learn more. Basically, other people like you can potentially invest into zip capital. I'll pay you fixed returns. I'm targeting, like I said, 8% up to 12%. And then I'll use other people's money to lend to Pennsylvania real estate investors. So all of the loans in Zip Capital are secured by a first lien mortgage on Pennsylvania real estate. Right now, I have $6.5 million raised of other people's money. And I've got about $8 million lent out right now to Pennsylvania real estate investors. So if you're interested, if you want to learn more, if it sounds like something you might want to take part in, check out the link down below my website, zipcapitalfund.com. You can register on my website and we can chat more about it. Okay, topic number two. Here's my story. And here is how I learned bookkeeping. So I started six years ago and I grew to 80 bookkeeping clients in four years, making $40,000 per month from my 80 bookkeeping clients. And my experience whenever I got my first client, it was a unique one. It was a junk removal company in Texas. I remember vividly, December 2021, I think, maybe December 2020. Yes, December 2020. Two months after I became a certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor. Two months later, I got my very first client and they paid me 200 bucks per month. And guess what? I found them on social media, I found them on Facebook because I sent them a message. I sent them a message. I said, Hey, my name's Zach. I'm a bookkeeper. Let me know if we need help with their QuickBooks. Turns out they did. They didn't last too long. I think they went out of business, but they were my very first client. So I started taking intro to accounting in August of 2020 because I wanted to learn more about business. I was working as a warehouse manager at Chewy at the time. And I wanted to actually become a financial advisor, but then I decided not to. And then I wanted to start a business. And then I wasn't sure what business I wanted to start. And then I learned about accounting. And I learned accounting is the language of business. And I thought that's interesting. If I want to start a business, maybe I should learn the language of business. So I took intro to accounting, started that in August of 2020, October of 2020, fell in love with bookkeeping. Taking intro to accounting, decided to start a bookkeeping business. And then December of 2020 got my very first client. Pretty cool, pretty interesting. So I did make a few mistakes. Like I said before, you're going to make mistakes. Just don't make the same mistake twice. So here are a few mistakes that I made. First, not charging enough. I did not know how much money to charge, and nobody really does because I feel like a lot of people don't talk about it, but stay tuned. In this 10-week series, I will cover how to quote clients. And then I was also scared to advertise on social media. This was brand new. I didn't really understand social media marketing. It was all pretty new. I had 300 Facebook friends and they were all just family and friends. They were not business owners, so this was all brand new. I had no idea what I was doing. But stay tuned. I will also talk all about social media, marketing, advertising, sales, how to get clients. I'll cover that in future videos. And then I was also trying to learn different software. And I was trying to do more than just bookkeeping. So let me give you a tip right now, in the very beginning, if you're trying to learn bookkeeping, if you're trying to learn QuickBooks, keep it simple. I know what you might be thinking right now. I gotta, I want to get more clients. So I have to learn how to do more services. I have to learn how to work with different types of software. That's actually kind of the opposite. I know it's counterintuitive, but that's the opposite of what you should be doing. Instead of trying to learn different types of software and different types of services to service more clients, instead, do the opposite. Focus on one type of service, one type of software, become an expert. I recommend bookkeeping and QuickBooks Online. Have a very narrow scope of work, have a very narrow type of software that you use. That way you can become quickly an expert. Become an expert in bookkeeping, become a QuickBooks Online expert. Don't try to do too much in the beginning. As you grow and develop and get more clients, maybe you can start to offer additional services if you want. But in the beginning, keep it simple. Very focused, very simple, just bookkeeping, just QuickBooks Online. Okay, next. How real client work actually accelerated my learning much faster than taking a course or reading a book or watching a video? There's no better way to learn than to actually just start working on QuickBooks, start working with business owners. So it's this idea paralysis by analysis. Trying to become a bookkeeping expert, trying to become a certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor before you get started. Yes, there's a fine balance. Of course, you want to learn, you want to become proficient, you want to learn the basics, understand the fundamentals, but you can do that simultaneously. Try to get your first client from day one. Try to become a certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor, learn bookkeeping fundamentals, take intro to accounting. Look at me as an example. Started intro to accounting in August, became a certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor in October, got my first client in December, started marketing in October, maybe November, and then got my first client 60 days later. Real client work is going to be the best way for you to learn. You can only learn so imagine. Imagine this great example. Imagine you're trying to learn how to change the oil in your car. Imagine trying to learn that by reading a book. Yes, you might be able to do it, but come on, really, there's so many different types of cars. And really the best way to learn, give me a wrench, give me an oil pan, give me a car, let me jack it up, let me take a look, let me just figure this out. Same same concept. Same it's it's gonna take you five hours to watch videos and read a book and take a quiz and pass a course and learn how to change the oil in your car. I I bet. Give me 30 minutes with a mechanic, give me 30 minutes and he'll teach me how to change the oil in a car. That's the best way to learn. Just get your hands dirty, get a client, learn bookkeeping. You stumble across a problem, do some research. You don't know how to do something, figure it out. Learn as you go, try new things, make mistakes, learn from them. Don't make the same mistake twice. You're never going to feel 100% ready before you get started. Let me just debunk another myth right now. You're never going to feel 100% ready before getting started. I'm still learning new things. The tax code is constantly being updated. QuickBook software is constantly changing, constantly evolving. Bank accounts, online bank websites, new clients, const artificial intelligence, constant social media, constantly changing. Everything is constantly changing. You're never going to be a hundred percent ready before getting started. So all you can do, try your best. Be honest, have integrity, have good morals, be trustworthy, always try your best, try to do the right thing, continuously educate yourself, continue to get better, continue to learn, try to get your first client and learn bookkeeping fundamentals and learn quick books. That seamlessly transitions into the next topic. What you actually need to learn. So let's talk about the balance sheet and the profit and loss statement. These are financial reports, these are the end result of bookkeeping. These are the whole point of bookkeeping. This is why we do bookkeeping. What is the whole point? Create financial reports. Financial reports, balance sheet, profit and loss. That's what the tax accountant needs to file the taxes. So that is the end result. That's the handoff. That's the transition from bookkeeper to tax accountant. We create the financial reports, they file the taxes. They need the taxes, they need the financial reports to file taxes. So the balance sheet, let's start with the profit and loss. The profit and loss, pretty straightforward. This is probably the most commonly looked at financial report for most small business owners. I'm not going to say it's the most important because I don't think it is, but it's probably the most commonly looked at financial report for small business owners. We've got income at the top. How much money did you make? Money coming into the bank account, deposits. Whenever you receive money from customers, that's income. So that gets recorded on the profit and loss as income. And then whenever you spend money, buy things, those are expenses like advertising. If you pay for Google Ads, bank fees and charges. Some banks charge five bucks a month to have a business bank account. There is contractor labor. If you if you hire an independent contractor and pay them a thousand bucks to help you provide your services, contractor labor. What else? Dues and subscriptions. Maybe you have a monthly subscription to some sort of newsletter or some sort of monthly software. You also have supplies and materials, job supplies, office supplies, utilities, payroll, taxes. The list goes on and on. And there's probably dozens of other expense accounts that I'm missing, but these are chart of accounts. These are income and expenses. And so money coming in is typically not always, but typically recorded as income. Money going out, typically, not always, recorded as expenses. These are income and expenses, these are profit and loss, PL, chart of accounts. The two most common types of transactions: income, expenses. This is how much money you made. Really important. Really pretty straightforward. Honestly, if bookkeeping was just profit and loss, just income and expenses, bookkeeping is super simple. It gets more complicated when we start talking about the balance sheet. Here we have assets, liabilities, and equity. So this gets a lot more complicated. So for assets, we have our bank account, our cash, our money, our checking account, savings account, money market account, we have accounts receivable, we have invoices, we have undeposited funds, buildings, vehicles, inventory assets gets pretty complicated. So typically we're spending money to get to acquire assets. So if we have $100,000 in the bank account and we go out and purchase a new building, let's just keep it simple. Let's say we purchase a new building for $100,000. Now all of a sudden we lost $100,000, but now we gained a $100,000 building. So that'll be an asset on the balance sheet. Or maybe we have a t-shirt company and we just bought $1,000 worth of t-shirts. And so that might be put on the balance sheet as inventory. You can see here it gets kind of complicated. Not just straightforward, like money coming in, income, money going out, expenses. Now we have different types of assets. And then we have liabilities. We have accounts payable, credit cards, loans, deferred payments, accrued payments, unearned revenue, liabilities also get pretty complicated. And then we have equity. This is just kind of everything else. Everything that doesn't fall under assets or liabilities is equity. Most commonly we have owners' pay. So if you are running a LLC, you might you might pay yourself as the owner of the company. So instead of being put on payroll, maybe you just transferred a thousand bucks from your business bank account to your personal bank account. And so that might be owner's pay, owner's distributions. That might be a thousand bucks of equity going out. Or maybe to get started, we need ten thousand dollars. Well, the business is brand new. I've got ten thousand dollars. Let me put that into my business bank account. So this would be a deposit into the business bank account, but it's not income, it's owner's investment, owner's equity, owner's capital. This is also an equity account, not recorded as income, but it's an owner's investment. So we we had a bank deposit for $10,000, but it wasn't income. It's owner's investment. Kind of complicated. We also have net income. So this is where it's like inception, mind is blown, what's going on? So the profit and loss actually live. Lives on the balance sheet. Kind of complicated, kind of confusing, but it lives on the balance sheet under one line item called net income. Net income is reported on the balance sheet. And then to make things even more complicated, we have retained earnings. I feel like I could probably make a whole video just talking about the balance sheet and the profit and loss. So I'm going to wrap this up because I don't want to get too far into the weeds, but retained earnings is net income from the previous year, the previous years combined. And then you also, I'm not, I'm not even going to get into it. You would also roll owners' equity into retained earnings at the end of the year. I'm not even going to get into that. Overall, balance sheet, profit and loss, you just got to learn about it. Do some research, watch some YouTube videos. Maybe I'll make it an let me know in the comments. Maybe I'll make an in-depth, detailed overview about profit and loss and balance sheet. You got to know it. You got to understand it because this is the final report you send to your clients. Okay. So that's that's the final report. How do you get it? How do you get this stuff? You got to be able to categorize transactions. That is what 90% of your time will be. Recording transactions, categorizing transactions. Like I said, money coming in, money going out, those that income, those expenses, those chart of accounts, the total amount is made up of small individual transactions. So on the PL, you might see $10,000 of income, but what you don't see are the individual transactions that make up that $10,000 of income. So instead of just having $10,000 of income on the PL, we actually on the bank statement, we actually have five individual deposits of $2,000. So we need to record those transactions, categorize those transactions, put those transactions into the correct buckets or categories, or technically speaking, chart of accounts. Recording transactions into the correct chart of accounts is basically the entire job summary of a bookkeeper. Recording transactions, reconciling accounts, and creating financial reports. Those are the three duties and responsibilities of a bookkeeper. So how to categorize transactions, you got to learn debits and credits. I'm not going to get into it. This is just supposed to be kind of a broad overview of the experience that you need to start a bookkeeping business, but you need to learn debits and credits. Once again, let me know down below if you want me to go into a full detailed video explaining debits and credits, double entry accounting. If you take intro to accounting at a local community college or an online college, that should teach you everything you need to know about debits and credits, profit and loss and balance sheet. And then finally, how to reconcile bank and credit card accounts. So basically, we're taking the bank statement and the credit card statement. We're looking at the beginning balance, and then we're looking at all the transactions that occurred throughout the month. Then we're looking at the ending balance on the bank statement, and we're making sure all of that perfectly penny for penny matches what we have in QuickBooks Online. In QuickBooks Online, we have the beginning balance from the previous month, and then we record all the transactions, and then we reconcile and we make sure the ending balance in QuickBooks matches the ending balance on the bank statement or the ending balance on the credit card account. So reconciling accounts happens once per month, typically, typically end of the month for bank accounts. And so I would probably say 90% of your job will be recording transactions. So these four skills, these four topics, really that's that's the majority of what a beginner bookkeeper needs to know: balance sheet, profit and loss, recording transactions, reconciling accounts. Those that's it. Those are the four things you need to know. Okay, let's wrap this up. We got two more topics. So the fastest way to learn bookkeeping. So how do you so I told you what you got to know? How do you actually learn all this stuff? Step number one, I recommend get QuickBooks. Get QuickBooks Online because you can do it today. You can do it right now. As soon as you're done watching this video, go to QuickBooks.com and sign up for their online accountant account and then start using it immediately. So here's a trick. Here's what you can actually do. You can actually create a separate account, connect your personal bank account and your personal credit card to QuickBooks Online. Here's a trick. This is a really good strategy. And you can record your personal transactions. Now do this separately. So create an online account for your business and then create a separate accountant account for your personal cards and your personal accounts, and they're free. So don't worry about spending money for these accountant accounts. Get an accountant account. It's kind of hard to say, kind of a tongue twister. You want to get an accountant account because they're free, and this way your clients can invite you to their QuickBooks account. So you want to become you want to get an accountant account, get two separate accounts, one for your business, one for your personal. And for the personal account, you can practice bookkeeping with your personal transactions, but you can all this is not for nothing. So this is not just simply to practice. This is really good. This is, I think this is really, really helpful. Not only can you practice bookkeeping, recording transactions, practice QuickBooks, everything, but you can also budget your personal expenses. How amazing! How incredible. Not only are you practicing QuickBooks, practicing bookkeeping, but you're also now you've got your own personal budget. This is I still do this today. Once a week, every single week. I log into my personal QuickBooks account. That's free, by the way. QuickBooks Online Accountant account, free. Have all my personal accounts connected, and I record all of my personal transactions, and then I can see every month how much money I spent on groceries and daycare and utilities and travel and everything else. Really, really, really, really valuable. Highly recommend doing it. Okay, number two, you can complete QuickBooks Online Pro Advisor training. Pretty straightforward. Pretty uh, it's not easy. I'll be honest. It's not an easy test, but you definitely want to become a pro advisor. So, what I was talking about in the beginning, remember how I said there are a few things that you can do to get you some credentials so that whenever you're having those consultations and those conversations with new potential clients, here's some good talking points. Are you do you have experience? Are you certified? Do you have any credentials? Do you have a degree? Actually, as a matter of fact, I am a certified QuickBooks Online Pro Advisor. Boom, mic drop. How do you like that? Yes, I am a certified QuickBooks Online Pro Advisor. That's all you gotta say. That sounds legit. It is legit. It's a legitimate certification you can get straight from QuickBooks. There, there's an online directory where people can look you up and verify that you're actually a certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor. So don't lie about it. Be truthful, be honest, have integrity. But people can look you up and see that you are, in fact, a certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor. So if anybody ever asks you from today moving forward, if you have any experience, if you have any credentials, how do I even know that you know what you're doing? As a matter of fact, I am a certified QuickBooks Online Pro Advisor. So get that training, get that certification, super helpful, and it's a really great talking point during your consultations. You can watch bookkeeping tutorials. Of course, I have them. Everybody else has them all over YouTube. I think it's great. I think it's good. I think it's okay. I think it's a good supplement. So you want to get you want to get the real world experience. Do the bookkeeping for your personal accounts, focus on getting clients, focus on learning bookkeeping fundamentals, get the QuickBooks certified pro advisor, and then you can watch some tutorials. I I prefer to just watch specific tutorials. If you watch a four-hour tutorial on everything you need to know about QuickBooks, that's overwhelming. That's pretty difficult to absorb all of that information and actually learn from that. What I would rather do is learn the fundamentals, become a certified pro advisor, get my first client, and then as problems come up, then do your research. Then you can learn specific tips and tricks and problem solve actual real world problems. And then finally, practice every day. Instead of endlessly consuming content, practice bookkeeping every day. Every single day, log into QuickBooks. There's a sample company, you have your own personal accounts. Spend a few minutes, practice bookkeeping, practice recording transactions. In the sample company, you can mess around with invoices and sales receipts and accounts payable and financial reports and customers and vendors. Practice every day. For the next two weeks, practice every day. Get familiar with the software. You can learn bookkeeping and start marketing simultaneously. So don't wait until you're a bookkeeping expert. Don't even wait until you're a certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor. Start marketing today. In future videos, I'll talk a lot more about marketing. Okay, last topic. Here's what I would do in the next 30 days. But before I do that, let me just reiterate this video is sponsored by Zip Capital. So if you want to learn more, that's the whole point. Zip Capital, if you want to learn more, there's a link down below. It's my investment fund targeting 8% up to 12% fixed returns to accredited investors. Would absolutely love to chat with you if you want to invest into my company. The minimum to invest is $25,000. So if you want to learn more, check out the link down below, zipcapitalfund.com. Would love to chat with you there. And also, if you're listening to the podcast on Apple or Spotify, I've got a YouTube video, a YouTube channel with these exact same videos. It just has my face, just a talking head video. So if you want to check me out on YouTube, same name, bookkeeping expert, Zach Pascarello. And also, vice versa, if you're watching on YouTube, want to check out the podcast version, it's on Apple and Spotify. If you're driving or working out in the gym or mowing your grass or cooking dinner and you want to listen to the podcast, I'm also on Apple and Spotify. And then finally, all my social media channels are linked down below Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook. Go ahead and follow me on all my other social media channels. I'm putting out different content every single day. I think some of it might be pretty useful. Okay, so what I would do realistically in the next 30 days. So spend 30 minutes every day learning bookkeeping. Maybe intro to accounting, maybe YouTube tutorials, accounting concepts, accounting fundamentals, bookkeeping fundamentals. Spend 30 to 60 minutes every day learning bookkeeping fundamentals and start posting on LinkedIn and Facebook immediately, even before you're ready for clients. Immediately, today, the day that you decide to start a bookkeeping business, start creating content. Start posting on social media, get your website, get your Google My Business profile. I'm gonna go over all of that stuff in the next video. Start networking, start telling people you're becoming a bookkeeper. You can do that in person, you can do that at a family reunion, you can do that at your friend's birthday party, you can do that at the next time you go bowling or trivia night or maybe at church on Sunday. You can do that on social media. Start telling people. Don't be afraid. You got to get your name out there because you never know. The next person you talk to might be a business owner. Focus on progress. This is the last thing, and then I'll wrap it up. Focus on progress, not perfection. Your goal is not to become an expert in 30 days, your goal is to become knowledgeable of bookkeeping fundamentals, and your goal is to become capable of doing bookkeeping for your first client. Focus on inputs, not outputs. This is such an important concept. I'm not going to go too in detail with it. I touched on it a couple weeks ago in another video. Focus on inputs, not outputs. That means your goal should be spend 30 minutes learning about bookkeeping today. Or maybe create one social media post today. Or maybe your goal is to spend 30 minutes every day for the next five days studying for the QuickBooks Online Pro Advisor course. So that's your goal. The goal is the time spent today, every day consistently working towards your goals. The goal is not to get your first client. That's the output, or maybe book a sales consultation. That's the output. That's what will happen eventually. But don't focus on that. Don't focus on the results. Focus on the inputs. Focus on the daily task, the daily action that's going to lead you to eventually accomplishing your goal. This is a very important mindset shift that's going to keep you motivated. It's going to enable you to persevere through adversity. If you focus on the outputs, if you focus on the results, you're going to feel like a failure every day. If your goal is to get a bookkeeping client, every day you don't get a bookkeeping client, you're going to feel like a failure. But instead, if your goal is to create a social media post every day or to reach out to five people every day, then you feel like a winner because you can actually accomplish those goals. So focus on the inputs, don't focus on the outputs. Okay, that's it. That's it for today's video. That's it for week two in our 10-week series, how to start a bookkeeping business. So one of the biggest mistakes that I see new bookkeepers make is overcomplicating their business setup. So next week, that's what I'm going to show you. That's exactly what I'm going to show you how I would set up my bookkeeping business today, including things like LLC, business bank account, software, insurance, the tech stack that I recommend, and everything else. So if you like this 10-week series, let me know down below. I am actually reading every comment and I'm taking your comments into consideration when I'm making future videos. So if you have suggestions, recommendations, ideas, topics that you want me to cover, detailed questions you want me to answer, please let me know in the comments down below. I might not respond to every question or comment, but I absolutely am reading and taking into consideration every suggestion, every idea, every recommendation, every question. So let me know down below what your questions and comments are. Subscribe to my channel if you haven't already. Like this video. I really appreciate your support and check out Zip Capital if you're interested in joining my investment fund. Thank you so much.