Episode 220: Obliterate the Industry

When you think about your job or your business - where does company culture rank on the list? Tevia will be the first to tell you that it is arguably one of the most important things to consider. 

TeKoda Accounting was not built overnight, but rather with the customer as the top priority. They pride themselves on serving across multiple industries with a unique approach. 

Tevia is passionate about analytics and bringing additional value out of financials to help with business planning. 

Tune in to episode 220 to learn what you should be doing quarterly as a business owner, why forward thinking is crucial and much more! 

For more information about TeKoda Accounting:

Instagram: @tekodaaccounting

Website: tekodaaccounting.com

LinkedIn: TeKoda Accounting

Facebook: TeKoda Accounting

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Tomorrow. Thank you for having me. It was one of the most fun podcasts I have ever done. Thank you for the opportunity, Tevya Dakota Accounting. So as much as you thank me, as much as you reach out, I have to thank you, Tevia, for joining us on the Down to Business Podcast. It's not often that we receive thank you notes, but handwritten ones at that. So I promise I appreciate and I cherish each and every one of them. But a big shout out to you for emphasizing the importance of company culture. Letting people know that showing up to work every day has to be something that you want to do, that you love to do. Whether you're in the corporate world, whether you're a business owner or entrepreneur, whether you're balancing both. But it has to be something that you wake up and you are eager to do. It's so important, especially in this day and age with so much going on. But on top of that, Tevy had really touched on a lot that she can do from the accounting perspective while dropping gems just the same. She prides herself on going that extra mile, prides herself on meeting your business where it is, no matter the size, and helping you regardless of your circumstance. So without further ado, enjoy episode 220, Obliterate the Industry. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Down to Business Podcast here with Tamar Turner. So look, I love the mission and mantra of this company that we're here to talk to today, simply for one word. Well, in their mission is the word obliterate. So I love that word just because you know I've normally when you hear that word, you you hear it as a form of destruction and not necessarily something in the forms of business, but you hear that, you know, something got obliterated, blown up, set on fire, anything like that, set ablaze. It's no more to it. But this company has kind of transformed just my perspective now when it comes to this particular field. I don't want to give too much. As y'all see, I'm trying to kind of walk around so that Tevy can give us everything today. But I as soon as I read that word, and it's the second word, as soon as I read that, I was just my mind was just blown. I was very excited because I feel like they definitely do put a different spin, one on their industry, but two the work that they're doing. But before we get into all things, before I let Tevya really completely take over, steal the show, and figure out how she can be a resource to you. How are you doing today? How's everything on your end?

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Wonderful. I'm I'm grateful to be here. I want to learn more about you and your audience and how we can obliterate for them.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

I love it. So, yeah, so yeah, naturally, I had to do some background, some research just to see some things, some clicking around. I love going through different websites just to get, you know, just a feel for who I'm gonna be speaking to, what you guys do, but also just trying to put a personal feel and personal touch on things. But to really go through yours, to really see the mission, the testimonials, who you guys are working with, who you've worked with, and just really the resource and the light that you've been to others, it's been amazing. So I need you to do two things for me. I recognize that we're gonna have a lot of people tapping into this episode, whether they be from your side, whether they be from my side, or whether we have newcomers finding out about the both of us for the first time. So to bring everybody up to speed, to put everybody on the same page, can you please just one tell us a little bit about yourself? And then can you too just tell us what brings you on the Down the Business Podcast today?

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Absolutely. First of all, thank you for having me. I'm grateful for your audience. And um, my background, you know, I I love that you started with research about us and that you really honed in on obliterate because it obliterate the status quo is our mission, and it comes from who I am as a person. I do everything to the nth degree. I really love customer service. I want to deliver for clients, it's who I am. I came out of a corporate background and it was just a really poor culture environment. And before I ever knew what we would do for a client, my background was just we have to be an amazing culture place and really healthy where employees feel at home and feel like they can give their best to the client. So that was really the basics of my start and how we came here is you know, we're trying to get our brand out there. We're trying to get our name out. And you have such a wonderful following and a great voice. I love how you carry yourself and your podcast. And so, you know, we wanted to get on here and have a chat with you.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Well, I really do appreciate that. It sounds like, you know, the same way that I had to do some due diligence, it definitely does sound like you guys did the same. So the fact that we were able to mesh and and mingle now, I absolutely love that. But no, to hear that, to hear the background, to hear really where you started, to hear that you recognize certain things just weren't working. That word culture, I feel like it's such an important thing within the workplace. It can really be the make or break between your review or your opinion of a company or really your experience or whether you decide to continue to stay with them. You know, I tell people now why I'm at the job that I am and why I've been at this job for over three years now. The longest that I've ever worked a corporate position is just simply, not simply, but it's really because of the culture, it's because of the people. You know, everybody wants more money. Everybody wants, well, sometimes we want more responsibility to equate with that money. Other times we're fine with doing what we do. But that naturally, you know, I'm the type of person who loves to be kept on their toes in a sense, who never likes to have the same date twice. So that's kind of why I love this job because I get to interact with so many different people from a real estate perspective, from a hospitality perspective. But I will say I have worked for so many different companies that seeing some of the things that were acceptable here, seeing some of the things that were priority and precedent here blew my mind. And it was almost very, I had to kind of make sure, like double check or like, hey, is you you guys sure it's okay. I've never heard of a summer Friday before. I've never heard of just taking, you know, mental health days, or I've never been pestered by my managers to take PTO that we already have. You know, if anything has kind of been the opposite. So, but also, you know, I've I've never been able to join employee community groups, I've never been able to um volunteer outside of work with my companies and everything like that. So to have really all of this, as we said, culture mixed in with it and to it be a place that you really want to be, I think that's important. But to take that from the corporate perspective and now allow that to be the mission and the mantra with how you move forward, I think that that's amazing, you know, because with a business owner, with an entrepreneur, with anybody kind of in that creative space and being on their own, sometimes, you know, you you know how you work best, you know what you like to do, you know what's right, what's wrong. But oftentimes that culture doesn't necessarily translate to that. And, you know, or sometimes culture can be placed on the back burner because, you know, we want to worry about sales, we want to build that foundation, or we want to really scale it up. So the fact that for you, because of a bad experience, this was at the forefront of your mind and at building the core of that foundation, it really just goes to show that the company is really doing that much work. But also too, because when people love the culture, they're gonna naturally love what they do, they're gonna be more pleasant with people. You know, sometimes I could be having a not so good day or maybe a Rocky mourner have dealt with somebody that was not so pleasant. But when you really look at the grand scheme of things, when I look at who I'm surrounded by, when I look at my other colleagues that I have for support, when I look at what I really do and the enjoyment behind it, that's just water under the bridge when it comes. So something you did touch on though that's very interesting and is even in that mission as well was um on top of obliterating, you said that you wanted to really do that to the accounting industry status quo. So for my people out there not too versed with the accounting industry myself, um, but you know, wanting to learn more, wanting to kind of dive deeper into it, wanting to really figure out what is the overview of said industry, what does that look like? What is really the status quo for people who are in this industry, who are who are learning, who are delving, working, experimenting in some capacity?

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Yeah, I appreciate your prior description of what obliterate means because it actually still applies in what we take it to mean for accounting. You know, unfortunately, there's kind of a bad rap in accounting, uh, which, you know, a lot of people experience with their CPA firms or we do internal uh business accounting. And the reality is that people are not coming into this industry. And that matters because there's more business to go around than there are people to fill the business. Unfortunately for the business owner, the reality of that means that service drops, prices increase and service drops. And I have seen this for so long and seen so many business owners, you know, get the bad end of this because they just have to take what they can get and they pay their bill. They're not getting good ROI on that bill from a service or value perspective. And so we came in with our, you know, exceptional skills and said, we will not be the same. We will come in, we will be loud, we will be noisy, and we will say, we care about you. We want to learn about you as an individual, as an owner, as a management team. We want to learn about your company and really fit ourselves to how we can not just provide you great financials, but additional value and service and communication. So unfortunately, the status quo in the accounting industry is not as high as I would, you know, appreciate, which is why we come in and say you do have options. If you're not getting great ROI and service, then you need to look around because there are a few of us out there that are giving exceptional service and giving you great financials.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

And something that sticks out to me even more is the fact that, you know, you recognize that the status quo is not something of a positive light, of a positive connotation. But instead of backing away from that, instead of complaining about it, or you know, you you probably could have very much complained about it, had your gripes or whatever, but just instead of leaving it there and becoming complacent, you decided to take action. As you said, you came into the industry loud, letting people know that, hey, this we we recognize this as to be true because it's it's what has already been said, it's the tradition kind of that's already been molded. But we would be remiss to just say, oh, because it's been like that and nobody's kind of stepped in, or if it isn't broke, don't fix it. Well, something is clearly broken here. Whether we really want to admit to it or really whether we really want to kind of take the steps to begin fixing it, now that's another conversation. But the fact that you've had yourself, you've had people around you surrounded, wrecking surrounding yourself even with like-minded people, maybe even people who have had similar experiences, not so good experiences for that nature, and wanting to make a change, wanting to say, hey, we know that while this industry is looked at in this light, we recognize that customer service can look like this, communication can look like this, business can really look like this moving forward. So it also kind of makes me wonder, too. So I recognize with the the umbrella of accounting can be a very large one. There can just be so many different niches within accounting and so many different things that you focus on specifically. So, with what you're doing, with what you're experienced, and even with what you guys are working towards, do you focus or do you hone in on anything specific when business owners and entrepreneurs are coming to you? I could imagine that they probably have some commonalities. They probably are facing issues that a lot of us are experiencing across the board, whether we admit to it or not. But is there anything that you guys specialize in specifically, or is there anything that you're looking for when it comes to like your clients and people who you're working with?

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Yeah, so two things that we focus on, and then I'll say one that we look for. Uh, first and foremost, like I mentioned, we focus on all internal functions of accounting of a business, which means we're gonna do your bookkeeping, pay your bills, pay your invoices, pay your sales tax. You know, maybe you have a use tax. We're gonna take care of the all the internal functions. We're gonna partner with a CPA so that you have dual uh opposing vendors that are kind of gonna keep each other in check and ask questions for you between the two. So that's kind of how we function in that way. Uh, the other way that we're gonna function for you is we really are passionate about analytics and we want our owners, whether they don't have the analytics knowledge or whether they're just too busy to utilize it, we're going to bring additional value out of your financials and say, hey, let us help you with your planning because everything you need to know for future planning is in the numbers that you have today. And that is incredibly valuable and important if owners will use that for planning. Uh, the client that we look for is it's not industry specific. We serve probably over 60 to 80 different industries right now. And the reality is that 80% of accounting is gap accounting. It's structured, you know, you know what you need to do. It's the last 20% that has to do with maybe your industry or actually more likely your tax entity type that we're gonna dig in, make sure we have those details right for you. But generally we can serve any industry and we do, but we love owners that are forward thinkers. We're gonna partner with you. We are gonna really test you to say, you know, what are your goals? Have us help you have accountability. We will help push you there. And that's how I live my life. I'm constantly 10 years out. Where's our plan? Where are we going? And I do that for the clients, the team does that for the clients. And so we like a partner who wants somebody one that is passionate about what they're doing, that is engaged in having partnership for that internal accounting that we can own, that they know they can trust us and that we're gonna care as much as they do, and that they want the engagement, the communication from us that we can go, yeah, you are on your goals, or here's some ideas to get you on those goals. And they want that partnership. That is a perfect client for us.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Some interesting things that you touched on there, partnership, that trust, that engagement, that communication, all things that you know you should look for one in someone who you're looking to work with from either side, whether it be the client or whether it be the customer, whether it be the actual business, the owner, that company, that brand, those are those are very important. So I love that you guys take that approach to it, but I love that you also are not niche specific or industry specific. I think that that's very important. You know, a lot of times when we're speaking with business owners or entrepreneurs who may feel like they're not in the most populous industry or may feel like they're kind of doing something that may be just a one-off or something different. There's still help, there's still resources, there are still things out there for you. You know, a lot of times we see accounting and we think, oh, well, if we're not maybe in those popular spaces, the retail, the healthcare, the real estate, hospitality, that maybe I'm just not no. Well, if anything, we can help serve those communities. And it's it's business owners, it's entrepreneurs, it's brands like that that even help us sharpen our skills in a sense like that. You know, it wasn't until I began to interview different people in different spaces that I started to one, educate myself, but also learn to how to interview or certain things to look for or what to ask about. You know, if I just stuck to the same industries or the same people, then it a lot of these conversations would be kind of recycled in a sense. But once you start kind of experimenting and plugging and playing and finding different ways to still be a resource to people, but at the end of the day, you keep that passion. And I think that that's always just the most important part for it. Because what I'm also hearing with how you guys work is that you are are the accountability factor is very high. You need somebody who is also going to put in the work and not somebody who just wants to just have you lay out everything and just do everything for you. No, uh you also need to want this help. You also need to kind of know what's going on. Because while we are here to help, while we are here to make sure that we're pushing you forward, you have to also be thinking that, like you said, that long term, that long game. A point that I always make here on the podcast is that while we're talking face to face, while we're talking right now, people are listening either live or tuning in at a at a later date. We're always still thinking, you know, when this interview is over, when we get to the end, there are still things that I'm thinking about for next year. You know, my schedule right now is booked out until the end of November. So I'm thinking about December 1st, Jane. I'm thinking about 2025 already. What am I going to be doing? What's my schedule gonna look like? I can't even really tell you what I'm doing next week, but like I said, I'm trying to think for the podcast in January. So it really just goes to show too what goes into the mind of business owners, of entrepreneurs, of people along those lines. So I'm I'm very curious too, also to speak to the people, and this may even be speaking to myself in a little bit. So, in a sense, like I am a one-man band, one-man show with the podcast. There is nobody on this team, there's nobody who does anything. I'm pretty much that accountability person. So, but recently, because I because I got the LLC back in January, I have more so now been trying to move forwardly in the business perspective of things. So thinking about, you know, getting a Dunn's number, getting that business. I actually just opened up my business bank account today. So shout out to Truist for that. But you know, just thinking about different ways that I can one establish credit, establish a presence, establish, you know, so that I don't have to keep coming out of my pocket so much. But when I'm on certain applications, when I'm filling out certain things, when I'm graduating from certain courses and certifications, they're asking me all these questions, throwing all these acronyms at me, asking me numbers, PL, CPA, and um, I'm I'm just looking at things like I don't have any of that. I've never had a bookkeeper. I barely do quarterly reflections on my books and everything, you know, because my business isn't really like a product based, it's more so service-based, and I don't really charge for interviews. You know, we do have merchandise. There are things that I'm trying to move forward to, you know, I'm trying to get to a point where we have the studio, we can travel, we can do the events and everything like that. But there were some times where I was really having to get online and Google, what does this mean, or literally copy and paste a question, or reach out to some of my business mentors because I had no idea. So I say all of that to say that I feel like there are a host of business owners, entrepreneurs, creatives that may not necessarily have that financial, that accounting expertise to know really the steps to take within their business. How do you educate people or what are some resources or some steps that we can take to, you know, ensure that, as you said, we are forwardly thinking about our business from the financial and accounting side of things?

SPEAKER_00 17:23

I think this is probably the best thing that you can ask to, you know, benefit your listeners because I also started almost six years ago and didn't know what I didn't know. And that's always the downfall. So a couple of things. You said a perfect item right there. You know, get on Google. You know, there's business groups, there's government groups that give checklists of like the basics of things that you need to do. Definitely start there. Those are gonna be helpful. But the other thing you can do is get out a little bit, whether it's in person or virtual, and just network with other business owners because it's a community. We all want to help each other. You know, I will have a conversation with anyone at no cost and no obligation because my first and foremost passion is to help. And so are many others. So get on and say, what stumbling blocks did you have when you started? What should I avoid? You know, that's actually how I do all of my education. I'm a member of entrepreneurs organization, and I am there solely to go ask the bigger fish, what did you do that I should avoid? And or what did you do that I have to do? You know, and it's all about educating yourself. Ask the question, find a network, find, you know, a community that wants you to be lifted up and to help you. I'll tell you a quick example. When I my first year in business, um, you know, I did the taxes myself because it was simple and I could. I had no idea that on the state level, uh, well, on your quarterly taxation, you're supposed to submit estimated taxes quarterly. I didn't know that. So I got to year end and I had not submitted anything quarterly. And luckily, it kind of taught me a bad habit because the first year I did not have a fee, which I thought I would. Uh, and so year two, I kind of purposely didn't pay it because I was like, uh, I'd like to keep my own cash and I'll give it to you, you know, when I need to. And uh I did have a small fee. I will say, uh, I'm not giving any advice out there, but it wasn't anything that would deter me from doing that in the future. But, you know, maybe they keep track of that and they hit you later on bigger. I don't know. But all to say, when you're in business, you are supposed to have estimated quarterly filings for your taxes. So when you get to your end, it's not one big chunk of money. And the reason you really want to pay attention to that in particular is so many business owners get to tax time and they have no idea what they owe. And more importantly, they don't know if they have the cash to pay what they owe. So if you actually are submitting quarterly estimated taxes, number one, that forces you to have a realistic idea of where your taxes are. And then when you get to your end, even if you were off a little bit, you don't owe the whole chunk. You just owe the difference, or maybe you'll even get some back if you were wrong in your benefit, you know. So, all to say, you know, that was my stumbling block. I didn't know. Um, but I'm sure there were many others. And you can get all the answers. Just lean into people that will help you. They are out there and available.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

You just gotta have no problem, or I mean, sometimes we still have a problem with just making yourself uncomfortable a little bit. Sometimes just asking those questions, like you said, putting yourselves kind of in rooms that you quote unquote may feel unqualified for, may feel like you know, everybody's kind of just shooting right above your head. But those are the rooms that you need to be in. You know, they they say if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room for for sure. So I I could definitely agree with that, and I could definitely see that how time and time again, it's not until you really begin having these conversations, talking to people that you realize, hey, we've gone through some of the same things. I think, I think we forget where we may meet somebody that they had a journey before that. You know, so I talk to business owners that are 20, 30 years in, you know, well, to me that that seems a little crazy just because I'm not even 30 years old yet. So to think about that, some people were doing business before I was even born, but hey, they were going through the same thing 30 years ago that maybe I'm going through now, maybe just on a different scale, maybe with less access to resources, because that seems to really be a common theme with a lot of the people who I've talked to who have gone from the 70s, the 80s, even the 90s. You know, that hey, we we are all experiencing and speaking to the same things. But if you look at now with all the resources to artificial intelligence, to technology, to software, to different platforms, to automation, that hey, we are trying to make this as simple as possible. I've even had some people tell me, man, you guys are lucky, you don't even know how good you have it. You know, and sometimes I'm just like, you're right. I really we don't, because I don't know really. We don't really know too much of anything beforehand or what it looked like after until you know we really go back. So I love to hear that, but it also leads me to think too that there has to be some misunderstandings about what it is that you do, about what it is that, you know, when it comes to accounting and when it comes to working with the business side of things, especially the internal side of things, that there can be maybe people go to the website and they see one thing or they read one thing and kind of come up with their own notion or motion. So have you ever found that? Have you ever found that you know some people are just not necessarily ignorant to what it is that you do, but are just misinformed or just maybe maybe have Googled, you know, the accounting industry or CPA or bookkeeper and kind of just let that be the end all be all. Do you feel like there are misconceptions around what people may think you do versus when you guys actually kind of come into business?

SPEAKER_00 22:43

Sure. I mean, there's a lot of ambiguity with the word accountant, you know, and what does that mean and who is that, you know? So I totally understand that. And what I would say to that is just be willing to have a conversation. The biggest one that we see is even though we're very clear all over our website, we will do every accounting function you need. The only one we do not fill is we do not file taxes. Uh, and and I mentioned that before, we do it because we believe that you know, you want your bookkeeper not working for your CPA. Why? Because then they're not working for you. And if the bookkeeper is working for the CPA and sees an opportunity or something you should be aware of as the owner, do you think they're gonna tell you, no, they're gonna work for the CPA and they their boss is the CPA? You want to be the boss and you wanna have people in your corner that are directly accountable to you. So we're accountable to our owners, the CPA is accountable, and we kind of double check each other because we know their world and we know what they should be doing and how they should be serving you. And we're quite vocal when you get a CPA who will not speak to you and will not give you service. We're willing to say, hey, you can have better, you can have better service. So we are that voice, and frankly, we hope that they are to us as well. We're confident in what we're providing, but they won't, we want them checking our work because frankly, we want the report that says these guys are solid, you know, you should be happy. So that's the biggest misconception that we see is uh what is it that we do? So if people miss that, you know, on the website, no big deal. I'm happy to fill them in on a console, make sure they know. But you know, either way, we we love to give references when that's what they need as well.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

I I can't blame y'all. Taxes is a different ball game, you know, personal business, other people. So it's uh sometimes to raise your hands up and to pass that along, I'm not mad at that, but I do, you know, and I knew that you were gonna say this to end that I'm pretty sure that even though you guys do not do that specifically, you guys have a plethora of trusted sources of people who you vetted and verified and know that for a fact that the customer, that the person, the client, they're gonna be getting the best of the best. So I think that that transparent approach is so important. And I think that you really dropped a gem in there too about the separation of things, about at the end of the day, this is your business, your LLC, your brand, your company, companies. You want to continue to remain in control. You know, there's nothing wrong with relinquishing control for things that you don't know or for education, but at the end of the day, you still want to be that top figurehead, that top person to make sure that, as you said, people aren't, you know, undercutting or working for the man behind you or just trying to get the best benefit for themselves. Now, when when I look at the services that you guys offer from planning and analytics to payroll to bookkeeping, would you say that these the importance of these services equal throughout? Does it really depend on the niche of your specific business or no? Do you need to make sure that you dedicate the proper amount of time to bookkeeping? As payroll is very important if you have employees for sure. And then planning and analytics, what can you speak to as far as your services and um kind of how they rank with each other?

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Sure, that's a great question. You know, they each have their place. Uh, basic bare bones, you know, obviously you have to get your employees paid one way or another. We don't have to do it, you can do it internally as well. The softwares these days are pretty easy to manage. Um, but the bookkeeping, to be frank, you know, a lot of people want to pay attention to the taxes, or even when a company gets large enough to have a CFO and then they're working on forecasting and analytics and these things. But the reality is if you have not focused on the foundational items of your business that feed those things, you have garbage in, garbage out. So, bookkeeping, I would actually say, like separating myself from our industry as a business owner, I cannot do anything without good quality, functional financials. I cannot be trusting my taxes. I cannot be trusting my financial plan. You know, I can't trust anything. So, bookkeeping, number one, you know, the people setting themselves up for success are getting that right away before they have a mess we have to clean up. But we love a mess. We're happy to come in at any time and fix that. You know, the payroll, like I said, if you're in an industry that requires what requires, sorry, sales tax or any kind of um state tax that has to be submitted, that's incredibly important because that can go through audit just like IRS audit. And sometimes the state audits can be um quite nasty. We've seen people go through that before. So those things you want to have those records correct. Um, and you know, you're obviously paying your bills and paying, you know, getting paid is very important. So I would rank them all quite high of importance in business. Uh so you know, and then of course the analytics is just an incredible add-on that we do to help our clients um based on you know my background and that we we just want to include value. So we bring that in as much as we can for the owners as well.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Got you. Okay. Yeah, well I love to ask the heavy hitters here. Yeah, no, I I had a and I had a feeling too that they were all gonna be, you know, they each own their respective right too. But I I always just love to hear to the further breakdown because you know, somebody may look at your services and may say, okay, well, I don't have any employees, so I just want to focus on bookkeeping planning and analytics. But as somebody who is looking to have employees, that's that forward thinking that we're talking about. You know, hey, you may not have any employees right now, but at some point you're gonna want to look to delegate, automate, move along, kind of pass this along. Well, what does that look like for when you build it? That way, when you finally get to that point, we're not having this conversation from scratch, or if we are, you're still coming into it knowing, hey, okay, well, these are the kind of the this is the way that I can go about this. This is what it would look like, this is what it would cost, this is how I would implement it, rather than everything kind of coming at you at once and it at that kind of intermingling with what you already have. Now, expansion. I look and see that you guys are almost in half of the country, almost in 25 states. So, what is how does how does one expand and what does that really look like with is it is it like a strategic thing that you guys are doing? Does it really just depend on where the business is being sought from? How does that look like? Because I I could imagine that pretty soon you guys are going to be taking up all 50 and then even moving internationally as well. So, how has the expansion journey and the growth really been for you?

SPEAKER_00 29:27

I am loving your research. Good job, Tamara. Yeah, so we do have a map on the site. We update it periodically uh with where we're at. And how the expansion works is honestly, we are at this time uh 100% referral-based. Uh, we have dabbled in a little bit of paid marketing this year. Uh, it's new for us past year five, but generally all of our business comes in referral. It is one of the reasons we haven't gone to tax, is because a lot of CPAs send us work. A lot of CFOs send us work. We have investors that send us work. Um, you know, our customers, our clients are constantly either expanding into new businesses or involving us in other companies that they know that they've referred us to. So our expansion has been just frankly by muscle effort. I mean, we are putting our money where our mouth is, we give good service, we have less than 1% turnover. And so when we have more opportunity, we take it in whatever state it's in. Uh, our employees are all US-based, but they're spread throughout the teams as well. So we love to get all over. It is a BHAG of the company in the next few years to have that map fully covered. So we are actively joining conferences and networks and you know, other professional services, networking industries to purposely cover that map. So I love that you picked up on that.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

My New York people, my Texas people, my North Carolina people, my Florida people, they are there. So Philly, we're coming. They I don't think PA was highlighted when I looked at it, but Philly, we're definitely on the way. Um, we're moving the grouping. But no, I love that and I love that that's and I love that in a sense, too, the it's coming full circle. You know, people are kind of coming in seeking what you guys do, seeing that as you said, and even as the website attests to, we flat out deliver, guaranteed. I'm pretty sure that's an exact quote. I have a photographic memory, y'all. So this is kind of why all of this is kind of just running through my head right now, it's kind of just making it easier for me. But no, I love to see that with companies, with coming in, you know, because I feel like that's something that we always ask of people, and sometimes people don't do it. I mean, nobody owes you anything per se. Let's let's say that. But some people do really do do their due diligence, and I think it even makes people want to do it more when the experience was paramount, when the experience was just seamless through. So that also speaks to a testament time and time again of the work that you're doing, of the personable approach that you guys have, and of like you said, you're gonna make sure that you get it right the first time. So we're not doing this over and over and over again because we can we we understand what one bad accounting experience can be. It can be a bad accounting experience, it can be a loss of money, it can be kind of bad for the business. You know, it can really have a trickle-down effect on a lot of different things. So, as you said, you want to make sure that everything is clear-cut and concise that very first time around. So I love that. And I'm obviously I'm I'm wishing all the best for the extension. I know that 50 is gonna be here before we know it. So before we um before we, I guess, get into like any last words, any kind of like things that you may even want to leave for the people out there. When we think about forward thinking, as we've spoken about quite a few times now, I also, as I said, I think about that while businesses, while entrepreneurs, while creatives, we're always kind of here, we're in the moment, we're doing the interview, we're talking, we're going back and forth, answering questions and educating. There are there are things circling our mind now. There, as I said, I'm thinking about how I'm gonna bring this podcast January 2025. You know what I'm saying? So for the people that I know are gonna be one tapping into this episode, but wanting to follow along the journey, wanting to explore and even consult with some of what you guys are doing, what can they look forward to? Is there anything that you guys are looking to move into? Is there anything that you're looking to debut or as we kind of get because tax season, I feel like it's if tax season to me is always around the corner, like it's just always here. And granted, y'all, they don't file taxes, right? But the preparation for tax season is it's pair, it's it's a lot that goes into that. It's not just, you know, I spoke with a woman who was a CPA who told me that you should be preparing for taxes all year round, just so that so by the time that you're ready or the time that it's there, you got everything that you need, not scrambling, not not calling, where's my W-2, where's this, checking the mail, getting mad, you know. So without spoiling any surprises, without debuting anything that we don't need to just quite yet, what can the people look forward to? What does it kind of look like forward thinking when it comes to you and what the team are doing?

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Yeah. So in the next year, we've just done our planning and next one to three years, we're really focusing on a lot of education. We're gonna, we're, we just hired a producer, we're putting together a lot of what do they call it, edutainment. Uh, we're we're just working on putting our brand out so more people know that we're there and we really want to help them and we are a different option than the status quo. Uh, we're going to come in, we're gonna kill it for them. So where we're going is we're making our voice loud and we're really putting our brand out there. We're going to conferences. Like I said, we're filming, we're putting out content, we're really making sure that people in all 50 states know that we're available to them. You know, we even have already have somebody in Hawaii. Um, I'll be happy to go to Alaska. I've been there before. So, you know, we're we'll take it all and eventually we will also expand our services. Um, I don't have a timeline on that, but we've been asked by many of the clients that just want to have more service with us to go into tax and manage their taxes. You know, um, it's on the horizon, but we'll all in good time. So the other thing we're working on is uh acquisitions and that benefits the current clients because the more back ends of businesses that we see, the more valuable we are to each client. Because especially the more CPAs that we engage with, we know how they're doing things. We know the questions they're asking, we know what they're looking for, and we know whether your CPA is serving that, or whether there are opportunities in your business of maybe another business in the same industry is maybe doing things more efficient or has a software you haven't seen that you'd benefit from. So we're really getting out there trying to get ourselves exposed and bring that value to our clients versus maybe an in-house bookkeeper who only ever sees one company and just doesn't have that view to bring you added value.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Slowly but surely becoming that Swiss Army knife that everybody needs. You know, I think that once again it speaks to this is not just a bragging session, y'all, but the work just speaks for itself. But obviously, with people wanting y'all to amplify your services, I think there's a bigger message behind that, it's a bigger message and saying, hey, I've already gotten a great experience, professional work, and I'm on the right track here. Why do I need to then go restart with somebody else if I could just keep this all in-house? So it also just goes to show you that you know, they people want y'all to keep doing what y'all are doing, but we want more. The job is never done, the job is never finished in a sense. So, you know, but with that expansion, you also have to be strategic and make sure that, you know, as we spoke about in the very beginning, that culture isn't being altered, that that, you know, because that workplace, that making sure that people are showing up every day, loving what they're doing, interacting with these clients so that we can continue to build and scale is is is just as monumental as anything else that goes into it. But obviously, you know, just in speaking to the website and speaking to even the clients that you have now, the ones that are coming currently, the referrals and everything, the fact that you guys are completely referral-based right now and are still moving and have hit 25 different places, you know, that's pretty amazing. So I love to see that, I love to hear that. But obviously, you know, we are rooting, we are um excited to see more, excited to see, you know, what other services are coming. And obviously, you know, we while we don't necessarily always have to place a timeline on things, it's good for people to just know that hey, they're doing this right now, they're involved in this, but hey, by the time, you know, I may need a service, they're also gonna have this on top of that. So it gives people two something to think about and an approach to take when that time comes. Now, before we officially close things out, before we do the call to action, before we let everybody know where they can find you, tap in with you, everything like that. Do you have any last words for people out there, whether it be other business owners, entrepreneurs, people in the finance, accounting space, people with no knowledge of it whatsoever, anything that you want to leave for the people coming across this episode in any form or fashion?

SPEAKER_00 37:37

Yes, thank you. I would just say please don't forget ownership, entrepreneurship does not have to be lonely. And it also doesn't have to be as stressful as people make it. You know, there is so much information in your data that people are not utilizing. And if you make database decisions, there's no reason for the anxiety and stress that generally can come with a lot of the big decisions, like when do I need to hire and so on. So my um ask would just be find your community and lean on them because they will help you. It doesn't even have to be a paid service provider, just find other entrepreneurs. My favorite thing in life is to speak to other entrepreneurs just for my own enjoyment because I'm here to help and serve. So it does not have to be someone that you're hiring, you know, that you have engaged already in services. Just find like-minded people and ask for help and don't be afraid to have community.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Come on, y'all. Don't be afraid of it. Don't be, it's it's nothing wrong with asking questions. I I just did it for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, you know. So it's just, it is what it is. Because a lot of y'all, which I don't realize is that I'm one here because yes, I'm a podcaster, I'm a host, but I'm trying to learn too. I'm trying to, you know, I'm at some point gonna need accounting services. I'm at some point trying to build a team. I'm gonna need to do the but as I told y'all, I had to Google a lot of these grant questions because I had no idea what they were asking me and what they were talking about. I even had to email some of them. And they did give me a pass to leave some things blank, but it was just like, you know, the fact that I hadn't even, I felt like there was a whole world that I wasn't exposed to yet, just goes to show that I know for sure that I'm not the only one. And you know, I've I've I'll be celebrating five years in November. Now we've been here for five years, but like I said, it wasn't until we LLC'd in January that it really kind of put me on that business mind, on that business track. So you said a lot of very, very, very important and essential things throughout this interview today. But arguably to me, this is always the most important part because this is where, as you said, as a company, this is where we ask people to really put their money where their mouth is and not necessarily spend any money, but just really put your work where you say it is. You know, if if you really want your business to grow and to scale and you want to make sure that your employees are happy and that the workplace culture and everything like that is where it should be, now this is the most important part. So for the people listening to this interview, for the people curious, whether they want to follow along the journey with you, whether they want to be there for the new service debut, whether they even want to kind of ask some questions within their own business. And you've said some interesting things today that they kind of just want to dive a little bit deeper into. What are the best places to reach you in the team, social media, website? Give us everything you got.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

We're on all the socials, you know, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, all the places, Tocota Accounting, you know, real simple. We own them all. And then our website is totaaccounting.com. So we're here, we're available, you know, and and we just want to help ultimately.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

So and as we said, y'all, you know, we didn't discuss anything here as far as pricing, as far as, you know, we didn't get into plans and everything like that. This is really just the education, as she said, even the edutainment that we're working towards, the producers in the work. So, and I love to hear that. I'm I'm excited now to see what y'all carry from a content perspective. But ultimately, you know, as we even spoke to this interview, I got some of my questions answered today, but I know people listening, you know, there were some curiosities, there were some things that we want to tap into, explore a little further, even for you as someone who may have been shying away from that respect of your business, or somebody who looks at taxes from a fearful notion, you know, it doesn't have to be like that, or it can be to a thing of we feel prepared, we feel well informed, we feel educated, and we feel confident enough to move. So to everybody, to the team at Dakota, to you taking the time to hop on this podcast, to even doing your research on me and vet and me just the same. I appreciate that. I love that. Thank you so much for joining us, and to everybody who continuously listens, who supports us from the live event to the grants, to everything that we're doing and moving and grooving. As y'all say, I'm taking y'all to December and January with us in 2025. But thank y'all, I love y'all. This has been another episode of the Down to Business Podcast here with Tamar Turner.