EP11: Born in Russia to American Entrepreneur | Max Emma | Booxkeeping

In this episode of The Millionaire Choice Podcast, Tony talks with Max Emma, the CEO of Bookskeeping, about his remarkable journey from being an immigrant from the Soviet Union to becoming a successful entrepreneur in the United States. His story is not just about personal triumph but also about the strategic insights he gained along the way. Max emphasizes the importance of having robust systems and processes in place, which he believes are crucial for business success. By documenting procedures, businesses can save time and increase profits, a lesson Max learned through his experiences in franchising. He explains how franchise models can significantly reduce risks and enhance success rates, offering a structured path for entrepreneurs to follow. Max's insights into the critical role of bookkeeping and financial management highlight the need for businesses to focus on their core competencies while outsourcing other functions to drive growth.

In addition to sharing his personal story, Max delves into the concept of white-label bookkeeping, which leverages existing relationships to expand services. He provides practical strategies for identifying and capitalizing on new opportunities, drawing from his own experiences of unexpected pivots, such as starting a bookkeeping franchise. Max also offers valuable tips for managing finances, including real-time cash flow monitoring and quick resolution of discrepancies. His recommended business books, such as Building a StoryBrand 2.0 by Donald Miller and 10X is easier than 2X by Dan Sullivan & Ben Hardy, provide further guidance for entrepreneurs looking to scale their businesses. Through his journey and insights, Max Emma inspires and equips listeners with the knowledge needed to navigate the complexities of business growth and franchising.

TAKEAWAYS

• Max Emma shares his inspiring immigration story from the Soviet Union to the United States and how it shaped his entrepreneurial mindset
• The importance of systems and processes in business success—how documenting procedures can save time and boost profits
• How franchise models reduce risk and increase success rates—what it really takes to succeed in franchising
• The critical role of bookkeeping and financial management for small and franchised businesses
• Why focusing on core competencies (like bookkeeping) and outsourcing others can lead to growth
• The concept of white-label bookkeeping and how it leverages existing relationships to expand services
• Max’s recommended business books: Building a StoryBrand 2.0 by Donald Miller and 10X is easier than 2X by Dan Sullivan & Ben Hardy

CONNECT WITH MAX EMMA AT booxkeeping.com or booxkeepingfranchise.com

Resources & Links:

• Building a StoryBrand 2.0 by Donald Miller
• 10X is easier than 2X by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy
• Franchise with Max

Get Business Smart Coaching helps entrepreneurs and leaders build better businesses and better lives on purpose with purpose.

Learn more about Get Business Smart Coaching at TonyBradshaw.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, welcome back to the Get Business Smart Podcast. And today we're gonna, and for a real treat, we're gonna be talking to Max Emma. He is the CEO and co-founder of Bookskeeping, if I got that right, Max. And uh he's a it's a books keep bookkeeping for franchisees, for people that own franchises. So bookkeeping service, bookkeeping service for franchises. So a little bit to know about Max. He's a certified uh franchise executive, been doing it for a long time. If you're not familiar with franchises, you will be after we get done with his show today. Great opportunity to start a small business. Um and then he's in established in eight countries. So one of the most international guests we've had on the show, so across these different eight countries. And then something to know about Max, and this I found very fascinating in the pre-show, is that Max immigrated from the Soviet Union when he was 18 years old, and he's been in the United States for 33 years. So uh came from a land that was maybe a little constricted on opportunities to the land of opportunity, and now he's got multiple businesses that he runs. So welcome to the show, Max. Thank you, Tony. It's great to be here. Yeah, so before we get going a little bit, I loved your your your story because a lot of times people get into business or they, you know, find their self in the wealth or in money, or the people listening or watching from the outside, they they think that people have been uh born with a silver spoon, or they've been born in a place of opportunity. And the reality is a lot of times that's not true. Most of the time that's not true. It's really just hardworking people making something out of their life, and you're a great example of that. So why don't you share just a little bit about your journey into the United States and how you kind of got your business start?

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Well, when you come to a new place without the language, and when you're 18, you're pretty much lost. I mean, I don't care if you move from US to Canada, you're probably gonna get the same feeling. Never mind moving from the country that did not speak English to an English-speaking country from the former Soviet Union to the United States. As you said, it was completely different. And the timing wasn't the same as now when people just watch a lot of TV and YouTube and are familiar with the city before they go in. We didn't know much about, you know, uh San Diego in the US when we were when I was moving with my family, uh my parents and my grandparents. So we were moving forever. That was the end of one life and the beginning of a different life. It was so-called point of no return. Uh I remember when I came, I had to figure out how to learn English because I spoke a little bit and I knew with time I'm gonna get better, but I did not have time. I had to go find a job, I had to go to school, continue my education, get my degree. So I came up with my own know-how system, how to learn English. Somebody told me that the difficult, most difficult part was to speak on a phone and understand people on the phone. So I started calling credit card companies, asking them how I can get a credit card, rather how why I can't get one, because obviously I have a credit history. But back then, all the back offices were located in the United States. So I was getting two to three hours of English practice with real native speakers. I would call Visa, and after 40 minutes, they would give up on me. I would call MasterCard, I would call American Express, and then you call different banks every day, and I was getting like a couple hours of practicing every day, and somehow the language came. I don't even remember how it happened. Like I did not understand the TV, and then all of a sudden I turned on the TV and I understand what the hell they're talking about. So I remember that was that was a great feeling. I mean, right now it's gonna be hard to practice that because you're probably gonna get, you know, to different countries to support versus the United States. But back then everything was here in the US.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Well, that's amazing. Like, so innovative for somebody to think about like, hey, you're I'm gonna call the credit card companies to learn English. I've never heard that one before, so that's pretty innovative when you did that. So you were here, you were 18 years old, your parents didn't speak, your grandparents didn't speak English, you become the English translator for the family. So that puts a lot of responsibility, I think, on somebody that's 18 years old. I mean, you're you're basically the information gateway for the family at that time. What did that look like? I mean, how did that translate?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Well, it just makes you an adult way faster because you know, I had a great childhood. I mean, you know, yes, we were limited in number of TV channels we had when we were kids, but it did not, you know, limit us in like communication with uh friends and going and uh you know spending time outside and so so we we we had a great childhood. So Soviet Union or not, yes. I mean, the first time I went to Disneyland I was uh you know 19 or so, but uh um we were fine without going to Disneyland. You know, you don't know what you don't know, but my my my my my point is that um it's just completely different. Like you are stepping into a completely different world, and you're like, okay, I have to take care of it. I never worked before I came to the United States, and here I realized I have to get a job, I have to support myself, I have to pay for you know buying a car and then paying for my guest and then eventually going to school. So I started looking for a job probably within four weeks of being in the United States, just literally going shop to shop, whatever was walking distance because I didn't have a car back then. Just asking, hey, are you looking for anybody? Are you looking for anybody? And then eventually just found a job busting the table, and then that led me to a better job, which was at Costco, and I stayed there for five years while going to school, and that worked out.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yeah. So so did you just tell me you went to Disneyland at 19? So you came to America at 18, and within one year you made it to Disney World?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Well, I mean, I I think I turned uh 19 soon after I came. Um, actually, you know what? I still was 18 now I'm thinking about. Yeah, I was still 18, but you know, it was close close to getting 19. But uh that that actually was the most um unbelievable experience. I mean, I didn't care about the stores, the number, you know, of different types of you know, fruits and vegetables 12 months out of the year, because obviously we did not have that back then. And by the way, right now the former Soviet Union is completely different. You go to a store, it's just the science in Russian. You can buy strawberries, you know, 12 months out of the year. But when I was growing up, you could only buy strawberries for two months when they were in season, and then you would have to wait another 10 months before you know they'll come again. It was totally normal. We're like, yeah, how else? But here strawberries getting delivered from all over the world 12 months out of the year. And then same as obviously right now where I come from, but uh it was different. But Disneyland just completely blew blew my mind.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

I remember I was like, wow, that that that was that was so well I wouldn't park on this, but I I just find it fascinating because you're talking about two different cultures, you know, the Soviet Union, who at that point was probably still recovering from you know a lot of scarcity, a lot of control, a lot of I don't want to say tyranny, but a lot of you know, just restrictions, I guess is the way to say. It wasn't a place of abundance, right? And uh in America, here you are, you drop in, you got these this crazy like wonderland, you know, which is what it was. So going through your head, then we'll move on, is like what was what was so fascinating about it to you? Because I my first time at Disney World, I think I was like six years old.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Well, for me it was just, you know, that it's a holiday and it's uh magic created for people. Because I mean I understood even being 18 that there were a lot of people involved to make that happen, but it's just how everybody was there to make your happiness their first priority, it was just complete that's what blew me away. You know, it's not uh um you know the rides were great, of course, and then the park and then the parade, but the whole experience when you walk in and you just you know, till the moment you leave, from somebody helping you to the parking your car and then till they let you out of the parking lot at the end. Everybody knows what to do. It's like a well-oiled machine. And that was the same thirty plus years ago without the internet, without AI, but now it's just obviously I made it a lot, but still their main priority is to make you happy. That's their number one. That's why Disney has a university, and a lot of companies actually send their employees to learn from them how to make customer service number one priority.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We had when I worked at Dave Ramsey's, that's one of the things that we got into was some of their customer service. I actually have a friend here in town that worked in Disney's customer service uh group for a number of years and and wrote some of their manuals and things like that. So that's pretty amazing. But I think it's cool. All right, so let's move on and uh to something else. Let's talk about when you first got into business. You came over. Uh you said you went to school for four years, uh, and then you studied finance. Finance. And then you left that behind. What's that? And then you left that behind. You didn't stick with it.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Well, I worked for corporate America for four years. One of the largest employees in San Diego. I was doing really well getting promoted, and they were actually gonna pay for my MBA, but then I just got bored. And I also realized that corporate life is not for me. I realized that I'm really bad and kissing butts. I was constantly kissing the wrong butts. So I decided to leave it behind and gave them two-week notice, which everybody look at me like I'm crazy. And I joined small family business with three employees. It was a landscaping route, like literally one route, one truck, people going around and you know, mowing lawns. And then I came in, I got my contractor's license, and soon the company became a construction, landscape construction, and we grew from three employees to 96, and we were doing really well. I learned on a go, uh, because I had no idea. I knew nothing about uh you know landscaping or running a business for that matter. But uh uh we've grown, we've been growing like crazy, and then recession started of eight or nine, and we were overcapitalized, we had a lot of equipment that we had to pay for, and no new homes were being built for us to do the landscaping in their backyards. So we got stuck with all of that, and in construction, you have to personally guarantee most of the equipment and loans. So I got hit hard and went into bankruptcy. Not only business bankruptcy, but personal bankruptcy. So with one baby at home and one on away, I can tell you, Tony, that wasn't the fun experience to say the least. I did get lucky that nobody was hiding at the time. I didn't look at it that way that I was lucky. I saw this is it, because I was almost gave up my entrepreneurship, saying, you know what? I tried it for, you know, what what was it, uh probably six, seven years, and then didn't work. Okay, I'm gonna go back to a job market. But nobody was hiding. So I didn't have a choice but start another business, and that time we were more successful and sold it eventually for profit. But while I was running both businesses, I was thinking with my co-founder, uh, who was my wife at a time, uh, that hey, you know, it would be nice if we had a bookkeeping company, you know, looking at our finances on a regular business, on a regular basis. And that's when the idea of bookkeeping started. And look, I was a village idiot with bachelor in finance, she had masters in accounting. So we both understood the numbers really well. We just were so busy that we did not have time to concentrate on that. And eventually that's how bookskeeping started, out of the garage. I was running uh a maintenance company and uh bookskeeping, and eventually sold the maintenance company to concentrate 100% on bookkeeping.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Yeah, and so this was around uh 0809 when you started it?

SPEAKER_01 12:16

0809, it's when we started the second business. We closed the construction, we started the maintenance business, and then bookskeeping started 2011-2012. But then 2013 I sold the business, the other one, and then 2014 got an office, and that's when the growth of the company really started.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Awesome, awesome. Now, how many people do you actually have working for you now in bookskeeping?

SPEAKER_01 12:41

So I have several companies. One is Bookskeeping that does bookkeeping for over 100 franchise brands and small businesses throughout the United States, and also I'm a franchiseur of my concept bookkeeping. We're the only bookkeeping franchise in the US. So we have uh uh 17 franchisees throughout the United States and it's growing. We just made the Entrepreneur 500 uh franchise list. It's like a Fortune 500 for franchises, and I'm very grateful and excited about it. It's uh we're one of the smallest on the list, but we made it into the middle of the list, which you know, God knows what uh they use, but they have like 150 data points. But you know, I'm not questioning it, I'm just you know grateful we we dare it. That's that's a great third-party validation. You can't buy yourself into that. This is actually they they do the research, they interview, so that's what Enpreneur Magazine decided. I'm like, great, I'm I'm in. Uh but so between both of the businesses and the employees and franchisees and their employees, I'd say probably close to 40 people, if not more. That's good. Just yeah, but but they're not all direct reports. I mean, the franchisees, I look at them as my business partners, but yet they are coming to us for for questions, for challenges. So still that's something that you know you have to deal with all the time.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Yeah, yeah. The bookkeeping side of the business is hard because I know numbers, but I don't like doing them. And uh so it's kind of like I don't want to I don't want to do that. Let me h let me outsource that, get that off my plate. So you mentioned you have several businesses. You got we'll come back to bookkeeping a little bit more and talk about it, but what are some of the other ones you have in place?

SPEAKER_01 14:26

So bookkeeping as the bookkeeping provider, bookskeeping as a franchise, and then also a few years ago, I realized that not everybody was a good match for bookskeeping franchise, and I just left them hanging. So I opened a franchise brokerage. So if somebody is not a good match for bookkeeping franchise, I have over 600 franchises to choose from, and I help people to pick the right one, giving them the advice. My services are completely free. We don't charge for it. We get commissions from franchise or if somebody ends up buying, but I actually take part of my commission and share it with my uh candidates and also pay for nine months of their sales training. So I do I do have I do have teams in all of the businesses. I want to be very clear. I would not be able to do it myself. And for a while I was a big micromanager. I was like trying to do everything myself. Learning not to do it was the best thing that happened to me.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Yeah, it's hard to let go of. I just uh did a social media post about are you an operator in your business or your business owner? And a lot of uh people that own business are actually more operators, they don't actually step out of the business which they need to, and that's that restricts the growth of business. So uh while we're doing that, why don't you uh just do it for the audience that's listening, for the people that are trying to get business smart? Why don't you just talk about what a franchise is and explain that for the audience?

SPEAKER_01 15:44

So the franchise in general, first of all, people think that McDonald's was the first franchise. It actually started about a hundred years before with the Singer sewing machine. That was the first franchise in the U.S. Uh but right now a lot of small businesses in the United States are franchises. There are 4,000 active franchise systems in the U.S. at a time. And usually every year, thousand goes away, thousand coming back. Thousand goes away, on average thousand coming back. So about four thousand systems in everything, from medical offices to, of course, restaurants, which is most obvious to insurance companies, bookkeeping companies, tax services, you name it. So a lot of the kids, kids training, uh senior help, and you know, whatever it is, you can find a franchise. And in some markets, it's oversaturated. For example, the senior in home care, there are sixty-eight franchises in the United States in that. Just doing exactly the same thing. They're different. They're gonna claim that one is different than the other ones, but literally they provide the same services. One bookkeeping company, but you know, it depends. I mean, restaurants, I don't even know how many are out there. It's probably 30%, if not 40%, of all franchises are food-based. So franchise is a blueprint that tells you how to run the business. So technically, you don't have to be a professional in this business. After the training, assuming training is right and sufficient, you should be able to open the business and run it successfully. You just have to follow the blueprint. There are a lot of factors. I mean, some people are more profitable than others, some people break even faster than others. That's normal. Uh a lot of factors are not depending on you. But I'll give you a great example. Uh, a few months before COVID uh started, uh, I was at the international franchise expo that I go every year. Everybody was talking about fitness franchises. Like you had to be an idiot not to open a fitness franchise. That was the hottest, you know, thing on the market. And guess what happened a few months later? They all closed for a while. They were not allowed to open. The big guys stayed and they became stronger because they started offering online classes and consolidated and giving people three months of you know uh membership, whatever it was. But for the smaller guys who were just getting started, they could not do that. So they just, you know, closed their doors. And you know, then later the senior care became the hottest thing. And then it slowed down because they just ran out of uh talent to do the work. It was, you know, all the 68 franchises and small mom and pop shops were going after the same talent. So that was that was the issue. So it it's changing. I don't believe you have to be a super professional to do that, but you know, you have to like the industry you're going into. Like if you are allergic to dogs, maybe dog grooming business would not be a good idea for you.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah, for sure. Dogs, that's hilarious. Yeah, so the the franchises, what you basically do, and guys listen to the show, what that means is you've got a company, let's say Subway, for example, they have a brand, they have a system, and when you're running a business, you're just running a system. It is a money-making system. Some systems are better than others, they have higher profit margins, some have low profit margins. Restaurants typically have a lower profit margin than most businesses, so you have to create more revenue through those. Maybe you have to have one, two, or three locations to actually make a decent amount of money. But you buy into these things and you're gonna pay a different fee. Like I think I looked at Snap Fitness back in the day, Max. It was like $50,000 to do a Snap Fitness location. But then you look at Subway, and I think Subway, some of them are a quarter million, some of them are $350,000. It it varies, you know. I think McDonald's is what, a million dollars to get into McDonald's or something like that. These numbers are all over the place, but it really depends on the establishment, the brand, how big the brand is, what they have. And then uh you go in and you just implement their processes and procedures and their food, and you buy their food, you sell their food. And that's the system. Now, uh one of the guys we had on the show is he said, I think it's like 90% of small businesses fail within a period of like eight to nine years, ten years. But in the franchise world, Max, like eighty percent of franchise owners are actually successful. So is that is that the an accurate statistic?

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Well, I don't have the exact statistic, but it sounds about right, give or take, because look, I mean, franchise not only teaching you what to do, but teaching you what not to do. And it's so in finance, there is a term called opportunity cost. It's uh what can you do with your time versus figuring it out how to run this business. I always use an example with pizza franchise. I mean, you can figure it out how to run uh a pizza restaurant, but think about how many pies you're gonna burn before you figure out um how much cheese you have to put in, for how many minutes, and how many people you need to have in the kitchen and what the lay down of layout of the kitchen would be. So you have to do trials and errors, and some are gonna be very expensive trial and errors. If you already build the kitchen to find out the system is not working, I just read an article that one of the pizza franchises not so large. They created a robot that was doing all of the work and they like automated 90% of the product line, and they were like so happy. One thing they forgot to automate is the actual last person who would get pizza and put them in a box. And so the robots were doing it so fast that they just didn't have enough people to actually box the pizzas, and that was so they had to rebuild the whole system. I don't remember the name, but it was just a great case study. So you have to think about all this stuff. So a lot of people can figure it out, but how long is it gonna take them? If it's gonna take them like a year and a half, why don't save this year and a half and just go and become profitable profitable from one.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Absolutely. Yeah. So so the processes and the systems are huge. You want to uh have those figured out. So what's interesting, I've been from the other side of it, which is small business, not In a franchise. And it's very interesting because you may be 10 years into a company as a non-business, a non-franchise owner, as a standard startup, startup from scratch, and not really have very many processes in place or very many systems in place. You're just kind of still working in an ad hoc model where you're just kind of like, you know, a little bit here, a little bit there, and you're figuring it out as you go. And that's very painful. It's very time consuming. And that's why you get this big differentiator between small business startups that fail versus franchises that succeed.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Or uh from experience, I can tell you sometimes you do have these processes, you just don't know that you have them. When uh we've decided to make book skipping a franchise, part of any franchising is called so-called brand manual. So it's your Bible, sort of speak, that just tells you how to run the business from before you start to the everyday of the business. So it's just what what to do. And you know, usually people hire a company to help you write it. And I'm like, you know what? Why do I need one? We run a bookkeeping company, we'll do it ourselves. I mean, so I interviewed the team, we put it together. I got 30 or 35 pages of you know, how to process this. And I'm like, that cannot be right. We know more than that, but I couldn't get it from myself or anybody else. So then I said, all right, we're gonna hire the company. We did hire the company, they interviewed us, they put it together. I think the first version was close to 700 pages. So I guess we knew more than 30 plus pages, but we just didn't know, you know, we had it in us. So that's why I always tell people you might have processes, but you just don't document it, and you just don't think it's a process. Yeah, I check my email in the morning. It's normal to you, but you need to put it in that yes, you have to check your email in the morning, you have to respond, you have to listen to your voicemail. So that's all part of how to run the business. I know it's basic steps, but they have to be documented.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Yeah, that's that's interesting when you think about that. It's just some stuff you do on autopilot, but yet it is part of the process and how the company gets run, even if it's a small minutiae like that, which is awesome. All right, so let's switch gears a little bit. You got bookskeeping. Let's talk about bookskeeping a little bit more. You're a business owner. Maybe books bookkeeping is not your strength. You're doing it anyway. You shouldn't be doing it, somebody else should be doing it. So let's talk about what that looks like for different companies. You've got franchises doing it, and they're not doing it for other franchises mostly. They're probably doing it for just anybody, like small business owners and things like that. So, what does that look like? The service you provide, what the clients are actually needing from you.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

So we stick to only providing bookkeeping services. And it was a business decision. We do not do anything, it has to do with taxes. We do not provide um CFO work, we do not provide controller work, even though it would be great and we can upsell the clients. But I realized that there are a lot of players that offer everything. So and I said, how about we're just gonna do one thing but do it well? And that's why the company name is Book Skeeping. Think of us as the factory that provides a financial statement. So here is your PLA balance sheet at the end of the month, next. Your P ⁇ L balance sheet, next. We do offer meetings with clients and we will explain to them what the numbers are, but we're not gonna look at their historical data and say, well, your gross margin went down by 1.1%, and the industry has actually been going up by 1.5%, so something is off, or you spend more money on office supplies, so you this is a red flag. So we don't do that purposely because this way we get a lot of referrals from CPA firms, we get a lot of referrals from CFOs and decision makers, because we led them to make these decisions, but they all need clean set of books to base their decisions on Thompson.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

So yeah, so you're you're handling the invoicing maybe, or looking at the invoicing, you're looking at the in-and-out cash flow things.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

We can as an add-on service, we can pay bills, we can create invoices, but majority of clients just get monthly, sometimes weekly, sometimes quarterly uh financial statements. And look, I think uh business owners making huge mistakes when they say, well, my CPA is handling it for me. It's part of the service. And like, and how often do you get your financials? Well, before I file my taxes. So my answer is so you are running your company in the dark for 11 months out of the 12. So if I'm a CPA and sometime in February I give you financials for the last year, you can't go back and change it. I think you have to look at your financials way more often than that. I mean, again, monthly at the minimum, but for some parts of your financials, you should look on a daily basis. You don't want to like I check my bank information uh pretty much on a daily basis. I don't reconcile it, but you know, if there is a fraud or something else, I want to know about it now. And I've actually had it before when we just got charged by a large national firm because they had a card on file and uh they um I don't know, something happened with their system. They ended up charging close to $10,000 in smaller invoices for about two months. And I just didn't see it because it was smaller amounts, went to the credit card. And suddenly I'm just noticed something is off. I'm like, what do we do with them? And it's like one of the biggest players. So we had to pull the history, I had to talk to a lot of people, and we figured out we did not approve it, and it happened. They gave us the mining back. That wasn't the issue. But it's been a few months before I noticed that. And if I would wait a year, they would say, well, sorry, it's been a year, we're not gonna go back and give you the money.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Immediacy of that. I had to just to give you guys an example that you guys listen to the show, give you an example. I got billed by GoDaddy for a bit of money the other day for a few domain names, and I didn't want to renew them. And I was like, you know, I just I don't want those domain names. And I was I was really uh within about three days from the time they billed me, but I caught it within three days, and so they actually refunded my money to me. It was actually the time they initiated it was two days before that, but the time it hit my account and actually went through was three days. So they at first they fought me on the ref the return, but then because it was dated, I was able to prove the fact that hey, you didn't you guys didn't even hit my bank account until three days three days ago, so you need to give me my money back. And they did, they ended up coming through for me, but it was a hassle. I had to fight with the customer service rep, deal with all that. But if I'd waited a month, not even not a shot, wouldn't have had a shot at getting it back. You're spot on when you're talking about the example that so we're talking about a clear set of books, just very clean. So you're saying, hey, from the time the money transacts, whether that's a building, you know, it's getting built or rather it's uh, you know, you're paying something, you guys provide that clean set of books, which is your inflows and outlows, outflows. Does that also include like uh payroll stuff like that?

SPEAKER_01 29:12

So we reconcile payroll, like uh usually when you use a large payroll provider like KDP or paychecks, they just pull one amount once every two weeks, so every week, and that's it. We make sure that this amount is distributed between the direct labor, indirect labor, taxes, fees, so it all goes in the right categories. We do provide payroll services uh uh as part of bookkeeping. Uh we have a bookkeeping payroll, and then we work with a lot of large uh companies. We are a partner of Intuit and several other firms. But uh just payroll by itself, I will not take it. Um and also we're very strict about the privacy data and about you know security. So I don't want my employees to know anybody's social security number. So we will not go in and discuss that with somebody or enter the numbers. We let them go in, and then when we process the payroll, we're just gonna see the mask number with the last two digits. So we won't know the data birth, we won't know the social security number, and it's done purposely. Yes, we do have uh insurance, we have cyber insurance, we have errors and emissions, but something goes wrong. Uh I don't want people to come in and say book skipping is the one who leaked the data, even if it wasn't part of it. I mean, we actually had one franchise that their information got leaked, and they immediately blamed us. They just said, Well, you guys, it happened when you guys started, and so by that we know it was you who leaked, and that was uh payroll, there were some uh charges, and I had to explain to them a process. I'm like, how could we do that if we don't know the information that we need to pull it out? And we don't have a full access, we have limited access. No, it's still you, then explain to him a second time. And then they understood they don't have a case. It wasn't us. I don't know what happened, who is responsible, but definitely was not us.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

That's interesting. Yeah, it's people that don't understand stuff, they just want to blame somebody, so they pick you, which is good. So uh well, that's awesome, Max. That's really cool uh to see that you're doing that. You know, I think bookkeeping is probably one of the most important things a small business owner needs. And a lot of us don't really it's not really high on the radar, I guess, if you want to say that. People don't manage their books every month and keep them up. So what what kind of words of wisdom, final parting words of wisdom would you give to the audience when it comes to all this stuff and what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 31:40

So in my life in particular, one business uh or maybe one failure leads to something else that is always, you know, next step. And I believe that you can only connect dots looking backwards. So you don't know where the life is gonna take you. So the way I live my life, if I see a door in front of me and it's not locked, I'm gonna look inside and see what's inside. It might not be my door, I might not go inside, but I will not miss any opportunities. Just by doing that, bookskeeping a while back created a concept of white label bookkeeping, where we actually now do bookkeeping for a lot of companies under their name and umbrella. So the client doesn't know it's done by bookkeeping, but it's done, they think it's done by the CPA firm or by this consulting firm. But in fact, it's done by our employees or our franchisees. I want to argue that we created the whole uh idea of white label bookkeeping. I mean, it's now many companies are offering it, but still we are organically on number one, number two positions in Google, you know, for that category. And that happened just by me seeing a sign on a door. I walked in and I made it up while I was waiting to meet with the CEO. That was like literally, if I was just I was looking for a restaurant, seriously, I was passing by and I was, you know, consulting for him. I'm like, I'll see what they do. I just walked in and they're like, well, wait here. I mean, your CEO might be interested in meeting with you. And I'm like, what am I gonna talk to her about? And then I just made it in five minutes while I was making it. So again, my point is you don't know what you don't know, so look for opportunities. And eventually it might not be the right one, but it's gonna lead you to another one. I mean, us looking for a bookkeeper for landscaping company led us to opening bookkeeping. That was never thought before that. But you know, going to bankruptcy was the first thing. Well, we wish we had a bookkeeping company. We should open one. And then eventually we did.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

That's awesome, man. I love the inspiration there. It's really inspiring. So yeah, you know, just look for opportunities. Walk around with a mind of abundance, a mindset of opportunity, and you'll come, good things will happen to you. All right, Max. So last thing, we got a couple books. So, what are your two best business books that you recommend to the audience today?

SPEAKER_01 33:54

So I'm always reading books, I'm always learning. I'm more an audiobook guy, but there are a couple of books that I would recommend, and I read them, you know, the hard copies. So, one that is important for me right now, because we are going through complete rebranding. We're refreshing the brand as is. I mean, we're literally coming out with the new brand everything in the next couple of weeks. I mean, still bookskeeping, we're still gonna be doing bookkeeping, but it's just gonna be fresher, better looking, sexier, and so the book that was very helpful to me to do that, it's Building a Story Brand 2.0 by Donald Miller. So um, the reason it's 2.0 because he had an older version at some point, and then I think he just created a new version, which has more social media and stuff. So again, it's Donald Miller Building a Story Brand 2.0, and then my personal Bible that took me to the next level. It's called 10X is Easier Than 2X by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy. So this is the book I probably read seven times, if not more, and I keep coming back to this book. I am part of Strategic Coach, which is, you know, an organization that Dan Sullivan created, and it's helping entrepreneurs to take their businesses and their life to the next level. I attribute a lot to this organization. So when I joined, it actually, you know, I stopped micromanaging, I started delegating, and that's when I started opening other businesses. But this book in particular, if I actually bought probably 100 books and gave it to everybody in my networking organizations and my, you know, business colleagues, and everybody who reads it, like, oh my God, this is just, you know, mind-blowing. And the idea is very basic that if you want to double your business, you have one strategy. But if you want to 10x it, this working longer hours will not get you there. You just have to think how to do it differently. And it's a simple concept, but a lot of people don't think this way. They're like, well, I'm making the money, so I'll just go and work extra four hours and I'm gonna make more. Yes, you will make more, but that's not gonna be 10x more. It's gonna double your income, which is wonderful. But if that's your goal, you can do it. But they're only 24 hours a day. So at some point you're gonna run out of this hours.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Yeah, the total ability to scale through strategy. I totally agree with you on that. Is uh if you if you want a 2x, you can build a plan to get a 2x. If you want to get 10x, you can build a plan to do a 10x, but it's not the same plan, it's very different. So well, Max man, it's been a pleasure having you on the show. How do people find out about you? Check out bookskeeping or whatever else they need to do.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

So the best way, Tony, is to go on my personal business card website. It's franchisevismax.com, franchisevismax.com, and the people can choose if they want to talk to me about bookkeeping for their business, if they want to look at bookskeeping franchise, or if they're interested in any of the 600 franchises that we represent. Uh, my team talks to everybody, but I promise everybody eventually will get to me personally. I do meet with everybody because you know it's what I like.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

Awesome, Max. Well, appreciate you. Thanks for your wisdom and hope you have a great day.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Tony, thank you for the opportunity. Really enjoyed it.