Turn Bookkeeping Into Business Strategy With Jessica Marcy

00;00;02;16 – 00;00;16;28
Speaker 1
Welcome, everyone. To the fractional operator. I’m your host, Mike Nelson from hourglass SaaS. Of course, this podcast is brought to you by hourglass SaaS. You can find that at our last saas.com. I’m actually trying to see how many times I can say hourglass SaaS.

00;00;16;28 – 00;00;39;13
Speaker 1
I think right now inside a ten second window. You know, one of the reasons why we built hourglass is because we really needed a time tracking, but also reporting software that just really did not exist on the market. So if you are looking for ways to really be accurate and transparent with your clients as far as how you’re tracking reporting time, check out hourglass, Ask.com.

00;00;39;14 – 00;00;49;24
Speaker 1
And now to our guest, Old Wisdom Bookkeeping. I can’t wait to talk about the name behind the business. Jessica. Welcome.

00;00;49;26 – 00;00;51;03
Speaker 2
Hi. Thanks for having me.

00;00;51;09 – 00;01;03;05
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. So we have to start there because I was. I love the name, first of all. But I wanted to hear what was behind it. So, just a little background on old wisdom.

00;01;03;07 – 00;01;28;26
Speaker 2
I’m really bad at naming things, is what it comes down to. I, I had a previous business, where. So I’m an herbalist. I, you know, made teas and tinctures and helped clients. And that business was old wisdom wellness. And so when I started this business, I was like, I don’t what every good name for a bookkeeping and project management company is pretty much taken.

00;01;28;26 – 00;01;34;14
Speaker 2
And I was like, well, we’ll just roll with this. I already have the LLC. It’s fine.

00;01;34;17 – 00;01;36;14
Speaker 1
It’s fine.

00;01;36;16 – 00;01;44;03
Speaker 2
And then everybody already, because I was already in the business circles with that name. Everybody already associates me with it. So it was a no brainer.

00;01;44;05 – 00;01;57;17
Speaker 1
An easy, easy brand transition for you. Yes. So what what made you transition away from the teas and tinctures and herbal list side of things and move into, the bookkeeping world?

00;01;57;19 – 00;02;20;14
Speaker 2
So I actually started my career as an estimator and project manager in construction. I did that for like ten years and having children the year before Covid. And then trying to work part time because I worked in environmental. So while being pregnant and breastfeeding, you of be exposed to certain things. So I was working part time and then Covid happened.

00;02;20;14 – 00;02;40;19
Speaker 2
And I’m really not great at just staying home. So I started that business as like an outlet kind of a thing. But in the last year or two, my kids started school full time and I’m ready to go back to work. However, I didn’t want to go back to, an engineering career because that’s more like a 5060 hour week thing.

00;02;40;21 – 00;02;59;20
Speaker 2
And with my husband working, we wanted somebody to be home more often with the kids. And I had already started doing I was doing my own bookkeeping for my business. Part of project management is bookkeeping for the jobs. I took a part time job bookkeeping with an accounting firm just to make sure I knew what I was doing, and I was already doing it for a lot of my friends and business.

00;02;59;20 – 00;03;17;08
Speaker 2
Because I am a problem solver, I like, I see an issue, I fix it like I have to fix it. So I started doing this for my friends and business and eventually they were like, I feel like I should be paying you. And that’s when I was like, maybe I can quit this part time for keeping job and make it my thing.

00;03;17;10 – 00;03;37;27
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. I you know, it’s a testament to the fractional community at this point, right? Like we all approach the fractional world from a different standpoint, but it’s almost always for certain reasons. Right. So like we’ve talked about in the past on the show, the there’s two kinds of business owners in the fractional world. There’s the fractional business owner.

00;03;37;27 – 00;03;55;13
Speaker 1
That’s like trying to grow this huge business and team members and employees. And then there’s the lifestyle side of things where it’s like, you know, I’m trying to like you said, I’m trying to stay home with my kids. I’m trying to do these things. And working a full time job and 60 hours a week isn’t really conducive to that in a lot of cases.

00;03;55;13 – 00;04;12;25
Speaker 2
So that’s the cool thing is, is that what works now, when my kids are in high school and done hanging out with me and I’m looking for more things to do, I can then move on to that other side of it where I’m ready to expand and do other stuff. So that’s one of the reasons I really like it too, because there are so many different paths.

00;04;12;27 – 00;04;24;08
Speaker 1
Yeah, and now I want to say maybe when we spoke before. Well, actually, let me ask the question this. Well, tell me about the business. Old.

00;04;24;10 – 00;04;28;23
Speaker 1
Wisdom bookkeeping, the old wisdom. I was like, old world. Like, no, it’s not that old. Always that I get it a lot.

00;04;28;23 – 00;04;30;29
Speaker 2
So many people say that old world.

00;04;30;29 – 00;04;40;07
Speaker 1
Yeah. But you don’t do just bookkeeping now, though, right? You’re you’re moving in other things. So kind of give us a breakdown of, you know, like what the service offerings are.

00;04;40;09 – 00;05;04;12
Speaker 2
So. Yeah. So bookkeeping is the basics, you know, that’s like a retainer thing. That’s your general like doing transactions and reconciling and stuff like that. But I do a lot of, like, business strategy. I don’t like to say fractional CFO because I’m not a CPA. I don’t have that specific, experience. But I worked on a lot of different projects, and I’m really good at breaking things down into small pieces and figuring out how to do it.

00;05;04;12 – 00;05;30;14
Speaker 2
Like that’s where my engineering brain comes in. So a lot of the time, my clients want to grow the business, change a business, hire a person, do things differently. And I’m really good at, you know, first of all, telling them if they can or cannot with their finances, but also creating SOPs or, systems of operation for how to run their business, like on the back end, because a lot of the time they hire an employee and they’re like, I don’t know how to train them.

00;05;30;14 – 00;05;47;13
Speaker 2
I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to do that. And again, as an engineer, SOPs are like our bread and butter. That’s how we do things, you know? And so I’m, I help them. I do a lot of project management for these companies. You know, I have some that they just want to organize their data.

00;05;47;14 – 00;06;07;20
Speaker 2
So there’s a project, I have others that want to grow and want to do analysis on their products. So it’s a lot of a data file organization, and whatever big projects they have going on. I have one client who’s a project manager, and had a fire at one of her commercial buildings, and she’s like, I don’t even know what to do.

00;06;07;20 – 00;06;20;12
Speaker 2
And I was like, I did that for ten years. Let me just jump in there and you contact this person, you do this, and then you do. So like I, I do a lot of different things that I kind of just adapt to what the client needs at the time.

00;06;20;14 – 00;06;27;04
Speaker 1
So it sounds like keeping a lot of us messy visionaries organized and on point and moving forward.

00;06;27;07 – 00;06;43;06
Speaker 2
Yeah, I say a lot of people don’t start a business because they are good at business. They start a business because they’re good at a thing, and then the rest of it becomes chaos. So I work in the back end to keep everything running smoothly, so you can do the thing that got this whole thing started.

00;06;43;09 – 00;07;07;09
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. The, being a great technician and then trying to move into the world of business doesn’t always, go for an easy path anyway. So I think you said you’ve been about 1 or 2 years into this, and, so as you’ve gone into this, like where as you’re, you know, for a business development, where did things kind of start off for you?

00;07;07;12 – 00;07;26;27
Speaker 2
Like I said, really just working for my friends. I had, you know, friends that because I, I sold my teas wholesale and, you know, you’d be chatting with the owners and they’d be like, oh, I’ve got this problem, I’ve got this problem. And I’m like, I can figure that out a lot of the time. What it started off with is getting softwares to talk, because QuickBooks doesn’t talk well with a lot of softwares.

00;07;27;00 – 00;07;52;04
Speaker 2
And for a lot of these businesses, they’re like they do cash based as opposed to accrual based accounting. And QuickBooks really likes accrual based accounting. And so when you combine these programs it starts to do that. And people that don’t know accounting look at that and go, what the heck is going on because it’s not cash based. So they don’t understand what these holding accounts are, where why the money isn’t going into sales and things like that.

00;07;52;04 – 00;08;12;16
Speaker 2
So I started off solving small problems for friends and they were like, can you just take this over for me? And then like I said, once I got 2 or 3 people that I was doing that for, I was like, this should just be a whole thing. And then it’s really just been word of mouth since then. We solve problems for people, and all of a sudden they’re telling everybody about you.

00;08;12;19 – 00;08;21;24
Speaker 1
Singing your praises. I think, Seth Godin in one of his books called That Sneezes. I don’t know if I don’t know if you’re familiar with Seth Godin, but he. I know.

00;08;21;24 – 00;08;23;00
Speaker 2
You’re. But I haven’t heard that one.

00;08;23;02 – 00;08;34;18
Speaker 1
Yeah. So he talked about you wanted to do such a great job for your clients that they were literally walking around and just sneezing you all over everybody around them, right. And and.

00;08;34;20 – 00;08;35;01
Speaker 2
Yes.

00;08;35;01 – 00;08;43;04
Speaker 1
Spreading the germ of Jessica that way. Right. It’s kind of a gross analogy, I guess, but also tells the tale. Right. You want it to be.

00;08;43;04 – 00;08;43;17
Speaker 2
That’s it.

00;08;43;17 – 00;09;10;24
Speaker 1
Exactly. You want it to be infectious, I guess. So, so word of mouth. And of course, we met at a networking group, gold star, shout out to Gold Star, over in Saratoga Springs, New York. So when you’re looking at the networking standpoint and not to beat the, you know, business development to a dead horse, but it’s, you know, people are often the technician and they start a business in the fractional world.

00;09;10;24 – 00;09;23;03
Speaker 1
And one of the hardest challenges they have is finding new people to work with and finding enough people to work with so they can be sustainable and continue to do it. So what brought you, out to Gold Star? When we met.

00;09;23;05 – 00;09;44;04
Speaker 2
It was really just that because there are problems that I am not equipped to solve. I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a CPA, so I don’t do taxes. I can help you set up and organize for your taxes, but I don’t, and I don’t want to do those things. Yeah. So I wanted to have a network of people that I can be like, oh, this person’s for you.

00;09;44;06 – 00;10;09;07
Speaker 2
I do find to a lot of my clients have personal finance questions, and I’m not a financial planner, so I want to have a whole bunch of people in my back pocket that I can refer people to connect them with. And I would hope, you know, obviously this name would come back to me. But yeah, having, having and not every CPA, not every lawyer works with every client or works in every industry.

00;10;09;07 – 00;10;31;22
Speaker 2
So that’s another reason why I wanted to have a broader reach, because, I mean, I know a couple, but not everybody wants to work with retail versus, you know, construction, very different things. Same thing with insurance, stuff like that, because a lot of my clients are in the process of growing. So they want to know, how do I get for one case to my my people, how do I set up insurance for my new employees?

00;10;31;29 – 00;10;43;26
Speaker 2
And I can figure it out? But why? When I know somebody who does it every day, they’re another fractional person. You know, we can work together and make it happen.

00;10;43;28 – 00;11;10;13
Speaker 1
So I you know, one of the questions that came to mind while you’re talking was, you know, you’re helping organizations stay organized, and moving forward on a couple of different fronts, not just keeping clean books, and data entry, but in other ways as well. How do you stay organized? You know, one of the challenges as a fractional, at least, this has always been a challenge of mine as a, fractional CMO is I work with a lot of clients.

00;11;10;13 – 00;11;23;02
Speaker 1
There’s a lot of things going on. They all have different objectives and strategy and goals. And, you know, we’re trying to march forward and move forward with all these different things. I’m curious of how you keep all that organized right now.

00;11;23;02 – 00;11;45;23
Speaker 2
I’m old school. I’m looking at different because I’m just trying to get to the point where my old school Excel spreadsheet thing is certainly starting to crumble. But what I do is I set up an Excel for each client, and I have the to do list because, like with bookkeeping, they’re bookkeeping to do list. What accounts we reconcile, what third party integrations I need to double track, and anything extra or weird they have going on.

00;11;45;23 – 00;12;07;02
Speaker 2
I have that, and then the next page I have their goals and then the next the tab I have, you know, whatever projects we’re working on. And the cool thing with Excel is you can have as many times as you want, which is where I say things start to break down, because when you get to a certain point, I’m like, I know I should be moving into software and I at this point, but, we’re we’re feeling that crunch now.

00;12;07;04 – 00;12;15;01
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That, sorry, I’ve got a I’ve got this. I’m going to sneeze.

00;12;15;03 – 00;12;16;15
Speaker 2
As we talked about sneezing into a.

00;12;16;16 – 00;12;30;12
Speaker 1
Ball guy. Now it’s all a sudden I like started getting the tickle on like I’m trying to fight it here. All right. So I think it’s best. So yeah I, you know Excel sheets are great I, I it was funny as you said old school. I was like old school old wisdom I mean yeah, that makes sense right.

00;12;30;12 – 00;12;52;10
Speaker 1
That tracks. Yeah. But the spreadsheets are problematic. I mean, I know, like one of the challenges that we’ve seen as an organization is coming from spreadsheets. Up, to be fair, one of the reasons why we built hourglass was because we had so many spreadsheets and they started Get Lost and Misplaced and everybody’s editing them. You know, you get a team of ten people and everyone’s making changes to spreadsheets.

00;12;52;12 – 00;13;07;21
Speaker 2
And that was one of the challenges in, when I was an engineer. That was one of the main challenges. And one of the things I found myself spearheading was keeping documents for projects or organized. Because there are so many editors and things, it is it is a real challenge for every size organization.

00;13;07;23 – 00;13;29;11
Speaker 1
Yeah, too many, too many cooks spoiling the broth, as they say, I guess. Right? Yeah. What, you know, in where you are in the first couple of years with your business, I think is an amazing place to be in and certainly to be able to talk about what getting started and problem solving and pivots that you’ve had to make over that time.

00;13;29;13 – 00;13;57;00
Speaker 1
You know, we talk about it on the show is there’s a lot of people moving into the fractional space there has been for years. I mean, the numbers have grown exponentially, and they’re going to continue to go that way with technology and all the things that are happening. I’m just I’m wondering, you know, what what kind of lessons learned do you have for the first couple of years in business that knowing now what you you know, if you knew it, then, like, what would you do differently when you first started your business?

00;13;57;02 – 00;14;19;29
Speaker 2
The biggest thing that I had was I undervalued my time. I tend to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. I tend to, I’m really I have a hard time giving the real number. I always give in the minute. I give, you know, a certain number off of it. Or I try to make excuses for why my prices are what they are.

00;14;19;29 – 00;14;42;21
Speaker 2
But I also end up doing a lot of things for free because, you know, it’s just just easier if I do it or, you know, I do it before they actually pay the invoice and then they don’t pay the invoice. So for me, it’s, it’s really it’s pricing. It’s being firm on my pricing and valuing my time.

00;14;42;24 – 00;14;50;06
Speaker 2
As you know, I think that’s one of the hardest things coming from somebody who is used to typical W2 job.

00;14;50;09 – 00;15;06;03
Speaker 2
Knowing I knew what the value of my time was, I had an hourly rate that I could break it down to, you know, and it’s harder to do that when you’re doing work. I do a little bit here, a little bit there. You know, you’re piecing it in because when I started the business, my kids were still home.

00;15;06;03 – 00;15;26;04
Speaker 2
I had we have a half day kindergarten, so I had a kid coming or going every 2.5 hours. So starting the business with that, it was like I wasn’t tracking my time. So it was like, I would spend ten hours on something and in my brain it was like four, you know, so I wasn’t charging appropriately.

00;15;26;07 – 00;15;46;24
Speaker 1
We call that freedom fighting, Jessica. We it’s funny because of it comes up all the time, and and we always laugh about it, but we do so much free work for our clients, and not because we don’t have a great time tracking software because we do. But we also like to your point, right. You go in and you start talking to someone, you really want to work with them, you really want to help them.

00;15;46;24 – 00;15;58;14
Speaker 1
You’re like, oh, I’ll just do it. I’ll just do it. I’ll just do it. And then but you do that 100 times in a month and you just spend a whole 40 hour workweek working for free and not getting paid for it. And it’s like, you know.

00;15;58;17 – 00;16;07;27
Speaker 2
Yeah, stuff that is that especially when you like puzzles and challenges and you just you’re like, I want to figure this out, man. And then you jump the gun.

00;16;07;29 – 00;16;22;01
Speaker 1
Yeah, I still do it. And we even have a term for it now with the freedom fighting, you know, and I’m like, someone will come to me with something. I’m like, oh yeah, let me figure that out real quick. And then I figure it out doing the answer and it’s like, oh, I probably she talked about us working together.

00;16;22;04 – 00;16;23;10
Speaker 1
Yep.

00;16;23;12 – 00;16;23;27
Speaker 2
It’s a real.

00;16;23;27 – 00;16;53;12
Speaker 1
Struggle. It is. The struggle is real. It’s good to know, you know, I’m not alone out there. So what about, like, positioning and pivot? So obviously you started to move into other he started out with just bookkeeping, but then he started working other problem solving. And, you know, I always think about it when I’m thinking about our business or, or really any small business owner entrepreneur is like someone comes to you with a problem and you’re like, well, I could solve that problem and I can get paid for it.

00;16;53;12 – 00;17;10;01
Speaker 1
So yes, I’m doing it. Was was there specific reasons why you started doing some of the additional services outside of bookkeeping, or was it just kind of, it just came to you and they asked you the question and you’re like, sure.

00;17;10;03 – 00;17;35;29
Speaker 2
Well, I have ADHD. Yeah. And so I really think having different problems to solve all the time keeps me interested in my business. I it’s I pretty much change careers every four years. Like, that’s how my even when I was an engineer, I changed fields every four years because I once I feel like things get too easy, I’m immediately bored.

00;17;36;01 – 00;17;54;14
Speaker 2
Yeah. So that’s it. So I really was like, you know, I can do bookkeeping forever. And yes, I do retainer work and I have bookkeeping, but that’s a small part of where my, my main income is. The problem solving has become the bigger thing. And it usually starts with the bookkeeping because you can’t make decisions with with confusing numbers.

00;17;54;20 – 00;18;12;19
Speaker 2
You just can’t. So, yeah, I, I, I just, I, I like, I like the constant change, I like the challenge and so I because I like it, that’s where I dive into. That’s where I’m leaning.

00;18;12;22 – 00;18;26;27
Speaker 1
Nice. Yeah. Never dull moment when you own your own business, right. No I always, always a new challenge to overcome. Or in my case, always a new challenge that I can be learning my lesson on for the 50th time. Because,

00;18;27;00 – 00;18;29;00
Speaker 2
That is the. I think that happens, too.

00;18;29;03 – 00;18;40;07
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, I like to I like to learn a lesson at least a half dozen times before I really learn the lesson. So it’s, by that time, I’ve really, really paid my dues on it, I guess.

00;18;40;09 – 00;18;42;19
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;18;42;21 – 00;18;52;16
Speaker 1
So what do you think the biggest challenge for you has been the last couple of years from a business standpoint?

00;18;52;19 – 00;19;15;06
Speaker 2
Leveling up. So I have a lot of clients, but I want, you know, you start out, you kind of take whoever. So when I say leveling up, I mean really honing in on the specific people or organizations that I want to work with, the kind of work that I really want to do, because, again, I, I have that shiny object thing I see a problem I want to solve, I go do it.

00;19;15;06 – 00;19;32;20
Speaker 2
But did I really want to work with that company, or did I just want to solve the problem? Like what? So it’s it’s streamlining. It’s really figuring out who my ideal client is and how to, how to say no. That’s been a really big challenge for me. So.

00;19;32;23 – 00;19;35;24
Speaker 1
In what regards? Tell me more.

00;19;35;26 – 00;19;50;06
Speaker 2
Like saying no to tick because there are certain companies or people or that I know that it’s it’s not going to be the kind of work I want to do or they’re going to be, you know, how you get those people who don’t want to pay the full price, but then they’re going to nickel and dime everything out of you, and you see that up front.

00;19;50;06 – 00;19;53;20
Speaker 2
And I still say yes anyway, because I can’t say no.

00;19;53;22 – 00;19;55;26
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;19;55;29 – 00;20;16;00
Speaker 2
So it’s really like, you know, learning who I want to work with, saying no when I actually do. Me. No, and sticking sticking to my guns on pricing and not letting those people whittle me down. I’m a giver. I just want to give everything for free and do the things. But I have bills to pay.

00;20;16;03 – 00;20;36;20
Speaker 1
I know I listen. That’s a really hard balance. I always admired people that don’t have that struggle, and they’re very, good about sticking to their guns and getting paid for every bit of work they do. My team yells at me all the time because I’m like, oh, I sold this thing. I’m like, but there’s this other stuff we’re just going to do it for, like constantly freedom fighting.

00;20;36;20 – 00;21;01;24
Speaker 1
I, I can’t even help myself. My, my lead in in and everything. Kelsey is always like, hey, like, we can’t do it for that price. Make like, we’re not going to we’re not going to make any money, which means we can’t continue to do the work that we’re doing. So we need to make money. So, like, and thank God I have her to keep me accountable to actually making money sometimes, but, it’s hard.

00;21;01;27 – 00;21;02;29
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;21;03;02 – 00;21;22;15
Speaker 1
Right. Like. And you want clients, you know, that’s the other part that I always see. I don’t know if you struggle with this, but, like, you know, when it was just me, especially, like you were saying, I said yes to absolutely everything. Yeah. I’ll figure it out. Yes, I’ll do it. I need the money coming in, so. Yes, please, let’s do it.

00;21;22;17 – 00;21;34;20
Speaker 1
And then as you grow and, you know, it took me years to kind of come to where you are, where you’re saying, like, I need to really hone in on the kind of work I want to do and what that looks like. It’s a hard transition to make.

00;21;34;22 – 00;21;53;14
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. I’m, I’m considering getting a coach to help me with that. Like a business coach? Yeah. Sometimes I feel like my clients are me, that I’m all the time. That’s what I am for them. And I’m like. But it’s it’s different. It’s a different kind of coaching. Mine is more numbers based and and and a lot of the time it’s especially with things around money.

00;21;53;14 – 00;22;11;23
Speaker 2
People have a lot of feelings and a lot of, ingrained habits and things. And so I’m coaching them through that. But yeah, I think having a second person like you have to bounce those ideas off of and to kind of hold your feet to the fire when need be is is good to have.

00;22;11;26 – 00;22;35;01
Speaker 1
You know, my my friend Scott McKenna from Catamount Consulting always says even coaches need coaches. Yeah. So it’s, I and I’m a big, big fan and big proponent of, coaching and being coached, for that matter. And at the very least, having someone to hold you accountable to some of the things as, as business owners, you know, we don’t technically, our clients are our bosses, but there’s no one really holding us accountable.

00;22;35;01 – 00;22;38;09
Speaker 1
Right? So it’s like, yep, I can do it or not do it. Right.

00;22;38;13 – 00;22;47;10
Speaker 2
So yes. And then and then my husband is like, you work so much. Where’s where’s your what are we buying. What are we getting out of this. And I’m like oh about that.

00;22;47;13 – 00;23;16;20
Speaker 1
Where’s our millions. Oh yeah. Freedom fighting happens. So you know, if someone is thinking about starting like a, let’s say a bookkeeping or any really fractional business, because while we all come into business from different point of views, whether it’s a v CIO or a bookkeeper or a CFO or a CMO or whatever it is, we’re approaching businesses from different angles, but we’re all doing kind of the same things, right?

00;23;16;20 – 00;23;39;11
Speaker 1
As fractions. We’re working with multiple clients. We’re providing a service. What do you think the a piece of advice would be that you would give someone getting ready to start their own fractional. They’re probably a technician in their industry whether let’s say CMO for example, they’re already doing this work somewhere else, but they want to make the jump into that fractional world.

00;23;39;14 – 00;23;41;23
Speaker 1
Well, what would you tell them?

00;23;41;26 – 00;24;09;09
Speaker 2
Make your SOPs, figure out what the exact specific thing that you can offer every time and make it exactly the same for every client. Because if you can do that on repeat, then you have something to sell. A lot of people I feel like I’ve talked to you, they want to do it and they’re like, they have this amorphous idea, oh, I’m going to do this for this business and this for this business, and I’m going to make this my business and but but is that a deliverable that you can explain to somebody in two sentences?

00;24;09;09 – 00;24;27;03
Speaker 2
Can you give them the same thing over and over again? You know, bookkeeping, it’s a little easier because it’s kind of laid out for you. But like with my project management stuff, I had to okay, somebody is going to come with me and they want to do this thing. So I give myself step by step, how would I do this?

00;24;27;03 – 00;24;42;20
Speaker 2
What is this going to look like? What questions do I need to ask them. So I know what they want. And I really think, really, whatever your product is, whatever your thing is, really understand that before you jump in because it makes everything else so much easier.

00;24;42;23 – 00;24;50;17
Speaker 1
So it’s just a matter of rinse and repeat, right? Doing the same thing and knowing, knowing it’s going to work instead of making it up as you go along.

00;24;50;19 – 00;25;02;10
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, there is something to be said for faking it to make it, especially if you want to try something new. But if you’re going to start a business, have at least one thing that you know you’re really good at and you can do on repeat.

00;25;02;13 – 00;25;18;04
Speaker 1
Well, I’d have to imagine to your not even imagine because, I mean, we’re doing it, but you know, the ability to create SOPs now is so easy with I mean, you can literally give it like, here’s the steps I go through from a bullet point standpoint. It takes you five minutes. Create that you give it to I they create a formal standardize.

00;25;18;04 – 00;25;19;08
Speaker 1
This will be.

00;25;19;11 – 00;25;38;27
Speaker 2
Right. Yeah. But a lot of the times, especially when you’re talking about finance stuff, you have to give it the right questions. You have to be asking the right stuff to get it to, you know, like you can give it your PNL and be like, where can I cut costs? But you also have to put in, well, I can’t cut it here for this reason.

00;25;38;27 – 00;25;54;15
Speaker 2
And I want to do this and but maybe it’s better to tell it your overall goal. It’s not to cut costs, it’s to increase your profit margin. Do you want to cut your cost of goods sold, or do you want to cut your regular expenses? Are you considering maybe moving to a different location that’s going to have a higher rent?

00;25;54;17 – 00;26;06;17
Speaker 2
You need to. You need to walk the eye through it, and a lot of the times people don’t know what questions to ask it or how to have that conversation. And that’s where I feel like I really shine. I’m really good at asking lots and lots of questions.

00;26;06;20 – 00;26;30;05
Speaker 1
Yeah, well, that’s very how you get answers, right? Yeah. You had mentioned before just about software not talking to each other. Yes. And it sounds like that’s something that you are getting involved with for your clients. What does that look like? Are you using things like Zapier to help make connections or. No.

00;26;30;05 – 00;26;53;24
Speaker 2
So a lot most people that I work with work with QuickBooks, they have the monopoly on on the bookkeeping stuff. And when you have something like a Shopify or another POS and there’s there’s different places for every industry. Heck, I have a hairdresser that has one, I have a dog groomer that has a different one. You know, they all do their own thing.

00;26;53;26 – 00;27;16;27
Speaker 2
But a lot of business owners, they they run their business like a cash business. So when they get money in, it just goes into the account as sales and they want to look at it that way. But a lot of those third party things look at it as, accrual based. So what they’ll do is they’ll put it in an undefined and deposited funds account, and then you have to put it in the right categories, and you have to move it around and approve it.

00;27;16;29 – 00;27;47;18
Speaker 2
And not everything covers the fees. And sometimes it decides that it’s going to create a chart of accounts. And if one letter or one space is off, it creates a whole new one. And so now you have two accounts that really are the same thing. And it’s just is mapping them together is challenging for some people. And also sometimes I find especially for super small clients, just don’t connect them, just don’t connect up and do it manually because it’s going to save you so much time with the amount of headaches.

00;27;47;18 – 00;28;08;21
Speaker 2
If it’s a larger company with thousands of transactions, it’s absolutely worth it. But super small companies, I just I usually just say we’re going to stick with the cash basis and not connect them. And then I just manually, enter and the extra things that need to be entered in like the breakouts, because a lot of the time it’s they want to know where their sales are coming from.

00;28;08;23 – 00;28;19;17
Speaker 2
And if they’re just if QuickBooks is only tracking what’s going into the bank account, I have to go in and manually split it into all the different sales funnels.

00;28;19;20 – 00;28;37;08
Speaker 1
What? So that kind of leads into my next question was I was going to ask you is when it comes to the small businesses that you’re working with, like, what are some of the bigger mistakes that you see that you see very often? Like, what do people need to stop doing that they’re they keep doing incorrectly.

00;28;37;08 – 00;28;55;19
Speaker 2
I just had this conversation with the client. Stop it, stop spend. And I actually wrote an article about this on my Substack to stop using business funds for personal things. A lot of people, especially if they have an LLC in New York State where we are in your any of your profit is considered your personal income and your tax that way.

00;28;55;19 – 00;29;14;09
Speaker 2
So a lot of people just take their business card, swipe it and put it into their owner draws or distributions or whatever you want to call it. But the problem is, is that it’s really hard to track when you’re purchasing individual things, so they don’t realize how much they’re taking, and then their bank account goes down, and then they need to buy new inventory and they don’t have enough money in the account.

00;29;14;14 – 00;29;40;01
Speaker 2
So what I’m saying is figure out what your business can afford to pay you and then take that out monthly or weekly or whatever and keep it consistent. That way you don’t have that problem. You’re not paying bank fees because it’s overdraft and you’re not, taking too much because people don’t realize how quickly. And I hate to say this because this is like the trope, but like, coffees add up real fast when you’re a small business.

00;29;40;01 – 00;29;48;13
Speaker 2
So if you’re you’re getting a coffee on the way to work every day and putting it on the business card, you’d be shocked at how much you’re spending without realizing it.

00;29;48;16 – 00;29;55;12
Speaker 1
Or the fact that it’s creating hundreds of transactions in your QuickBooks ledger that have to be reconciled and,

00;29;55;14 – 00;29;58;23
Speaker 2
And that you pay your, your, your bookkeeper, usually by transaction.

00;29;58;25 – 00;30;09;00
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I got yelled at that recently because, to be fair, I do that more often than I should. And,

00;30;09;03 – 00;30;10;09
Speaker 2
For you, everybody does.

00;30;10;09 – 00;30;24;18
Speaker 1
It in like one month. There was like, 700 transactions, you know? It’s like it’s a ridiculous thing. I was like, all right. Yeah, that’s okay, I get it. I shouldn’t do that. Well, thank you for making me feel better about that, because it sounds like I’m not the only business doing it.

00;30;24;21 – 00;30;49;14
Speaker 2
I have I have only one, one client that I’ve come across that has only doesn’t do it on purpose, like there’s been occasional accidents, but like, only one everybody else. And it makes sense because especially if you’re an LLC, like I said, in our state, that’s you’re not you’re not taking a you’re not getting a W-2. So it’s an easy way to do it, but you have to be tracking it or just pay yourself.

00;30;49;16 – 00;31;15;09
Speaker 1
Yeah. It’s amazing how easy it is to funnel up your books. You have. So, one question I meant to ask early, and I apologize. I didn’t ask it sooner, but from a standpoint of who you’re working with now, I’m wondering, though, you come from a construction background, engineering background, are you working with a lot of businesses like that, or do you are you just kind of all over the board as far as who you work with?

00;31;15;11 – 00;31;32;00
Speaker 2
I am all over the board. I’m, I’m, I have like one construction client, which is great. And I do more estimating as opposed to just bookkeeping for them. So estimating is when they get a new project. And I help put pricing on that project so they can give it to their client. And that’s an add as needed basis.

00;31;32;00 – 00;31;50;10
Speaker 2
Just because especially in the summertime, they’re out in the field. They don’t have time to do it. Yeah. And that’s you know, that was the main part of what I did when I was an engineer. So that’s great for me. It’s like it’s fun to sit back in it. But, you know, like I said, I’ve got hairdressers, I’ve got retail sales.

00;31;50;12 – 00;32;14;28
Speaker 2
Basically whatever. I’ve got consultants. It is kind of all over the place because, I mean, numbers are numbers, no matter which way you look at them. And data organization is everywhere. Everybody needs it. And, I don’t love inventory. I’ve learned. So that’s one of the things that I’m moving away from, more because it’s just it’s a slog.

00;32;15;01 – 00;32;18;15
Speaker 1
Yeah. I know you so smug.

00;32;18;17 – 00;32;22;01
Speaker 2
So I have a friend I can send you.

00;32;22;03 – 00;32;25;01
Speaker 1
Yeah, it sounds awful to me, but.

00;32;25;04 – 00;32;40;28
Speaker 2
Yeah, I had the initial cleanup. Like people that haven’t, you know, cleaned up their inventory in years. I like the initial clean up because it’s kind of like a web. You got a match, things, things are overwritten and there’s duplicates, and I like that. But the maintaining it on a month to month basis is not my favorite.

00;32;41;00 – 00;32;43;19
Speaker 1
Yeah. Sounds monotonous to me.

00;32;43;21 – 00;32;45;01
Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly.

00;32;45;04 – 00;32;50;10
Speaker 1
Yes. And my short attention span as well would not allow me to, be great at that, unfortunately.

00;32;50;10 – 00;32;58;10
Speaker 2
Yeah. That’s why I like puzzles. So, like, I like projects, so I, I thrive at that. But then the maintaining part is. Oh.

00;32;58;13 – 00;33;21;08
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, it’s funny, we’re also industry agnostic. We don’t focus on just one type of client. And, so years ago, people were asking me that question. I was trying to figure out how I would, conciliate or reconcile what my theme was. And I would just say we work with local business and, yeah, you know, like, we look, we work with local businesses.

00;33;21;08 – 00;33;39;16
Speaker 1
That’s, that’s that’s our common thread. It’s across every industry. But it’s, that makes it easier to communicate, I guess, I don’t know. Yeah. So as you’re looking at old wisdom bookkeeping and looking at the future, like, what does that look like for you right now?

00;33;39;18 – 00;33;58;23
Speaker 2
So right now, I right now, it’s just business as usual. You know, I’m always looking for 1 or 2 more clients because there’s, you know, projects end and start. And so it’s always a constant rotation. I do have plans to expand and get a team in the future. Again, when my kids are done hanging out with me, which will be anytime now.

00;33;58;24 – 00;34;20;29
Speaker 2
My oldest is nine. So yeah, I just I know myself, people are like, you know, looking to retire early and things and it’s never going to be me that I like projects. So I’m, I’m hoping to keep this going well into the future. And so there is going to be room to expand. But for now it’s just business as usual.

00;34;21;01 – 00;34;35;04
Speaker 1
Business as usual. It’s it’s funny that you say that about retiring too, because I have that same feeling. I’m like, retirement kind of sounds awful on, like, what would I do with my time? Like, I going and sitting on the beach does not sound enjoyable to me.

00;34;35;04 – 00;34;44;29
Speaker 2
Like I always said, my husband’s the same way. He’s like where he wants to buy houses like old houses and refinish them in his retirement because he’s like, what am I gonna do, sit on the couch?

00;34;45;01 – 00;34;49;29
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I think just waiting to die or something. Yeah, yeah, it sounds like.

00;34;49;29 – 00;34;58;11
Speaker 2
Yeah. I know I will always have a business of some sort. I will always be doing this. And maybe when I’m older, I’ll just do it for free or something, you know? There you go.

00;34;58;13 – 00;35;07;15
Speaker 1
That with your ideas, you want it for free sometimes. Yeah. You know, all that freedom fighting.

00;35;07;18 – 00;35;28;12
Speaker 1
As far as the clients that you’re working with, one question I wanted to ask, and this was from a standpoint of every fractional works different. Some of us are doing prepaid time blocks, some of us are doing recurring contracts. So it’s, you know, like a subscription, right? You pay 500 bucks a month and you get this kind of work out of me.

00;35;28;12 – 00;35;36;04
Speaker 1
Some people are doing hourly. How do you typically you have to give me rates or anything like that, but I’m just wondering, like how you typically work with your clients in that fashion.

00;35;36;04 – 00;35;53;01
Speaker 2
So I usually do the, like I call it retainer work, a monthly fee for regular bookkeeping. And then as we come up with things like with the bookkeeping, there’s like quarterly meetings and stuff and they’re like, okay, I want to do this thing. And I usually I’m like, okay, if you want to do this thing, I’m going to need this many extra hours.

00;35;53;01 – 00;36;09;29
Speaker 2
I’ll give it to you in a package for this. And sometimes, like I have a company that is starting in there, they want to hire people, but they have no shops. They have no. It’s been a two person thing forever. And they just. And so for that it’s like, okay, we’re gonna do six months. I’m going to break it out over this.

00;36;09;29 – 00;36;32;12
Speaker 2
If I go over this many hours and, that time frame, then we’ll add on this amount, you know, so it’s always agreed upon ahead of time. And for them also on doing their bookkeeping. So that’s a separate thing I keep. I usually keep project management and bookkeeping separate, because the whole point of a lot of the projects that I do is I want to work myself out of a job with those because I want to solve the problem.

00;36;32;12 – 00;36;46;24
Speaker 2
So I don’t want to keep having people pay me. I don’t want to, you know, I don’t want to do a long term contract. So I try to do, okay, this this bucket of work is going to cost this amount. And then you’ll just pay me to do the bookkeeping because again, you can’t make decisions on that. And so.

00;36;46;26 – 00;37;03;24
Speaker 1
Yeah, I love I love that saying too, by the way. Well it’s, you know, data data data, right. The more data you have at your fingertips, the better your decisions can can be. And if you have any, any data, you know, then how do you me at that point.

00;37;03;24 – 00;37;15;21
Speaker 2
I actually I have some clients that already have a bookkeeper and I’m like, but really, I prefer to do it because you see so much more when you see the individual transactions and you see what’s going on as opposed to just looking at the reports.

00;37;15;23 – 00;37;23;23
Speaker 2
So I will often be like, I want to take it over if you really want this to work. So I can see every aspect of the situation.

00;37;23;25 – 00;37;44;19
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. There’s something to be said about being, you know, on the ground so to speak. Right. Yeah. And seeing those transactions, just two more questions for you. One question is, if I were to refer you a client right now, what would be an amazing client for you?

00;37;44;21 – 00;38;07;21
Speaker 2
Someone who’s been in business for a couple of years. So things have gotten a little messy, or they’re ready for the next step, but they don’t know what the next step is. I like construction. I like, I like multifaceted people. So I have a lot of clients that have multiple businesses, and we’re sorting out what goes where and restructuring businesses.

00;38;07;28 – 00;38;29;04
Speaker 2
So those kinds of projects are just really fun for me because a lot of the time businesses overlap, right? Like you have a retail store, but you also own the land. Is that a separate business or not, or how do we pay everybody? I love those kinds of puzzles, so I love it. So mid to larger sized businesses that have been established and have some issues.

00;38;29;06 – 00;38;48;27
Speaker 1
Okay. And what about from a strategic partner standpoint. Right. So all of us especially in the fractional world, and you had mentioned this earlier, when you’re you’re networking, you’re looking for more people to have that. You can say, oh, I know a person. I know a person, who would make a great strategic partner for you lawyers.

00;38;49;00 – 00;39;15;23
Speaker 2
CPAs, people that work with software. So I’m really good with software, but there’s always something, you know, that I’m like, I can’t figure this out. And so and the help desks are not always great. So, like, you know, I, I do have a local person who does, computer stuff for me, but anybody like, with the larger software, like sage and stuff like that, I don’t have somebody there yet.

00;39;15;25 – 00;39;26;02
Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Jess, if people want to learn more about all the wisdom bookkeeping or they want to get in touch with you, where do they find you?

00;39;26;04 – 00;39;28;01
Speaker 2
Always in bookkeeping. Dot com.

00;39;28;03 – 00;39;30;28
Speaker 1
Okay. And what about your Substack?

00;39;31;01 – 00;39;33;19
Speaker 2
Old wisdom bookkeeping, dot Substack. Docker.

00;39;33;25 – 00;39;38;24
Speaker 1
Okay. And I’m just curious as well, what kind of information is on your on your Substack?

00;39;38;26 – 00;40;03;25
Speaker 2
So it’s very informational. So I started with, reading your reports because so many business owners don’t understand what the balance sheet or the cash flow is telling them and how to read them together. Because and I know that, like, that’s my job as a bookkeeper is to explain it to them. But if they can do it, if these small businesses can read the reports, understand what you get out of them and grow you eventually, one of the first things you offload is your bookkeeping.

00;40;03;28 – 00;40;25;07
Speaker 2
So you’re eventually going to hire me. So my goal is to educate business owners on how to do things better before they have to hire me. So there’s a lot of education there. And then I’m having I’m doing this little side project for myself where I’m reading, books and doing book reports on on business, personal finance and personal like growth.

00;40;25;10 – 00;40;27;24
Speaker 2
That one’s called borrowed wisdom.

00;40;27;26 – 00;40;28;23
Speaker 1
Okay.

00;40;28;26 – 00;40;35;13
Speaker 2
You know, work, money and, everything I learn on the the trajectory to build a great life.

00;40;35;15 – 00;40;44;18
Speaker 1
That’s interesting. So you’re, you’re going through reading the book and then doing kind of like, a book report, but is it like a summary and, like, here’s what I took away from it.

00;40;44;21 – 00;40;58;09
Speaker 2
It’s what I liked, what I didn’t like. What what’s in the numbers like, from a bookkeeping standpoint? And then, the bottom line, like what I thought I took what I, the final thing I took away from the book.

00;40;58;11 – 00;41;00;17
Speaker 1
That’s cool. Yeah.

00;41;00;19 – 00;41;01;28
Speaker 2
Actually, I like projects.

00;41;02;00 – 00;41;05;14
Speaker 1
Yeah. Are you going to turn that into, like, a book club?

00;41;05;17 – 00;41;17;11
Speaker 2
Maybe, I don’t know, I, I am a pretty avid reader, so I roll through things pretty quick. So I, I mean, we could I’d have to think about that. Like, I average 2 or 3 books a week.

00;41;17;11 – 00;41;34;28
Speaker 1
So if you I’m currently reading, I’m like, I’m almost always reading 2 or 3 books at a time, but because I do it that way, it’s like I will finish like 2 or 3 books a month because I’m reading 2 or 3 at a time, but, 2 or 3 week. That’s awesome.

00;41;35;00 – 00;41;43;20
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, some of them I do listen to. So there are some, there is some listening. But I do I read a physical book as well. So.

00;41;43;22 – 00;41;48;08
Speaker 1
Okay, that’s I was going to ask that if you were listening to any of them because I love audiobooks.

00;41;48;10 – 00;41;56;26
Speaker 2
Yeah, I tend to go through audiobooks faster than reading physical books, but I mean, I’ll still read two books a month, so every other week.

00;41;56;28 – 00;42;02;08
Speaker 1
Well, the audiobooks are great because I can put my headphones in. It can be when I’m driving. I could be folding laundry, which.

00;42;02;08 – 00;42;04;14
Speaker 2
Is literally the only way I can clean the house.

00;42;04;16 – 00;42;06;01
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;42;06;04 – 00;42;07;15
Speaker 2
It won’t get done without it.

00;42;07;18 – 00;42;17;24
Speaker 1
It’s amazing. Well, I’m just going to say book club sounds really cool and fun. Even though it is such an old school,

00;42;17;26 – 00;42;26;21
Speaker 2
Wave, I’m part of a book club, and I love it. I just do it. Yeah, yeah, it’s. That’s more fiction.

00;42;26;23 – 00;42;46;03
Speaker 1
My wife’s a part of a book club, too, and and she really enjoys that, but I it’s funny that you said this because the other day I was thinking, we have our, our other podcast, blue Collar Startup, focuses mainly on the trades and, a couple of the last recent issues a lot of us have guests and myself have been talking about a lot of different books that we’ve read and how helpful they were.

00;42;46;03 – 00;42;51;15
Speaker 1
And I was like, man, I was like, book club still cool. Like, could we do a book club through college?

00;42;51;16 – 00;42;52;25
Speaker 2
Maybe we can do one together.

00;42;52;28 – 00;42;58;25
Speaker 1
You know, it’d be fun, right? Yeah. I don’t know. We’ll have to. We’ll have the workshop out a little bit.

00;42;58;25 – 00;43;00;06
Speaker 2
Just noodling around.

00;43;00;07 – 00;43;05;20
Speaker 1
That’s it. Well, noodle it around. Jess, thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.

00;43;05;22 – 00;43;07;26
Speaker 2
Yeah. Thank you for having me. This was fun.

00;43;07;29 – 00;43;29;05
Speaker 1
You are very welcome. And of course, thank you, everyone for listening. You can find this episodes, all of our episodes for fractional operator at hourglass. Ask.com. Check it out. We also send out a weekly communication aka newsletter, which we are curating articles and LinkedIn posts and all sorts of information from around the, around the interweb.

00;43;29;07 – 00;43;42;01
Speaker 1
But the design of it is primarily to get good information out to fractional business owners and operators, to help you grow your business and succeed. So check it out, subscribe, and you’ll hear from us next week, everybody. Thanks for listening.