Define What You Want To Do and Who You Want To Do It With
And then buckle down to make it happen.
I am going through big changes in my business right now. And as I preach “Change is hard. Not changing will be harder.”
I have really nailed down the lifestyle I want. I think many of you may be navel-gazing right now as well. The last few years have got a lot of folks re-evaluating their lives and their work.
I want to work around 30 hours a week, less in the winter, most of it unscheduled time to accommodate my husband’s unique business life. We want to have the freedom and flexibility to take off in the fishing season when he has a day or three off and is not travelling to host shows, and in the other seasons when he is not guiding at all.
Of course, the businesses I run need to accommodate this, and one of them isn’t. I am not building to scale, I am 100% running a lifestyle business. I had to get my act together.
Read on - or scroll quickly - there’s a few nuggets you will likely relate to, and I do get around to asking what you are doing to define your 5-Star business after I tell you how I went about changing mine.
I had defined my bookkeeping 5-Star clients and business quite a few years ago.
Calmwaters Cloud Accounting;
Incorporated businesses, often multi-entity, with no or light touch inventory
Highly involved owners
Payroll is done by a service provider
All accounts receivables are managed by the business
Targeting project work - the “love ‘em and leave ‘em” engagements - that I can choose to take on when I have bandwidth
All collaboration is done in my cloud tech-stack, from anywhere I choose to do the work
Of course, not all my work is 5-Star - I am doing payroll short-term for 1 client who is in a pickle team-wise - but I’m pretty darn close on it.
The 5-Star Cloud Accounting Resource business was much harder for me to pin down.
One-to-one coaching is
Highly scheduled
Sometimes I was working with folks who were not as committed to cloud transformation as I was
I wasn’t dedicating enough focus on the template revenue stream - aka; somewhat passive income, that I love to develop, iterate and implement on no schedule
I was feeling stuck with app advocacy as there was so much virtual webbie work with no participant engagement, which I was coming to loathe
So, in the last few months, I really buckled down to define my 5-Star clients in this business entity.
Here’s how it looks now.
Cloud Accounting Resources;
Crafting processes & automation for forward-thinking accounting professionals
Iterating & selling cloud accounting templates
App advocacy involves live events, content creation & some meeting-style virtuals
Short-term, laser-focused coaching of accounting professionals who are hell-bent on implementing cloud tech and automation
Occasional workshops hosted by me on cloud tech implementation
My branding was now completely misaligned with the services I am going to provide. This is where the hard part of my change began.
I had started using the business name “Saasy Accounting Coach”*. Two and a half years ago I had a website framed and largely executed by a design service - aka; I had thrown some money at it. The coaching was front and centre in all the content, product images, blogs & email CTAs**, and many pages were dedicated to it. My bios that were out in the world and my socials all matched with the branding. It was going to be a fustercluck to change everything.
At the beginning of June, I decided to get moving on it. I hired Bluesprout Marketing to get the planning and plotting done. Jaime and I worked out the strategic plan and I knew everything I was going to have to do to execute this change.
I can write copy (ish), and light code. I can certainly make all the changes to my Squarespace store & website. I had a marketing biz forever - I can do the work on executing it.
Ahhh… just because you can do something, does not mean you should do something.
Within a week I realized I needed to keep focused on only the work I should do - keeping my clients’ financials in real-time, chugging on a big rescue project I have on the go, and fulfilling my app advocacy engagements. Plus I am trying to stay the course on not living at my computer.
I needed to hire out what someone else can do - likely better. So I did. My template store is being revitalized. That elusive SEO is being optimized. My previous blogs are being reviewed, edited and current call-to-actions are being added**.
All in all “this no be cheap”. But it will certainly deliver the ROI for the business I am dreaming of.
Now back to you.
What have you done to define what your 5-Star Client looks like?
Who do you want to work with?
What technology do you want to work in?
What services do you want to provide?
And what do you want your business to look like?
Are you empire-building?
Are you hoping for a lifestyle business?
Are you building a business to provide employment for only you?
Is your business a passion project?
Will you take on the heavy seas? Plot a course for change? And take action to make your 5-Star dreams come true?***
Tech Tip - QuickBooks Online
- All of my template workflows include details like this, and my Standard Operating Process Guides are start to finish standards for apps and internal processes
Quickbooks Online Bank Rules Automation Gone Wild:
Generally, I don’t automate the rules, but often others do. And then it’s a game of Whack-A-Mole for them when transactions need to be deleted and they have been added with an automated rule.
If books need to be cleaned up or the feeds have gone wild, before you do any work, go into the bank feed rules and un-automate them.
They will have a little green + in the Auto-Add column
Click on the ones you need to deal with in the far left column
Batch Actions will appear
Choose “Disable”
Pull back transactions from the bank feed, “Categorized” tab, into the “For review” tab
Exclude
Reconcile
Delete the exclusions from the feed
Rules > Batch click again and “Enable”
This is a super quick action to take and you can easily re-enable them once you have cleaned up the file.
Featured Template
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Featured Template ~~~
15% off discount code: BLOG
Sociable
- said in your head in a loud sing-songy voice
I have a Facebook Community.
It’s all about processes, systems, best practices, workflows and the apps that power them.
I would love for you to join the discussion!
Join Your Peers Here
Financial Cents Monthly Meetup - Pricing Chat
Thursday, July 28, 2022
1:00 PM 2:00 PM
Shahram Zarshenas, CEO of Financial Cents, and I will be hosting a workshop where we will be chatting with everyone about pricing.
What’s going well, what’s not working, idea sharing on all things pricing.
This isn’t a Kellie & Shahram yickity-yack session; it’s an actionable workshop where you will leave with a list of quick-to-implement automation and perhaps will have even set a few up!
We will all be cameras on, mics open - this is about you so let’s hear your voice and see your face!
Simply yours, Kellie :-}
::Shameless Call To Action::
I sell bookkeeping templates, standard operating process handbooks and client guides.
15% off discount code: BLOG
*Get it… Saasy, the cute play on Saas, though every time I said it I felt silly and I really missed my brand name Calmwaters.*
**Call me crazy, but if I want to have very little one-to-one coaching I really shouldn’t have a Call To Action that states how to book with me. What does your CTA do to drive a business you will love?
*** There are people to help you with the change. Do what I am doing, lean into getting help!
