$70 an Hour from Home? How to Start a Bookkeeping Side Hustle (Greatest Hits)

0:00:04 Here is an oldie but a goodie from the archives from the Side Hustle Show greatest hits collection.
0:00:09 Plus, stick around to the end for the where are they now time travel update on how Kate’s business
0:00:15 has changed and grown over the last few years. 70 bucks an hour from home. Here’s how one Side
0:00:20 Hustle Show listener is getting it done and how you can apply the same strategies to a business
0:00:27 of your own. What’s up? What’s up, Nick Loper here. Welcome to the Side Hustle Show because
0:00:33 everything is learnable. Today, I want to return to the Side Hustle idea of remote freelancing. That
0:00:38 is, what service can you provide that other businesses or individuals are happy to pay for?
0:00:44 My guest today is a longtime Side Hustle Show listener. She’s a mother of three and when
0:00:48 her youngest was starting preschool a few years ago, she all of a sudden found herself with an
0:00:54 extra nine hours a week. It wasn’t a ton of time, but in her words, she wanted to be a good steward
0:00:59 of that time and use it effectively. Kate Johnson ended up starting a virtual bookkeeping service
0:01:04 called Heritage Business Services and today she serves several monthly retainer clients
0:01:10 and targets a $70 an hour effective hourly rate. The important thing to note here is that while
0:01:16 Kate had taken some accounting classes in college, she’d never been paid to do accounting or bookkeeping
0:01:22 work. Her story illustrates that yes, you can learn valuable new skills. Yes, you can take action and
0:01:27 yes, you can see results. Stick around in this episode to hear how she landed her first clients,
0:01:33 why she decided to invest in her own education, and the surprising new Side Hustle all this work
0:01:38 has spun off. Notes and links for this one along with the full text summary of our call are at
0:01:45 sidehustlenation.com/bookkeeping. That’s all one word, double O, double K, double E. And one other
0:01:50 quick note here is you’ll hear Kate reference the course she took to get started, which is called
0:01:57 Bookkeeper Launch. You can check out a free preview of that course at sidehustlenation.com/BBL
0:02:03 for Bookkeeper Business Launch or check out Kate’s full review of it at bookkeepingsidehustle.com.
0:02:08 I’ll be back with my top takeaways from this chat with Kate after the interview.
0:02:13 We start this one off with what attracted Kate to bookkeeping in the first place? Ready? Let’s do it.
0:02:22 I was able to kind of discern that lots of small businesses are really good at their craft,
0:02:28 but they’re really bad at the behind the scenes stuff. And I have always been a great number two
0:02:33 person. My dream job when I was in my 20s was to go back and be the Chief of Staff for a Baylor
0:02:37 University president. And I never dreamt of becoming a president of Baylor. I wanted to be
0:02:43 that right hand, that person that was like able to keep it all in my head, able to really advise,
0:02:48 internalize all the data to help make decisions. So I thought that would be a good role to come
0:02:53 alongside a lot of these like really aspiring entrepreneurs, but who the last thing they
0:02:58 want to do is just kind of deal with the behind the scenes stuff. So that was all appealing to me.
0:03:03 I liked that I’d be able to work from anywhere. That was definitely marketed in the course that
0:03:08 I took with that this was going to be something that was all cloud based and being married to
0:03:12 someone in the Navy. Like I knew that I could not, I actually had a pretty heartbreaking experience
0:03:17 whenever I finally had to quit my brick and mortar job. The last one that I quit, I actually had to
0:03:21 quit too because of him. Yeah. Like, yeah, we’re up and moving again. Yeah. And that’s out of my
0:03:26 control. And I finally was like, I’m not doing that again. So that was all part of it. Yeah,
0:03:31 something virtual, something that can be done anywhere in the world, essentially. You never
0:03:35 know when the next, where the next move is going to take you. Exactly. Is this something that
0:03:41 a new person would need to take a course for? Or is this something that with a little effort,
0:03:47 you could self-educate through YouTube or through blogs or just through trial and error of doing
0:03:53 books? I don’t think you could learn through trial and error. You could learn on your own. Like,
0:03:58 if your spouse has a company and they’re willing to let you potentially run them into the ground,
0:04:03 that’s fine. But you’re really talking about people’s livelihoods here. And as I’ve been in
0:04:08 this industry and starting to, you know, I’ve advised a lot of other people about how to get
0:04:13 started. There are a lot of really bad bookkeepers out there. And just because you can maybe pass a
0:04:17 QuickBooks exam or take like know how to click around in a bookkeeping software that actually
0:04:22 doesn’t allow you to know the fundamentals of accounting. There are two very different things
0:04:26 like you need to know accounting and you need to know a bookkeeping software, which is those are
0:04:30 two different skill sets. You can have good accounting concepts and not know how to use
0:04:35 a bookkeeping software. So I like to distinguish those. And yes, there are ways to do that for
0:04:41 very cheap. There are some great resources on one of the best accounting ones. I always say
0:04:45 people need to start with learning accounting. There’s a free resource called accountingcoach.com
0:04:50 online. That’s not one that I’ve like personally gone through, but I know a lot of people who are
0:04:55 trying to bootstrap things and do that. I mean, people go to college and graduate school for
0:04:59 years and years to become excellent accountants. So I want to kind of put the fear in people
0:05:04 listening to this that this isn’t something that you’re going to learn in a week or a month.
0:05:08 Truthfully, like I still have to study accounting occasionally whenever I get a new
0:05:14 just issue with a client. When they bring on that first person on payroll, like how does
0:05:18 how do those journal entries work? That sort of thing. So I’m always having to continue learning
0:05:24 accounting, but there are ways to do it. And I pride myself actually on being able to help people
0:05:29 kind of learn how to do it on the cheap. I also think though that this is something that for a
0:05:34 very little bit of money, there are several different paths. If you really did want to
0:05:37 start a virtual bookkeeping business, there’s a lot of courses out there. A lot of them are bad,
0:05:43 so you can reach out to me and ask my opinion about that too. But there are more than one nowadays
0:05:48 that will tell you kind of from soup to nuts how to go about all through all the steps to get that
0:05:52 first client. But the only ones that I’ll recommend are the ones that say you have to have a strong
0:05:56 foundation in accounting first. All right. And I understand you’ve got reviews of several of these
0:06:02 over at bookkeepingsidehustle.com. Kate’s got 7,000 members in her bookkeeping
0:06:06 side hustle group on Facebook. So lots of different resources to kind of get yourself
0:06:11 educated if this is the path that you want to go down. I just want to want to look at this
0:06:16 through the lens of like, okay, here’s a specialized work from home virtual service-based
0:06:20 business, like whether people want to start bookkeeping or whether people want to start any
0:06:25 type of other home-based business. I think there’s going to be some parallels there. But in this
0:06:30 industry specifically, are there you mentioned like, oh, the QuickBooks exam or something like that?
0:06:36 Are there specific certifications that you need to be able to call yourself a bookkeeper?
0:06:42 So in America, no. I do know that they’re like worldwide, there are some countries that have
0:06:45 something that would be called, I don’t know the name of it, like some sort of bookkeeping
0:06:52 certification. But in America, anyone can sign up for QuickBooks and start doing bookkeeping for
0:07:00 people. So all the major software programs have a certification for their software. But again,
0:07:04 just because you can get certified in a software does not mean you know the accounting behind it.
0:07:08 So that’s one thing to keep in mind. But so I have the highest level of QuickBooks
0:07:14 certificate. I’m called a QuickBooks Advanced Pro Advisor. At one point, I was a zero advisor as
0:07:20 well. As someone who has grown deliberately, intentionally slowly, I recommend for people
0:07:26 who are wanting to do this with not 40 hours a week, but as a side hustle to pick one platform.
0:07:32 Zero is just as good as QuickBooks online in terms of being able to build a small business like mine.
0:07:36 And as we should note, that’s zero XERO online accounting software.
0:07:41 Yes, XERO. So those are the two that I kind of typically push people to. There’s also one called
0:07:45 Wave. It has a little bit less functionality, but it could be something that people use to start
0:07:50 their virtual bookkeeping business. But what I recommend is that you just start with one,
0:07:56 because accounting is accounting, but software can be completely different. And if you’ve got two
0:08:01 clients on QuickBooks online and two clients on zero, you’re not going to be able to command,
0:08:06 especially if you charge value pricing like I try to do. My implied hourly rate is able to go
0:08:12 up as I get better at the software. Okay. So value-based pricing, meaning you’re not charging
0:08:16 a set hourly rate for your retainer clients, okay? It’s just X dollars per month.
0:08:21 Exactly. And so when I spend time on the Stairmaster early in the morning, and I’m watching YouTube
0:08:26 videos that are like best QuickBooks keyboard shortcuts, for instance, those small business
0:08:29 owners, they’re not learning those shortcuts. That’s why the bookkeeping is so hard for them.
0:08:36 But I can rock and roll through my tasks quickly and study that, but it would be, you know,
0:08:40 the same keyboard strokes are not the same in those two softwares. That’s just an example.
0:08:46 So there’s some foundational stuff here. Just getting yourself educated, familiar with the
0:08:50 software and the software with the service is a really common business framework where it’s like,
0:08:54 hey, business owners buy this software. They don’t necessarily know how to use it. Or if you
0:08:59 can become an expert in it, it’s easy or relatively easy to find people who are using that and kind
0:09:04 of set up a service piggybacking on that almost. And it’s kind of funny. I was talking to Bench
0:09:09 this week, Bench.co, which is a pretty big virtual bookkeeping service. And they said,
0:09:15 this is one of the first services that a lot of business owners tend to outsource a hire help
0:09:20 for because exactly like you said, they didn’t go into business to become an entrepreneur.
0:09:24 And then also a bookkeeper on the side is like, they want to focus on their core thing. And so
0:09:30 that’s where it’s where Kate comes in. So tell me about those first client conversations like,
0:09:34 okay, you’ve gone through this course. You said, this is the side hustle for me. And then it’s
0:09:38 like coming up with the confidence to say, all right, I’m ready to go hunting for clients. Tell
0:09:44 me about that. All right. So I don’t necessarily recommend my start. I was also interested in
0:09:48 real estate investment at the same time as I was kind of considering this. And actually,
0:09:51 those were probably the, that was the, we were either going to like flip a property and I was
0:09:55 going to be like laying hardwood floors or whatever, you know, whatever, or I was going
0:10:00 to be doing this bookkeeping. So I was a member, I bought a cheap little membership to this once a
0:10:05 month real estate investor meeting. And they announced that they were, their speaker had
0:10:09 canceled and they were switching to a speed networking night. And it was my, I’d never done
0:10:14 a speed networking night ever, but I was like, I have to go. And I didn’t even have a business card.
0:10:21 I sat in the park and wrote my name and phone number on some post-it notes and went and,
0:10:25 and met, I don’t know, we had like five tables, like 10 minutes each. I don’t know if people
0:10:29 have been to these things. It was very organized and everyone had like 90, 90 seconds to talk.
0:10:34 And I got a bunch of business cards and I gave out a bunch of post-it notes. And I got a client
0:10:40 out of it. So that was how I got my first client. So I’m a very scrappy, bootstrappy type of a girl.
0:10:45 So part of me loves that story about how I got started, but if you have a week’s notice,
0:10:49 you can order something like off VISTA print and have a proper business card at least to hand out.
0:10:52 But it goes to show you, you don’t, you don’t need it getting started. You just have to have
0:10:57 the idea of the service in your mind. It’ll like, did you introduce yourself? Like, hey,
0:11:02 I’m Kate. I’m a virtual bookkeeper without having any clients or experience to have the
0:11:07 confidence to say that. So that’s, it’s hard. I basically said I’m a QuickBooks pro advisor.
0:11:12 Okay. I had passed the test. So that gave me at least something to say. It also helped that
0:11:17 I only could talk for like 90 seconds. So I probably, I don’t know, what’s the networking
0:11:22 advice, you know, talk about other people’s pain points, right? Right, right. I was probably
0:11:27 saying stuff like, I know that y’all know go, know how to go out and buy and sell houses and
0:11:30 that you hate your bookkeeping. And that’s what I do. So I said, I don’t know, I said something
0:11:35 like that. And I didn’t let myself get like hung up on my experience. I didn’t ever lie.
0:11:40 So don’t, definitely don’t ever do that. There’s a good chance that you’re not going to be fully
0:11:45 grilled on your experience. And one woman was willing to take a chance on me. I think I was
0:11:50 probably pretty honest with her. She was kind of a bootstrappy type of a gal. She still had kids in
0:11:55 high school, you know, flexible type of a gal. So she was, well, you sound like kind of like me.
0:12:01 I’ll hire you. That’s how that match worked. More with Kate in just a moment, including pricing her
0:12:05 work plus the other marketing tactics that helped land clients right after this.
0:12:12 Being an entrepreneur and being able to work remotely definitely has its perks. I’ve recorded
0:12:18 podcasts everywhere from Vietnam to Italy, drafted newsletters from Japan, hosted mastermind
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0:12:50 while we’re traveling. That way the house doesn’t have to sit empty. We could use the income to help
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0:14:41 What happened after that in terms of getting access to their accounts and systems? There’s a lot
0:14:47 of security type of questions that come into play here. That’s another reason why I kind of do recommend
0:14:52 investing in a course because you can spend a week trying to answer those questions. How do I
0:14:58 get access to my client’s books? Or what is the secure way to have them sign an engagement letter?
0:15:04 All these bookkeeping softwares have accountant access that the client grants to you. She invited
0:15:09 me to her QuickBooks file and all that. I would have never known all that. I’m a really smart person
0:15:14 and there’s no way in the world that I would have known that’s how these things work. The nuts and
0:15:18 bolts you can just spend so long trying to figure out on your own. There’s always a way to figure
0:15:24 it out for free. There is nothing about this business that is rocket science, but as an
0:15:30 entrepreneur you have to kind of decide, “I only have this many hours and how am I going to move
0:15:35 most quickly to my destination?” That’s a good way to frame it. There’s always a way to figure it
0:15:41 out for free. A course accelerates that learning curve. I like that. Was this kind of initial
0:15:46 onboarding after this speed networking night? Was that done from your home and your client’s
0:15:50 home? Or was it like, “Hey, can I come to your office and look over your shoulder and we’ll get
0:15:56 all the access set up?” Yeah. I did everything wrong based on what the course said. She was local.
0:16:02 I’m a very extroverted person. I love the idea of being able to spend time with her. I was still
0:16:06 also considering real estate. In my mind I thought, “Wow, if I’m a real estate person’s bookkeeper,
0:16:13 I might learn how to invest in real estate too.” I actually did meet with her in person some,
0:16:19 but it totally wasn’t necessary. It just worked for my context. We started that summer before my
0:16:23 kids were in school. There was a couple of mornings where I actually did hire babysitter
0:16:28 because I just felt more confident being in person. I wasn’t quite as comfortable with the Zoom
0:16:35 meetings and all of that. I’m really comfortable with it now. What’s the actual work like if
0:16:40 expenses and receivables are all automatically pouring into this software or maybe they’re
0:16:45 not and that’s something that you’re setting up? What is the day-to-day responsibilities
0:16:52 of a virtual bookkeeper look like? There’s all kinds of levels. My whole business has been
0:17:01 built on a monthly flow. There is no client that I have that I have to work on any day of the
0:17:06 month. If I need to not work on them for a whole week, I can do that. There are some businesses
0:17:12 who can hire a virtual bookkeeper though who need someone every day. Maybe for two or three hours a
0:17:16 day you’re logging on. There are definitely people who have that type of a client and who want the
0:17:20 type of a client. For me, this wasn’t what I wanted. Is that just because of transaction volume?
0:17:27 Yes. Imagine someone who’s maybe paying a bunch of subcontractors every two to three days.
0:17:31 Imagine a company, maybe like a pest control company who’s got huge and they’ve got just
0:17:35 client after client and maybe you’re helping them, the people who haven’t paid, you may be
0:17:41 tracking that down. Yeah, transaction volume, payroll issues or paying contractor issues,
0:17:47 paying bills. You can kind of set all that up but it just depends on how large the enterprise
0:17:53 is. I deliberately kept clients that are not someone who’s going to need me every day. It’s
0:17:59 a very white collar job. I mean, you’re at a desk, you’re at a computer, you’re doing Zoom calls.
0:18:04 If all of that sounds terrible to you, then you’re not going to like it. If you need to be
0:18:08 like making furniture, you would hate this. You would absolutely hate it. Fair enough.
0:18:16 Yeah, you have to kind of have this accounting mindset or a love of math and numbers or I don’t
0:18:22 know. I would say details too. Love of details is probably even more so than math because the
0:18:29 computer software definitely handles all the math now. Very, very rarely am I doing math anymore,
0:18:32 although you would think I would. About 20 years ago accountants probably would but
0:18:37 it’s a lot more about the details than the math. Yeah, this sounds like perfect for me. I’m the
0:18:43 nerd who actually loves to do my own bookkeeping. Oh yeah? For this first client, this real estate
0:18:48 flipper, did you have a set price in mind? How did you figure out how much to charge for this?
0:18:53 Okay, so you’re asking me all the embarrassing questions. So again, not what is recommended
0:18:59 in the industry right now, but I did charge hourly. And again, I mean, there was a time when,
0:19:03 I don’t know, just been hard. It would have been hard to say this, but so I charged her $20 an
0:19:10 hour. So I charged hourly and I charged very low. And I was thrilled. My husband literally bought me
0:19:15 a bottle of champagne and we were going to meet our church Bible study where we have dinner.
0:19:20 And the very first time I got paid from her, he like made everyone like toast to me because we
0:19:24 were, he was so excited. And I mean, he just thought it was so cool. Like, oh my gosh,
0:19:30 I have a wife who like got paid for someone to do something professional. It’s a huge milestone,
0:19:37 for sure. Yeah, it was, it was so cool. And so I got paid $20 an hour. I love not tracking hours
0:19:45 now. I am quite certain that I will never have an hourly ongoing client again. She was, I had
0:19:50 one other one, but for me, like I just, I would pass on that client if that’s how the client was
0:19:57 wanting pricing. One off engagements like a project or a training, like I said earlier, I’m currently
0:20:03 charging 70 for that. But I’ll just say like the way my business has grown, I have gotten to the
0:20:09 mindset. I got my mindset back from having just been like a mush brain stay at home mom for so long
0:20:14 that I am valuable, that I do have a skill set that most of these businesses really, really don’t
0:20:20 know how to do their own bookkeeping. So they need me or they’re better or not. And I do have a couple
0:20:24 clients who could do their own bookkeeping, but they can make way more money going out and doing
0:20:28 their actual business for those hours they would spend doing their bookkeeping. So it’s, I’m doing
0:20:33 something really valuable. And after two and a half years, I’ve gotten to a better like mental
0:20:39 place about that. So every client kind of my pricing strategy has just aimed for making more
0:20:46 each new client. So that second client, I made more, I did not, I made much more than $20 per hour.
0:20:51 But even though that doesn’t take away from how excited I was to make that first $20 an hour after
0:20:56 having made $0 for six and a half years. Right, right, right. There is something to that. And I
0:21:00 think Abby Ashley, who runs the virtual savvy, and she talked about this in her virtual assistant
0:21:04 business too, like I started off at this rate. And then for the next client, it was a little bit
0:21:09 higher for the next client was a little bit higher. And it’s a way to gain experience and to level
0:21:17 up and to just as your confidence grows, your income can grow as well. Do you have a fixed price
0:21:21 for everybody who comes to you? Or do you kind of like create a custom monthly package now if
0:21:26 somebody approaches you today? So custom monthly package. And I try not to overthink it. The course
0:21:32 that I took had like a pricing calculator in there. And it’s all like people try to like beat
0:21:37 this value pricing drum. I think it’s a little bit of a sham. I think it really ultimately is all
0:21:42 back down to that hourly rate that you want to make. And even this calculator is built on that.
0:21:47 It’s this Excel thing. And but at the top, the very top number is like, what’s your desired
0:21:53 hourly rate? And then it’s, it’s guessing based on like number of transactions. And is there weekly
0:21:58 payroll versus monthly payroll? And I kind of tries to factor all that in to where then we
0:22:03 think that on the average month, this is about how long it’ll take. And so if you want that hourly
0:22:07 rate, this is what you need to charge. And some months, yeah, some months you have to work more
0:22:14 on a client, some months maybe not. So it works out. Okay. And that’s $70 an hour is the ballpark
0:22:19 that you’re aiming for at the moment. That’s what I put in there right now. Okay. And that’s important
0:22:26 to note. If your alternatives are geek economy stuff, low level administrative stuff, like it’s
0:22:31 a way to really level up your earning power. But on the flip side, you gotta know what you’re doing.
0:22:37 So there’s straight off there always a high value service, higher skilled service. So going from
0:22:40 you know, this first client to the roster of clients you have today, what else worked to
0:22:46 market the business? So I did want to share a couple of things. I did get a client by a company
0:22:55 called Paro, P-A-R-O. I think it’s paro.io. And they are kind of like a dating site for bookkeepers
0:22:59 and small businesses. I mean, not really. It’s like a matchmaking site. So I interviewed with
0:23:04 them and I had to pass this actually pretty hard test. I had to send my family out of the house
0:23:11 for like five hours on the Saturday. And it was this timed exam where you pretend to be a bookkeeper.
0:23:15 They had said that this like simulation, but I got in and then they have their whole sales team
0:23:21 whose job is to go and sign the small businesses. One of my early clients was with them. So that’s
0:23:29 one way to get a client, especially if you realize that you want to work virtually, but maybe you’re
0:23:35 not fully invested in the concept of being an entrepreneur. And a lot of accountants are not.
0:23:39 A lot of people who have the skill set that would make them a great bookkeeper means they’re a
0:23:45 terrible business owner, but they make a great bookkeeper. So don’t worry about going to networking
0:23:50 meetings. Don’t worry about having a website. Don’t worry about posting on LinkedIn and all
0:23:55 this other nonsense. And you’re like, if I had six clients from Perot, yeah, I’m not going to make
0:24:00 as much because Perot obviously has to keep their doors open and take a cut, but you can make a
0:24:06 decent wage. That’s an option. I think, did you ever interview someone from Belay, Nick?
0:24:10 I know, I know Brian and Shannon, but I have not done that. Okay. I wasn’t sure if you interviewed
0:24:16 them or not, but Belay is another option. They have bookkeepers on their staff that they’ll,
0:24:21 you know, kind of loan out to businesses all around the world. So that’s kind of one way.
0:24:24 Okay. Did you end up onboarding with them? With Belay? No, I never even tried.
0:24:30 Okay. I think there are become, there’s also more and more. So QuickBooks Live is another program.
0:24:35 So QuickBooks just in the end of 2018 launched its own bookkeeping service. I think they like
0:24:40 put up an ad in the Super Bowl maybe too. So they’re taking bookkeepers instead of just being
0:24:44 a software company. Now they’re actually an accounting and bookkeeping company. A small
0:24:49 business owner can subscribe to QuickBooks and they’re going to get a, immediately start getting
0:24:54 marketed to, “Hey, do you need help? We have a team of bookkeepers.” And they pay a decent wage.
0:24:59 I think their average wage right now is like in the $20 to $25 range, which is, I mean,
0:25:05 not too shabby if, you know, fits your family’s lifestyle and your goals and you just, you’re
0:25:09 supervised by someone. So you don’t have the pressure of like, “Well, if I make a mistake,
0:25:12 who do I, or if I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t have anyone to ask.” I mean, that’s kind
0:25:16 of terrifying. Luckily the course that I put kind of has my, that’s my support system when I don’t
0:25:22 know what to do. It came with like actual, very, very experienced accountants who I can
0:25:28 fall back on. But so QuickBooks Live would be another like, that’s kind of a gig economy,
0:25:32 part-time virtual job, but not full-blown entrepreneurship. And then if you want to
0:25:38 just keep going down the entrepreneur path, my best way is just people that I know. So,
0:25:43 you know, that game like Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon, like that’s how I think all my clients
0:25:48 pretty much have been. If not someone that I know, it’s like someone that I know knows that person.
0:25:53 And I just try to tell as many people as I can that I have this business and it has just kind of
0:25:58 worked for me. Once I got a website, I finally built a website about a year and a half into my
0:26:02 business. So like heritagebusinessservices.com is where I, once I built that, it’s just a
0:26:08 little simple four-page website. I felt a lot of confidence grow in my marketing and I was able to
0:26:13 say to people, “Hey, I’m a virtual bookkeeper. Check out my website.” And it just made me feel
0:26:18 a lot more legit. Sure. Yeah, exactly. It’s not something that you need in the early days,
0:26:22 but it is something that can make you feel more official, make you feel more legit down the road.
0:26:28 But I like how you were able to validate this thing with a paying customer before business
0:26:32 cards, before getting a logo, before getting a website. It’s just like, no. Yeah, I don’t have
0:26:36 a logo at all. I still don’t have a logo. Yeah, you don’t need that stuff. You don’t need that stuff.
0:26:42 Okay. With the website, were you able to add it to Google local, Google my business,
0:26:46 like trying to get local clients, curious how the website eventually helped you aside from
0:26:51 this confidence factor? So I think I probably could have done that, but I have not done that.
0:26:56 No, I don’t have a find me on Google. I don’t think. If people are searching like Virginia
0:27:00 Beach Bookkeeper, they’re probably not going to come up. And that’s just because I’ve taken
0:27:05 the approach of, I really do think it’s going to be someone that’s like not too many degrees away
0:27:10 from me. I think my third client was from the elementary school pickup line, where we parents
0:27:15 have to go in to pick up our kids. Okay, okay. He was one of the dads of like one of the older
0:27:22 kids at the school. And that’s how it’s worked for me. So I haven’t put a lot of effort into,
0:27:27 I mean, there’s no SEO for my website. What was the conversation like with that dad?
0:27:32 He was just like, Hey, what do you do? No, it was that easy. So our school has pizza Friday,
0:27:36 and that’s what like parents are encouraged to come. And he would come occasionally. And I just
0:27:40 ended up sitting by him. And I don’t know. I’ve probably been in the school about a year and a
0:27:45 half at that point. So I recognized him. And I don’t know. I just like, I try to be socially
0:27:50 adept. That’s kind of it. I don’t know. Maybe he, I think he might have been wearing like a badge
0:27:54 to get into a business. So I was asking him about his business. And then it turned out that he had
0:27:59 this extra nonprofit that he was responsible for. And so it was for the nonprofit that he said he
0:28:04 needed a bookkeeper for. Oh, okay. So once I had that business mindset on, I was just like looking
0:28:10 for places to turn the conversation to that direction, if that makes sense, without being annoying.
0:28:13 Yeah, a couple of different options, obviously the in-person networking stuff,
0:28:19 your six degrees of separation, who do you know, who did they know? And just being up front saying,
0:28:23 like, this is, this is what I do now. This is something I can help out with going down the
0:28:29 route of the QuickBooks Live or the Para or the Belay, like going where larger companies already
0:28:34 have a network of bookkeepers that they’re referring out to clients. So it’s like going where customers
0:28:39 are already shopping. That’s one way to do it. And then, you know, finally there’s this whole
0:28:44 level of online marketing and, you know, trying to find complete stranger type of clients that I
0:28:50 imagine you get to down the road. But the important thing to notice here, it doesn’t take a ton of
0:28:54 clients to make a meaningful business out of this. Exactly. I don’t want a lot of clients.
0:29:02 Where do you see this going? Like, are you happy with where it’s at? Are you trying to
0:29:05 grow to have a team of bookkeepers underneath you? What’s the future hold?
0:29:10 Yeah, maybe I jump the gun by saying I don’t want a lot of clients. Although, I think I actually
0:29:14 don’t want a lot of clients. There are definitely ways that you can take this business down that
0:29:20 path. But for me, my next step is to probably outsource some of the monthly work. And I’ve
0:29:27 actually done that. So I’m allowed to say that I have just in 2020 brought on a subcontractor for
0:29:32 two clients. And that’s just such a cool, amazing milestone. I feel really great about it. It’s
0:29:38 working out well. It’s something you can test slowly. And that’s a good model, I think, if anyone
0:29:43 is trying to grow or maybe they get a client that they’re not confident in. Like, you know,
0:29:50 if a client has inventory or maybe they have foreign currency or, you know, kind of a little
0:29:58 bit more varsity type of counting, bring them on and hire a really experienced, slightly nerdy
0:30:05 accountant who loves that stuff. And they’ll be able to do a lot of the work and you can still
0:30:09 share in the revenue of that client. Right. This is one way a service business becomes a little
0:30:14 bit more time leveraged, a little bit more passive when it’s like, hey, I don’t have to be the one
0:30:19 laying the bricks anymore. Yeah. And another reason I’ll say that I’m not interested in being huge
0:30:25 is because kind of as you mentioned at the very, very beginning, I have found that I have a unique
0:30:31 skill set and interest in kind of encouraging other people to become bookkeepers. So my bookkeeping
0:30:38 side hustle work where I’m helping people get started and go, I’m loving and I’m passionate
0:30:44 about. And there’s a lot of people like me who are, what held was I was like 32, had a kid,
0:30:48 had a couple little kids feeling like drowning a little bit. I mean, I love my kids very,
0:30:53 very much. But just like, where did my brain go? And there’s lots of moms out there who are kind
0:30:58 of like me. And they like, man, if I could just have just a little bit of kind of that old self,
0:31:05 it’ll help me even be the better mom. And I love being able to have my kids see me work. I like
0:31:09 them hearing them say like, my mommy does accounting or my mommy does quick books. I think
0:31:13 they say that they don’t really kind of, but I love that. And for years, I didn’t, I didn’t
0:31:18 really have that and not every mother needs that. But for me, it was, I found a good balance, I think.
0:31:22 Yeah, I love it when the kid, you know, asking our kids like, Oh, what does daddy do for work?
0:31:28 I don’t know. He talks to people. What does mommy do for work? Oh, she takes pictures of people or
0:31:32 is like, Oh, she’s not taking pictures today. Oh, laboratory. Yes. She’s at the laboratory today.
0:31:36 So I love it. It’s like, it’s awesome to try and instill that in the kids too at an early age.
0:31:44 I love this because it illustrates so many of like the side hustle show themes, especially the part
0:31:49 about the kind of entrepreneurial physics of the opportunities become visible once you’re in motion
0:31:56 and an entrepreneur in motion stays in motion. So bookkeepingsidehustle.com is an example of
0:32:01 working in public in a lot of ways. Like, here’s my experience in doing this. Here’s how you can
0:32:07 get involved too. And I understand it started almost by accident on a basis of a Facebook thread.
0:32:14 Yes. So I think it was about September of 2018. Now it’s about 18 months ago. I was in a Facebook
0:32:20 group. It was ChooseFI was the name of the group, which is just a financial, like a personal finance
0:32:24 kind of a group. And lots of people in that umbrella are going to be wondering about like,
0:32:28 there’s two levers you can pull to increase your expenses or increase your income. And so
0:32:32 lots of people ask like, how do I increase my income? And someone had posted something about
0:32:36 accounting or that they were an accountant and they needed to make more money. And I just chimed
0:32:41 in that I do virtual bookkeeping and just serve a few clients that I’m able to do it during the
0:32:46 cracks of my day. And the thread kind of grew. A lot of people were interested, but it kind of got
0:32:50 too much. And someone suggested, Hey, why don’t we just make a small Facebook group and you can
0:32:53 answer all of our questions at once and kind of be done with it instead of me just kind of being
0:32:56 pulled all over. And I was feeling generous and wanting to answer people’s question, but it was
0:33:00 going to make it more efficient to do that. So I thought, I didn’t know about creating my own
0:33:05 group. I had no idea what to do, but I figured it out. And you stood out in the thread because
0:33:11 you weren’t pitching a network marketing scheme. No, no, no. Oh gosh, no, I was just saying, Oh,
0:33:15 yeah, like here’s the QuickBooks Pro Advisor site where you can get your certification or, you know,
0:33:19 whatever. I don’t know what I said, but we moved. I’m guessing it was probably 10 or 15 people to
0:33:25 this private little Facebook group answered some questions. And I wish I knew exactly how it happened,
0:33:31 but now there’s 7,000 people in it. And by accident. Yeah. Well, so all I would do is every once in a
0:33:35 while, I would say a lot of my military spouse groups too, I would like ask career question,
0:33:38 I’ll say, well, I’m a virtual bookkeeper. And if you want to learn more, I have a Facebook group
0:33:42 where we talk about it. And then I finally like actually gave the group a proper name. I probably
0:33:46 didn’t do that for like six months or some things that people could actually find me. You can like
0:33:53 change the name of the group. And then I don’t know, people were really taking my advice and kind
0:33:57 of running with it and people were having success. So yeah, then I started a blog because the only
0:34:01 reason I started the blog was because I was answering the same question over and over because
0:34:05 this isn’t rocket science. It’s like learn accounting, learn a bookkeeping software,
0:34:09 figure out how to set up a business and then go get a client. But everyone has the same questions
0:34:13 and I kind of got tired of answering, how do you become a QuickBooks Pro Advisor? So I just made
0:34:19 it like a YouTube video about screencasting me like pretending to sign up for a QuickBooks account.
0:34:23 So then I could answer those questions over and over and I enjoy it. I like it. I like seeing
0:34:28 people succeed. Yeah, I even created a, tried to write a book this year. I did write a book
0:34:31 in January, just called the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Guidebook.
0:34:34 Yeah, or just knocked it out in January. No big deal.
0:34:39 Yeah. Well, I just, I don’t know. I know how to tell people how to do it. So I wrote it down
0:34:43 and I have that and it’s all about actually taking action and-
0:34:46 Is the book on Amazon or is it through bookkeepingsidehustle.com?
0:34:52 Yeah. So bookkeepingsidehustle.com, I think it’s backslash bookkeeping guidebook,
0:34:56 but I have a link on the main homepage. I just sell it on my Shopify store and it’s just an ebook
0:35:00 download because the important part of the book is it’s very actionable. So when it talks about
0:35:05 getting your QuickBooks Pro Advisor certification or your zero certification, I have a link like in
0:35:09 the ebook. So as you’re reading the content, you’ll be able to jump to like the next thing
0:35:14 you need to watch. Or if you want to watch a lot, I have a lot of YouTube videos I recommend people
0:35:19 listen to by a lot of like really, really expert people and the links right there. So
0:35:23 I don’t know that I’ll ever make it a hard copy because the linking functionality is so important
0:35:28 because there’s a whole lot of people who know a whole lot more than I do about how to do this.
0:35:33 I just have, I would consider myself probably the best expert at being like the hub of it all.
0:35:40 So that’s my role in it. And I can point you to the true, true, true accounting experts or
0:35:45 software experts. I think it’s awesome. I think it’s really cool what you built and then
0:35:50 by spreading the word, you’ve opened up another income stream, which can be even more time leveraged.
0:35:55 Really, really inspiring stuff, Kate. Thank you. All right. So bookkeepingsidehustle.com is where
0:36:02 you can find Kate’s home base. Be sure to jump in the bookkeeping side hustle group on Facebook,
0:36:06 if this is a side hustle that interests you specifically. But again, think of the broader
0:36:12 parallels for any type of home based service type of business where you can find clients,
0:36:17 how you can gain the skills and expertise you need to get started, and really go from there.
0:36:22 So again, Kate, thank you for joining me. And let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip
0:36:29 for side hustle nation. So I thought about this. I want to say with this particular side hustle,
0:36:36 we really need to have the long view in mind. So if you need $1,000 next week, don’t do this.
0:36:43 If you would like to have $1,000 a month in a year or in retirement as you’re traveling in your RV,
0:36:48 this could really be the perfect side hustle. So think about learning a new skill. Think about
0:36:52 taking the time that it takes. Maybe actually take a couple of junior college accounting classes,
0:36:57 do what it takes. But knowing that you can kind of craft this life that you want and you could
0:37:03 grow it as big or as small, scale it as quickly or as not quickly once you have the foundation
0:37:07 as much as you want. So that’s my number one tip that this is a really great side hustle
0:37:12 with the long view in mind. I like it. Thanks for sharing that. Nick, can I ask one more thing?
0:37:19 I did want to say I did create a discount code for the book. So SNH 30 off SNH 30 off. That would
0:37:24 be my number two tip. If you get this little ebook, it costs hardly anything at all. You’ll
0:37:28 spend an hour reading it and you’ll know quickly whether this is for you or not. All right, very
0:37:32 good. We will link that up in the show notes for this episode. Thank you for that. You’re welcome.
0:37:37 All right. Once again, this is Kate Johnson from bookkeepingsidehustle.com. Thank you so much
0:37:39 for joining me and we’ll catch up with you soon.
0:37:47 All right. Here’s hoping you drew some inspiration from Kate’s story in this episode.
0:37:52 I loved her attitude about being a good steward of her time and how even just a few hours a week
0:37:58 combined with intentional action can build a meaningful extra income stream. She essentially
0:38:04 followed the framework of learn, connect, and earn. And there’s no reason that you can’t do the same
0:38:11 in any skill under the sun. And by being excited about her side hustle and spreading the word,
0:38:16 like telling people what she does, that led to this whole bookkeepingsidehustle.com project
0:38:22 in the Facebook group. Lots of good stuff in this one. Be sure to hit up sidehustlenation.com/bookkeeping
0:38:27 for links to all the resources mentioned and the full text summary of our conversation.
0:38:31 All right. We’re about to do a little time travel and check in with 2024, Kate,
0:38:34 and see what the business looks like today right after this.
0:38:40 Lots of scrappy side hustlers start their business with just their personal phone number.
0:38:44 And I love that. But at a certain point, you can’t be limited to just your cell phone and
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0:39:45 That’s openphone.com/sidehustle. And if you have existing numbers with another service,
0:39:51 OpenPhone will port them over at no extra charge. Hey, it’s no secret. Starting a business can feel
0:39:55 really hard and growing a business even harder. How are you going to reach more customers? How can
0:40:00 you do it when budgets are tight? How can you maintain the quality of your products and services
0:40:04 as you scale? Well, there’s a great podcast that can help out with all of that. It’s called
0:40:09 This Is Small Business. This Is Small Business is full of practical insights that you can apply
0:40:14 to your business right now and it answers so many of those kinds of questions that
0:40:19 all entrepreneurs have, like how to build your marketing strategy, how to use email lists to
0:40:24 increase revenue, tips to accelerate small business growth, and tons more. A couple recent
0:40:29 episodes I think you might like are episode 61 on marketing, networking, and audience building,
0:40:35 and episode 63 on how to build your business with a small budget. Both of those are filled
0:40:40 with practical, actionable tips to move your side hustle forward so you can reach your goals.
0:40:44 So go ahead and follow This Is Small Business, an original podcast from Amazon,
0:40:50 wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, Kate, welcome to 2024. I’m so glad to have you back.
0:40:56 Give us, to the extent that you’re comfortable, the state of the business, the monthly client,
0:40:59 load, ballpark, revenue numbers, whatever you’re comfortable sharing here.
0:41:04 Sure. I’m so glad that you asked me to come back. Yes, so business is going good. It’s different.
0:41:10 I’ve relocated with the Navy. My husband’s in the Navy. Since the last time we talked,
0:41:16 I’m in a new town and the cool thing about my business is I’ve been able to keep it. So let’s
0:41:22 see. The biggest update of all on the actual client side is that I have niched in a specific
0:41:27 bookkeeping software. I chose Fresh Books. I didn’t think I was going to be able to stand out
0:41:32 in kind of like the larger American QuickBooks world. I thought it’d always be a pretty small
0:41:36 fish in a big pond. And so I thought I want to build something kind of non-traditional anyway.
0:41:41 So I picked a software that was big enough for me to find a lot of plenty clients, but
0:41:47 where accounting professionals weren’t necessarily saturated that market. So I serve Fresh Books
0:41:54 clients exclusively. All of my marketing and all my clients are inbound from my YouTube tutorials.
0:42:00 So I create accounting tutorials for a smaller software and people find me because they found
0:42:04 me on YouTube because they were trying to solve some problem. Yeah, it’s really cool.
0:42:10 Wow. There’s lots of cool stuff going on here. So relocated, but hey, I’ve got a location independent
0:42:14 skill. I’ve got a portable business. My toolbox has wheels, right? I can take the show on the road.
0:42:18 You’re niched down. Say, hey, maybe it’s going to be better to be a big fish in a smaller pond than
0:42:23 be a small fish in a big pond. Like, you know, if QuickBooks is the market leader or one of the
0:42:28 big, big players in the bookkeeping space, like, well, that’s a little crowded for a little me.
0:42:33 But what if I carved out a name and a space for myself in Fresh Books? And this is interesting
0:42:39 because Fresh Books kind of builds itself as like solo operator service provider type of businesses,
0:42:44 like, you know, young freelancers, you know, typically, like my impression was like DIY type,
0:42:48 like, you don’t need a bookkeeper if you have our software, but you’re finding that that people
0:42:52 still need some help with it. So 100% everyone thinks they can do their own accounting and
0:42:57 then like no one does. And also even, even, even if they really do, like they’re good at whatever
0:43:03 it is they do. And so the smarter business owners, I think, do realize, hey, it’s worth it to invest
0:43:07 a little bit in getting some help. And it’s interesting that you say it’s for DIYers. So
0:43:11 the biggest thing I do is actually not monthly client work, which I think if I think your listeners
0:43:14 are probably going to get, you know, if they’re interested in bookkeeping, they’re going to get
0:43:19 ads for programs that will help them get like a monthly client type of a business. I have switched,
0:43:24 I really like to teach. And so I do a lot of one on one training. And that’s the perfect fit for
0:43:28 Fresh Books because some people do have pretty simple accounting, and they just need a couple of hours
0:43:33 of information about how to use the software before they go on their own and then maybe call
0:43:38 me again later in the year for a check in. So that’s one thing I do. And then the other thing I do
0:43:44 that’s not traditional accounting firm work is I am sure I wanted this concept of like selling one
0:43:50 to many or like subscription to myself. I have an office hours model. And so it’s a pretty low price.
0:43:55 It’s for DIYers. But then they have a bookkeeper in their back pocket once a week for an hour.
0:44:00 And so my thought is, how do you scale bookkeeping services where I’m not having to click in the
0:44:06 software, we’ll let the client do the work. And so that’s another thing that I sell on my services
0:44:10 page on my website, Tuesday afternoon office hours, and people join that, but they’re their own
0:44:15 bookkeeper. And that’s another kind of funky angle I’ve taken. And it’s working out well. And I’m
0:44:19 proud of it. And I think I’m helping a lot of people like these people need help, but they can’t
0:44:25 afford to outsource their bookkeeping, right? So that’s another just a funky angle I’ve taken.
0:44:31 Okay, that is an interesting one. What do you charge for that? 69 a month for that. And I kind
0:44:36 of don’t have any responsibilities after, except for the goal, you know, yeah, just got to show up
0:44:40 and do this weekly kind of Q&A. That’s an interesting because well, it’s like, that’s what you’ve
0:44:44 shifted away from this like monthly recurring client base, like, that’s what’s appealing to this
0:44:47 business is like, well, if you’re as long as you’re in business, you’re going to have books,
0:44:50 you’re going to need bookkeeping. And so it’s a very sticky type of service is saying, oh, no,
0:44:55 I pivoted away from that to do more of this one on one training. But in doing so, did I just,
0:44:58 you know, hurt myself from the recurring revenue standpoint, like, well, here’s a creative way
0:45:04 to add it back in kind of a monthly membership model. Yeah. And the thing about it is it really
0:45:09 became even when I niched in fresh books, at that point, I was still thinking monthly clients were
0:45:14 the way. But the truth is like, I’m just not built that way. And there are people who are built that
0:45:18 way. And so I think I have a much more teaching spirit. I don’t like like, not really communicating
0:45:23 with my clients that like, I want to, I want to help people learn like how to excel in their
0:45:26 business. And I was finding that the bookkeeping clients I got, even though they were maybe,
0:45:31 you know, I was charging them $300 a month for their books, I didn’t think I was like
0:45:35 really coaching them that much. Maybe that was my problem. But it was like, I did the books,
0:45:38 I sent them the reports. Lots of times, they didn’t want to talk to me because I did what
0:45:41 I was paid to do. And they could have called me and asked me questions, but they didn’t want it.
0:45:46 So I don’t know, there’s pros and cons. My personality is like not a typical
0:45:50 accountant. I didn’t grow up in an accounting firm. And so everything about my business has a
0:45:55 little bit of a twist to it anyway. But lots of people will still like that monthly recurring,
0:46:00 like larger client that you’re responsible for. But I don’t want a busy season in January when
0:46:05 bookkeepers have like this crazy busy season, like not my problem. These people like, I’ll help you,
0:46:13 but you’re your own bookkeeper. Did you find there was an industry or type of client where the
0:46:18 service really resonated with? Like was there, there was an itching down on the software side and
0:46:22 say, okay, well, we can piggyback on the popularity of the FreshBooks tool. But like, was there any
0:46:28 further niching of like, well, we do FreshBooks, but for freelance writers or something like that.
0:46:33 So there’s probably room to do that. I just haven’t been able to pull that off. I’ve thought about,
0:46:37 maybe I could get a client like one of the members of the group to like take me to an industry
0:46:41 conference. That’s kind of like the opposite. What if I went to like the Salesforce consultant
0:46:45 industry conference? Because one of my guys is like a big Salesforce consultant, you know,
0:46:49 then I could just be the Salesforce FreshBooks bookkeeper. But I haven’t done that. I haven’t
0:46:54 executed on it. I take anyone who FreshBooks is good for. So FreshBooks has forced me to niche,
0:46:58 kind of, because FreshBooks is so limited in who it serves.
0:47:03 Yeah. Talk to me about the YouTube strategy, because this is one that we’ve seen over and over
0:47:09 again. If I can create the tutorial content, if I can create the Q&A content, the comparison
0:47:13 content on YouTube for these certain tools, I don’t need to go viral. I don’t need a ton of views.
0:47:18 But if somebody is watching this video, and I’m looking at some of the, this is the Fix Your
0:47:24 FreshBooks YouTube channel, closing in on 2000 subscribers. So it’s not nothing, but it’s not
0:47:30 huge. And we see videos on topics like FreshBooks versus QuickBooks or getting started with
0:47:36 FreshBooks or FreshBooks versus Wave. And these kind of very specific titles that have a tendency
0:47:40 to show up in search, people are looking, you know, for this exact information, that’s a pretty
0:47:44 well qualified lead if they’re watching to the end of this video. Yeah. So actually the ones,
0:47:48 those comparison videos that you’re talking about, those are probably not where my leads are. My
0:47:53 leads are actually from the really like a more obscure, nerdier, slower views that you might
0:47:57 not even be seeing on like my home screen yet, because people need to know how to like issue
0:48:04 a client refund or how to, you know, how to split an expense, like really small, small things.
0:48:08 But yeah, but like legit question is that users of the tool may have. They don’t know how to use it.
0:48:14 And so literally, like if they watch to the end of the video, they love me. And so that is the
0:48:19 strategy because no one is going to watch those videos who doesn’t need me. And by the time they’re
0:48:23 done with this five minute nerd fest, they’re going to say, I got to call Kate. And that’s what
0:48:27 happens. They watch, they watch my videos. And I don’t even tell them who I am really until the
0:48:31 end, because I just know that if they get to the end, I’m in there. I’m their girl. Is there a
0:48:36 call to action at the end, like a book, a consultation call or sign up for XYZ service?
0:48:42 Yeah, I have a pre just like discovery call is the typical thing of a weekly checklist they can
0:48:48 download at the end of the year. One time I made like a year end checklist video. So there are
0:48:54 some calls to action, but really it’s just like heritagebusinessservices.com. And they can book
0:48:58 a 15 minute call from there, but I don’t even always have to say that they like they’re desperate
0:49:03 for me by the time they’re watching these videos. Just solve my problem, make the pain go away.
0:49:07 Exactly. And you’re right, it doesn’t take a ton of views to build a business on the back of that.
0:49:12 I think that’s really cool. Well, any other updates for us? I know you have the bookkeeping
0:49:17 side hustle.com, what you call the accounting influencer side of the business, anything new
0:49:20 and different and exciting over there? Yes, I do have a community called the bookkeeping side
0:49:25 hustle community. It’s grown, it’s largely on Facebook, but I would say I’d even probably
0:49:30 less active in that group Nick than I was when I talked to you the first time. I’ve switched to a
0:49:36 pretty consistent writing every other Saturday on sub stack. So I have a bookkeeping side hustle
0:49:41 newsletter and I basically am building in public. That’s that’s how I serve that audience of other
0:49:46 accounting professionals. I’m telling people the good, the bad and the ugly of what it has,
0:49:51 what it’s like to build heritage business services, I make mistakes, I switch software for
0:49:56 invoice, like all the things and I’m just telling people my processes and wins and losses and that
0:50:01 community is going great. I love it. It’s like my labor of love and I have been doing it for a
0:50:05 long time. I mean, I don’t want to do it more often than I’m doing it, but I’m doing it twice a
0:50:11 month and I have ads on there now. And so like your content and like the way you think has inspired
0:50:16 me so much to think about, okay, I’m in this industry. What else can I do to start making some
0:50:21 money? And I’m not, I’m comfortable writing. I had an audience and so let’s see if we can monetize
0:50:27 that. So like there’s four advertisers for each edition and there’s, you know, some affiliate
0:50:32 revenue as a part of that as well. And I do that and love it. And I’m helping people like bookkeeping
0:50:36 changed my life and changed my family’s like financial trajectory from being a military
0:50:41 spouse with no job, having a portable business. And I want to, by building in public, if it helps
0:50:47 some people get even a little bit of what I’ve gotten, I want to be able to offer that to people.
0:50:51 Well, we’re happy to link up the sub-stack newsletter in the show notes for this episode as
0:50:55 well. This is, you know, free ad supported newsletter or they’re like paid tiers here too.
0:51:00 So I haven’t turned on payments in sub-stack. Nope. Everybody’s free. I’m kind of raging
0:51:04 against the email machine. Like I think of sub-stack as like almost like a blog where people don’t
0:51:08 even have to subscribe to read it. The whole archive is like there. So I’m often answering
0:51:11 questions like in my Facebook group, if someone asks a question, I remember, oh yeah, I wrote
0:51:15 about that in April. I can go grab that link and say, oh, here’s that answer to your question.
0:51:20 Or here was my experience. And I really like it to be more like a blog. It happens to get emailed
0:51:23 if you’re subscribed. Even if you’re not subscribed, please read it. And I don’t have to clutter your
0:51:29 inbox. Yeah, I like this call of kind of, you know, it takes a lot of extra effort to do this
0:51:34 build in public thing, but it builds so much trust and credibility with the people who are
0:51:39 following along to be like, oh, she’s just, you know, one or two steps ahead of where I’m at.
0:51:46 And it builds that relationship and credibility of, you know, people will start to buy the things
0:51:50 that you recommend. We’ll start to sign up for your consulting services, join your memberships.
0:51:54 Like there’s lots of benefits of doing that in exchange for that kind of like, well,
0:51:56 I’m not getting paid to do any of it in the very early days.
0:52:01 Well, and I’ll say like, I still think like the sky’s the limit, like even on the influencer side
0:52:06 and on the real firm side, like one day, these are going to connect like in my, in my mind,
0:52:12 the vision I see is I’ll sell fresh books courses to accounting pros, like fresh books is getting
0:52:18 better. More accountants will want to use that software. And so I’m the expert, like 100% in
0:52:23 America, I have seen the most fresh books files than any accounting professional and I’ll be equipped
0:52:29 to start doing course sales or paid webinars to, you know, convert your QuickBooks desktop
0:52:31 client to fresh books and people will pay for that.
0:52:35 Yeah, you comfortable sharing like what the pie chart looks like in terms of like, well,
0:52:40 the heritage business services side be like the business client servicing side versus the,
0:52:44 you know, influencer side between the newsletter sponsorships, the affiliate revenue over there.
0:52:49 Yeah, sure. So I use a building software in my bookkeeping business called Ignition and it
0:52:53 predicts what I’m going to like make for the year based on any recurring stuff I have. And so for
0:52:58 this year I might make, I think I’m going to make probably between like, I bet I’ll make about 80 to
0:53:04 90,000 in client services. Like I do real accounting, y’all, for real, for real. But then I would say
0:53:10 the bookkeeping side hustle side is, you know, it kind of bats at that level. So I’m making a great,
0:53:13 I mean, an amazing, amazing income doing actual technical work.
0:53:15 So it’s about 50/50 at this point?
0:53:16 Yes. Wow.
0:53:22 I mean, I like transparency. So my newsletter ads are $600 for the title ad and about, well,
0:53:27 there’s two different tiers for the classified ads, but either 120 or 200 for that. And then
0:53:32 there’s usually other like called actions that I recommend per newsletter.
0:53:35 That’s like, how many people you got subscribed to this thing? That’s great.
0:53:36 7,000 to 8,000.
0:53:39 Oh my gosh. Am I ever undercharging for a newsletter spot?
0:53:43 But it’s real niche. It’s real niche, man.
0:53:45 It’s true. It’s so, it’s super, super niche.
0:53:46 Yeah.
0:53:50 So who, like you give me an example of a sponsor, who wants to get in front of this audience?
0:53:57 Accounting app vendors. So my audience is a lot of new entrepreneurial accounting pros.
0:54:00 So they might, they might be a 20 year CPA, right?
0:54:04 But they’re just now deciding to like do their own business side of it.
0:54:07 So there’s a lot of tech stack choices that happens for that person,
0:54:09 that person is choosing, how am I going to manage my practice?
0:54:11 What apps am I going to use to collect receipts?
0:54:15 And then there’s like people who serve bookkeeping professionals,
0:54:18 like people who want to build websites for bookkeeping professionals,
0:54:21 or people who sell courses to bookkeeping professionals, those are the advertisers.
0:54:25 Well, that’s incredible. I love the story. I love the progress that she made.
0:54:29 Hey, look, what we’re going to do, you know, between the client facing side and the, you know,
0:54:34 so-called influencer side, the building public side, we’re going to do over 150 grand this year.
0:54:39 And that whole second half is just the unlock of being able to put yourself
0:54:44 out there and kind of share your experience of doing this thing even early on.
0:54:46 I don’t have all the answers, but I’m going to learn as I go when I figure this out.
0:54:50 Super, super inspiring stuff. Anything else that you want to leave us with
0:54:52 before we wrap on this? Where are they now, Addition?
0:54:55 Yeah. So I’ll just say, this is maybe more on the influencer side.
0:54:58 I want people to know that I think bookkeeping is really hard.
0:55:02 And so, you know, if this inspires you and you know that you have that like
0:55:07 accounting bent inside of you, I have noticed that I think there are some people who think,
0:55:10 oh, bookkeeping should be easy or anyone can do it.
0:55:13 Or it’s kind of like maybe just a step above the secretary and it is not that.
0:55:17 And so that’s part of my message too. As I’m building in public, like,
0:55:22 holy crud, like payroll liabilities are like really hard to do.
0:55:26 And it’s someone’s livelihood, right? Like their books are really important.
0:55:29 So I just think of this as a very serious side hustle.
0:55:32 And I do work completely part-time. Last summer we moved to Texas.
0:55:34 I was like, I barely worked last summer.
0:55:37 Like I am part-time, but I’m serious about the business.
0:55:41 And so that’s the mentality that I want people to have if they love accounting.
0:55:44 Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. You got to know what you’re doing.
0:55:46 Otherwise, you can really screw up somebody’s livelihood here.
0:55:47 Exactly.
0:55:51 Definitely appreciate that word of caution to what people getting into it.
0:55:54 But bookkeepingsidehustle.com is where you can find Kate.
0:55:57 We’ll link up the YouTube channel as well.
0:56:01 We’ll link up the sub-stack, heritagebusinessservices.com,
0:56:04 if you’re a FreshBooks user and need some help on that front.
0:56:07 Kate, thanks so much for stopping by, for sharing your insight,
0:56:10 for being willing to jump back on and give us this update.
0:56:13 Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:56:17 You can hit up sidehustlenation.com/deals for all the latest offers from
0:56:19 our sponsors in one place.
0:56:22 Thanks for supporting the advertisers that support the show.
0:56:23 That is it for me.
0:56:24 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:56:27 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen.
0:56:30 And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show.