In this blog post I’m going to be talking all about my journey to one hundred thousand dollars in bookkeeping revenue. It sounds so surreal just saying that!!
What I want to share today are how I got started with Bookkeeper Launch, and the biggest ups and downs that I’ve experienced starting at the GROUND LEVEL with my business - like zero followers, zero experience, zero…everything just zero.
This is also a follow up video to THIS BLOG POST which is where I provide a FULL review of Bookkeeper Launch which is the first investment I made in my business and really that program put everything into motion for me.
First, I want to talk about my first client and how I got them, what the job was etc. If you’re looking for your first client, I would highly recommend doing exactly what I did!
I finished the Bookkeeper Launch program in early October 2017 and immediately set up my linkedin profile, my facebook page, my Instagram account, and my domain name/website. The bookkeeper launch program explains step by step how to do all that so it wasn’t overwhelming or expensive.
I announced my new business and explained what services I was offering which included QBO set up, bookkeeping clean up, and monthly services. I had narrowed down my niche but I was open to taking on anyone that I felt confident about in order to get strong testimonials and a little experience.
On linkedin I had a copy paste welcome message explaining how I assisted small businesses and started going through my first and then second degree connections here in St. Louis.
My First Client
I started tracking my acceptance and reply rate and made adjustments to my messaging to see if I could increase both of those. Eventually I got a reply from an owner who would be my first client and she was just starting up her business in the health and fitness industry which is what I had hoped would be my niche so it was perfect!
She needed to be set up in QBO, and also wanted some training on how to navigate the software. I sent her a proposal with my quote on Oct 16th and it was $350 for the set up and a few transactions of clean up which I planned on using those to help show her how the software operated.
Let me pause here and say that I sound pretty confident and collected NOW talking about it all but don’t let me fool you I was FREAKING OUT. Imposter syndrome was through the roof, I was TERRIFIED of her somehow finding out that I was not confident and scared and I didn’t let it stop me but I was like sick nervous.
I remember driving to her office and parking very slowly and my mind was like “it’s not too late, you can still back out.”
She paid me $175 when she signed the contract and another $175 when I was finished. It felt SO amazing to get my first payment. I know that I stumbled over my words and the training was far from perfect BUT it was messy action and it was exactly what I needed to move forward with a tiny bit of experience to stand on.
It’s not like the flood gates opened and clients were knocking down my door, but there IS something powerful about turning this hobby into a business when you get your first payment and you KNOW that the process works.
That was month one in business and my first client. All in all that client probably required 3-4 hours of my time. I was full time in my business so the other 156 hours that month consisted of me learning about marketing AND connecting with small business owners.
You can NOT just sit around and wait for people to come to you. Passive is NOT going to cut it and it does a huge disservice to people that really do need your services!
My advice would be to set up 1 to 1s with professionals that are in adjacent industries. Set up referral meetings with accountants, insurance providers, real estate agents, life coaches, and attorneys. Visit BNI and networking groups as many times as you can for free.
An excuse I’ve seen used is this “I wanted to meet with an accountant but they also offered bookkeeping” or “I’m afraid to meet with a CPA because what if they ask me questions that I don’t know the answer to? I’ll look like a fraud!”
And this is some tough love but you need to quit digging up excuses rooted in your insecurities and instead find solutions that stem from your goals and dreams.
So you meet with someone who is not a good referral partner?? So WHAT?? The risk vs. reward of getting out of your comfort zone and meeting other business owners or professionals is ridiculous. The risk is what? Hurting your pride. Feeling shy? Saying the “wrong thing?”
Literally no one cares.
It’s not a job interview, they aren’t evaluating your work history or knowledge. They want to see exactly what problem you solve and if you’re a relatable, genuine person…. At least that’s what I look for!
On the other hand, this is the possible reward: You create lasting relationships and are able to serve their circle and turn good businesses into GREAT ones because they are now organized, have positive cash flow, and are always prepared for tax season.
To recap the first step that I would take when getting your first client is TO PUT YOURSELF OUT THERE. Take messy action!!
By allowing the doubts and imposter syndrome to creep in, you are literally ROBBING businesses of the service that you provide. Every month, every WEEK that you hold back and tell no one about what you do is a week that another small business struggles without any kind of solid record keeping. Get out of your own way and don’t be afraid to fail. Fail fast so you can make adjustments.
My Second Client
THIS really leads into my second client (btw don’t worry, I'm not going to go over every single client that I had, but these first two are such great examples). My second client I also found through linkedin and it was worlds different from my first.
This client needed monthly bookkeeping and it was a real estate company. It owned a lot of different properties and it was heavily complex to say the least. Not only was it not a business structure that I was super familiar with but he also wasn’t interested in using QBO because he was already set up in another software.
This should have been a big red flag for me, and I wish I had drawn a hard line in the sand and said that I only work in QBO, of course I have that rule NOW but I was still searching for a monthly client so I was very transparent and said that I had never used this other software but I was willing to learn.
He wanted me to gradually take things over so I started with just account payables. He asked at our initial meeting how much that would be after looking at how the business was structured and what was going out every month.
I wasn’t really sure how to price this and pricing accurately was something that I would continue to struggle with in bookkeeping because it’s just so subjective and hard to know really how much work something will take.
I should have asked more questions, I should have said that the quote will be in the proposal after I have finished looking everything over but instead I just blurted out $500/month. This is the only time I ever did this and I’m still not exactly sure why it happened but nevertheless he said ok and he signed the contract.
This was not a great fit for either of us and a few months later, he let me go saying that he wanted to hire someone to take over all of the books at once instead of piecing everything together.
Looking back, of course I can see that this was 100% the correct decision on his part because there were so many moving parts and it just wasn’t a software or business that I wanted to be in. However, at the time I was devastated.
It was my first monthly client that I ever had and it was the majority of my monthly revenue at the time. I was questioning everything, is bookkeeping the business I’m supposed to be in? Should I have done something better for my client? What if he just thought that I was incompetent? What if I fail other businesses too?
And here is the most important note of the blog post: When you accept clients that are NOT a good fit for you, you WILL QUESTION everything!
When you serve clients who are a great fit, everything will feel so aligned. This is why it’s SO important to be clear about who is a great fit and who is not.
I knew in my gut that it wasn’t a good fit, plus there were a million signs BUT I was afraid of losing out on the experience, the money, but what if I say no and then I can’t find any more clients for months???
Those are very real doubts that will cause you to accept clients that are not a good fit. And also don’t confuse this with looking for and only accepting PERFECT clients that is not what we are doing here. “not a good fit” means that what problems he had, I was not equipped to solve. There was nothing inherently wrong with his business, it was simply the fact that I was not the solution to the problem.
I so wish I could say that when he let me go, I had learned my lesson and from then on I only accepted clients that were a great fit and that’s how I scaled to 100k but… that is NOT what happened.
This was one of my biggest if not THE biggest mistake that I made in my business for the first two years and I’ve learned my lesson NOW and I like my business a whole lot better NOW but I really want to drive this home.
I went on to accept clients that I questioned whether they would be a good fit, and here were some of the warning signs,
- they were disorganized beyond all REASON and had no desire to change!
- They were very demanding and had no regard for my time or my boundaries that I had clearly communicated
- They were looking for a short cut on everything, they didn’t want to pay taxes, they didn’t want to pay people they owed money too etc.
And those are more character or personality misalignments in addition to what I said earlier about simply the business itself.
It is so worth saying again: If you act out of desperation and make excuses or justify clients who are not a good fit for you, you WILL begin to question your business and it will make you want to quit.
YOU are not a good fit for everyone. Please understand that and GRASP that concept faster than I did.
Some really good advice that I heard from my business coach was that I needed to turn the wrong people AWAY from my programs just as much as I needed to attract the right people to them.
Summer of 2019 this really clicked for me. I was scared to turn people away who didn’t fit what I was looking for BUT here is the most beautiful thing, it gave me an opportunity to get clear about my messaging and tweak it so that I attracted the RIGHT people and repelled the rest.
I no longer wanted to try to help everyone, and when I do this, everyone wins. Here’s an example: About a year ago, I got a phone call and I didn’t recognize the number but they left a voicemail and once I started listening to it, my jaw dropped.
It was the same client that owned the real estate company and had let me go. I COULD NOT believe it, he was looking for a new bookkeeper and wanted to know if I could come back and take over.
My VERY first thought was wow, this is my chance at redemption and I can show him that I am totally capable of doing this. I didn’t call him back right away, I sat on it and thought about the opportunity. This was a BIG monthly client, it would mean a LOT of extra income per month.
BUT even more so now, it wasn’t a good fit, he was still using the software, he was still in an industry that I didn’t want to learn and as a result I got on the Bookkeeper Launch facebook group and asked for referrals who were familiar with the software and wanted a large real estate company.
I called him back with my answer that I was not going to be a good fit at this time and gave him several options of bookkeepers that knew the software AND the industry inside and out.
WOW talk about redemption. Do you see how everyone wins in that scenario??
My time could then be channeled toward clients who were a great fit. The worst thing that could happen in your business is that you wake up one day and all of your time is sucked up by below par clients so you can’t even GET clients that would be a good fit.
This almost happened to me, and I’m so glad I snapped out of it and started seeing marketing through a lens of abundance instead of scarcity.
How you can reach 100k
I want to go over the major contributors that helped me sign clients so that you can replicate the process that got me to 100k.
The first big thing that helped was that I reached out to a TON of small businesses on linkedin. I have over 5,000 connections now and I sent each connection WITH a personalized message. Like I said earlier, my first few clients were not time consuming so I spent over 100 hours doing this every month for several months because it was working.
I’ll share my process for linkedin but please don't just copy and paste. Change it so it's your words and how you would communicate besides, my ideal client is going to be different from yours anyway.
I tweaked and changed my greeting message several times when I first started and during my first tax season as a bookkeeper I really narrowed it down to two messages- one specifically for tax season (which I start marketing for in December) and the other I use June-Nov.
Here's the one I used during non tax season that helped me get to 100k:
"Hello, I'm a bookkeeper in the area, and I'm connecting with more small businesses nearby. I would love to hear more about your business! Here's a link to a short summary of how I partner with small businesses: and then I shared my bookkeeping blog which is not active now but it spoke directly to my ideal client. Basically this would be the spot for your lead magnet that is going to blow them away with value and expertise.
I've gotten the most clicks and the most responses from that message. If they don't respond but they do accept then I send this message:
"Thanks, (name), I appreciate the connection. Let me know if I can help you in any way."
In my first 1-2 years in business I sent this to about 10,000-15,000 people and roughly 5,000 accepted. I’m also in a suburban area about 30 min from downtown so my location was ideal.
If that message is helpful for you and you’ve been getting value out of this video so far, don’t forget to comment below and let me know!
Another asset that helped me reach 100k is my relationships with CPAs and accountants. Especially during tax time, tax preparers are OVERWHELMED if they are good at what they do, and I found that they usually don’t want to be in the trenches with clients anyway so they would forward several clients to myself.
It did get a little tricky when the client wasn’t a good fit for me, but I really tried to stand my ground and only accept ideal clients.
I can’t stress this enough but you need to get some professionals around you who can refer work to you. Sure you might meet some professionals that you don’t like and you won’t end up working together but my experience is that I met a lot of awesome tax professionals this way and we really benefited from our mutual referrals.
Make a realistic goal of meeting with one a week for a month or two months and then do the same for other industries too. If you don’t feel ready, ask to shadow a CPA that you connected with or ask to do contracted work so you can ask questions when they come up.
Don’t just suffer alone in silence.
My third big component that helped me get clients was building an email list! My advice would be to create a really strong, powerful lead magnet that delivers a ton of value and gives your ideal client a quick win.
This could be a video tutorial or a checklist with a walk through of the major components of a business or chart of accounts but you should definitely be building and nurturing an email list.
Email list really could be a whole blog post by itself so I’m not going to go into details about building an email list BUT if you would like to see more info on that in the future leave a comment below letting me know!
#4 is that I have consistently invested in the growth of my business. I bought Bookkeeper Launch in 2017 and then in 2018 I invested $1700 in mentors and programs to help me continue to grow. In 2019 I invested over $4,000. And in 2020 I invested over $5,000!
Investing in your business is not a one time thing. It’s consistently seeking out mentors and leaders who are where you want to be and learning from them. It’s putting your money where your mouth is and stepping out of your comfort zone so that you can grow and scale.
It’s stepping out of your pride and out of your ego and accepting the fact that you don’t know what you don’t know and you need help.
If you are ready to take the leap on Bookkeeper Launch please use my affiliate link so that they know that I sent you.
My encouragement for you is this. Three years ago, I was stuck at a full time job under leadership that I hated and I saw no way out. I had no background in business or bookkeeping, I started this journey not knowing what accrual based accounting was, I didn’t know anything about building a brand, I didn’t know the FIRST thing about scaling a business or what a VA was.
And less than 3 years later, I’m here to tell you that success with this business IS possible. Generating 100k with just bookkeeping IS possible. Learning new things and leveling up as a new entrepreneur IS possible.
There’s no cheat code, there’s no short cut, and there’s no such thing as an overnight success BUT you can create your own successful business and more importantly a life that you love.
