Do you want a successful bookkeeping business?
Pure Bookkeeping co-founder, Debbie Roberts certainly did.
When she first began her entrepreneurial journey, it had many bumps, but the best decision she made was to hire master business coach, Peter Cook to help her along the way.
At the time, little did she know that Peter would become the source of inspiration, guidance and accountability she'd need to create the now popular Pure Bookkeeping System and eventually sell her personal bookkeeping business for over 6 figures.
Peter, who is a co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping as well, saw the potential in Debbie and now she has transformed into a terrific success story.
During this interview, you'll learn not only about Peter and Debbie's journey together, but you'll also discover the crucial tips you'll need to operate a prosperous bookkeeping business.
Some include...
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Why clients will pay any price if you focus on solving their pain first instead of just marketing your services
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Why having accountability is the difference maker in achieving your goals
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Why basing hiring decisions on job interviews is a waste of your time
To find out more about Peter, visit https://petercook.com/ & https://www.purebookkeeping.com/meet-the-team
To check out the resources mentioned in this episode, join The Successful Bookkeeper Community.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
Michael Palmer: 01:20 Welcome back to The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. I am your host, Michael Palmer, and today we have a great guest. His name is Peter Cook. He is a master business coach, a mentor, a serial entrepreneur, a bestselling author, and an engaging presenter who works with hundreds of businesses from startups to some of the biggest companies in the world. He is the co-founder of pure bookkeeping, which has helped thousands of bookkeepers around the world to build successful businesses. He also wrote EMF bookkeeper with Michael Gerber and Debbie Roberts. I personally think he's one of the best coaches on the planet. Welcome to the show, Peter.
Peter Cook: 01:56 Well, thank you for your kind words Michael, and thank you for having me.
MP: 02:00 Yeah, well you know what Peter, we've had a lot of our listeners, as well as members of Pure Bookkeeping, ask, when's Peter going to be on the show? So I'm happy to have you on and I'm hoping that we're going to have you on a whole bunch cause you've got chocolate block as they say in Australia, full of knowledge and wisdom that our bookkeepers can use. And so first off, for those that don't know you, can you give a little bit of your background and share the up to that first meeting with Debbie?
PC: 02:28 Yeah, so I started my business as a business coach maybe 1617 years ago now I was 27 at the time and I'd never run a business or been a coach, but with the naivety of youth I thought I'd be able to give this a go and probably a year into it, I met Debbie at a networking event and then we ended up having a coffee and she was interested in getting a business coach. He kind of knew that she needed help and didn't lose. We're stuck and so we this conversation then in our very first meeting about where her business was up to, that was kind of foundational to all the work we did since then and she had this challenge that she was full, like a lot of good bookkeepers eventually get toasters at the point where she couldn't, was working nights, was working weekends at quarterly tax time here in Australia, was crazy for it and she had more people coming to sacred services, which seems like a good problem to have in a business.
PC: 03:34 But the problem is she didn't have any more time. She knew that to grow, she would have to put on other bookkeepers and she wanted to grow. But she had been also cleaning up messes created by other bookkeepers and she didn't want to that. She sort of felt there was no way she could trust somebody else with her, with her clients. And so she felt stuck, kind of didn't know what to do. And the advice I gave her them and the rating the Amy from Michael Gerber, I asked her a question, said, if we could take what was in your head about how you do bookkeeping and put it down on paper in a, in a process and somebody else followed that process, do you think then you could trust somebody else with your clients? And uh, yeah, yeah, maybe it's worth a try. And so essentially that was the work that we did together from then on was that process of creating the systems in her business to allow other bookkeepers to come in and, and provide the same level of service that she was or have. And that now it's about 12 to 15 years ago. Yeah. So that was 2000 2001 so 15 years ago. Put away in 2001 so yeah, 15 years ago now. Wow.
MP: 04:56 15 years ago. And just so the listeners get a sense of this, right. And I know when I met Michael Gerber and told the story to Michael Gerber, he said, wow, you met Debbie, you created this introduction with her, and then you coached her for eight years and held her accountable. And Michael Gerber said to me, for any coach that can hold somebody accountable for eight years like that, as my kind of coach. And I also agree, I think it's remarkable. But going back to that first meeting in those early days for Debbie, you mention a few of her challenges, but from a coach's perspective, you know, you're working with this person who's obviously good at what she did. What did you see that was the blind spot or barriers that were difficult for her?
PC: 05:38 Yeah, great question. She knew a lot about bookkeeping and then being a bookkeeper for 30 years was great, a great technician. So it probably wasn't 30 years back then, but had been doing bookkeeping for a long time but didn't really know much about business, did, had never had any training in marketing, had never had any training in HR, in management or in business. So there was kind of a block around the actual mechanics of business and then the mindset side of things as well. So there was confidence to go out and get work and charge what she was worth and have conversations about money. I think it was both, uh, both sides of things. The technical, mechanical, just not having those business skills and mindset stuff as well then.
MP: 06:31 And what do you think enabled her to get over? Cause I would assert that those are some of the traditional or classic challenges that our listeners would have is that they are typically coming from walks of life that are not necessarily, haven't run big businesses before. They haven't gone to business school. So it's common. So how did she get over that?
PC: 06:53 Plus part of it was talking about was just sticking at it. So it was persistent. She's very open to learn what she grey client for a coach. I'd tell her to do something and even if it was uncomfortable, she would go and do it. So she was willing to step out of her comfort zone. For example, I had conversations with her clients about putting up their prices or about replacing herself, putting on another bookkeeper, and over that time she's actually become really great at sile. She's provided managing a team. She's nailed recruiting, so she's kind of learned all these skills. I think that, yeah, the main thing is being open to learning, but I'm into learning. So she said, yeah, I don't know these things. Teach me how to run a sales meeting, teach me how to do an accounting presentation. Very open to learn, I guess the mechanical side of it, but open to getting outside your comfort zone, I'd say is how she's kind of grown and transformed. Formed a mindset, so things that were scary. She would do the meeting though that was scary and then she would get comfortable and get more confident as a result.
MP: 8:15 If you know, as a coach myself, it's constantly see that it's just a matter of having the will, a desire to do it and the will to do it and then doing what's uncomfortable. And you obviously we're good at creating a consistent approach. This like it wasn't, you know, she did do it a little bit. It, it was here's something to do and then follow up. Did you, did you do it? That whole piece of accountability. Can you talk a little bit about how you as a coach have been successful getting people to actually become uncomfortable while waltz?
PC: 08:56 Debbie was, you know, willing to jump into the, what about people that are, you know, Jeeves is not comfortable doing that and they don't have a coach like yourself to get them to jump into that pool. Having some kind of external accountability, I think is always much more powerful. And telling yourself you're going to do it. So if you want to get feed and say, okay, I want to go to the gym, I'm going to the gym three times a week to get fit. But if you just tell yourself you're going to do that, odds are you aren't. And with all of that, going through that for a while, yes, I've been telling myself so, you know, it's happens to all of us and I know it. That's the crazy thing.
MP: 09:35 Yeah. We all, we all do it. And we've all done exactly that with, with exercise, with diet, with lots of things that it sounds great at the moment, but if as soon as we hit a barrier, if all we're relying on is our own determination and our own willpower, that's kind of risky.
PC: 09:58 So one of the things is, even if it's not a coach, he's had somebody outside yourself that you're accountable to have a buddy, have a mastermind group, have some kind of external accountability where you're stuck to somebody, this is what I'm going to do. And then going and doing it. It's, I know I'll go to the gym because I've got a trainer and it means it takes, the question marks gone out of my head. It is in a case of what should I go today or not? I know gas is, they're waiting for me, I'll tidy. Um, and it's, it's nuts but I'm more worried about letting him down the name about letting myself down. It's one of those insane things about being a human is we're tribal animals. We're, we've evolved not to let the tribe down. And the second thing I'd say is, is be connected to a big enough why.
PC: 10:54 So think of the work of Simon Sinek on, start with why you want to be clear about what's the, what's the purpose for what your, what you're putting yourself through. And if it's going to the gym cause I want bigger biceps, that's probably not a great purpose. That's not going to get me out of bed in the morning. But my girls are four and 11 months old at the moment. If I still want to be in 20 years' time healthy enough to go on adventures with them, then I need to be doing the work now that's a much more powerful way for me to get out of bed and do that. If it's, if it's about my girls rather than about may are more likely to do it. And it's the same with building a business. Be clear about why it is that you're doing what you're going to do, what's in something that's outside yourself.
MP: 11:54 Absolutely. Absolutely. So this is, this is great in terms of Kenneth set setting a little bit of a foundation and uh, of really the formula to success for any person, whether they're an individual going to the gym, getting healthy or running your business. But before we go there with Debbie, what were some of the things, what was her why like what did she create for herself that had her be able to go and do all the things that she's done in her business? And for those listening, obviously if you want to go back to one of our very first episodes with Debbie, Debbie Roberts, you can get the full backstory on Debbie as well. It's a great one to listen to if you haven't already. But what was the vision that she had created that you remember?
PC: 12:42 The reason she wanted to grow is that she could see business owners suffering and wanting to help so edits. At its core it was about helping, helping the people who are struggling and who were coming to her and who needed her help and she ended up framing that as a mission. That was from memory, something like empowering business owners around their finances, borrow merely being confusion, fear, and doubt and replacing it with certainty, freedom, and control. Something like that was how she then described it in the mission statement. The core for her was wanting to help, wanting to help people to grow the business, to help other business owners who needed help and that piece about empowering business owners around their finances, I think is a really critical piece and become really core to what we teach when we go out and talk to bookkeepers is to not be in the business of bookkeeping.
PC: 13:43 If you think you're in the business of bookkeeping and people are paying you for bookkeeping, you're a commodity, your the same as everybody else, and if that's all I'm buying, if all I'm buying is kind of pure bookkeeping, data entry, compliance, tax reporting, all of that stuff, then I'll shop on price. But if you're in the business of empowering business owners around their finances, because I have us, my bookkeeper on making better decisions, I'm growing my business more, I'm ending up with more money, my cashflow is better, I'm sleeping better at night, I've got a clearer picture of the future. Is there some kind of combination of that? Then I don't care what you charge me, you're worth it. So it's a whole different, it's a whole different mindset. It's a whole different game to be in when you're serving your clients from I doing the bookkeeping to be empowering them around their finances.
MP: 14:49 Yeah, very, very clear around why Debbie was so successful with a coach like yourself. Helping her get really clear on that. I mean, that became extremely valuable to the people that she was working with. It was there, but perhaps it wasn't at the forefront of what she was doing. So with that vision going forward, I know the backstory is I've, you know, I've written the book, The Successful Bookkeeper on you and Debbie, but for the readers like what we're the listeners today, what were some of the pitfalls, the, the walls that she hit along the way?
PC: 15:28 One of the things we didn't realize just how long it would take to document a set of systems for book paving business that was hoping that initially we thought it was going to be a, not an, not an easy job, but we didn't realize to get it to a proper standard. How much was involved in that? That was one of the challenges are a lot of Deb's time, probably 20% of their time for that whole time, that whole period she was creating procedures and systems for her, for her business and that's how come she ended up having a set of systems and procedures just in her business that was better than anything else around at the time in the industry. There was another, we also had some issues, some pitfalls, how the business was structured. Eventually, one of the things that we got to was making sure that initially all her team was subcontracted than they only got paid for the time that they did.
PC: 16:25 We were at a point where devil's growing quickly and we put on bookkeepers anticipating work coming and so employed, we'll pay those full time before we had the work for them. Roll side, paying a lot of admin stuff. So we had somebody full time who was doing all the shingling. We had probably, I bought papers at that time and there was somebody who was just shelling all of the time and chasing all the money and we ended up going from debt paying, obviously very profitable on her own to actually going backward for a period. And there was a point where Debbie had to make money off her mortgage and put it into the business to pay a tax return or, or she would've been bankrupt. So there was a really kind of moment of truth when they're like, yeah, we really kind of really stuffed up the structure of this and asked the question, is it actually possible to build a profitable bookkeeping business?
PC: 17:23 Can it, can it be done or should we just go back to Debbie on her own comfortably turn over a hundred thousand dollars just on her own with clients that she worked with? So there was that turning point and, and what she did, do you want to still have a solution to what she did do with that or yeah, it's still on the pitfalls. I, well, no, I think let's let this is, this is fantastic. Yeah. So when that point, we did a couple of things differently. We said we put a lot more responsibility back onto the bookkeepers for managing the clients that they worked with. All of the bookkeepers scheduled their own clients didn't have somebody doing that. We got all the clients on direct debit agreements, so they paid automatically. Um, so we didn't have to chase money anymore. So essentially just those two things. We kind of eliminated the need for one full-time person, the admin person.
PC: 18:24 So that was the two IC at the time we wanted Ernie, we wanted him to, he was doing all that admin stuff. We wanted him to be working 50% of the time that rechargeable. So that, in essence, he paid for himself. So he spent half the time kind of running operations and half the time doing bookkeeping. So he was cost-neutral after he'd been paid and started really measuring non-chargeable hours. So we kind of got the bookkeepers together and said, for this business to work we need, we can only pay you for the hours that you are chargeable. And if it takes you six hours to do a four-hour job, then we can only pay you four hours if we can only charge the client for hours. And then set up allow agreements like that in our contracting agreements and all the HR systems that are in the Pure Bookkeeping system now reflect that. And we measured one of our key focuses and now the most important KPIs or key performance indicators that we looked at were non-chargeable hours. So each month we looked at how many hours would be done by bookkeepers that we couldn't charge clients for and we were trying to get that number to zero so that the business was profitable and all of those things worked and then the business became much more profitable from that point. It continued to be as, as it grew and continued to grow profitably.
PC: 20:00 Yeah, I think it's really is the demonstration of continuous improvement. You had this philosophy of our question really, can we build this business, a bookkeeping business, which it is profitable, it makes good money and for a while didn't look like it was going to go that way, but it's just continued and try new things and build systems and change those systems and it's like trying to open the safe. Eventually. If you keep that up long enough, you're going to figure out the combination and open it all up. But there's a lot of, a lot of the times it's like, eh, frustration not happening. And Deb had a few of those.
MP: 20:38 Yeah, definitely. One of the key things that we hear about is this challenge with hiring bookkeepers and even some of the licensees that we work with, the Pure Bookkeeping licensees, you know, it's, do we hire staff? Do we hire, uh, contractors? In your mind, what is the sweet spot for a bookkeeping firm?
PC: 21:15 It, I'm not sure what the HR laws are in Canada, but in Australia, it's still kind of a bit murky, but up until somebody three or four days a week, they can still be a subcontractor. And that's definitely our preference for starting people, whether it's a contractor or a casual employee. Our main criteria are that we want somebody to be at least available for two or three days a week. If somebody has got a spare day, it's not worth putting them on. We want them to at least have enough time to be worth training them and to be clear that they're getting paid for the time that they're doing their bookkeeping.
PC: 21:44 And the most important thing we've found with, with hiring bookkeepers, that's another one of the breakdowns along the way is with Debbie's business was hiring book capers who weren't as good as their resumes that they were tight sense. We had bookkeepers. And especially when Debbie was, when she was overworked and exhausted and had too many clients and just really needed help, she goes kind of desperate to put somebody on. And so somebody applied for the, for the role. I had a good looking resume. I came across well in a, in an interview, which to me says here interviews in, we're more like a friendly Chet Chet than a proper interview process. She would hire them and some of those people just didn't turn out, turned out there, their bookkeeping skills going up to it. And that's a really awkward position because then you have to go to the client and they are this bookkeeper and, and it was difficult for Debbie to especially the hand over her clients to a new bookkeeper to side to the clients, look, it's not going to be me anymore.
PC: 22:51 And I loved her and said, no, no, but it's going to be fine. This person's going to be great. I'll be supervising, et cetera, et Cetera, et cetera. And then frame, I'll slide. I'd have to get back to them. Go, ah yeah, sorry that didn't really work out. But the next one, the next one will be great. Very, very painful. And the thing that Debbie created that really broke the back of recruiting in her business and made it work ever since, was creating a skills test in the software system that she used. She created a dummy account and these 90-minute bookkeeping tests where somebody would come in and they would actually do sit down for 90 minutes and do bookcases. And there were invoices to entering receipts and bank statements to reconcile and, and a whole bunch of traps, missing information,
PC: 23:46 things that a good bookkeeper would pick out and an average one perhaps wouldn't. And they would get a score out of a hundred on this test than anybody less than who got less than 80 didn't per se, didn't get an interview. And there were lots of people who Debbie thought about what she was going to employ, who then files a skills test. Every time that happened she kind of breathe a sigh of relief because she felt like she dodged a bullet on somebody. She thought that she was possibly going to hire but luckily didn't because they weren't going up to it.
MP: 24:22 Yeah. That, that, that really is a, I think probably one of the big breakthroughs in getting to know Debbie and listening to her story when, when the two of you got together and figured that out, that enabled you to really have your pick of the best in the marketplace and, and, and avoid all sorts of costs and frustration from hiring a bad bookkeeper because the, you know, any kind of business when they hire staff, so much energy goes into sourcing them, finding them and the person you pick, you know that when you're putting all your resources into that person, your time, the training, all of that. And that doesn't even take into consideration the cost of whether they make mistakes or disrupt customers or tarnish your own brand. So as a business owner, that's par for any business owner. It's probably one of the greatest areas of stress. Uh, and you, you two figured that out. And I know Debbie gives you credit a lot of credit for actually figuring that piece out. What, what was it that you, how did you approach it?
PC: 25:28 I'm very suspicious of interviewing. I think interviewing is a very flawed process for actually determining if somebody can do a job or not. And hours. Yeah. Talking to them and trying to work out, well is there some other way that we can work out? Are they going to be doing, am I going to be able to do this or not? And just looking at past experience wasn't sufficient. And one of the things I like to do is I, well it would be nice if we could just put them on and get them to do some bookkeeping, but that kind of was not practical and say let's put them on for the weekend, see them to bookkeeping. And so then we came up with the idea of, well, how about we actually created a dummy bookkeeping job where we don't have to kind of put them in front of clients and don't have to riskier client's data with somebody who we're just testing.
PC: 26:20 Um, but this will give us a really accurate picture of how, how well we're doing it and do, that's how we came up with the skills test, which is now one of the key elements of the pure bookkeeping system. And I think hiring a bookkeeper who you then have to get rid of, like God put the cost of that in a, in a growing bookkeeping business that it's a $50,000 completely agree. It hurts you, like tend to a reputation that energetically a killer, very demoralizing. But it also means you have to stop marketing because you haven't got capacity. It just puts everything is, puts everything back three to six months whenever it happens. So it's, and it's something bookkeepers, all bookkeepers we talk to, they're nervous about hiring and they don't have experience doing it. So it's a real comfort to go, okay, this is something that I've got in my kit bag where I can actually know for sure if someone is a good book people or not rather than just relying on what they say.
MP: 27:26 Absolutely, agree and uh, and it's phenomenal and I've seen the results with the people that we've worked with and you had and have used it. It's, it's been a real game-changer for them and part of their competitive edge, quite frankly.
PC: 27:39 Great.
MP: 27:45 So I know you've got limited time and we're near upon our time and we're going to have you back, Peter for sure. I've got a million things I don't want to ask you. And you and other listeners have asked to get more information about selling, negotiating, implementation. I mean you've got some real expertise around this, but for today, what can we leave the listeners with for your best advice? For someone who's listening to that really does want to build a successful bookkeeping business, what would you recommend they do?
PC: 28:16 First things can come back to what I said earlier about getting clear about your why. So creating a clear vision for what you want in your life and how your bookkeeping businesses part of that and what is your burning desire for that. Second is somehow believe that that's possible. That's one of the barriers that holds people back. So one of the best things to do is find a tribe who is on the same journey where you can see people who are kind of further along than you are and and that'll tell yourself, oh yeah, that is possible. So groups like the Australian bookkeeping network here in Australia or the Institute of Professional Book tapers where you are in Canada. Great resources for finding a community that's on the same path. Commitment is another key element. One of the questions that we ask people in all our seminars, this is at a 10 how committed are you to your, to your business and had people make the mistake of thinking commitment means putting in long hours.
PC: 29:18 People have, I can't be that committed because I'm a mum and I've got kids and obviously my kids are my first commitment and it's not. It's not about that at all. You can be 100% committed to your business and do it 30 hours a week. But the question is how you're going to do what it takes and are you going to be willing to take yourself out of your own comfort zone if that's what's necessary. I, so the thing is getting clear about what's your level of commitment to your business, I UCU sabbatical or is it, is this a hobby or a pastime or something that doesn't have that level of commitment? Obviously, you have to focus on it may maintain. Notice some other things along the way. So being clear about it being a priority and 50 just get into action. I'm a big believer in the action rather than progress the nation and rather than perfection, a lot of bookkeepers tend to be perfectionists and that can get in the way of them moving forward and we want to get things to a point where they're good enough and then mood, there's five, five things to keep progressing in a bookkeeping business or Rick and also get on those.
PC: 30:27 The webinar that you've laid on the five mindset shifts. Debbie made two businesses a good starting point and now you put a lot of work into that and spend a lot of time with Debbie to put that together. Yeah, thank you. That's a nice place to go to.
MP: 30:40 Yeah, thank you. And, and we'll, we'll share with the listeners what that's all about. So when I was writing the book, the successful bookkeeper, you, Pete, we're a big piece of that and spent a lot of time with you, spend a lot of time with Debbie and really took it those five key things that Debbie had to overcome and change and shift inside of herself and in her business in order to build the business that she built. And uh, I think it's a really great resource. Obviously, we'll have a link to get that at our, at our website here and as well you can get straight to it at Purebookkeeping.com/mindset and it's completely free. And you'll get those five, five mindset shifts as well of a whole bunch of other bonuses and templates that'll help you attract the very best clients, increase your profitability and hire great staff as Peter is talking about in this episode.
MP: 31:31 So those five key things, Peter, I think are remarkable. And I think, you know, even doing those, if a bookkeeper were to sit down or listener today, sit down and go through those, I think that in itself would be a huge boost to their confidence and get them set onto the right track for their bookkeeping business.
PC: 32:00 Absolutely.
MP: 32:05 Peter, thank you so much for your time today and I am really looking forward to having you back. You've been a great mentor of mine and a great coach, uh, inside of this business, so I really do appreciate your time. Thanks a lot. Gold. Thanks, everyone for listening and glad to be on the show. Well, that wraps another episode. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to learn more about Peter today, you can find everything about this episode and notes on this show at Thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com. Please subscribe on iTunes. Leave us a review. We'd love to hear from you. I love to hear what you think of the show. And until next time, goodbye.
