Starting out is always scary.
There are so many unknowns which makes it incredibly easy to stay in your comfort zone and not take any chances.
Our special return guest today, the lovely and talented, Debbie Roberts of Pure Bookkeeping, remembers what those times were like.
Fortunately, with the help of her longtime business coach and co-founder of PB, Peter Cook, she overcame those fears and realized her true potential as a successful bookkeeping business owner.
For those of you who are just beginning your bookkeeping entrepreneurial journey, don't worry, Debbie is about to give you some golden tips to help you through the bumps.
During this inspiring interview, you'll learn...
How to increase your confidence when speaking with accountants and prospects
The importance of leaning on qualified mentors to ask questions and advice to avoid mistakes
Why practice and preparation will always serve you well when marketing yourself to others
To learn more about Debbie & Pure Bookkeeping, visit here.
To connect with Deb on The Successful Bookkeeper Facebook Group page, you can join at this link.
To investigate The E-Myth Bookkeeper book, explore here.
To discover the Pure Bookkeeping 7x5 Marketing plan, sign up for our free resources.
Michael Palmer: 01:16 Welcome back to another episode of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. I'm your host, Michael Palmer, and I am so excited to have today's guest back with us. She is the co-author of the e myth bookkeeper. She's also the co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and she is one heck of a big-hearted bookkeeper all the way from Melbourne, Australia. Debbie Roberts, welcome Debbie to the podcast again.
Debbie Roberts: 01:45 Thank you, Michael. I'm very excited to be here.
MP: 01:48 Yes, and I'm excited. We've, we've got a really interesting topic today all around growing your business and we've been in discussion for a while. You've been working on a mastermind if you will, or a monthly mentoring program for bookkeepers. And what was interesting for me and I think will be interesting for the listener, is just the process of, of building this and walking through this and the comments that you're hearing and the challenges that bookkeepers are faced with growing their, their business. And I think it's just a great idea to have a conversation about it and to see how we can help our listener do some of the same things you're helping that inner circle do through Pure Bookkeeping.
DR: 02:35 Excellent. Yes, it's, it is very exciting, it's program. It's a pilot program, so we've never run anything like this before. And what it, what it is, is it's a mentoring program for people who are starting up in their business now. They could be brand new to their business. They're the bookkeepers with experience, but they might be employees with maybe a couple of clients. They're turning over less than $40,000. The number one criteria though is that they are 10 out of 10 committed to growing a six-figure business because that's our goal with this program is to take them from start-up to six figures in 12 months.
MP: 03:16 Yes. And I think that's, that's interesting. And, and, and it was today I was having a conversation with a bookkeeper and she was having challenges growing your business. And I asked her what she was doing to attract business and she said social media. And she was spending a whole bunch of time and she was producing very little results through it. And I, I asked then, I started asking her, you know, what, or is there anything else that you're doing? And, and really she wasn't doing any of the, what we would consider the foundational strategies of marketing. Uh, she was hoping that social media and had been told, and it didn't, programs that that taught her to do, you know, different social media and posts and all this good stuff. And what I'm hearing more and more all the time is that those things, you know, they might work in the long run. Uh, but it's a lot of time, it's a lot of energy. And so if you haven't done the core pieces of marketing that we would consider core and essential, you're going to have a really tough time growing your business.
DR: 04:21 Yeah, I agree. And I think it's, it, it's just one marketing strategy and you need to be implementing more than one marketing strategy in order to have the marketing start to create momentum.
MP: 04:38 Absolutely. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about why you decided to start a program like this.
DR: 04:45 When Peter Cook and I were talking about, that was actually after the last, okay. Being business board rooms. So we run seminars twice a year. We travel around Australia helping bookkeepers create their strategic plan for their business. And it was when we were flying back from that, that we started to talk about how we can nurture startup businesses. And certainly within pure bookkeeping, we've got a whole community there and we've got all the sales and marketing collateral that they need. But we felt that one of the primary challenges with the startup practice is confidence and confidence is not something that you can write a system for in your system will help. Absolutely. The system will help. And, and that was, I liked confidence when I started my business and we can talk about that as well. So I developed systems in order to help me get confidence, but it's not just the systems alone.
DR: 05:45 Uh, it was certainly when I was growing my business, the help that I got from Pida, uh, the support that I got from him as I was implementing systems and encountering issues that really helped me. And we thought, let's create a program that we can just maybe hold the people that are in this startup phase to utilize the system to start off with bottles. So to help them specifically with their confidence. And, and any other issues that they encounter, which are quite unique when you get to also even turning over, let's say $100,000 you got through all the teething problems if you like, of a startup practice. And as I say that one of the primary ones is confidence. Once you get to 100,000 you've got 10 or 20 clients, you've got your marketing strategies in place, you've got that part of it ticking over and then it's about growth and recruiting and growing from there. But there are all these other teething problems that are quite unique to a start-up practice.
DR: 06:53 Yeah, I agree with confidence is it's one of those tough ones because confidence comes from the actual doing part. You know, if you, if you've never swum before you, you're not going to be that confident around water. But once you start swimming and you realize you can swim and you keep your head above water, you, you gain confidence around the water. So yeah, no different than a business. And particularly here with a bookkeeping business at a start-up phase.
MP: 07:27 Tell me what you've, what you've learned just from your first couple of sessions where the intake it people have come, come on board. What are they, what are they saying and what are they, what are they challenged with?
DR: 07:39 Yes, by far as I mentioned, the majority of people when they filled out our questionnaire said that confidence, confidence, confidence, confidence. It was, that was the big one. It was about, um, how did they promote themselves? They value being able to convey the value so they weren't confident around that. They have no marketing strategies. When I run seminars and talk to bookkeepers, I would say there's maybe one in 50 bookkeepers that actually love marketing. And that's the biggest challenge. Then because they don't love marketing and I'm in the same boat. I was in the same boat as well when I started up. I didn't like marketing. I preferred to have someone else do the marketing and just do a good job. So that's typically what bookkeepers love to do. Just do a good job. And, and referrals will come by word of mouth and that's actually, that actually works.
DR: 08:38 That's another good marketing strategy but it's not going to work long term and it's not going to run consistently. So you've got to develop these marketing strategies and become good at it. So I was the same. I didn't like marketing, I had no confidence with and I needed to develop these strategies. So the confidence was the big thing, how to network, what to even say. Like even to be able to craft a elevate a page or a 62nd infomercial, whatever you'd like to call it, to be able to know what to say succinctly that you get your message across which interests the person that you're talking to because people in, in other industries are not particularly interested in bookkeeping and some people find would find it, you know, quite bought your a bookkeeper is great. Yeah, let's, that's the end of that conversation.
DR: 09:34 So you've got to find a way of wording it that you capture their interest very, very quickly and so that they ask you more questions about what you do. You're so confident. Just reading through my list here, even about the bookkeeping, are they doing the, doing it the right way? Are they following best practices, staying focused, getting out of your comfort zone. That was another really common thing and something that I'm quite passionate about is helping people push out of their comfort zone. Because it's a funny word, I find a comfort zone. It's actually not comfortable really to stay in your comfort zone, but we, uh, it's, it's more like a, a numbing zone or something
MP: 10:21 I'd say. I'd never really thought of it that way, but it's, it's a, it's not a, it's a terrible place to be in your comfort zone.
DR: 10:28 No, no. It's kind of, we put up with stuff, um, because we are kind of comfortable and the thought of being uncomfortable is, you know, we think why did, why would I make myself feel uncomfortable? Well, the reality is, as I said, that's that space. The Comfort Zone is not a comfort zone. So I agree. We should call it the writing zone. The running zone.
MP: 10:54 Yeah. Yeah. You know, if you think of nature right there, if, if things are just sitting there stagnant the way that they've always been, there's no change, there's nothing happening. What happens while it turns into mulch and it eventually just turns into the soil and it's nothing. I mean, it goes back into the earth. But if you think about new growth, new growth is about busting and breaking through that hardware ground. You know, it's like inputting of water and sunlight and burning heat and you know, breaking out of the seed in a way it goes and it's like this growth, right? Oh yeah. And so, you know, I don't know what we call the, uh, you know, you're a get out of your comfort zone. Get out of your rotting zone. You don't want that. It's a very interesting take on it, Debbie.
MP: 11:35 Yeah and I love that metaphor that you're using about, about growth and you think of what happens after that. All those beautiful green shoots and, and fruit, if you're, if you're growing a fruit tree, you know, you've got all these beautiful you can have as things from that. It's a, a wonderful metaphor to explain the journey when you break out of that rotting zone of what happens after that. Never in my experience has anything bad happened when I've broken out of that zone and only good things. So only good things ever happened. It's fear that keeps us into this rotting zone. And because we're, this is what we know. So that's been because of what we know. We get comfortable with that. We go, Oh yeah, this is, I, I, I know how this works. I do my job. Uh, this is my life. It's all fine.
DR: 12:30 You know, I can, I'm doing okay. I don't know what's out there. It's the, it's the unknown. But what if I, I want to grow my business but it's a bit scary or I need to market. But what if someone says something that's embarrassing or you know, what if they yell at me and all these silly little ideas that are the truth and they're just holding us back. And it's a funny thing actually. Um, page when I was doing working with him, he as my business coach, he often said he made it his personal cause. I was, I was that person by the way. I was that person that was sitting in this rotting zone dreaming of what's possible, but never brave enough to actually take the step. And when I did finally take the step and I started working with him, whenever he sensed that I was getting out of that rotting zone, uh, and he'd say, it's Ma, it's my personal mission to take you out of your comfort zone as often as possible.
DR: 13:35 So we'd have a bit of a giggle about that. And the other interesting thing I might add about the comfort zone is what's surrounding people in their comfort zone and was surrounding me was fear. And as I started to push through that and breakthrough that, using that metaphor, breaking through that soil and, and pushing away the rocks and, and, and getting a gasp of air of what's out over the other side, I started to realize that, you know, you've got to take that step. You've gotta take that step in order to break through that and, and that, that's what's really important.
MP: 14:13 It is.
DR: 14:21 I think we overcomplicate as human beings. I think we overcomplicate things. I mean, if you think about the analogy with, with the growth, right? A seed is planted and everything it needs to go through to get, to get to be what it is. A fruit tree with fruit, you know, it's all happening. It's all in nature and nature is there and who are we not a part of nature. You know, like we are, we are a part of nature. So we can learn a lot from that. And I think bringing things to simplicity and looking at nature is that, well, does nature need, if we look at that plant, what does it need? It needs consistent attention to different elements. Sunlight, water. Uh, you need to keep the weeds down. You know, it's very simple stuff to keep that plant in good shape. Keep the raccoons or squirrels or marmots or wherever you are, alligators, wherever you are in the world.
MP: 15:09 Keep the, you know, the past. So away from what you're trying to grow well in your program? If we look at it really, and, and I look at this from a coach's eyes and Pete I'm sure would agree, is that all we're doing is we're applying those elements that are necessary for growth in a very simplistic method. So meeting every month that's nurturing, that's watering a having conversation is about keeping the weeds out. You know, what's getting in your way. It's about getting the weeds away. And then, you know, having the accountability of people around you, peers around you that can both support you and as well push you, uh, is what's required to push up through the ground and start to, to actually produce something. And I think that's really why I love the end. And for the listener, if you're listening right now, we have on The Successful Bookkeeper, free resources.
MP: 16:05 If you go to the website and you sign up, you'll get access to the free resources section where inside there, there are The Seven Secrets of Marketing your Bookkeeping Business. We call it The Seven by five marketing plan. And there are seven fundamental ways to grow your business. And so this would be the things that you would be talking about Deb in your mentoring program. Um, and so conceptually, theory wise, all of it's there that you can learn about and understand and, and start to apply yourself. Uh, and what you're doing in this group is you're actually holding people accountable, asking them where that, where their fears are so that you can remove those weeds and create a, you know, a ground or a, um, a place on environment that they can do what they're naturally born to do is grow.
DR: 16:53 Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. And I think I'm really loving this conversation and, and talking about growth and watering and things like that because last night when, when we ran our first session, first two sessions this week, I was talking about this kind of thing and I said the tools that we're using. So if you think about the garden and the tools, you need a pick and a shovel and the watering can, or the hose, they're your tools and you need to prepare the soil. So using that analogy is when you are working on your marketing, you've got to prepare first. So you've got to prepare the soil and the way you prepare the soil is to create the systems that you need. So when I was starting off in my business and as I said, didn't like marketing and started working with Peyton, he would say, right, you need to um, deliver, you know, uh, an effective presentation for prospects.
DR: 17:53 So this is what you need to say. And I go, oh, okay, all right, I'll say that then. So we kind of planned it and I thought I'd had it worked out and, but then when I went to meet with the prospect, I forget what I was supposed to say. I get a little bit anxious as well. I was a bit nervous and when I get nervous I forget things. So I wouldn't, it wasn't effective and my conversion rate was not, not particularly good. The same with accountants. I was intimidated by accountants because I didn't have confidence. I had planned what I was going to say, but I didn't have really, I wasn't systematic about it. And so I'd get with the accounting and think, oh yeah, I've got to say all these things. And he'd say he was, she would say something and which would throw me off and then everything else would just go out of my mind about what I, what I'd planned to say.
DR: 18:44 So the preparation for me was actually to document the system. So what I did was, and what I was talking to the members last night and this week was, uh, was you've got to create a script. So actually write down a script of what you're going to say to that prospect as the script of what you're going to say to that accountant. A script of what you're going to say to everyone. You know, your family and your friends and your neighbors and the guy in the coffee shop and the tradie that comes to your house. You need a 62nd or an elevator pitch. There's actually a couple of different types of scripts that you need. You need a really short one. So that 62nd, hi, this is me, this is what I do and this is how I empower you. And things like that. And then you need a longer one and something that is very specific for the needs, uh, addressing the needs of a prospect.
DR: 19:47 And we could have separate podcasts about each one of these, which we probably will do. So I'm only going to touch on them for this one. But you also need a written script of what you're going to say to accountants. And that's the preparation. And I think as bookkeepers, I'm not so unusual. This is very typical for bookkeepers. We love to be prepared, we love our systems. That's what, that's why we do what we do. We level they, the getting organized and getting the clients organized and we get in there and do that really well. We've got to get ourselves organized. But writing down a script is the first part. So that's the preparation and they are the tools that you use. They are like your, your shovel and your peak and you're watering cane and things like that. They're the tools that you're going to use.
DR: 20:36 The new practice. You have to practice a lot and you've got to practice with as many people as you can. You practice your script. It's not enough to just say it in your mind or to just sit there and read it in, you know, at your desk. Say it to your husband, say it to your wife, say it to your children. Say the 62nd infomercial, your elevator pitch, practice what you're going to sit with someone opposite you and practice what you're going to say. Pretend they're a prospect and practice that and do it over and over and over and over like dozens of times until you feel comfortable. You won't feel comfortable at first. Absolutely. You won't feel comfortable. At first, it was interesting because I've in the pure bookkeeping system, we've got all this, these scripts written down, so I've already crafted scripts that I used in my business to 30 62nd infomercial and the prospect presentation and accountant presentation and what you say to accountants when you call them out.
DR: 21:38 Then what do you say to a prospect who calls you and all of that is already documented in the system? One of the licensees was looking at the prospect presentation and, and started using it. She said, I don't, I don't really feel comfortable. It kind of feels a bit awkward. And I thought about that and I said, you know, that's, that's really interesting. When I actually created this document, the patterns are PowerPoint presentation. It's about a dozen pages. It covers everything that you've, it's carefully worded. And so the funny thing was that I created that, but when I first started delivering it, I didn't even feel comfortable and I was the one that created it. But what, when I was actually delivering it, saying it out loud with someone opposite me, when I was feeling nervous and this was a little bit foreign, it's a script.
DR: 22:28 It's like a script that an actor, you know, uses for, to, to act, to, to be able to perform. It's, it's something that it's not a conversation about has the weather and how do you feel today? These are, this is a structured conversation. This is your system. And so you've got to learn it and you've got to practice it. It's, you're not going to feel comfortable until you practice it a lot. And so when I explained to her that I didn't feel comfortable either, but so you've got to do it a lot until you do feel comfortable. That's the bit about going out of your comfort zone again. So she could have backed off at that point and said, oh well, you know, I am not feeling comfortable and think I'll use that. It's odd. I don't think it's going to be effective so I won't bother using it. And they sh you shrink back down into your rotten zone.
MP: 23:26 You know what, what I can share in this is there are very few successful people out there if any that will tell you it was easy and that it just, it just came. I mean maybe lottery ticket winners would say that, but then they go, most of them go and lose it all because they, they weren't prepared, weren't, they hadn't practiced managing money for their whole life to it to establish money. It's like all of a sudden they have money and now they've lost them all because they haven't done the practice. And I think with, with scripts, there's, there's a negative stigma around scripting out things or, or being canned. I just want to be my natural self. Well, you know, you can't get there without actually practicing and so the script is up meant to go and sit there and write out and read, read a script in front of somebody.
MP: 24:18 It's about practicing it, getting it down until eventually, you know it so well that its fluid. It's normal, it's you, it's actually you own that script and it's almost like you wrote the script, which is really interesting and that's where you were with that comment is that you were there how many ever years ago? Yeah. Worried about doing it and then you, you, you wrote it out, you weren't comfortable, but you wrote it out. You practice, practice, practice and then it produced incredible results. The other piece that what you said, Deb, that I think the listener really needs to get is that when you're growing your business, this is one of the most difficult parts of it for most a, it doesn't matter if you're a bookkeeper or any business owner going out there and generating business is difficult. Running a business is difficult. In fact, it would be so easy for us all to just go get jobs, right.
DR: 25:13 You know, you, there'd be no worries. You Pollock out at five o'clock and you're done. But then you don't get what you want, which is to run your own business, to have the freedom to have, you know, the opportunity to create whatever you want. You won't have that. So you've chosen to be an entrepreneur to be a business owner and it's not going to be easy. And the fact the universe, if you will, is going to throw stones that year to see how committed you really are to be successful. Because if it was just easy, then everybody is doing it. Yes. And so that's, it's like get, you know, sort of buckle down for some hard knocks. But at the other end, like when you said like you, you busted through and you've got a breadth of, of air of what it's like on the other side.
DR: 25:59 It's, it's great to be there and, and, and also the preparation if we go back to the gardening scenario and farming, right? If you're going to a farmer doesn't just sort of look out the window and, and go, yeah, maybe I'll go out and plow the field to the, I don't know. Maybe, they know specifically when the best time of year to plow the field is they know what all the steps are. There is no nothing left to chance. It's not complicated, but it's very specific and it has to be done a certain way and prospecting and business growth is no different. You know, sitting down and preparing everything, having your list together, having, who are you going to call, how are you going to do it? Your plan all laid out is what creates the actually go and execute on the plan. Just like the farmer.
MP: 26:47 Yeah, absolutely. And I think you made a really important point that I just want to speak about as well. When you said about scripting, one thing I want to emphasize is the reason you practice it is so that it becomes natural. So we don't want to stand there and say, Oh, I'm Debbie Roberts, I'm a, it's, I'm bookkeeper, a no Duh Duh Duh Duh Duh don and I'm redundant, a hundred that the reason that you practice it is there's actually two reasons. One is so that you become comfortable with vi with that and it becomes natural to you. And the second one is that will, that you start to believe it as well. So you as a person starting off in business who you are lacking confidence. When you start saying over and over and over and over, uh, I'm Debbie Roberts, I'm running a bookkeeping business.
DR: 27:43 As I grow my business, I'm going to have a team and always all these sorts of things. The like, like that's your, you get confidence because you start to believe in what it is that you're saying your future is going to be as well. So the script is not meant to be delivered like a robot. The reason you practice it, what is absolutely critical is that you practice it a lot with people, with live people, people who care about you, family, friends, all that sort of thing is so that you, it becomes natural to you. You feel comfortable, you believe that you know your, what your value is. You know what service offering that you've got. You, you absolutely can sell that. That's when, that's when it's convincing because you're convinced if you don't, if you're not convinced about what your value proposition is and what, what you're going to be able to offer that client, there's no way that they're going to be convinced that you're the one for them.
MP: 28:41 Absolutely. Absolutely. It, it really is. I think such a powerful conversation that we're having and for you listener is, you know, I know Deb that there are so many of our listeners that are growing their business and they do want to, you know, get, get to a certain level financially and it's not just about growing your business and taking any client. It's also about getting the best clients. And so the more confident someone is in these kinds of conversations, the more likely you're going to convert the clients that you really do want. And so I think this has just been a really excellent conversation. Deb, I'm going to ask that you come back. You know, maybe it's after, maybe we'll try and even do, um, once a quarter or, or, or more to hear how the group's going and how you're progressing. And I think for the, for the listener today, what, what the big one is, is to get that script down. What do you saying to new prospects?
DR: 29:39 Uh, take a crack at that, get that written out. Uh, go in and check out The Seven Secrets of the seven by five marketing plan. We called them The Seven Secrets of Marketing your Bookkeeping Business. There are seven ways that you will get at least five clients from if you execute on those. I think those are some good next steps for, for, for all of our listeners to take on.
MP: 29:50 Excellent. I agree. Yeah. Well, Deb, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you. And I know just thinking now, we didn't really do a proper introduction of you because I'm making a, an assumption, which I probably shouldn't do that people have listened to our first episode, but maybe a little late in the game. But if you would like to learn more about Debbie, our episode number one, we do, she was our first guest, a great introduction to Debbie, but if you'd like to learn more, what's the best way to get in contact with you Deb?
DR: 30:34 Oh look, I think jump online, the, on our website. Uh, I also, uh, you can actually connect with me on The Successful Bookkeeper Facebook page. I'd love to have a chat with you there. And I also post comments on there and we can connect that way.
MP: 30:50 Beautiful. Well, it wasn't, I think yesterday someone told me, they were blown away by how detailed information you gave when they were challenged with something on The Successful Bookkeeper. That's the Facebook group. You can go. Just search The Successful Bookkeeper, make a request to join, and we'll say hello over there and you can message Deb there and ask her questions and connect. Well, this has been great. Thanks again, Deb for being on, and I know we're going to have you back a real soon on another couple of episodes, so I'm looking forward to that as well.
DR: 31:20 Me Too. Thank you very much, Michael.
MP: 31:25 Thank you. Well, that wraps another episode of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. To learn more about today's fabulous guests and to get all sorts of valuable free business-building resources, you can go to Thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com until next time, goodbye.