What if you fail?
That question has crossed the minds of many bookkeepers when first starting their businesses.
It's perfectly normal and it's something that our return guest, Debbie Roberts asked herself in the beginning.
She was concerned that if her bookkeeping services weren't good, her reputation would be damaged and that would affect her business. It scared her that, as a small business owner, she didn't have any backup.
Fortunately, for her and bookkeepers worldwide, the co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and co-author of The E-Myth Bookkeeper overcame her fears and became a tremendous success.
During this interview, you'll learn...
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Why having small wins through bite-sizeable, manageable & planned actions can give you confidence
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The importance of realizing your mind usually makes your concerns worse than what they seem
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How the weaknesses in your personal life can hold you back in your business if you let them
To ask Debbie questions in The Successful Bookkeeper Facebook group, join here.
To learn more about Pure Bookkeeping, visit this link.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
Michael Palmer: 01:20 Welcome back to another episode of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. I am your host, Michael Palmer, and I am so grateful to have back our guests that's been on several times. Our guest today is Debbie Roberts. She is the co-author of the EMF bookkeeper. She is also the co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and I like to consider her the biggest hearted bookkeeper on the planet all the way from Melbourne, Australia. Debbie, welcome back to The Successful Bookkeeper podcast.
Debbie Roberts: 01:54 Thank you, Mike. What a fabulous introduction.
MP: 01:57 You know, you've been on so many times, I've got to keep it fresh, right?
DR: 02:05 Absolutely.
MP: 02:06 Yeah. Well, it's great to have you back. And I'm really excited about today's episode because we are talking about the human condition. And for those of you that don't know what the human condition is, it's typically if, actually I don't even know what the dictionary a definition would be of the human condition. But it's, it's those things that, uh, that we have as humans that get in the way. Things like fear a doubt. The imposter syndrome. Uh, you know, that little voice that tells you you're not that great in your little head. If you listen really carefully, you can probably hear it right now. You know, all of these things are part of our, the human condition that has us, uh, succeed and both fail in life.
MP: 02:46 And so growing your business, any business, the human condition can be a real tough one because a lot of times you're on your own. A lot of times you're doing things that are challenging and new and there's, there is no certainty in them. And so you've been through this in your career and you've identified them, you've overcome them, you've gone on to build an extremely successful bookkeeping business, and then you've built an extremely successful business that supports bookkeepers all over the planet. So you've had to overcome a lot of things. And I wanted to have you back to talk about those, what you identified and how you overcame them.
DR: 03:23 Oh yeah. This is one of my favorite subjects because it, it's life-changing. Actually. I am without a doubt, a completely different person to who I was 17 years ago when I started my bookkeeping business. And it's empowering. It is absolutely empowering. So I'm very excited to be here.
MP: 03:49 Absolutely. And for those listeners that haven't met Debbie yet, and maybe this is your very first episode, you'll want to go back to episode one and listen to Debbie story. It's a fascinating story and, and one where Debbie shares her journey and building her business. But for today, Debbie, let's start off by going back to the early days. Your, your, you've just, you've been working as a bookkeeper for 20 years. And why the heck did you decide to go into business for yourself?
DR: 04:24 Oh, that is a good question. I think there was this nagging little thought in the, in the back of my mind that maybe I could, it maybe it's possible. Um, as you said, I'd been bookkeeping for 20 years as an employee and there was a change. Uh, I think that's was the catalyst there was a change to the tax laws in Australia and GST was introduced in 2000 which created quite an upheaval in, in business. And I had a friend who said, this is the time Deb, to get out and start your own, start out on your own. And I've thought about that for some time and decided to do it. But I, as you would, if you, if you have a listen to the original podcast, you'll see that I did that carefully. I kept my day job and just started taking on clients at night and weekends until I was able to replace that income. So it was that niggling thing in the back of my mind that maybe it was possible. Certainly, I wanted, I'd love to earn more money, I'd like to have more flexibility. It's those things that I think are very common ideas that, that you think are the ideals, visions that you think, gee, if I, if I could just work for myself, I'd be able to have all these extra things that I wouldn't have. I can't have it, I don't have as an employee.
MP: 05:49 And from human behavior, human condition standpoint, what at that time in, in your, your, what was coming up for you?
DR: 06:00 So doubt, lack of confidence. It's one thing to be doing a good job as an employee, but that was my biggest hurdle was what if I, what if I'm actually no good at this? What if I stuff it up? This is my reputation. What will people think of me if I actually do a bad job? Um, this is, there's no, you know, I'm the fall guy. There's no fallback position. I'm the one that's going to go down. Um, and do you know, that's pretty scary. It takes, it takes a leap of faith to say, all right, I understand that that's possible, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to give it a crack.
MP: 06:41 Yeah.
MP: 06:49 You know Deb, we survey, I think we're up to close to 600 bookkeepers. I've been surveyed through the successful bookkeeper about our podcast, the business challenges that they're facing and what they'd like to see in future episodes. And the biggest fear they have was failure. So number one. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So how did you, from your perspective, you, how did you overcome that?
DR: 07:15 It was, it was taking little steps and having the little wins. Typically bookkeepers and on, on the typical bookkeeper, we're conservative, we're not big risk-takers. So I didn't quit my job and say, Yay, I'm going to grow this mega bookkeeping business and get the shop and get alone and have spent all this money and do all that no way was I going to do that. So I did it carefully and as I said, kicked my day job and started to talk to family and friends and, um, who knew, they obviously knew I was a bookkeeper and they were thrilled to hear that I had decided to take the step. And it was when I started to talk to them, they then talk to other people that they knew and said their friends starting a bookkeeping business. And, and because the tax situation had changed in Australia was really quite disruptive for businesses, uh, and has been really since then in 2000 and my very first client was a friend of mine whose husband was in business and I got him as a, as a client and just grew from there. So I did it carefully. I managed it, I got some wins under my belt. It's, I think that's really important. And, and uh, as far as taking risks for a bookkeeper, doing it in bite-size, manageable, planned kind of in that kind of way is, even though we feel uncomfortable about it, there's less of a risk in our minds. So I've like, in other words, if I did stop it up, I've still got my day job and I, I've got that to the cake.
MP: 08:56 Beautiful. So measured, measured actions. Yeah. Little ones. Little wins. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that helped to ward off the doubt because every action created results that resolved produce more confidence.
DR: 09:10 Yes. And, and at the end of 12 months of doing this, working nights and weekends, I had repeated, replaced my income and I kind of look back and I was very proud, uh, for someone that doubted. Because when we're talking about ability, I was talking about my bookkeeping skills and I was thinking, you know, I don't know. I don't know really anything about small business. I had done bookkeeping for not for profits and corporates and things like that, but the small business I, that was another whole new industry kind of thing. And I didn't know whether I had the skills and the knowledge to be able to pull that off, but I realized that bookkeeping is something that's transferable across all industries. And I mean, I'm always, always learning something new. There's always something that's slightly different about that client and how they run their business and what industry they're in.
DR: 10:01 But once I started to get the hang of it, I go, all right, well I'll just learn that thing. I can learn that. That's all right. I don't know the answer to that, but I'll find out what the answer is. And if you do your research and, and get the answer and then you come back and that's another thing that you've learned that's new to you. It was interesting actually now fast forward 17 years talking to bookkeepers now who are in the same boat and starting off and feeling like they're lacking confidence and, and confidence in their bookkeeping ability with the technology and the changing industry and everything online now. And uh, and it just changes in the blink of an eye. I said to your learning will never stop learning never stops anyway. I hope to learn until the day I die. But in terms of bookkeeping skills, you will be continually upgrading and updating and going to your seminars and, and getting certified in the software and what's new and all this sort of thing.
DR: 10:59 That's actually just part of the role of the bookkeeper is continual learning. So she was saying, but I don't know everything. And I said, you know, you will never know everything and you don't need to. What you need to do is to be calm and then you just explain to the client. And actually, one strategy I've always employed was whenever, if a client came to me and said, oh, I need you to do this. And if I didn't know the answer to that, I said, um, I'll get back to you about that. I need to just go and have a think about this so that I didn't get flustered. And I said, just use that. Just say, right. Yep. Okay, I got that. Thank you. I'll, I'll get back to you today or tomorrow or whatever the time frame was. Go and do my research, then come back with the answer. And while our, you've learned something new that you didn't know yesterday.
DR: 11:47 Beautiful. I think it has me think of a, of an experience in my life was the early twenties. I was at the doctor and I was seeing him about, uh, you know, a pain that I was having in my, my arm or something like this. I think it was my shoulder. And he said, hold on a second. And he pulled out a book and he started, he started looking at stuff in his book. And after that point in my life, I just thought that they knew everything. You know, it was all in their head like they're all-knowing doctors. And you know, it was a good lesson for me because it's not, it's not about having all the information, it's about just knowing where to go find the answers. And, and so there are answers everywhere today. It's, you know, doesn't even need a book. You just Google, go into a, an app probably in Google that information, but he needs to know, or she needs to know the essential fundamentals, uh, of, of their craft.
MP: 12:43 And it's no different in the bookkeeping industry. And I also like to say that a great bookkeeper is not one that knows everything. A great bookkeeper is one who cares about their clients enough to go and do the things that are required and find out the information that's required to help that business owner be successful. If you don't have that component, then you're never going to be a great bookkeeper. And so all those other things can be learned and there's information you can gather, but it's that deep desire to make a difference for your customers and help them and empower them really around their finances that actually make the great bookkeeper. And I think that's, you know, anybody listening to this podcast, you're likely one of those people because you wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you weren't committed to your craft, your business and making a difference for other people.
DR: 13:33 Absolutely. And I'll add another comment there. When I was recruiting and choosing bookkeepers, I created a skills test and in the Pure Bookkeeping System we've got a skills test to weed out the duds if you like. But one of the things that I look for there, there's, it's actually created in such a way that there's missing information and they need to ask questions. And I actually had a number of candidates who didn't ask any questions. So these would be the know it all ones or the ones that were too frightened to ask questions because they thought it was a weakness. They thought of their lack of knowledge. So they've got this information here but this, there's that that doesn't match up with that and, or, but I should know that, so I'll make it up. So they made up the answer, which was obviously the wrong answer and then they failed. So I, I was looking for bookkeepers who were prepared to say, I actually don't know the answer to this. I need to ask this question. And the skills test is designed to actually pick up those people that are not prepared to ask questions, who think they know it all or too scared to ask questions because they fear that it demonstrates that they don't know it all and they're not the site. This kind of bookkeeper that I want on my team.
MP: 14:54 Powerful. So powerful.
MP: 15:02 And so Deb, getting back to the human condition, you really, the first one that was affecting you was doubt, doubt as a business owner. Now you, you went through, uh, some months, years of your business. What was the next hurdle that you came up against?
DR: 15:18 Yes. When I look back now on my journey, one of the things that amaze me is when I made that decision, all right, I'll start my own business. Never, never did I realize how much personal growth, personal development I would go through and learn so much about my weaknesses. Have to face my fears. And I mean, I didn't have to because you can always choose to stay in your comfort zone. And, uh, we spoke, uh, in another podcast, Michael about, it's actually called, we called it your rotting zone, uh, not your comfort zone. Um, and uh, and I could have chosen to save it and, and be employed and, and there's nothing wrong with that, by the way too, if that's where you want to be. If you choose to be an employee, but the people listening to this podcast, uh, wanting to branch out of that and wanting to grow their business.
DR: 16:18 So if you are wanting to step out of your comfort zone of prepared to do that, what I didn't realize was how much personal growth I would go through. Um, and one of the things that, uh, that I had a particular problem with, or baggage if you like. So I often say that the baggage that I had in my life, in my personal life there, that's the other thing I didn't realize actually gets magnified when you're running a business. So whatever weakness you had in your personal life about your personality or how you deal with people gets magnified when you're running a business. And, and the problems are much bigger because you haven't dealt with this bit of baggage. And one of the ones that I had a particular problem with was asking for money or actually talking about money at all. Um, I, so my experience as a, as a young person and around money was, you know when you buy a group presentation for someone.
DR: 17:23 So we've, we had a bunch of friends and we would do their 21st and their 18th and all that sort of thing. Everyone would put in and from time to time I would go and buy the present and everyone would pay me back for that. But I never asked my friends for them. I never said to them, hey listen, you haven't paid me for the present. I don't know why I found out, well, I know I felt uncomfortable and I didn't want to make them feel uncomfortable. And somehow I managed to imagine that just reminding them that they hadn't paid me 30 bucks was actually going to make them feel uncomfortable, but that was me. That was what I did. And it happened over and over and over. And I, I just, I would rather keep the debt myself then ask that person, my friend for money.
DR: 18:12 Now, that little weakness of mine was magnified a hundred times over in my business in a number of ways. And primarily it was a bad getting paid and asking for people for money after I had done the job. And as a result of that, I had to write off debts that I wasn't prepared to collect. And that obviously that doesn't work when you're in business. Not only you're not getting paid yourself, but when you have staff, if you haven't dealt with it by then, you're paying your staff and you're not getting paid. So it's a, it's a, it's a huge thing that one, and it's not uncommon for people to be having something, some relationship with money. I'm not wanting to talk. In fact, and this, this also became evident in the very first meeting I had with Pete, uh, when we hadn't decided that we were going to work together.
DR: 19:11 So the very first meeting and we were saying, Oh yeah, this might work and okay, let's, let's make this happen. So the A, at the end of the meet, their first meeting, pizza it all right, we've, we've got an agreement. I've got this, um, an agreement that I'd like you to sign. It's got my terms. So my terms are, um, of payments, uh, at the beginning of the month for that month. So we pay in advance for the session for that month and this is Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah, and this is how we get paid. And, and I was sitting there, I must have had a strange look on my face. And he said, what's the matter? And I said, you know, I could never do that with my clients and he's a do one. It didn't, it didn't even register that there was anything unusual about the conversation that we had just had.
DR: 19:58 And I said, well, what you just did then saying, oh, this is my payment to, these are my terms and this is a payment in advance. And for all the sessions, I said, I could never do that. And he said, but that's nothing unusual. What do you do now? And I said, well, I'm kind of just shove the bill under the pile of paper and we don't talk about money. Even at the first meeting I just kind of apologetically say on my raid servers and under my breath. And so that problem I had, that weakness that I had around asked people for money and whatever I had associated with that as being a bad thing was magnified in my business. And, and you know, in some respects in 2007, my business nearly went under because of that and a bunch of other bad decisions that I had made.
MP: 20:49 So it was, it was huge. So how did you overcome it?
DR: 20:55 I had to create a system suddenly enough. And the system actually was, was LinkedIn with my marketing. So there were a couple of ways of dealing with it. But the first way was creating a system about how I delivered that information to prospects and setting the expectations. So doing basically doing what pizza, which was very comfortable with him and he was able to just have a conversation. It wasn't comfortable for me. So I needed to create a system so that I would say those things, I would talk about my terms and what I did was created a PowerPoint presentation. And so it was my marketing PowerPoint presentation to prospects, which explains who I am, my experience. Um, and as I built a team that would talk about my table, we'd talk about the pure bookkeeping system and how we all follow that, the value to the client, what, what problems they're experiencing now with bad bookkeepers.
DR: 21:51 And we'll all be bookkeeping it being a, so it lays out my value proposition. But on the last page, it's actually got my price. So I had several different prices and for reporting and it had my terms and things like that and I can remember to this day. So I finally got it all together and you know, though, all right, well let's give this a go. Um, I was so nervous because I thought when I get to this last page and then start talking about money, I don't know what's going to happen. They might just, they might get really angry and just walk out or yell at me or something like that. And so I'd go through this presentation and I'd be getting more and more nervous as I was getting to the last page. But because it was there, I couldn't avoid it. So that was, that was my way of dealing with things that I didn't, I felt nervous about was, well, I just wouldn't do it.
DR: 22:46 So Pete realize that that was my strategy. He realized that very early on in the piece, he'd say, oh, go and do this and go do that. I'll go, okay, yeah, yeah, I will and I wouldn't. So we needed to document it so that when I got to that last page, there's my price and this is my turn, these are my terms and here's my engagement letter. And of course, nothing bad ever happened. It was all in my imagination of what I'd create, and your imagination is really powerful and creates things way out of proportion to what reality is going to happen. And so nothing bad happened and the clients would go, okay, yeah, that's great. I'm really excited to get started and get this organized. And so once you start to do that, once I started to do that and did it, repeated it and repeated it and repeated it and Godwin and got to realize that nothing bad happened, I went, ah, okay.
DR: 23:45 This is a safe place to be. And so it was like breaking throughout that comfort zone out of that rotting zone and going, Oh wow, this is much better. I like this place. This is, I want to be upfront with people. I just didn't know how to do it and I didn't have the confidence to just do it. So it was a very powerful experience. Wow. And so having done that, what was the impact on your business results? Oh, enormous. It flows. It was a flow-on effect because then what I did was I realized, well, I need to go and talk to my club, my existing clients who are not either not paying me or continually not paying me on time. There were lots and lots and lots of people that would treat me as they, what I call their bank.
DR: 24:32 Um, my little saying is you're not their mother and you're not their bank, so don't, don't treat them like children and don't let them treat you like a bank and use you as a loan. So they, if they're not paying you, instead of getting a loan from the bank so that they can pay their bills, they're using you as a bank. So don't say no, just keeps saying that to yourself, put it, put it on a notice board or wherever it is around your house or your office. You're not their mother and you're not their bank. That was a very powerful thing for me as well, and so what I had to do was go back to my existing clients and say, actually, I've got a, I'm changing things. I'm updating all my engagement letters and these are my terms. The other significant thing that I did was I introduced direct debits and that that was a game-changer for me as well.
DR: 25:24 So I introduced direct debits and put all my existing clients on direct debits and all the new clients. That was just part of the new client startup procedure. Then, so what systematizing my business did was just created a procedure. It no longer was a personal thing. I treated it all as a person, this is me personally. No, it's not personal. It's a business transaction. And this is how you run your business. And so I then had these fabulous packs that I got together that had my engagement letter in there and another template in the system called the new client details form, which I fill out all the client details on there. I had my direct debit set up, business cards, little brochures, all kinds of things in this fabulous pack that I would carry with me under my own, the presentation of course, and carry with me into the, into the client's office or the prospect's office. And I would m in how professional is that? It's really you go bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang. This is how I run my business. And it removed that personal. What I felt was this is a personal interaction is a personal transaction. It isn't, it's a business transaction and this is how I run my business professionally.
MP: 26:48 Well, I love the idea of the pack, right? Because I think it's lost today in our digital society, um, to have any kind of printed collateral or anything like that. But you know, if I would say that pack was more valuable to you, Deb, than it was to those clients from a just what's in the pack. But yeah, from the presentation of the pack, it's like wearing a nice suit or nice shoes, you know, it's dressing for success. And so what you are doing to counteract your own lack of confidence was preparing, preparing for going and doing this work. So it's like if you, you know, rocked up to a client, you, you know, yeah, hair was all messy and close, roll wrinkled, uh, you know, who's gonna work with you, right? The same type of people, right? Wrinkled, messed up hair people and those are not good clients.
MP: 27:45 Right? But yet you showed up with a pack, well dressed, ready to go, prepared, rehearsed. That comes across from your own confidence. It comes across from that presentation, that first impression that you're making. And then, of course, everything in the pack gives you the confidence cause it's all there. It's like almost like having, having cue cards, right? It's like, okay, we're doing this. Then we're doing that. And that comes across so professional. And I would say that in this day and age that that one tip would blow your prospects, uh, our listeners' prospects out of the water in terms of just making that impression that's different than your competitors.
DR: 28:26 Absolutely. And, and you know what, what actually happened? My conversion rates just blew through the roof at that point once I got this pack and the professionalism and delivering this presentation and, and, and basically because when you meet with clients and they're worried about their bookkeeping, they just, they want someone to take control. They don't know what's going on. They know they're in a mess. This is freaking them out. There is a whole, what I call the bookkeeping monster going on. They're fearful. They're not sleeping at night. You come in to dress professionally with this pack in your hand and you go run, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang. This is what I'm going to do for you. This is what we're going to do first. These are the systems that I'm going to set up. This is what we're going to do. This is a checklist and Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah. And I go, yes, please. That's what I need. I don't know what I'm doing with my bookkeeping. I need someone to take control. And when you come in and say you've got your business in control, I want some of that, my life is completely out of control. I want what she's got.
DR: 29:30 It's not a popular conversation and I'm not going to have a political conversation about it. But Donald Trump won the presidential election in the states for one reason and one reason only. He provided certainty, make America great again. And the American people believed that he was going to be the best choice because he brought the most certainty to the table. And that's why, you know, he won the election. And so when your, what you're talking about is giving your prospects certainty that you're the one that's going to take them from where they're at to where they want to be. And so wherever we can add certainty into the equation, we're going to win.
MP: 30:31 Yes. So I just absolutely love this conversation. Deb. I think it's been extremely powerful. I'm sure we could probably do another couple of hours just talking about these conditions and I'm sure that we will and hopefully we'll, we'll do another episode in the future where we pick out a few more that people bump up against as they're growing their business. But we're running at a time and I just want to say thank you again for being on the show and if people want to get in touch with you, what is the best way for them to do that?
DR: 30:50 Oh, I'd love to connect with people on The Successful Bookkeeper Facebook page. I'm an active contributor on that page and I would love to answer your questions. You can post all your questions there and I'll do my best to answer them.
MP: 31:05 Beautiful. And that's the fear, not part of that grouping. Go to Facebook and just search the successful bookkeeper and it's a group you asked to join and you'll be welcomed into that group and you can connect with Debbie in there and myself and the rest of our growing community. I think we're just about at 1500 people that are in that, that group. Um, so exciting, exciting times and hopefully by the time you hear this, it'll be 2000, you know? Um, but we're, we're having a lot of fun in there and looking forward to inviting any new listeners into that community as well. Well, Deb again. Thank you. Until next time. Uh, it's been fun.
DR: 31:40 My pleasure. Thanks, Michael.
MP: 31:45 That wraps another episode of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. To learn more about today's wonderful guests and to get all sorts of valuable free business-building resources, you can go to Thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com
MP: 31:58 Until next time, goodbye.
