Why do you do what you do?
Do you run a bookkeeping business only because it makes money?Is there deeper meaning?
Our guest, Jeremy Allen, who owns System Six Bookkeeping which generates over a million dollars per year, has his own answer.
The core value for his company is “Our Clients' Success Is Our Success.”
At the end of the day, it's about assisting businesses to become as healthy as possible so they can flourish which ultimately helps our economy, feeds families and provides the quality of life you'd like.
During this interview, you'll learn...
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The importance of putting your clients first & committing to excellence with your bookkeeping services
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How to avoid being full up with the wrong clients by raising your prices
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Why you should always strive to improve and never rest on your success
To find out more about Jeremy, click here.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
Michael Palmer: 01:01 Welcome back to The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. I am your host, Michael Palmer, and today's show is going to be awesome. In 2008, our guest today started his bookkeeping business from his kitchen table in Seattle with one very part-time employee. Then he would go on to help lead and grow his team to 15 employees in five states producing more than a million dollars. That's $1 million a year and recurring revenue. As a result, system six bookkeeping has become quite an incredible and inspiring success story. And Jeremy Allen is a big reason why. Jeremy, welcome to the podcast.
Jeremy Allen: 01:43 It's an honor to be with you today. Michael, thanks for having me.
MP: 01:46 It's great to have you. And we were chatting a little bit before the show and, and you've got some really interesting experiences, um, really broad experiences that I'm sure to have led to your success. But let's actually open that up and share with our listener a little bit about yourself. Tell us your career background leading up to where you are today.
JA: 02:07 I, that's a, that's, I hope you can hear me smile. That's funny because it's really not that sexy or exciting. It's actually got a lot of bumps and bruises along the way, but, um, I, you know, glad to share. I've always been an entrepreneur, probably many of the listeners, right? Right. If they're seeking out a podcast on building a successful bookkeeping accounting practice, it's probably some entrepreneurial blood there. And so I started out as an entrepreneur. I got in trouble several times at school for doing things like recording copies of cassette tapes and reselling them and having the principals say, I think that's copyright infringement. You can't really build a business doing that. And uh, you know, and fast forward, uh, was pretty entrepreneurial, started, you know, mowing and uh, serving folks in the neighborhood, selling magazine Subscriptions, whatever I could do to create a bit of an income.
JA: 02:55 And we as a family growing up in Alabama didn't have a lot of money. So if I needed to work and be able to afford the small boom box or you know, the new pair of sneakers or I would, you know, go and do what I needed to do. And so we're delivering pizza, worked as a waiter, had a computer consulting practice that I started a shortly out of high school. And oddly enough with the air force ROTC scholarship, there was a really key juncture for me where I, I was given a four-year scholarship to any school that would accept me and, uh, somewhere got disillusioned with how structured college was and ended up going to manage an Arby's roast beef. And so, I don't know if you've ever had RVs, but, uh, our or the air force two completely different paths and when to manage in RVs only lasted about six months.
JA: 03:45 Didn't, uh, take the, the, the scholarship and ended up from there. Uh, I really had to develop my entrepreneurial chops and, and get right into business. You know, I, I let go of the scholarship, started working at Arby's that didn't work out as I had hoped, uh, learned a ton about team building and, and Goal Setting and coaching. And, and yet didn't want to be, uh, an Arby's recipe manager for the rest of my life. So started a computer consulting practice, uh, and from there have built several businesses, sold a few of them, none of which have been incredibly sexy. Uh, I think today we were at the news that, uh, Matt from t sheets is Intuit as purchasing t sheets for 340 $360 million. None of my exits have been like that, but, uh, as I build a small business and sell it, learned a bit more about, you know, business and somewhere in the way that was an executive director for BNI Business Network International, learned a lot.
JA: 04:44 They're built and then sold that business and had a, a pretty, uh, dynamic bankruptcy occur and just kind of went up in flames in the early two-thousands. There was in my young 20s and was making a lot of money, uh, had, you know, B and I and a consulting practice and all kinds of things going on. But I had no idea about good bookkeeping and accounting. A, uh, in many on the podcast listening might laugh. I had no idea that there were estimated tax payments. I thought all the money I made, I just got to keep, you know. Then at the end of the year when I sat down and did taxes with a CPA, he said, Hey Jeremy, that looks like a great year. You owe 25 or $30,000 in taxes and you know, my job hit the floor. And I said, well, I don't, I don't have that money sitting around.
JA: 05:25 And so fast forward through personal bankruptcy and now almost 20 years later a have built and I'm super thankful for the team that we built. The clients that we serve have built $1 million a year bookkeeping practice and we serve, clients are on the country, have employees and team members in five different states and it's really an honor that from an entrepreneurial perspective, I get to help other business owners, other entrepreneurs improve their businesses, run successful organizations and it scratches my entrepreneurial itch. I get to serve other entrepreneurs and peek into their businesses and that satisfies my desire to be an entrepreneur. But I don't have to go open the veterinary clinic or the chiropractic clinic or the local restaurant we get to serve. You know, those business owners who have become many have become friends and that satisfies my entrepreneurial itch. So I think that's a little bit of background. There's probably a whole lot more there. But I want to be transparent and say this not been a, uh, just a rocket trajectory, right? There's been bankruptcy and a house foreclosure 20 years ago and a car that was repossessed and uh, and I, and we, I laugh, you know, and clients and I laughed it, uh, maybe that's how I got my masters in bookkeeping and having to learn how to run a good business and deal well with finances. So,
MP: 06:39 Oh my God, what a story, what a story.
MP: 06:50 Where do I start? I mean, this is absolutely, I, it's just incredibly interesting. First off and I just, I think it's, it's very, it's such a very different path than one would expect. And I think there's, I think there are so many things that we can, we can tap into here to understand your view of the world and how it's helped you be successful because you come at this from a very, very different angle, which is an email EMF, they talk about the entrepreneur, the manager, and the technician and you know, that's part of the story of E-myth, the entrepreneurial myth is that most businesses get started from a technical standpoint. They're technicians who then start a business. You came at it from an entrepreneurial perspective and then they likely hired t great team around you, but this story of your, of your life and going through all these different experiences and then brought it all together. When you started the bookkeeping business, I mean you had to sort of like what did, what was going through your mind when you were about to start a bookkeeping business? Having gone through bankruptcies had different challenges like that.
JA: 08:01 That's a, a fun story that, you know, condensed down for me is you're right, an entrepreneurial journey. I mean that's, that's, I feel like God has wired me that way from an early age. And so after bankruptcy in the early two thousand and I'm getting a chance to serve and work with other business owners, uh, post that. And I was working with BNI at the time doing some technology consulting and was, I came to Seattle, Washington where I worked for the family for 10 years and had an opportunity to learn a lot about business and real estate and book publishing. And, and that was an honor. And yet inside of there somewhere, you know, a good friend of mine, we climbed a Mount Rainier several times together. So we had a lot of opportunities, a lot of long nights in the tent and time on the rope.
JA: 08:48 And he sold payroll for a local, national well-known payroll company. Uh, and he said, Jeremy, the number one thing people ask me when I'm helping them convert their payroll over to this national payroll company is, do you know a good bookkeeper? And he turned and said, you know this, you've built really great systems and ways of doing bookkeeping and accounting for small business, and have you ever thought like that, that might be a business to start. Do you know? And I was just doing that individually at the time as an employee. And I said, Gosh, that's great, I hadn't, I haven't thought of that, but you're right. And, you know, thought back to my own experiences of bookkeeping and accounting and having good business coaching and good advising around money would've made all the difference for me when I was in my young 20s.
JA: 09:33 I was great at building a business. I was a great technician, right? I'd built a business, I was doing, uh, things very successfully, but didn't understand the money or the back office or the business processes. And so as, as Brett and I talked more about this potential need in the marketplace, you know, Simon Sinek says, start with why, right? You know, that famous Ted talk. And so we did, Brett and I did a lot of soul-searching and said, this is the marketplace. I really need this. Does do business owners need good bookkeeping, somebody to help run, you know, at the time, QuickBooks and all the associated things that go with a business, payroll and bill pay and invoicing and, and state and city taxes. And, and the more we asked around and the more that we fished, you know, hey and did our own little informal market research came to the conclusion that there's a huge need in the marketplace.
JA: 10:23 Right? And so drawing on years of inspiration and years of listening to, uh, I'm a huge Tony Robbins or Jim Roan or Dennis Whaley or you know, any of the guys and gals that are in personal development, huge fan of, of their work. And that's the kind of stuff that is inspired me to continue to learn and grow over the years. And they've, you know, said often that like, the key to greatness is serving many. And so I thought, Gosh, can we serve many, uh, in the bookkeeping business? Is there a business to be had? And so after we validated the market research, again, super informally that, yeah, there's a big need here. We sat down and started to spreadsheet out, can we build a scalable, you know, bookkeeping accounting solution that would be a win for us. We'd have a lot of fun doing it. We'd make money doing it.
JA: 11:08 Our team would be well compensated doing it and that the client would be extremely well-served with us serving those, you know, serving and doing the bookkeeping. And so as we continued to a spreadsheet and think and dream and grow, we somewhere in 2007, eight timeframes said, I think there's a market for this. Yeah, let's, let's go. Let's do it. And so initially formed the entity, it was called bull bookkeeping, which looking back now, I laugh and say thank you, we that we didn't keep that very long. I think I had that registered with the state of Washington for a couple of months and then we made a change to system six strategic bookkeeping and analysis. And that stuck since then. And it really started with, uh, people asking for, you know, asking my friend Brett, do you know, a good bookkeeper? And then his and my time together where he said, hey, I think there's a real opportunity here.
JA: 11:58 And you know, we did the hard work and the thinking and the spreadsheeting and figured out there was an opportunity. And, and that's how I started system six. And it's kind of fun aside. Brett decided, he fell in love right around the time that we were going to start system six. And he looked at me and said, Jeremy, I can't live off of a startup salary or no salary. Right? I need to take a job where I make money cause I'm gonna propose to Holly, I'm going to marry her. They're now married, they've got three kids. And um, there's still dear friends here in Seattle. But he looked and said, you're going to have to do system six all by yourself. I can't, I've got to go do something different. And so I still think Brett, to this day for his, you know, nobody builds a business by themselves.
JA: 12:39 And you know, Brett gave a lot of great ideas. Another good friend of mine, Jordan in the early days helped with a lot of sales. And Marketing and relationship building before he moved away. And he's now a CFO of a large, multimillion-dollar seafood company in New York. But there were some key influences early on that those guys encouraged me to start system six. It's going to be, they felt like it was going to be a very successful company. And so now we, we, of course, we text and exchange emails and when we see each other, we laugh and go, who would've thought that this little bookkeeping idea would turn into more than a million dollar a year? You know, multistate multiple employees. And we just continue to grow. I mean, it's, it's, it's a lot of fun.
MP: 13:15 Beautiful. And what an interesting, interesting path. And, you know, some key things that our mentorship, um, working with people being open to new possibilities. And then you, that's the entrepreneur, right? You saw and heard, uh, an opportunity in the marketplace and you, and you went after it,
MP: 13:33 That greed
MP: 13:34 and, and then let's talk about some of the experiences, right? You, you have a big team, a lot of different branches. How did your, uh, experience working for Arby's? Uh, bring that kind of thinking to your business or did it,
JA: 13:53 You know, I, I would connect a lot of dots there. I mean, starting with, um, someone that when I was a waiter at pizza hut in high school, I think I was 16 years old, uh, somebody pulled me aside. They tried to recruit me for Amway, which I don't blame them for it all. I'm really thankful they did. They, they gave me a book and a, a big tip one night after I served them. And that book was how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. And I remember as a 16-year old that has been, and still to this day is a fundamental cornerstone of, of caring for people. Uh, really being interested in others and you know, connect that dot with the Arby's experience. And the name of that company was RTM results through motivation inc. And so they, lots of processes, checklists, motivation, encouragement, lots of performance reviews and, and coaching.
JA: 14:42 And so how to win friends and influence people and to get results who motivation and build processes and checklists. Uh, my time with BNI, you, Ivan Meisner often said when he would talk, whether he was talking, you know, informally and we were playing a game of chess, which he, uh, nine times out of 10 would beat me. But when he was given a public speech or talking with his team, he'd say, people don't care how much, you know until they know how much you care. And so these, you know, put together this how to win friends and influence people's ideas from an early age, learning about the importance of building processes and checklists and procedures and building a team. And then getting a chance to work with, with Ivan for several years. And really hearing people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, you know, translate that.
JA: 15:27 Now fast forward, you know, our number one core value, we have six of them. Uh, and our number one core value is our clients' success is our success. And that really is a culmination of that idea that people don't care how much, you know, people don't care how great of a bookkeeper or technician or what kind of team we've built. Uh, they really want to know that we're in their corner, that we care about their success, that we have our eyes on their p and l and on their balance sheet and the accuracy of the numbers and running good payroll. And, you know, as we've continued to pay attention to our client's success being our success, I truly think that's the flywheel, that that is what's continued to let our business grow. And there's a lot in there, right? I mean, we have to be great at our craft.
JA: 16:10 We have to be excellent bookkeepers and accountants and understand the numbers and be accurate and be efficient. But, uh, the fact that we care genuinely about our clients being successful, uh, that I think makes all the difference in our clients know that, uh, they, they continue to refer new clients to us. Just last night I got two emails where clients are referring to other clients and it's such an easy introduction, right? If we're doing a great job serving our clients, uh, they say, hey, I want to introduce you to a good friend. They own a business. You guys should pick it up and run from here. And of course, that person being referred says, thank you. Like I needed a great bookkeeper and they're ready to go. They're ready to start, right? You know, it's an immediate, uh, rapport is built and the relationship is going. So I attract back to those early days.
JA: 16:54 You know, the question was, what did I learn from Arby's processes? Results, who, motivation, building a team, uh, caring about others genuinely and having to be successful. Those pieces of DNA are woven into our fabric. They, they make all the difference, I feel like for our company. And that would transpose on to any company, right? Bookkeeping, accounting, landscaping, a dental office, like the idea of truly caring for our clients and their success being our success. That's universal, right? I think that universal value, a universal characteristic that makes us successful. And Man, I, I think we could best, the great thing about the entrepreneurial journey, Jim Rowan often said, don't become a millionaire for the million that you'll get, but for the person, you'll become in the process. And I believe that you could probably take me or any other business owner that's been on that entrepreneurial journey and has had some measure of success.
JA: 17:48 You could pluck us out and put us somewhere else. And the hope would be that we'd be able to take those same principles and build another business. And maybe it's not bookkeeping or accounting. Maybe it's like I said, landscaping or you know, something else. But I think the principles of truly caring for our clients, being successful. And you mentioned Michael Gerber and you know, following processes, really understanding how to build an org chart out and build a great team so that not one person has to do everything. Like those principles are universal and they'll help businesses be successful.
MP: 18:18 Yeah, absolutely.
MP: 18:25 You know, this whole concept of success, uh, our clients' success is our success. I get the sense that you really know your value as an organization. And, and I think there's, there's many probably many listeners right now listening and thinking, wow, I, I, you know, how, how could I ever get to that level or, you know, they may not even want to get to that level, but how do, how do we speak with so much confidence and, and be able to help our clients? I think your story is one of the Best I've, I've actually had on the podcast to demonstrate how truly valuable bookkeeping is in the business equation.
JA: 19:06 Hmm. Yeah. Yes. And yes. I wouldn't say yes to our story being the most valuable, but I would say that bookkeeping, you know, I was just at QuickBooks connect a couple of weeks ago and Brad Smith, the CEO of Intuit was speaking and you know, he shared a stat and I'm not sure where the stat comes from and it's often re, uh, shared throughout our industry. But I think his stat was, you know, the number is, uh, 80% or more of businesses, uh, fail and recognize that good bookkeeping, good financials is at the core of longterm success. And, and I would probably put a slight spin on that and say that, yeah, bookkeeping. I learned from a mentor early on, Dr. George Wong, who's a business success coach, former plastic surgeon, turned business coach and George would often say that flying an airplane is a lot like running a business. And if we run businesses and don't have accurate financials and don't know how to read a profit loss and a balance sheet and truly understand how to look at cash flow forecasting, he says it's like flying a plane by sight, right?
JA: 20:09 Like you can only fly visually so far, so fast, so high. At some point you need instrumentation. We need to know our altitude and our speed and how much fuel we've gotten in a tank. And then those gauges have to be right. And so I think that, yes, bookkeeping is that fundamental piece. It's, you know, whenever I'm talking with a prospective client, I'll, I'll share that analogy that, gosh, you know, they've built a great business. They know how to create revenue, they know how to serve clients well, but potentially their bookkeeping and back office is a disaster. I think a lot of entrepreneurs that come to us have that experience and, and I'd give them Kudos and say, Hey, you've done a great building a business, but at some point, that plane will crash, right? I mean, you can only fly by sight for so long and if you're going to continue to be a high performing business owner and the team grows and the revenue grows and the expenses and complexity and payroll grows at some point, there's better instrumentation needed.
JA: 21:04 There's better, better data needed. And so I think my own experience was that and that that has translated into a passionate at system six that we recognized. Entrepreneurs are great at some things, building businesses and delivering great products and services in the marketplace. They might not be so great at quickbooksorzeroorbill.com or fathom or any of the tools that we use. Right. And so, and that's okay. That's what we're here for. I A, you know, I think another great analogy that I share often is I can go to home depot or the local hardware store just like you can Michael and anybody can go buy the latest lithium-ion drill or toolset or saw. But man, somebody that's a craftsman can do a lot more to build a house with that than I can. He just can't produce the same craftsman style results. People can go get quick books, they can go get zero, they can easily subscribe to Gusto and all these services. But what we do with those tools as craftsmen that really know bookkeeping, accounting and the importance of how to plug all those things together, I would like that to a great craftsman that, you know, comes to our house here in does repairs or helps build a remodel. Same tools, just a completely different knowledge and passion around what they're up to.
MP: 22:16 Beautiful. When someone's buying something from somebody that they're looking for, they're looking to that person to show them the way they're looking for leadership, right? If they have a true problem and they're trying to solve that through a problem, they're looking for leadership help me. Right? And there are other parts to it, right? Trusting and you know, get the credibility and all these different pieces. But at the end of the day, it's like to help me. And when you can stand there in front of them and be their peer, uh, at their same level and speak as an entrepreneur to an entrepreneur, which you can and show them the way and show them leadership, it's, it's very, very good for business. And so I think that's what the listener right now can really listen for in the way that you're talking is that the listener you are, Jeremy, you are an entrepreneur. You, you may be more strong on the technical side, but you are an entrepreneur.
MP: 23:04 If you have your own business, you are an entrepreneur and your Jeremy's peer. And so that with that knowing that wake up each day and, and think like that. And sometimes it's difficult and you have good days and bad days of course, but that will help you express and communicate your value to potential clients and your current clients and be able and, and enable you to be able to close more business at higher, at higher value, which turns around and comes back to your business. So that's why I just love that this story, Jeremy, and you've been such a great guest. Before I let you go, I want to ask a few more questions. And one is when, when you were building your business, what the bookkeeping business, what did you run up against and if anything and how did you get over it?
JA: 24:01 No, that's there's, there are several things in there and you know, to talk about the nitty-gritty of, of what kind of challenges we faced and how we truly build $1 million bookkeeping practice. I mean, I think you just summed it up a moment ago that there's this huge piece of philosophy and values and communication and confidence that, I mean that's definitely a large part of our sales engine and marketing engine is I'm passionate about what we do and I'm competent in our team and we deliver great results in that. That just oozes outright of me and all of our team members, we, we can confidently say that, hey, we've got great service and, and we see the results. There's 30 or 40 positive five stereo reviews, et cetera. Like that values that Simon Sinek starting with why and we built our company on, on core values.
MP: 24:47 That piece is there. And then yet the technical side of building the business, I mean, some of the challenges we've run up against, and I imagine a lot of teams would run up against his capacity. You know, when we're good at what we do, there's a piece of old scripture a saying that is, you know, do you see someone skilled at what they do? They won't serve before obs, secure men. They'll serve before kings. And I translate that to our team and clients all the time that hey if somebody is good at what they do, their phone's going to ring off the hook right there. They're gonna have a problem keeping up with the amount of, of potential clients. And so one of the things over the last nine years has been how do we not say no, how do you know a potential client comes to us, gets referred to us?
JA: 25:32 How do we say yes to serving them? And then at the same time balance that with how much capacity we have been the, one of the biggest challenges is how do we find and retain great team members, uh, because in those great team members have to have the skill, right? As we've had a lot of people on the system, 16 but their heart's in the right place, you know, high integrity and character, but maybe they're not a bookkeeping Ninja, you know, maybe, uh, they're a good bookkeeper, but we need really top-notch first-class bookkeepers. And so I, I think the capacity for us has been a constant challenge. And, uh, one of the ways that we've addressed that, and I would encourage all the listeners on this podcast to really consider, you know, you are not charging enough, more than likely. Right. You know, if I were to earlier how much you, amen.
JA: 26:21 Like if I were to share how much we charge our clients, you know, we push the envelope on value. We, you know, we'll charge 150 to $200 an hour for cleanup and catch up and process improvement work. We set our billing a fixed fee value billing by the week and you know, automatically process a weekly payment for over 70 of our clients where we're doing ongoing bookkeeping accounting. We're constantly pushing that envelope, not because we're greedy, right? But because we recognize that if our price is set too low, our phone's going to ring off the hook in such a way that there's that'll crush us. Any, you mentioned, you know, Michael Gerber and the EMS, which I had the chance to, to hear him speak a few years ago here in Seattle at an entrepreneurs organization meeting. And you know, he talks a lot about value, talks a lot about pricing and, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs are scared.
JA: 27:08 A lot of business owners are scared to truly push the envelope on their price. And one of the things that crush businesses the most is an inability to keep up with the delivery of the product or service. Right. You know, the sales have taken off in such a way, but getting a great service, a great product, finished and closed financials out the door each month. That has been a big challenge for us. So what we've done is continually pushed the price up to and tested that upper boundary and not been shy to say, oh, I care. I think our price for that, it's going to be $400 a week. I'd have a client say, gosh, that's expensive. And I say, well, yeah, but you know, you'll probably be a client for the next five years and we'll scale and grow with you and you won't have to have this bookkeeping and accounting transition again.
JA: 27:50 That's worth it. You know, we have team members that have been with us, you mentioned that part-time team member in the kitchen and, and when we first started, Kelly is still with us. She's in Chicago, she's got two kids, she is our controller and HR director. She serves several of our very complex clients and we pay our team extraordinarily well and give them a lot of flexibility and hey, if they want to move from Seattle to Chicago, we want to keep them right. And so we continually push the price up so that we're filtering out clients that might be okay clients, but really looking for the clients are going to be great clients and, and can afford to pay us what we're worth as a team and the solution that we offer. So I think that's one of the big challenges we've faced that hopefully resonates with, with folks listening today is that challenge, that idea of fee challenge, that idea of value.
JA: 28:41 And you know, I mentioned to our team a lot, even though it might be that we're making a really, really healthy margin serving a client on one of our weekly engagements. If we're delivering an extraordinary amount of value in consistency and reliability and dependability. And here we are four, five, six years into the engagement that business owner sleeps well at night. Knowing that with integrity and accuracy and efficiency, we're taking care of those financial underpinnings, the foundation of their business and the values there for them. They're not complaining about the fee. And so I think a lot of people are shy to, you know, push on the fee and make sure that they're pricing themselves in a way that's scalable and that they can build a good business.
JA: 29:29 I think that that's probably one of the, you know, biggest nitty-gritty challenges we've had to overcome. And you know, I'll share one more real quick and that is as we've continued to grow as a team, you know that the processes we talked about, you know, Michael Gerber several times in the EMS and building out processes and checklists and procedures, which I think is something you're really good at, right? And then you coach and help a lot of business owners with processes and checklists. And as we've grown, we've, we've realized that what got us to half a million isn't going to get us to a million and we're having that same conversation now. You know, what's gotten us to the fact that we're at 1.2 million a year in revenue is not those skills, those processes that, that workflow software, that bill pay software, those things aren't going to get us to the $2 million a year firm that we aspire to be.
JA: 30:20 We're going to have to think differently and learn differently. And so I, you know, going back to the idea of mentors and coaches, uh, it was an honor, you know, six of our team was just at QuickBooks connect. I got a chance to speak into it, shared a video on our team and the power of relationships and technology. And yet I was there all ears trying to learn and grow and take ideas back here to our team of how do we, how do we expand from the way that we're doing it now to the way that we want to be doing it six months or a year from now. And if that means paying for coaching or attending a seminar or, uh, purchasing a new book or whatever that relationship looks like, you know, bet. That's what has worked for us. And, and I think when I look at other successful firms, that's often what works for them is not resting on thinking that we've got it all figured out.
JA: 31:07 But if it takes out coaching or books or seminars or going to conferences, doing those things right so that we can better improve our processes and our software and our understanding and our industry. You and I talked about this before, the call started, so much has changed in 10 years and I think so much will continue to change in the next five to 10 years. And we've just got to be ever students and constantly learning so that we're able to take advantage of when that new piece of software comes out that we can improve our from our client's lives, we're ready to implement it. You know, we're ready to embrace it. So I would say value in pricing and team capacity and figuring out what tools and processes we're gonna use to continue to grow and scale. You know, those are two real challenges that we've had and still are real challenges.
JA: 31:51 You know, there are lots of things we push on and we're trying to resolve as a firm. But thankfully, and I'd end with this, we've, I love our team. I admire that our team is dedicated and talented and caring and compassionate and uh, it's a great team to figure these things out with. It's great to be on the journey with them. So whether we stop here and we're at, you know, a million, million, two and 15 team members or whether we double that, it's a fun journey to be on. It's a great team and a set of clients to be, to be doing this work with. So most days I wake up and really am excited about the life that I live and the life and work that we get to do. So I am okay continuing to grow. I think as an entrepreneur we want to do that, but I'd also be perfectly content to just keep serving clients and work with the team that we've got a, because it's a lot of fun. It's really rewarding.
MP: 32:42 Absolutely delicious conversation. I got to say, I just love your, I love your passion for Your Business. I love your ability to communicate it. I mean if for me as, as the host and asking questions, I mean you, you basically answered all the questions I wanted to ask you and so thank you. On behalf of the listener. Thank you. You gave away so much. So many ideas and thoughts and concepts that I know will both inspire them and as well help them take new and, and interesting and exciting new actions to grow their business. Maybe they dream of a, a $2 million business or maybe even just getting to six figures to 100,000 for them is going to be the dream. Wherever it is, whatever it is. Jeremy, my hat is off to you. Thank you so much for sharing and inspiring us to, you know, fight, fight. The next day, get up and do it again. So it's been great having you.
JA: 33:41 Thank you for having me. And I'd encourage listeners, keep growing, keep pushing, keep listening. I look through the podcast list. You've got a ton of very podcast material out there and I've listened to some of it now. Keep listening and grow and reach out. Don't be afraid. Go to my website, ask questions of us, ask questions of others around you, and good luck on, on your journey, Michael, and good luck on your illustrious journeys.
MP: 34:04 Thank you. Well, that wraps another episode of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast and what an excellent podcast episode it's been. To learn more about Jeremy and to get access to all sorts of valuable free business-building resources, you can go to Thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com. Until next time,
MP: 34:21 goodbye.
