EP60: Ben Robinson - Let's Get Excited About The Future Of Your Bookkeeping Business

The robots are coming!

So what?

Yes, Artificial Intelligence has and will continue to take away some duties from bookkeepers, but according to our guest who is the founder and chief teacher at the Bookkeeper Business Launch program, the future is something to look forward to and not to be feared.

Ben Robinson has helped thousands of people start their own virtual bookkeeping businesses and along the way has realized relationship building with clients and becoming their trusted advisor will protect bookkeepers from the AI invasion.

During this interview, you'll discover...

  • Why you should call your clients once in awhile to check in on them with no business agenda to build deeper rapport

  • Why you should know the jobs, pains and gains of your ideal customers and use simple marketing methods to reach them

  • How you can go from pain to power by taking action despite your fears

To find out more about Ben, visit LearnToBeABookkeeper.com.

To check out the Bookkeeper Business Launch Facebook page, go here.

To buy the book, Feel The Fear & Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers, click this link.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

Michael Palmer: 01:24 Welcome back to The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. I am your host, Michael Palmer, and today's show is going to be an awesome one. Our guest is the founder and chief teacher at the bookkeeper business academy. He's also the man behind The Bookkeeper Business Launch Training Program that has helped thousands of people start their own virtual bookkeeping businesses. He's also a really, really, really nice guy and he is loved by his clients. Ben Robinson, welcome to the podcast. 

Ben Robinson: 01:57 Oh, thank you so much, Michael. Now I have a lot to live up to here, so I appreciate that introduction. 

MP: 02:02 Yeah, well, you know, I work here with Dave, you know, reached out to you and he's been helping us coordinate and he's like, whenever we talk about, you know, upcoming and getting ready for, he's like, yeah, you know, he's just such a really nice guy, you know, and, uh, your videos and the things that you do, I can see why people just love your programs and love doing it because you come across really, really authentic and just a general, uh, a person that loves what he's doing and loves helping the people that he's helping. 

BR: 02:31 Well, thank you. It's nice to hear that from, from somebody that, that means a lot. So thank you so much, Michael. 

MP: 02:37 Yeah, it's great to see. Uh, and I'm sure it's part of the, your, your success as well. But let's, uh, let's first off, Ben, let's have you tell your story and how you got your start in the business that you're in and how it's led you up to this point. 

BR: 02:54 Absolutely. So I'm a CPA, but it's my history. I worked for a regional firm in Arkansas back in the day and uh, worked for them for a couple of years and then decided, you know, that I was smarter than the partners and you know, I needed to launch my own firm. So set out thinking that I knew everything and soon discovered that I knew nothing about starting my firm and kind of painted myself into a corner and do what a lot of us do and we create success. But that success comes at a huge cost in terms of you have a financial success but you are never at home. And this was in the early two thousand before the Internet was a big thing, which I understand today to be a big thing. And at that time I was, I just had a breakdown moment when I came home one night and my three-year-old daughter didn't even know who I was. 

BR: 03:46 She thought that I was just some stranger because I was never at home and that was really a tipping point for me, not, I decided that I had to do my arm a different way. This was not the life that I wanted to create. I was working more than I'd ever worked before and earning less. And it just seemed to be that there was no balance in my life. So I committed myself that time to figure out how am I going to do this right? And how am I going to add value to my clients and how really good there's going to change my lifestyle. And it was purely from a selfish standpoint, wanting to be there for my family and wanting to make everyone happy, uh, that I set out on this quest. And it didn't happen overnight. But slowly over time, I figured out how to transform my firms so that I could live a lifestyle that I wanted to live. 

BR: 04:30 I could deliver value to everyone that was in my presence, first and foremost, my family, then my clients, then my team, and then me. And slowly but surely, I started to figure out how to do that. I did a lot of trial and error, a lot more air than the trial, but over time I've kind of figured out how do I really deliver value? Right? What is value and how does that, how do I help others? And so over the course of time really retooled my practice and made it one where we delivered value to everybody that we came in presence with. And it's such a simple shift that I may, but it had a profound impact on everyone that was involved. And so from that, they would go back about two and a half, three years ago, I woke up one day, I said, you know what? 

BR: 05:14 I just don't want to be the CPA firm owner anymore and decided to sell my practice. Unfortunately, I had a very vibrant practice that was easy to sell. And after that I thought, what am I going to do with my life? And I had this, um, about two and a half years ago now, had this idea that you know what, I always like training bookkeepers. And as we all know, the world needs a lot more great bookkeepers don't need just regular bookkeepers. We need great bookkeepers. So I thought, hmm, I wonder if I could train other people how to become bookkeepers, how to start their own virtual bookkeeping business. And take the same principles that I applied in my firm and help others to help business owners to deliver tremendous value to own lives and the lives of their clients. And so that's what I did. And so that's when bookkeeper business launched. Uh, that's when bookkeeper business launch launched a whole, we'll say that was, I'm about two and a half years ago too, that early 2015 and low and behold, it worked. You know, it's Kinda one of those things you go, oh my gosh, this is actually working. This is awesome. And we have iterated and we've improved and we're blessed to have a great team and great students. And so that's kind of what has led us up to where we are here today. And you and I speaking. 

MP: 06:29 Yeah. That's fantastic. Great Story. I love it. Uh, in terms of just, you know, realizing you wanted to change in your life, making that big change and then do it, building your business and then realizing you don't want to change and you, and you took that action and you, you made it happen and now you're, you're doing something where you're helping thousands of people and like you said, we need great bookkeepers and business owners need those bookkeepers. So, uh, I think it's a, um, I'm not surprised why it's been successful. A great person, like you, matched with an incredible need in the marketplace. Now you focus on, as you mentioned, it's a bookkeeper, business lunch. So these are bookkeepers that are there, there. Tell us a little bit about that, that client that, that says finds you and starts to go, you know what, this is for me. What does it, what are the, just getting started? Like, do they have bookkeeping experience? Do they, can they have no experience at all?

BR: 07:28 Either. So we, we, if you look at the span of all of our students, um, and that's what we call them on Sir. There are students, we have some that have no bookkeeping experience, we have some that are CPAs, we have some that are experienced bookkeepers working in the industry. We just kind of run the gamut. Our courses taught from the angle that you don't know, have to know anything about bookkeeping, which is I prairie a bold statement to make. And the reason that it's successful is that we have a community and a backend where we support them and help them if they were just to go out there on your own as you know, nobody can just start a bookkeeping business and in 10 weeks be very well versed. And that's where we have a very vibrant community and a backup system to help them into. 

BR: 08:10 Um, it's, it's not direct like an internship or working one on one with them, but it's a community, right? It's kind of the crowd that is helping somebody up. And we've found that that to delivery highly, high-quality product at the end to their clients because they get the crowd knowledge that's coming behind them. And so just to answer your question, it spans the horizons against, we have anywhere from a CPA to somebody who has just wanting to reenter the workforce or into the workforce for the first time that has no bookkeeping or accounting experience. So it's a very wide variety.

MP: 08:54 You know, I love that. And I 

MP: 08:56 think I'm currently working on a project where I am not a beginner, uh, but it's mechanics and I, when I was a young, when I was a young bloke, I guess you could say in my teens, I did a lot of that working on cars and working on building a hot rod with my father actually for fruit's a 30 year father and son project. But it's 25 years now that I'm getting back on the tools and you know, I have enough knowledge but I'm, I'm blocked. Right? And so I'll get to a point where I just don't know how to get to the next step. And I think that that is really the challenge with a lot of bookkeepers is that, you know, you have general knowledge, you'll learn some things. And then you, you hit a plateau or you get to a block or you just don't know. 

MP: 09:42 And if you tried to just figure it all out, all on your own, you probably never progress. But a community like yours, and of course I noticed that in our own community is it's like just, just, I just need that, that one piece of information to get that breakthrough that I can get to the next bit. And then that, you know, there's people that are more mature and have been doing it for years and years and years and, and so easy for them to help other bookkeepers that are, you know, maybe not, uh, as experienced or knowledgeable as them. But that little tiny bit of information then leads to their next development stage. So it's like, uh, just continuing to, to, to learn and improve. So it's almost like giving people the opportunity to learn at an accelerated rate. And, and Ben, I don't think there's ever been a time in our history where human history, where there's been so much access to information and so quick to actually get it. So I think that's really exciting. And your community sounds like is still delivering, capitalizing on that and also delivering it. 

BR: 10:43 Absolutely. And there's a show that's just come on TV that's called wisdom of the crowd and it's basically about this guy who he's a crime solver and basically, Brent uses social media in the crowd to solve crimes and to put an into to atrocities and things like that. And that's kind of what we do. Not from the criminal standpoint, hope not. But from a bookkeeping standpoint, right, is the wisdom of the crowd. And collectively we are a mastermind where individually we are not. And the older that I get, the more that I realize that I don't know. I love the bumper sticker that says, uh, teenagers get out now while you still know everything. Because when I started my firm, I thought that I knew everything. And the older I get, the less that I realized that I know and I have to realize and I have to swallow my pride and go, there are other people who know so much more than me and that's okay. I'm okay with that now. Whereas 10 15 years ago, I wasn't. So that is you're exactly right. It's, it's such a benefit to have a community like yours in a community like ours where everybody's coming together for the greater good of serving our clients. 

MP: 11:46 Yeah, I love it. And you know, it just has me think of a, maybe a tip for when people are sourcing from the crowd is the, I remember traveling in Europe when I was in my early twenties and I soon learned that I needed to ask about three people because you know, I could ask and be lucky, but then if I asked three people and they all said the same thing, I knew I was going in the right direction. And so when we're, when we are sourcing from crowds, we've got to make sure that you don't just ask, ask it from a few other people and make sure that you've got it. When it's something that's important, like where you're going or that's what's really important too. So a little bit of a, of a tip. So powerful though. And it's like, you know what, as a, for me, my own personality, I love figuring out riddles. 

BR: 12:30 I love figuring out clues. And so I was lost a lot cause I was always trying to do it on my own. But then I realized, you know what's, so what you so easy to turn to the side and go, hey, you know what, I'm done. You know where I'm going over here. This is where I should be going. Yeah. So I encourage all of our listeners to, you know, you and I are sure a lot of our listeners are already in a bookkeeper, business academy. Uh, the program there, ask more questions, give more answers, be engaged. It helps you, it helps them. And it helps us serve the community of business owners in our, in our countries.

MP: 13:05 Alright, so with you, Ben, you've been at this a while, you've worked with thousands of bookkeepers, you've seen him go virtually from no experience at all to grow their business and beyond. What do you see as their biggest pain points? 

BR: 13:20 Well, so it's, it's ironic that you asked that. A number one thing that I see as a pain point and this goes this is not unique to bookkeepers, is it's unique to anybody who wants to achieve, right? Anybody who wants to grow, and that's fear and overcoming that fear, right? Or not actually overcoming, it's dealing with the fear and knowing that you are going to prevail regardless of the situation. You always have prevailed in the past, but that's the biggest thing, right? Is that it's the what if, what if this happens? And I found with myself and my students that the number one impediment is fear. It's the Kryptonite to anybody who wants to achieve in life. And so part of my mission and where I've found that my sweet spot is, and I've looked back across my life, is helping people to do that, right? 

BR: 14:07 It's something that I have to do continuously. It's not something that you do once. It's like mowing your yard or cooking, right? You don't just do it once. It has to happen on a continual basis. But something that I just see that's pervasive across bookkeeping. Anybody who wants to achieve anybody who does not settle for the status quo, which is your audience. And my audience is they have to deal with fear. They have to have an effective mechanism for overcoming that. And so that is like the overarching thing that I see that impedes people to get the life that they desire and that they deserve. 

MP: 14:41 Yeah. You know what, it comes up all the time. I see it in our community, the successful bookkeeper, Facebook community, people talking about their fear and their and stress. And listen to you, both, you and I, we could probably have a long conversation about where we've been blocked in our own life by fear. You know, looking back at those times like, oh, why didn't, you know, why didn't I just do what I wanted, you know, wanted to do. Looking back after I've done it, it's not that big of a deal. But what, you know, are there any hacks that you know of that help people get to the, you know, the business of moving on with it more quickly than they might have? 

BR: 15:20 So one resource that I'll give you because most of the stuff that I've learned about fear is come from a book called a field of fear and do it anyway. Feel the fear and do it anyway. And that statement right there is very profound. You know, Nike coined the phrase, just do it. That is one thing that I've found that that really the only way to overcome fear is to actually do the thing that you fear. And that is scary and it's so simple, yet it's the thing that needs to be done because fear is really that you think that the challenge that you face or the opportunity that's before you is greater than your ability. And so what we really have to do is we have to build ourselves up, right? And again, this is not something that you do one time. This is a continual process. 

BR: 16:04 It's an affirmation. And however it takes for you to become more confident in yourself, that's what you need to do. You need to move from a, from a position of pain to power. And we don't mean power in terms of I am over somebody, right? That is the opposite. That is called control. But we want to have power. We want to have power over ourselves. We want to know that we are able to conquer whatever comes in our way. We don't know how, and that's totally fine, but we have this innate it just knowing inside of us that we can conquer whatever comes, we can address it, right? If that happens, deal with it at that point. So really the key or one of the keys that I would say is that we have to come more confident in us. And some of that is like building up our skills, right? 

BR: 16:50 Becoming more confident in let's say, because I know a lot of bookkeepers, marketing, sales, advertising that just, Whoa, don't put that in front of me. You know, I don't want to do that. But when we boil it down, it really is pretty simple in what we need to do. We just need to gain confidence in ourselves. So certainly we can build up our skills, but we really have to build our mind. We have to build our mindset, we have to build confidence in ourselves. We have to reach back in time and look at those times where we've been faced with a challenge that was fear and we have overcome it. We have to grab that because everything has come your way to get to where you are here today. You've overcome, you need to acknowledge that and you need to say, you know what, Yup, this is going to stand in my way until I overcome and I do it and I have competence in my own ability. So in terms of like a hack, that would be my number one thing. And then obviously the book that I recommended is a great resource and I've got several books that I'm actually going through right now. I'm teaching a class on Thursday, uh, about overcoming fear to my students. 

MP: 17:50 Beautiful. I just love that and I'm such a great, a great recommendation. And we will post that link as well. And, and if, if, uh, Susan Jeffers is still active, I think she'd be a great person to get on the podcast. 

BR: 18:04 Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to have her on mine too. So she knows what she's talking about. 

MP: 18:16 Is that the first time I've heard of it and I will definitely be a reader as well. So, you know, fear, great hack, great, great tip and, and just doing it and, and of course confidence comes from doing these things and learning from them. And, and, and that's uh, a momentum that gets built. If you, you, you brought up sales, marketing, these types of things that traditionally are challenging for not just bookkeepers, but anybody that is, has not been in that industry where they're selling themselves, going out there looking for business, having to negotiate and all these things that come along with running your own business. What have you seen as, as some of the success points for people to go and while there are so many things one could do, where is it the best place to focus for a person that's getting started in terms of getting new clients?

BR: 19:07 Getting clients. Yeah. Well, okay. So one of the things that I think that in you mentioned earlier, you know, we have so much information that is out there and so what, when we have so much information, it leads to paralysis, right? It's like when I go to the store and I want to buy a bottle of ketchup, there's a whole freaking section where I can determine like brands, organic, non-organic. This one is high fructose corn syrup. I mean it's just so many decisions and it paralyzes us and we have to realize that in our business, bookkeeping is first and foremost a relationship business. So you need to come at it from that angle. So what are you trying to do when you are out there marketing and selling and advertising, you're building up a relationship. You're building up trust because people do business with those that they know they like and they trust. 

BR: 19:57 So when you are through this process, that is what you are attempting to do. You're attempting to establish yourself as an authority, as a person that they need to go to. You need to call out to your audience, which is a big hack right there is knowing who your audience is and say, I'm the best choice for you. And here's the compelling reason why right? Because your marketing, if you are building up that trust and you're doing the things on the front end that you need to do, you're building up a relationship. Okay, the media can come and go. It can be Facebook today, it can be Twitter tomorrow. It can be a BNI group the next week, right? It doesn't matter the media, it's the message in the market. And really that comes down to knowing your market to clearly knowing who they are. And one of the big mistakes that I see people make is that they try to broadcast a message to the wrong market. 

BR: 20:44 The most important thing that you can do in all your marketing has to clearly define who your market is. Clearly find who your market is. And that's why we are a huge proponent of developing niches or a niche. A singular niche would be. The best thing is one of the things that really flip the switch in our practice when we moved over to focusing on one. Because if you've clearly defined your market and you know them, right? You've interviewed him, you've listened to them, you understand what their jobs, pains, and gains are. Okay. The jobs that they have to do, the pains and this, this doesn't just relate to bookkeeping. This relates to everything in their business and in their life. Because if you say, hmm, this is the job that that entrepreneur faces that they don't want to do, it's a pain in the butt for them. 

BR: 21:27 If I can take that away from them, what value has added to them. So clearly defining your market and talking to them and knowing what they're jobs, pains and gains are so that you can address those that are valuable. And when you put value in somebody's life, you have a business that is going to sustain forever as long as you're putting value out there. So determining your market and then your message, right? If you have a, a pathetic message and you're putting it to the right market, you will get clients. But if you have the best message in the world and an ill-defined market, you'll never get clients. Okay. So that is that. Those are, those are a couple of things that we recommend because now when you do that when you clearly define your market, you know about them, they feel like you are talking to them individually because you know them so well. 

BR: 22:16 And that's when I talked to people about marketing. Now try to make what seems complex and bullet down to being simple, right? Um, I used to coach youth football for a number of years and uh, occasionally I'll get a coach that calls me and says, Hey kid, you know, we're having some, some struggles here. Can you come to watch your practice or, you know, give me some tips and all that stuff? And the number one thing I find is that they're making it way too complex. It's all about blocking and tackling. I'll go to their practice and they spend two minutes on tackling. I'm like, uh, you need to spend about 30 minutes on tackling instead of trying to run these crazy plays and this the same thing that happens in our businesses, right? We look for the Ninja when we don't realize that really it's just the simplicity of, of the messaging and realizing that this is a relationship that makes your marketing effective and allows you to put value into the marketplace. Does that answer your question? SORTA. I could talk forever on marketing. Okay. That's my, that's my juice right there. 

MP: 23:12 I love it. I'm learning a whole bunch and just consuming it myself. So, you know, it was very quiet listening, but I just love, I love that concept of, you know, just keeping it simple. And I, I think we apply that similar thing for, for our community is that there, there are things that have been proven to work and thousands of people have done them. They're not sexy. They're not new, they're not cutting edge. They're just the things that work and when if you [inaudible] but many people are going for those, this Ninja move that, but they haven't done any of the things that, almost foundational things in their business like you're talking about, which is message and your market. Like that's too fast, you know, just figure out what are those, right? But no, I want Ninja moves. I want the cutting edge. I want to, you know, want to be on Facebook or Twitter or whatever. 

MP: 24:04 And those things are great, but if you haven't figured out those two foundational things, the air, you're in trouble. So I just love that message, Ben. And I think we need to think about that for all of us. Include in the listener, it's like, are you doing the foundational things that if you go out in the marketplace, your town, wherever you live, and you look at the most successful people that are in your industry, I guarantee you they've done all the foundational stuff and they haven't done any of the Ninja stuff. And now they're at a place in their businesses, likely where, hey, let's pray a couple of Ninja moves in here and, and slice things up. I don't know if I should maybe stop with this Ninja analogy, butcher it up. You know, they can go to those advanced moves and really capitalize on them and do a good job with them and, and get the payback. Whereas if you don't, then you're going to go out there and make a whole bunch of mistakes and spend a whole bunch of money and yeah, just be sitting there going, boom, this was not cool. 

BR: 25:02 Yeah. Uh, and one thing that I'll tell you is that the bookselling bookkeeping services is the easiest thing in the world to sell. And let's look at it from this perspective. Every business owner in the world is required to have bookkeeping of some sort, right? We know that the churn rate on bookkeeping is about 15 to 20% of clients per year, right? But change bookkeepers or get a bookkeeper. So our message to them can be very simple, right? Let's just say that I'm serving dentists. I get in front of a dentist, I go, you know what? Hey, I'm a bookkeeper. I serve dentists exclusively. Do you need bookkeeping help? Right? That's a very simple message, but guess what? If I get in front of 10 dentists, now that's a hard thing right there is get in front of Tim Dennis or whoever your industry is. 

MP: 25:41 I get it for clean teeth.

BR: 25: 43 Yeah, absolutely. If I get in front of that many, you might not do it that way. I'm going to land a client or two just cold calling it, which is a four-letter word, right? But I'm just, what I'm trying to point out here is that the messaging, we think that we have to have all this Ninja stuff and it's good to have some of that after you've mastered the basics, right? Going back to the football analogy, I'll look at their playbook and they have like 30 something plays and I'm like, okay, these are 11-year-old kids. You should never have more plays than the age that they are. Right? And really it should be about half of that use. Those should be your bread. And butter and you should be able to run to those every single time. 

BR: 26:19 And when that doesn't work, then and only then do you go to something more advanced. And the same thing needs to happen in our business. It's such a simple message. Everybody has to have us. We just want to find what I call the bleeding necks. People who need us right now. It's all the way up to do and everybody else, we want to make sure we stay in touch with that we do. We deliver value to through however you want to do that. Um, but just getting in front of that market it, it's marketing, sales and advertising is so simple, yet we make it so complicated. And I say that from the person who made it very complicated but figured out along the way how to make it much more simple. 

MP: 27:03 Wow. Love it. I absolutely love it. And you know, there are people out there that just need, need this work and like, you know, so many pieces of goals are given away here, but I, I'm thinking of the, you know, the value that's delivered when you help somebody do something that they don't want to do and you do a good job of it. I'm just, you know, sitting here thinking, Hey, ask your customers that you do have, it's like, that's the best thing to say, hi. Hey, how are you doing? Is there anything I can take off your table or take off your plate that you don't want to do? Or you're behind her that stressing you out. If there's anything, I could just, if you, if you do find one of those things and you take it away and you, you create more freedom and flexibility for your clients. I mean, they're gonna love you. They're not gonna want to switch to another bookkeeper, right? It's not lunch. Love that. 

BR: 27:49 Let me give you a little simple exercise that you can do with your clients and I can guarantee you probably about 98% of the other bookkeepers out there are not doing this. Set aside a couple of hours a week. Call your client and say, Hey, Ms. Entrepreneur, this is the bookkeeper. Hey, I just want to check in on you. How are you doing? You have no agenda. You're not talking about, because we're always in communications with our clients about, Hey, I need those receipts. Hey, what was this? You know, um, we're always about tactical things, but you've got to put yourself in this perspective and amount of an entrepreneur, which you yourself are, you got that is a lonely, lonely place. It's lonely at the top as the saying, and they don't have a lot of people that they can go to. And remember I said that bookkeeping is first and foremost a relationship business. 

BR: 28:38 And if you want to concrete create a compelling unbreakable relationship, it's through things like that, making that call and just talking to them about nothing that's bookkeeping related. Just, Hey, I just want to check in on, you know, I've been thinking about you. You know, I know it's lonely at the top are business owners just want to make sure that everything's good and they're going to open up to you. First of all, they're going to, there's going to be dead silence on the other end because nobody ever does that. Okay. And when you do that, they're like, wow, that's my most trusted advisor. And when you can get to that most trusted advisor status, which most of you have as bookkeepers, that is, that is something that knows software can replace, you know, we're always talking about, well, artificial intelligence is going to do this. 

MP: 29:21 Yeah, our jobs are going to change 100% in the next three to five years, 100% we will not be doing the things that we're doing today. But that right there, that relationship is nothing that's going to replace that. And that's when you start talking about delivering real value. That's when they don't care what you're charging. You know, if you want to raise from $350 a month to $500 a month, they don't care, right? They just want that relationship. They know that you have their back and simple things like that, right? That is so simple, yet so profound,  so profound.

MP: 29:53 And I recently, I can relate to that just in a bizarre way, but Tammy Christiansen's, one of our clients, since we were at the Institute of professional bookkeepers here in Canada, their annual convention, a national convention, and we were just having a conversation and, and she was, she was asking me questions and about business and life and you know, I'm an entrepreneur, I have businesses and, and I, I, you know, both of us, Ben, where we live these lives, right? That your ex that you're explaining and she was so empathetic and she was listening, she just said, and she said something to me, she said, you don't like this. It's been, this is very difficult to do. You're under a lot of pressure. You're growing. These bids it, the way she said it, it just felt like she understood me more than I experienced in a very long time, that anyone else's really understood me. 

BR: 30:46 And I just, I almost started to cry. I was just like, yeah, she got it. And she, you know, she's not my bookkeeper. She's from, you know, far far away from me. But you know, I was, if I was in her marketplace, I would be looking to hire her in a heartbeat because just in a little conversation, side conversation, she got who I was, she got where I was, what I was dealing with. She got the, that I felt like I had the world on my shoulders and she found it felt like she could, she was the one that could lift that world off and take the pressure off and my goodness, I mean, if, if more people can do that and just be empathetic and like you said, call them and have no agenda, just check-in. How are they doing? What's that big weight that's on their shoulders. 

BR: 31:29 And you might not be able to do anything for them. But just listening to them, man, that, that for me, that was so I put my head on her shoulder, I'm like, damn he, I love you.

MP: Absolutely. So these little things that people don't think about, and I think this was a theme of our, of our, of our episode today, Ben, and is just the keeping it simple. Like, don't have too many plays in the playbook. Stick with the uh, the ones that we know that work, uh, that are important, that are proven to, to produce results and get out there and do them.

BR: 32:07 Right. I have a, my cousin, he's got, um, a disability. He has a learning disability, uh, unfortunately in his life. And he looked, you know, he, if you met him, you'd think gregarious guy, no problems. Like nothing. 

BR: 32:17 But he does have a learning disability. So he, when he gets jobs, he doesn't tell him about his learning cause he doesn't go in there and say, Hey, I've got this learning disability, but I'd like a job. They find out that he has this learning disability. And a lot of times it doesn't work out. And unfortunately, you know, they don't keep them right. They get rid of them or whatever the case would be. The point of the story is that he's always working always. You know why? Cause he's banging on every single door. Any does not get, he does not get discouraged. He's like, oh, I lost the job, but you know, it didn't work out. But I'm going, where are you going today? I'm going out to find jobs. I've got my resume, I've got stacks of resumes, he's banging on the dog. He will find a job any day of the week cause he'll bang on every single door until he gets that job. 

BR: 33:03 Now, I'm not saying that works for everyone, but I'm saying that if you just go out there, there are people that desperately need you and what's in your way. What is in a way, it's probably just the fear or the, you know, the fear of the rejection, but there are people out there that need you and it's your fear of rejection or whatever that is. That's in your way. It's banging on one door a day. Say hello to one extra person a day and do the things that Ben's talking about, it will lead you to find the person that's got that bleeding, that bleeding neck, which is stayed the debt patched up.

MP: 33:43 That's right. Absolutely.  Wow. Ben, it's been, I can't believe I'm looking at the time here and I can't believe how the time has just flown past. We're definitely going to have you back and talking to marketing, more sales, moral sorts of stuff. But we try and keep these, these relatively short. Um, let's talk about your program. Let's talk about how people can get to know you more and take advantage of the wonderful things you're doing for bookkeepers. 

BR: 34:08 Absolutely. So our, our, our flagship side has learned to be a bookkeeper.com learn to be a bookkeeper.com we have a three-part free class series. It's really meant for as more of an introductory to the bookkeeping business model, which most of you folks already have that business. So some of it are very useful and relevant. Um, but that we have our blog there too, and we have all kinds of information. I'll be honest though, I'm not the best blogger in the world. That's one of the things that I'm trying to get good on. And that goes back to an example like, right? I, we didn't really have a website other than our basic blog posts and a couple of videos until like six months ago. And we're a pretty thriving business it, but we were doing, we were delivering tremendous value, right? So we all think that we have to have this perfect website and all this stuff up while I'm living proof that I didn't really have any of that and I'm a 100% online company, right? 

BR: 34:59 But we were just throwing a lot of value out there and we had a star starving market, but learntobeabookkeeper.com is where we are. Of course, our Facebook page, we used to be called book A Bookkeeper, Business Academy. We changed that to bookkeeper business launch just because it sounded better. And uh, we liked the little rocket thing too. So we kind of had a little symbol in there. But yeah, learntobeabookkeeper.com. I've got our blog and then our Facebook page. And um, I'm not a big social media person, but I know that we have some other stuff out there, like the instant scrams and stuff like that. That's for my daughter. She does our social media and she, I'm, I intentionally mess up saying things like Instagram and Twitter and that just drives her crazy. And so she'll listen to this and I just want to drive her crazy once more because that's what a dad is supposed to do. 

MP: 35:41 You got it.

BR: 35:42Yeah, you got it. And thank you, Michael. I appreciate that everything that you're doing, it's the best time in the world to be a bookkeeper is right now and the next three to five years, the changes that are coming ahead are exciting and you should embrace them and we should all embrace them and what you'd be excited about the future and not fearful of it, um, because you're going to see a radical change in what you're able to do. The value of that you're able to contribute to the money that you're able to make. So, uh, hang on for the ride. It's going to be an exciting one. And we look to be a part of driving that change as are you, Michael? 

MP: 36:20 Yeah, it's an exciting time. And I think you already mentioned it, the AI and blockchain and machine learning and all these different things, they're all, they're all tools that we'll do, just new tools to use. But that whole concept of translating the tools to what a business owner really needs, that's where the sweet spot is. And that that isn't going to change for a very long time until the tools are working for the tools and the computers are working with the computers and I'll just be like, you know, now he's got an IT guy that terminator comes down at that got It. And it's like, Yep, you know, then we'll be like eating dog food out of a can or something like that. I'll be back, I'll be back. I go, you and I, I think that's where we lost the listener. But you and I both like we're going to, we're going to have some fun with the, with that over the years, I'm sure.

BR: 37:06 Absolutely.

MP: 37:07 Awesome. Ben, this has been terrific. I know people are going to go find more about you, follow what you have and learn more from you. So this is exciting and I'm so happy to be able to bring just an awesome person like you to our listeners. 

BR: 37:23 Well, it's a privilege to be here. Thank you so much, Michael, and thanks for everything that you're doing for our community as well. 

MP: 37:29 Ben, thank you for being on the show. That wraps another episode of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. To learn more about today's guest, I'm what an awesome guest he is, and to get access to all sorts of valuable free business-building resources, you can go to Thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com. Until next time, 

MP: 37:47 goodbye.