Episodes: Listen Now to The Successful Bookkeeper Podcast — The Successful Bookkeeper

EP73: Ben Robinson - The Bookkeeping Answers You've Been Searching For

Written by Michael Palmer | Jan 30, 2018 11:00:00 AM

Facebook.

It's a powerful tool in bringing together like-minded people to create supportive communities.That's what we have with The Successful Bookkeeper Facebook group.

It's filled with great bookkeepers who are always willing to help each other.

Recently, we mentioned to them that Ben Robinson, the founder and chief teacher at the Bookkeeper Business Launch program, would be returning to our podcast.

So, we asked them to pass along any questions.

Ben was more than happy to answer and deliver incredible insight.

During this informative interview, you'll discover...

  • The importance of finding a support network that will guide you through your business

  • What are the four pillars in launching a successful bookkeeping business

  • What is the best marketing strategy for home-based companies

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

For his LinkedIn page, go here.

To find him on Facebook, visit this link.

To check out his previous Successful Bookkeeper podcast episode, listen here.

To join The Successful Bookkeeper Facebook group, click here.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

Michael Palmer: 01:22 Welcome back to the successful bookkeeper podcast. I am your host, Michael Palmer, and today's show is going to be an epic one. Well, the members of the successful bookkeeping Facebook group have spoken. They wanted Ben Robinson or the bookkeeper business academy and the bookkeeper business launch back on the podcast. And now he's here. Welcome back, Ben Robinson. 

Ben Robinson: 01:45 Oh, Michael, I appreciate it. Thank you for having me again. I'm honored.

MP: 01:50 It's our honor. And I'm so grateful that you, you gave us the time to come back and share your knowledge and wisdom. And you know, my first question is simply this, what is it like being a global bookkeeping celebrity?

BR: 02:15 Well, my kids would definitely disagree with that, that being American, it's so, uh, I don't know because I don't know what it is to really be a celebrity. So, uh, I, I appreciate that accolade. It's funny. Uh, occasionally I'll see people out and about and they'd be like, hey, you're Ben. I've seen your videos. And I'm like, Oh yeah, that's, that's weird. It just, it's so surreal, but it's a very, very small circle. But it's cool. I like it. Eh, well, in the bookkeeping, in the bookkeeping role to you would be considered a celebrity and, and that's a good thing. And certainly it's a, it's a, the world we live in, right? 

BR: 02:37 People can, you know, you're out on the Internet, people can see you. They, they, they actually can get to know you better than you know them. And that's, that's kind of probably a, a strange thing when you meet people in conferences and those sorts of things. Yeah. I definitely feel like in Kardashians, that's who I think are really good too. MP: 03:05 Yes. There you go.

BR: 03:08 Let's hope not. Absolutely. No, no. Kadesh in a factory era. No. Kadesh in fact, we don't want to see you get too crazy.

MP: 03:15 Yeah. So today's episode is going to be very much different than your last appearance on The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. And we decided that we wanted to, because people said, hey, you know what, we'd love to have been Robinson back. We decided to answer questions from our Successful Bookkeeper Facebook group members. And so we told them you're going to be on and they gave us some questions for you. You up for that?

BR: 03:30 Absolutely.

MP: 03:31 Let's, let's, let's go forward. Okay. All right. Well here's one from Rachel Augburn and the question is, could you have been discussed the proper way of getting into business, setting up, getting insured and finding clients?

BR: 03:45 Wow, that's an open-ended question and that's a big one. We could do this. We're just going to do one today, right? Does the whole episode, cause really that's 

BR 03:54 our whole, our entire program bookkeeper, business launches is built on that. Right? So it really boils down to there's, there's like four things that we see setting up a bookkeeping business, right? Number one is to have the skills and not just the normal skills that we learned a long time ago, even five years ago, but still learn the real-world skills so that we can wow our clients and that we can focus on providing value to them. Moving away from number crunching and moving more into the relationship building and really helping them to build value in their business. Somebody's got to learn those skills. That's number one. Number two, we have to set up our business properly, right? All the legalities. We have to make sure that we are operating underneath the best mechanisms so that we save on taxes and that we are compliant and that we are above reproach, right? 

BR: 04:41 Because we're telling other people to be that. So we ourselves had to make sure that we are are very good. Honestly, that's a tough one for me because it's like the cobbler's kids have no shoes, right? So we have to make sure our business is set up right and not just set up right, but that we set up processes and strategies from the beginning. We set up systems so that we can manage those and we like to manage people. So first things, we've got to have those skills. And second thing is we got to be able to set up our business and make it efficient. The third thing is marketing. Getting those clients right, getting the right clients. It's big difference because it's not hard to get bookkeeping clients. It's much harder though to get quality book keeping clients. So there's a way in which you had to go about that, right? 

BR: 05:22 And I wish I had all the time in the world to tell you about that. But that's really a core of what we teach. And then number four is the lifestyle. Because most of the people that we work with, they don't really just want this business. It's going to take over their world. They don't want to replace chaos with chaos for themselves in the form of small business or bookkeeping practice. What they want is they want a life, right? They want a bookkeeping business, a bookkeeping practice that's built around their life and not a life that's built around their bookkeeping operation. So those are really the four pillars. Again, it's having those real-world skills. Number two is setting your business for success. And number three is marketing so that you get the right clients. And then number four is all about setting up the lifestyle so that you put your life first. And now that's a very 10,000-foot overview and not very specific tactics there, but that's how we have to look at it. I think it's a great start. You know, if someone's just getting started in there, you know, for, for Rachel's really right, those right, those four pillars down and start to collect the information that you're going to need to, to, to nail it on every single pillar. That's where we have to start. 

MP: 06:35 This next question I think sort of ties in, but it's from Chanel sweater. And if we don't have the experience in bookkeeping to start a business, how will we get people to trust us? And now your program is called the Bookkeeper Business Launch. And if they're, you have work with a lot of people that don't have any experience and they're getting into this trade. So I think it's a perfect question.

BR: 06:55 Yeah, absolutely. Well, so number one, it kind of goes back to those skills, right? To real-world skills and not just learning them in abstract, like I learned them in college, but really putting them to use having comprehensive examples. But I'll be honest, and I'm honest with everybody that we talked with until you get that first live client, you're doing surgery on a cadaver. We have to get that lab client so that we solidify all of our learning, cause nothing put prepares us for actually having a client working in real-world situations. 

BR: 07:32 Because in the back of our mind, we always know that, hey, if we screw up, it's okay. Right? It's not practiced anymore when you have that live client. So getting that first client, I don't care who they are, right? Just getting a client that you're doing bookkeeping on, that's, that's the most important thing that you can do so that you can solidify your learning, build your confidence, and you've turned it from a hobby into a business because now you have a real client that you're working on. Okay? And I think the second part of the first part of that question was, how am I going to get people to trust me if I don't know them if I don't have this track record if I don't have referrals? Well, the easiest way that you do that is that you go after people who already know, like and trust you. 

BR: 08:11 All right? That's hitting closest to home, that's hitting up your personal network and here's the very compelling message that you say, Hey, I'm starting a bookkeeping business. Zip Your Lips. You will be surprised how many people in your network, right? Who already know, like, and trust you. Who is going to say, well, you know what? I have a friend who was just saying the other day that they need a bookkeeper or my dad's always complaining about his business finances being in a disarray. That's the number one way that our students get clients is through their personal network is going out there and with that very simple message, it's not a sales message. It's a statement. I'm starting a bookkeeping business, and when you hear what comes back from that, now you can make it a little bit more eloquent, but that's the basis of it. So we don't go out there to a cold audience, people that we don't know, can we say, Hey, I'm starting a bookkeeping business. 

BR: 09:01 I'm learning this. Would you like to be my first client and be a Guinea pig? Because any sane person is going to say, not just no, but hell no. They're not going to do that. So you have to make sure that you hit closest to home, but once you get that first client, the dynamic totally changes. You have a referral, you have confidence, you're actually doing the skills. And that's why we celebrate in our group. Getting to that first client, we created a Hashtag Hashtag first client, because that's when the paradigm totally shifts is when you get that first client and you beg, borrow, and steal to get that first client. 

MP: 09:34 Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's a, it's an exciting time as well when someone's got that first client and you know, it's just interesting. I've read lots of biographies of successful people and I don't know if there's any that have started where they didn't say they felt like a fraud or they felt like they were, they were not a pro like they were. They were saying, I'm going to go in that direction, but they had no business going in that direction in their lives because they'd never done it before. But here's the deal. Nobody's ever done it before. So there's always that first. Somebody is always the first in every single industry, in every single situation. And I think, and in my conversations with, with bookkeepers, it's because it's a, I guess there's a lot of black and black and white to it. They feel like they're going to mess up the business and it's going to be this big deal and, uh, the business is going to close down and it'll be the most terrible thing that ever could happen on the face of the earth. But really it's just overthinking this whole conversation. Somebody has to be the first. 

BR: 10:34 Yeah. Yeah. And a couple of things that I would add to that, you're absolutely right. First of all, if that's, that's not your, that's not your fear of failure, that's your fear of success, right? This is a real thing, is that people fear success. They don't feel that they deserve it. So what we do, and I study human psychology more now than I study anything. Um, but what we do is we replace, we say fear of success, but we don't really cognitively think that that's in our subconscious. Somewhere in our history, something has told us we don't deserve success. We've either been told that, or life circumstances have rendered that to us, that we think that that's a truth in our subconscious. So instead of saying, I fear of success, we say I fear I'm going to have, I'm gonna fail. I fear that I'm gonna mess up, therefore I won't do anything. 

BR: 11:20 All right? That's a mask. All right? We had to label it for what it is. It's fear. And that's fine. It's fine for us to have fears, right? I have fears. I have fear coming on here, right? It's like, oh my gosh, what if I say something stupid? What if I stick mouth but my mouth, which I always do. But that's, that's the thing we have to label it for. What is, that is fear. And the second thing that we have to do, we can't go with this alone, right? You have to be in this journey with someone or someone's else who is going to help you, somebody who's further down the road than you are, and that's one of the things you know not to, not to toot our horn that much, but I think it's one of the secrets to our success is that we have this very vibrant community with over 3,300 people who were in there actively helping people with any of these problems along with us and our support. That's, that's the thing. It doesn't have to be with us, right? It could be with any support network. It could be with somebody who's ahead of you. It could be somebody who's been doing this for a while. Whatever the case may be is you've got to find somebody who can help you, who can, you can turn to who you're going to have support. They're just going to help you through whatever the issue is, whatever the problem that arises and you have someone or someone's that you can go to to get that help. 

MP: 12:28 Love it and that's so critical. Getting back to the books have of successful business people, they always had fantastic mentors. And that's along the lines of what you're talking about. So and when we say a mentor can almost sound a very high level, you know, and what I would encourage people to think of a man like there are mentors all around you all the time. More often than not though in the situation people working solo, working from home is that they isolate themselves from these people that can really help them. So it's, it is, it's reaching out. There are Facebook groups. I know you have a vibrant Facebook group and your program, which is probably incredibly valuable, but there are other groups that I'm sure you recommend them to join. There's a successful bookkeeper face group that we have, which is super powerful, where people can ask questions. The people are all around you. They want to help. Just like every listener right now listening is likely a person who's helped people an incredible amount. So be the one that's getting some of that help more often, especially when you're just getting started.

BR: 13:35 Absolutely. And then turn around and end and pay it forward period for a lot of, exactly. Yeah. It's good. 

MP: 13:44 Now we have another question from Rachel Nickoloff and so there she actually asked a few questions but I'm going to, I'm going to sort of pick out the one that I think is so relevant to this stream of thought that we've been talking about here today and that is remote bookkeeping people that are, that are not necessarily working in a community where they're walking across the street to walk into a business and do, do the books, but remote they may have a client that's right across the the the continent. What's the best way to grow that type of business and what size of business have you seen a remote bookkeeping business grow to? 

BR: 14:27 So that's a great question. So we teach our program from doing it for 100% virtual regardless that the clients across the street from you or across the nation or across the globe. And that's where it goes back to having those systems and processes down, right to where you can communicate with your client, go back and forth. And what you will find is that it's much easier. Okay, if you've done it the old school way, like, like I did it and maybe you did it if did it the old school way, right? It just made sense. It's like how are you going to put this online? But when you figure it out, you're like, oh my gosh, this is so much easier. And you waste all that time of traveling and going into the office. Now there's a certain segment of the market, I don't know what that percentage is, but it's the minority now, but there's a certain segment of the market that's going to be off-put by that. 

BR: 15:08 Like, okay, my bookkeepers, this bookkeeper's virtual, I'm not going to consider them. And that's fine. That's the purpose of your marketing is to, is to exclude those people. Right? The purpose of marketing, I don't think we talked about this last time. The purpose of marketing is meant to repel more than it's meant to attract. So you want to make sure in your marketing messages that you're saying, Hey, I'm a virtual bookkeeper. I do it this way. This is badass. If you don't like it, then that's probably not for you. Then go get a local bookkeeper. That's fine. Right? So the first thing you have to do is I have to call out. We don't waste our time. Do we have to call out to the people who are most likely to work with us now in terms of like what are the ways in which we do that? 

BR: 15:46 Again, it starts with the closest to home. All right? Getting that first client beg, borrow and steal. Starting closest to home with everybody that you know in our network. And really most people think I don't have this big, vast network when you have a much bigger network than you actually think. I'm getting close to home, right? Going into networking groups, these can be physical networking groups. These can also be virtual networking groups, right? Where you're on like communities and that sort of thing and where you're going in there and adding value where you're going in there. The crux of all this is to say, where can I insert my value in front of an audience who's most likely to need my services? But go in there with the attitude, how can I give, how can I contribute rather than how can I get? Because if you've ever been to a networking event, you're there with a bunch of glad handers and 90% of them are there to get something. 

BR: 16:35 I'm there to get clients, right? Not going into it saying, how can I give, how can I contribute? How can I help these people? How can I listen? And some amazing, like the students who go to these networking events just shaking and, and, and, and so scared. And they come out of there and we say, Hey, ask open ended questions, smile and listen about 95% of the time. And they will think you are a genius because you're doing something that nobody else does there. And you're doing something that very few bookkeepers and accountants do. You know, not to knock, I mean, we're all there just to do the job. Um, but you know, networking, that's a great way to get into those specialty groups that are online and contribute. Uh, there, there's a whole host of ways. So the, the key though to getting those clients is that you want to have multiple ways to get those clients. 

BR: 17:19 But the best thing, and I know we talked about this last time though, is to have that niche, right? Riches are in the niches. You've got to go out there and establish for yourself longterm a niche, something that you're going to own where you going to become a big fish in a small pond, right? People know you all right? It's a famous in a small town, but you don't need that many clients, especially when you escalate the value that you're contributing to them. And when you focus on, um, billing them according to the value that you're contributing. I mean, that's what people call it, quote unquote value billing, which is misunderstood, but we won't go down that buddy. We'll go down that rabbit trail. 

MP: 17:52 That's a rabbit trail. That's like a, if it's right out Alice in wonderland type of, 

BR: 17:57 that's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Well, so I mean those are, I don't want to say keys, but those are instrumental to, you know, stablish in your practice, getting in front of that niche, right. Riches are in the niches again, but really finding, uh, finding something that you can own and owning it right, and just becoming a provider exclusively to them because it makes your messaging so much easier. 

MP: 18:20 Hmm. You know, it's a, you mentioned the networking meeting and uh, I was recently speaking with Ivan Meisner who started BNI, the business networking international and I know you know him, but the audience, if they don't, they should definitely look into BNI. But, um, he was saying he was at a, he was at a conference speaking at a conference in, in the UK and there were 900 people there. And he said, okay, it was a networking event. How many people here came to the network? And, uh, every single person in the room put up their hand. And then he asked how many people here came to actually buy something? And zero people put up their rooms. So it's actually 100%. Most networking events are closer to 100% of the people there are there to actually sell something versus actually going to buy. So, uh, what you're saying about asking, opening questions, getting to know somebody, building relationships with people, it's going to be unique. And that's really what it's all about is, is as well as connecting with one person that you develop a relationship with that they may lead to something down the track. Maybe not, you know, maybe you'll help them more than they'll help you. Who knows? But I really love that bringing that to the attention of bookkeepers because typically they're afraid to do it, as you said. Right? And they're nervous and worried about it, but they have the power to be really, really great at it. 

BR: 19:45 Absolutely. Absolutely. And I am too though, right? So, I mean to go into networking events puts me totally outside my comfort zone. I'm a big-time introvert. And so doing something like that is just like nails on a chalkboard for me. But I've found that when I go in there with that strategy that hey, everything really works out in the end. And if it doesn't like the worst thing that happens that you met some people, you contributed something great, right? You put good Karma out into the world, right? Good energy. Whatever you want to call it. That's the worst thing that can happen. Nobody's gonna throw you out there and nobody's gonna call you for [inaudible]. Nobody's going to kick your butt while you're in there unless it's like a really strange networking event. Nothing, none of that is going to happen, right? So just, we just got to go do it. 

BR: 20:25 Right? And the only way to combat this fear is to just do it. I'm reading this book or I've read this book and I've been teaching my students on it big times called feel the fear and do it anyway by Dr. Susan Jeffers. I think I mentioned that last time that we have here. Yeah. And not keep referring to it. And people were like, would you shut up with that book? I'm like, well, have you done that? Have you read it? Have you actually done the things that she's talking about there? Because that's our number one block is ourselves and our own fear. MP: 20:49 Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, most of the stuff that we talk about is, I mean it's actually quite simple, but it's the, it's our, it's us getting in the way of simplicity that makes the, makes things difficult. Uh, and that's why you can't talk about it enough. I think. Men, yeah. 

MP: 21:12 We have a couple more questions and I think they're, you know, they're their questions we may have already touched upon, but I want, I do want to mention these people who have graciously asked these questions. So one is Jennifer at detoxer and, and her question was, what is the best marketing strategy for homebase companies? I think you've answered a little bit of that, but is there anything else you'd like to add? Because we've talked about some strategies around going out there and getting connections, networking, being valuable in online groups, these sorts of things. Anything else you'd like to add to it? 

BR: 21:43 Well, just the fact that you don't want to rely upon one way in which to get clients. And here's the parallel that I've found is like the longer that it takes you within that market or that media to find clients, typically the better quality client that you're going to get. So like starting a relationship with a referral partner or going to networking to get a client out of that takes time. But the quality of the client that you get out of that, it's kind of like a diamond, right? The more that it's compressed and it's under pressure, the better it becomes. And that's what happens there. The easier it is to get clients, typically the less quality of that client is, right? So the first thing I would say, um, I think of those Jennifer, is that you don't want to rely upon one method and even though your hump, it doesn't matter, right? 

BR: 22:35 Media comes and goes. Like if we were starting a bookkeeping business in the 1950s, we would have been about putting on, um, doing mailings. We would've been about the telephone book. We would have been about maybe advertising in the newspaper. Those mediums still are out there. Right? But we might want to also these days do some social media and stuff like that. But look, let's be honest about it, how many of us have really gotten clients off of social media? Like immediately? Very few. It could happen, but that's a long, long term strategy and it's not one of the places that you want to put a lot of effort because it's going to take you so long to get any kind of results out of that. So you want to find like 10 or 12 different ways that are going to get you potential clients and you want to be involved in those. 

BR: 23:21 Now probably what will happen is it three or four of those will end up being your sweet spot. But you got to test a lot of different methods. And again, that's where it becomes of knowing this niche. It makes it so much easier because now you can say, alright, I know that home contractors don't hang out on Linkedin as much. Now. I mean you can't paint it with that broad of a brush. But that's true, right? Dang, hang out in different places on and offline. So it helps you to target. Say, I think we talked about this last time, and I hate to sound like a broken record, but marketing is made up of three things. Your market, your message, and your media. All the things that people are asking about are the tactics, the media, the darlings, the twitters of the day, the Pinterest ads of the day, whatever that's that can come and go. 

BR: 24:03 The media doesn't really matter. What you have to really clearly define is your market. Don't worry about the message and don't worry about media until you've clearly defined your market and not just to find your market, but what are their pain points, right? How can you alleviate those? What do they really want now? What are they telling you? Like everybody's like, oh, I'll give you 24/7 access to your reports. They don't care about that or they really don't. I mean it's, they may say that, but that's not what they want. So we have to really dig at the heart of what it is that they want, why they want that, and how can we help them to achieve them. If we can. 

MP: 24:37 Yeah, we can't spend enough time I think on that component of it. And like you say, you've, you've mentioned it in a previous episode, but I think it's, it's so relevant and there are so many, so many opportunities out there. And getting back to this over complicating things, the people that are closest to us, you've mentioned are, are the people we know. The people we know is where we're, most of the business is going to come from, whether they're a client or they're a friend or whatever it may be, they're there. They're going to be the connection to those next clients that we're, we're going to actually get into our business. But if we don't have a great message, if we're not clear about what, what it is that we're offering and who we are and what we do, doesn't matter what media as you say you're going to use. 

MP: 25:22 So I think that's great. Great advice for Jennifer and our listener to be thinking about and, and to be trying, you know, that's one action step you could take out of this particular episode as what's one new strategy that you could implement in your business and test out and maybe it'll make you uncomfortable. If so, great. I'm excited about that, but take one and try it out and then do it a number of times to see if you do get some, some results from it. I've, I've had conversations with bookkeepers in the past where they've said, oh yeah, I tried that and it's like, wow, how many times? Once, yeah, nothing works the first time, right? It's always like there's got to be a build-up and some momentum created in order to make sure that it's, it's working. And Ben, you'd probably agree with me that there, there are ways of marketing your business that will work in every single community around the world. And yet so many people don't do them. Like network networking for example, as I can, I'm surprised at how many people have not gone out and just done simple networking. So there's a bunch of other ones. There's a, so pick one, take it on, make that your new thing from, do it for, for 90 days and see what happens.

BR: 26:44 Yeah. at least 90 days 

BR: 26:47 At least try something new. I think that's going to be the theme of the last couple of episodes that we've had here is trying something new, being focused, not trying to do everything but try and do one thing and take that on. 

MP: 27:04 Okay. Final question is from Trudy Ingraham and she says, I am a small-town bookkeeper where everyone knows everyone. So what can help to grow my business and be profitable? 

BR: 27:18 Oh, think outside your local market. I mean the world is wide open. Um, that and that becomes, you know, to keep going back to the niche. But you know, if, if we isolate ourselves and say I can only serve people that are here, okay, that's old thinking. We have to think outside the box and say, really, the entire world is at my fingertips through the world wide web that I can serve anybody anywhere. Now I may have to adapt my practice, my practices, my systems, and my processes. I may have to do all that, probably have to, but it's do it now or be forced out later down the road when Skynet takes over the world, supposedly. Because that's that. But that's the thing, right? It's not just about the local markets anymore. It's about going out there and serving clients regardless of where you are or where they are. That's the beauty of, and that's the beauty of building this virtual bookkeeping business. And it doesn't mean you fire all your local clients, but it probably means you change your approach and you serve them a little bit differently. But that, yeah, that'd be the thing that I would say is like expand you expand your vision. Right? There's not geography anymore that says, how far can we go out as a bookkeeper? 

MP: 28:28 Yeah. I liked, I love that. I think that for Trudy, that's a place to look. And, uh, we'd love to hear from all of the members that have posted questions. A, we want to thank you for posting those questions for Ben. And B, we'd love to hear what you've done with the answers to those questions. Let us know. Send us an email or post on the Facebook group and we'll let Ben know and connect with Ben and, and share how you've been implementing these things inside your business. Then what's a, what's On for you this year? What's coming? What's new, anything you'd like to share with our listener? 

BR: 29:07 Well, I think that we share Michael the same things. We're both entrepreneurs and so it's like what is not on right? My brain is going 24, seven. I have all these new ideas and the team hates it when I have these new ideas because 95% of them aren't worth a darn. Um, but the other 5% kick him. Um, yeah, we've got a couple of things up. The sleeves that we're working on right now, um, can't really release some stuff. So maybe I'll do an open-loop here. Um, we're going to make some formal announcements in the first quarter here. Um, or, or, uh, I'm sorry. We're gonna make something right after the, um, busy season. I'm still probably like early May, we're going to be making a couple of announcements of how we're going to further the up along our profession. Um, so stay tuned for those. 

BR: 29:51 I hate to, to see that and go, it really can't tell you, but we haven't finalized everything on these just yet. So we want to make sure that we released them to everyone. But for us, it's really helping established practices, uh, bookkeeping practices to take it to the next level too. And, and first of all, that would mean helping them to define what is next level for them. Right. To really digging in and helping you to figure out what does your dream practice look like? How do you take chaos? Asked me how I know, how do you take chaos and create a, um, uh, I'm going to call it a dream practice, right? Because we, it's work, right? And people are like, you know, none of this is easy, right? It's work, but I wouldn't be doing anything else. I wouldn't be going into any other profession. So everybody's going into bookkeeping if you're setting yourself up, right. For this next 10 years, it's going to be a wild, very, very prosperous rod for you as long as you've set up the right way. So for us, it's really how do we help people to do that. 

MP: 30:50 Beautiful. Well, we're going to look forward to hearing the announcement and sharing with everyone what's happening and helping them get to their specific dream practice, I guess you could say. Well, this is, this has been great. Uh, Ben, thank you so much for joining us again and thanks again and you bet and thanks again to all the listeners and Successful Bookkeeper Facebook group members who contributed these questions today. And we'll have links and details on how you can learn more about Ben and our show notes as well. A link to a previous episode with Ben. So thanks again, Ben.

BR: 31:33 All right. Thank you, Michael.

MP: 31:35 That wraps another episode of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. To learn more about today's guest and to get access to all sorts of valuable free business-building resources, you can go to thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com. Until next time. 

MP: 31:40 Goodbye.