EP464: Spotlight - Christine Siegenthaler - The Importance Of Contingency Planning For Bookkeepers

Michael Palmer: It's personal. You cannot automate this. The client wants to know, can I go get a truck? Tell me, Christine. Right. You know, they— it's, it's— we get to see everybody. We know everything. We know their kids, you know, who went to college, you know. So it's never going to be AI. It's never going to be automated. You're listening to the Spotlight Edition of The Successful Bookkeeper with your host, Louie Prosperi. Listen each week as inspiring guests share their secrets of success to help you increase your confidence, work smarter, and build a business you love. This episode of The Successful Bookkeeper is brought to you by PureBookkeeping.com, the proven system to grow your bookkeeping business. Welcome back to Welcome to the Successful Bookkeeper Podcast. I'm Louie Prosperi. Our guest is the founder of Succession Security, Christine Siegenthaler. Welcome to the show. Well, thank you so much for having me. This is awesome. This is great because, you know, Succession Security is an interesting one and your, your product really goes into it. So let's talk a little bit about why bookkeepers should have a contingency plan, you know, for unexpected things like people get sick, you know, you get hurt, fall down the stairs. Happened to me recently, by the way. Or the worst one, you know, you die. So what do you— what kind of contingency plan should they start thinking about?

Spotlight: Well, they should always have a contingency plan. But right now there's no service out there for bookkeepers and accountants, solo bookkeepers and accountants. Now, if you have 3 or 4 employees, they're going to be able to step in and run your business. But the solo bookkeepers and accountants, the moms, that wanted to stay home with their kids and started it with one client and worked till midnight and got two clients, and now they're billing $100,000 a year and this is their livelihood. They would lose everything in a blink of an eye. In the bookkeeping and accounting world, if someone gets sick or injured and that client can't get what they need, they generally just get back into the universe and another bookkeeper picks them up. So you lose everything. I mean, just like you said, I hate to say it, you get hit by a bus, you have a stroke, you know, a family, immediate family member passes away. You are not thinking about running your business, but yet you still need that income to survive. So that's interesting because so your, your plan is more designed for