Processes for Sanity with Justin Boynton

When Justin was 19 years old, he was introduced to the idea of owning a business but he felt like he wasn’t ready to go it on his own. He decided on a career in banking which worked out well enough for the first few years until his wife told him they were going to have another child. This led him to looking at how to make money on the side and eventually Ben’s course.

[6:00] In early 2017, Justin was still working his full-time job while serving 11 clients, which was starting to burn him out. When he had the opportunity to take on a bigger client, Justin’s wife gave him the push to go for it and make his business his full time occupation.

[9:20] Justin developed a good network while he was working and spent his time getting to know who he wanted to work with and asking for specific referrals.

[11:50] When looking at new potential clients, Justin wants to see that the client is coachable and open to suggestions. He’s made mistakes taking on clients that weren’t a fit. It’s less about the niche or industry and more about the way the client works with him.

[13:45] The greatest challenge is to systematize processes. Once you get them done, it’s great, but for Justin, he finds it difficult to get through.

[16:00] The favorite part of Justin’s day is the ability to enjoy his time with his family and his wife.

[18:40] Justin’s first homework assignment is to take stock of all the challenges he has overcome so far and appreciating how far he’s come.

[20:20] Justin is in the process of onboarding three new clients so he’s focused on systematizing their processes from the start. Now that he has a team member to help him with the workload, Justin needs to optimize the way work gets done.

[25:00] The goal at the moment to spend 20 to 30 hours a week in his business so that he can focus attracting and meeting new clients as well as more personal things.

[26:50] The vision for your business is a framework that you can use to evaluate everything you do. Is your action going to move you closer or further away from your vision?

[27:40] One is none, two is one. You should always duplicate your efforts and build in some redundancy into your business processes so you aren’t in big trouble if somebody leaves. Finding team members using a service like Upwork can make the process simple.

[32:40] There lots of people who aren’t interested in building a big business but still want to do bookkeeping for a decent rate. Justin found his first team member by posting that he was looking for some help in the Bookkeeper Business Launch Facebook group.

[33:50] Calling yourself a bookkeeping professional is key.

[35:50] Take the traits of your best team member and write them down. Those are the traits you should look for in potential hires. The ‘whatever it takes’ attitude is the biggest thing that Justin looks for in his team members.

[39:30] Be slow to hire and quick to fire. This goes for your clients as well.

[41:45] It’s better to have two team members working 5 hours a week than one person working 10. Anything that the team member is going to be doing with your clients should be simulated during the interview. You should see exactly how they are going to do the job and interact with people before you bring them onboard.

[44:20] Add a little easter egg to your job posting that asks the person to include something in particular in their application so you know they pay attention to detail.

[46:15] Justin needs to find people that have the capacity to grow and are in the business for the long haul.

[48:50] If you want to scale your business, never stop marketing and never stop looking for good people.

[50:00] Finding a process to develop better processes can be tricky. Take your current bookkeeping professional and just document everything they do in the course of their work. Recording your screen while your working and narrating what you’re doing is a simple way to document what you do. Every time you add a piece of technology or software you add complexity but it’s the fundamentals that will lead to success.