When, How and Who to Hire with Tracy Thomas

Tracy had been in the accounting world for 20 years and decided to leave the corporate world to spend more time with her kids. She ended up driving a school bus for a little while and decided that she needed to find a way to combine her love of numbers and spending time with her family. Tracy ran into Ben’s videos online, and that led her to buy his course and begin her bookkeeping journey.

[4:30] Tracy officially opened her doors in June of 2017 and got started by subcontracting for her fiance’s accountant a little after tax season. This was a good way to jump-start Tracy’s career and shift her mindset from employee to business owner. There were plenty of times when Tracy felt like she was overwhelmed, but she was able to persevere and push through.

[8:35] She didn’t start getting clients of her own right away. Tracy wanted to make sure she could do the job before getting in too deep, and working as a subcontractor gave her some people she could ask for help if she needed it.

[9:55] Tracy currently serves 13 clients through the accounting company. She works mainly in Sage but is transferring them over to Quickbooks. She also has 13 clients of her own.

[13:15] Tracy’s second goal was to allow her fiance to get out of driving a truck for a living and bring him into the business she was building. She created the goal in November 2017, and as of January 2019, he finished his last day of work and has come on board.

[15:30] The business started off a little slow but it has grown quite a bit in the last half of the year. Now Tracy and her fiance are available to spend time with her kids and manage their own time.

[20:20] Thinking like a business owner is about knowing that you have control of your time. It’s the flexibility of not just trading hours for dollars. One of the biggest challenges Tracy has encountered has been pricing her services. She usually starts them off at an hourly rate and switches them to monthly after a few months of service.

[24:50] The thing that we want as a business owner is flexibility but it’s a double edged sword. You’re not accountable to anyone but yourself, and for entrepreneurs, it can be really difficult.

[26:40] Tracy has experienced a lot of growth in the past few months, so marketing has slipped by the wayside.

[27:40] Don’t stop and halt your marketing. It takes momentum to get the marketing machine back up; so you should keep it going. The best time to market is when you don’t need clients, that way you can be selective.

[31:10] Helping people understand what is happening in their business is what Tracy loves to do when working with her clients. Doing her client’s bookkeeping allows Tracy to get insights into their business and helps her deliver value to them by solving their problems.

[34:40] Before we start hiring, we should understand what our Unique Ability is and where we provide the most value. List out all the tasks you do, and figure out what you are the best at and where you provide the most value. Then, list the tasks you don’t like doing.

[37:00] What are the things that you need to get other people to do? It’s not who do you need to hire, but what tasks do you need to delegate? Finding a freelancer on Upwork and outsourcing just one task is the first step. Build out your team from a task perspective instead of a person perspective.

>[41:45] Find the simplest task you don’t want to do and give it to a freelancer or virtual assistant. Don’t look for bookkeeping experience, hire for attitude and resourcefulness. Training someone else will force you to think of and write down the exact process for that task which is how you start to create systems.

[47:50] Getting your processes down gives you a resource that you can use to bring on additional team members. This gives you a huge advantage when hiring in the future. Having great people is a luxury; having great processes is a necessity.

[51:45] Tracy’s next steps are to continue with her marketing and networking efforts and break down her tasks. Then, find out what she’s best at and what she should hand off to someone else.

[53:15] Find someone that will take ownership over the process. It’s common to find people that can find better ways to do things, and there is always more you can learn.