Episode #42: Jason Snider - Building Transparent Financial Systems For Exit

In today's episode, I had the chance to speak with Jason Snider.

Jason Snider is a seasoned Profit Coach dedicated to helping HVAC and plumbing contractors master their finances. With over 25 years of expertise in accounting, finance, and cash-flow strategy, he specializes in removing the guesswork from business management. Jason empowers owners to regain control of their bottom line, increase their personal take-home pay, and scale their companies sustainably—all while reducing the stress of daily operations.

To learn more about Jason Snider:

Email: Jason Snider

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Website: Jason Snider

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Entrepreneur's Journey, where we uncover the true costs and threats to the entrepreneur's journey to prosperity. In today's episode, I am speaking with Jason Snyder, who is an entrepreneur and a certified profit first professional based in Portland, Oregon. He has over 25 years of experience in finance and accounting. Jason found his sweet spot in bridging the gap between accounting, entrepreneurship, and sharing his knowledge with business owners. Jason, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Doing well. Thanks for having me, Keith.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah, absolutely. Um, it's been a journey. I think you and I have met, I think we met probably it feels like fifteen years ago at least.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

I I think that's right. I think it was at uh some type of networking event or somebody introduced the the two of us uh or a combination of those two, but yeah, it's been 10-15 years from what I can remember.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yeah. Yeah. Um do you recall like what because you're not you're not natively from Portland, are you?

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Uh I am born and raised, but maybe because I spent so much time traveling and I did live overseas for a couple stints as well. So that that might have triggered that that thought, but yeah, I'm not born and raised Oregonian.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

I love it. I love it. Take us back then. Tell us a little bit about your journey leading up into the work that you do.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Yeah. So uh I guess I'll start kind of in high school, knowing that I didn't want what everybody else was striving for, a normal nine to five type of a job. I knew that wasn't going to be for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

And that kind of guided along with you know, family situation where it wasn't gonna be easy for my family to help uh get me into college or university that uh helped guide me towards uh doing be just go out and try to do my own uh business. Uh in high school I started doing landscape lawn work, uh convincing my mom to drive me around to to jobs and things, even buying my own equipment and stuff. So really that's yeah, that's kind of how I got started. Uh and but it was just more knewing that I wanted something different for myself, that that what others are doing is wrong, but that just wasn't gonna be good for me or it wasn't gonna be a good fit for me. And so that's how I got started in entrepreneurship.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Yeah. Wow. And uh landscaping, that's that is I remember going to work with my uncle who had a landscaping business growing up, and I remember we got up really early, five o'clock in the morning on some days to to get to work. What what was your schedule like when you started that business? That sounded like you were still going to school too.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Yeah, so it was in high school, so it was part-time. It wasn't uh intense full-day work, but it was uh again, like a lot of things in entrepreneurship. Uh after a period of a few years, it was it turned out that wasn't gonna be, I think it was uh a couple years of drought we had in Portland where people weren't able to water lawns, and so it really impacted um me being able to earn money. And so I decided to you know start looking elsewhere for other opportunities. And just like a lot of things in entrepreneurship, it's what you learn along the way, not everything's gonna work out, uh, and things. And so, but I knew that that was still gonna be my journey. It wasn't gonna be going back to a uh traditional job setup.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Wow. Do you feel like it took a lot of courage to make that decision?

SPEAKER_02 3:42

In some sense, uh, when talking with other people, it it sounds like it, but for me, it just seemed intuitive, like, oh, if I want to do something else, if I want a different result, then I have to do something different than what either I'm currently doing or what other people are doing, depending on the circumstance and things. And then when people reflect back to me, they think, oh yeah, it kind of makes sense if I thought about it from their perspective. But maybe that's kind of been ingrained with me for a long time, uh, and from a younger age, I guess. So uh but yeah, it's it's a mix of depending on your perspective uh of things.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Yeah. Yeah. I I imagine that many people, you know, they take the quote unquote trusted path first, right? And I I'm pretty sure you see it all the time in the accounting side of the business where it's like, well, this is what everyone's doing. So this is what I'm gonna do. Um and so that's I'm I'm sure has inspired maybe some of your like how you coach clients through how to adopt a different view, right? Um talk to us a little bit about your journey after the landscaping business. Did you go right into you know, coaching, advisory work, accounting? Like what was your journey um entrepreneurially?

SPEAKER_02 5:00

So I think there was a gap of about six years, seven years or so before I got into the accounting bookkeeping space, uh trying different things. And uh at that point I was doing uh I guess you call it loan brokering. It's a little bit different environment. Uh then compared to now. Uh back then there was a lot more uh smaller finance houses, if you will, banks, uh uh non-traditional lenders, SBA loans, equipment, leases, uh, etc. They needed deal flow, and so they worked with brokers. And so that's what I was exploring doing at the time. I'd gotten some interest in uh finance because I was naturally good with numbers, if you will. And so I kind of started that, and then I got into bookkeeping accounting because uh I had to put together the underwriting packages. And as then, as it is now, uh many businesses, especially on a smaller and scale, uh, don't have uh clean enough books to be underwritten for financing uh and things. And so I put together the packages and I would charge the client to do the accounting book. In the beginning I got some help, and then as I learned, I started taking more of that work on myself, capturing more of the value then. So that's my start in accounting book. So that was probably 96 through 98, somewhere in that that range. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Wow. It sounds like coming at it from that angle of knowing what financial institutions need to be able to give a loan to a business. Um, probably provided just some insight to you on what the books need, like help further guide them on why it's important, versus you know, I think maybe sometimes we can come into it learning a lot about bookkeeping, but not knowing the why behind it, right? Like, oh, this needs to be set up a certain way so that it aligns with my goal of hopefully getting a loan, or maybe our goal isn't to get a loan, but it sure is helpful to have everything in place should we need one.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Right. And in I look at the over the years, it came to this kind of way uh uh a business financials are a story that they're painting a picture for the reader to understand what's going on in the business. And in when early on when we're onboarding a client, there's discussion of chart accounts, different reports, etc. And I tell them, hey, this it's whatever you want's gonna give you that visibility for you to make decisions. Yes, we have standards with GAP and other things that banks and the government need, but outside of that, we have a lot more flexibility to provide uh unique or specialized reporting for our clients' needs. And so there isn't a standard that every business needs to fit into, uh especially internally. And so we'll develop a specialized chart of accounts for industry niches or uh working with specifically with a client and their particular needs to make it work for them so they gain that visibility that they need to make uh decisions for their business.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. Thanks for sharing. What what are some of the I guess common mistakes you'd say that business owners unfortunately make when it comes to up their approach to bookkeeping accounting or profit, generating profit for their business?

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Uh consistency. Uh it's being consistent with it. If if you're only looking at your financials whenever you can get around to it, every few months, uh, or just looking at your bank accounts, and we'll probably cover more about profit first and how that works without using profit first system, you're gonna likely be led in the wrong direction or not have a clear picture of what's going on in your business financially. So consistency in doing it, and one of the habits we teach as part of our profit first coaching is coming up with a consistent schedule. Generally, it's a weekly uh thing thing where I use the term finance Fridays. Some of my clients are Monday, some of them are Wednesday, whatever works for their cycle of business, but having that consistency to review andor participate in preparing your bookkeeping and accounting, depending on where you're at in your business and where you need to be involved, it's the consistency that matters the most.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Yeah. And when should business owners be building that consistency into the the daily or weekly or monthly rhythm of their schedule?

SPEAKER_02 9:34

From the beginning, it's I mean, it's uh I there's uh some saying about uh when's the best time to plant a tree? Yesterday. Yesterday now it now it's today. Right. You start now. Um you know, the don't cry over spill mark or whatever the sayings are. But uh the you know whenever you can, if you're out there and you're looking to start a business, plan to do this on a weekly basis where you're reviewing your numbers or updating your bookkeeping or whatever your involvement is on a weekly or at least twice a month basis. I wouldn't wait till the end of the month uh because too much time has passed and you may lose some visibility on what certain transactions uh should be uh as part of your accounting bookkeeping. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

What is you mentioned profit first? What is profit first for those who are listening in that don't know?

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Probably the simple few sentences is uh it uses the coffee can type of system of allocating for or putting in place uh for every dollar uh in things. And so there's there's more principles behind it that that we can maybe break down a little bit uh later. Or and it comes from a book Michael Kalowitz wrote, uh I think uh maybe almost 10 years now, maybe. Uh because I've been a Prophet First Professional for 10 years, so I think it's 10, 12 years somewhere around there. Yeah, and it's based on those principles, uh similar to at least my grandparents did something similar. Uh other people might refer to it as envelope system, where you get $100 a salary each week, and you're taking five dollars and putting it for groceries, ten dollars for rent. That way you know you have those funds available for those specific spends. Also, it helps on the business side of keeping overspending uh from occurring. Yeah. So you know where the where you need to apply those resources for the furtherance of your business.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Yeah. And what's the outcome of using a system like this versus doing what most business owners do? You find it.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

It's consistent profitability. We've been able to make significant impacts on uh clients who have credit cards or other loans to the point where uh most have been able to pay off entire uh suite of credit cards. I think one client went from five down to one credit card within a year. Well wow uh and things, and so we've been able to make significant healthy and I'll use the word financial resilience in their businesses because there is a place for debt uh credit cards, uh, but it needs to be with a clear intention of what you're trying to do with it, not as a oh, I don't have any other option. Here's the the ease or this is the quickest thing I can do to bridge this uh funding gap I have in my business.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Yeah, yeah. What's the correct strategic uh way of acquiring and managing a credit card in your estimation?

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Uh it's you for me uh and what we use is uh most of our clients want to try to get points. Yeah. There's uh a lot of conversations about I want to be able to gather the points, especially we have a significant suite of uh e-commerce clients and making purchases from their suppliers or ads or things like that, really they get a lot of uh points from that. And we don't want them to use that as a backup or where they're having to fund the business from that operations-wise. There needs to be a clear hierarchy of where funds are going and that they're getting applied to that credit card on a radio so that the balance doesn't grow. So it's like you said, it's strategic. Um, the other thing to watch for if uh is if you're consistently using a credit card or any other uh loans to pay your operating expenses, that's usually a red flag of uh that there's some profitability issues and yeah that need to be dealt with.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Yeah. What do you love about this business, Jason?

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Uh working with entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

It's uh it's very satisfying to see a client go from frustration of they really enjoy that the part of the business uh that they enjoy, like uh you know, they're a master or a craftsman at whatever that they're doing, why they started the business. Yeah, but the finances uh and other things tend to be not so much a backseat because it's forefront of everybody's mind, but how to deal with it, how to manage it, how to make it work for them. Right. And traditional gap accounting has its place for certain things, but it's certainly not something that most entrepreneurs uh easily can understand. It can take a significant amount of work, and then even then, there's people who are craftsmen in their business that just don't have the the the background or the the the ability to grasp on what those concepts are. And so a system like Profit First fills that gap of being able to better allocate their financial resources to have their business do and produce what they got into it for, which was two things, enjoying what they're doing in many cases, and then also being able to make a living and uh you know enjoy the financial fruits of of a profitable business. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

I love that. Yeah, it's it's always I think that's for myself, like why I've enjoyed doing the work that I do too, is being able to work with entrepreneurs and hear the different stories and different um just see behind the scenes of different industries and how they work and to just see business owners light up when they're able to do the things that they really want to do in their business. So I love that. I love that. Um what are some of the you know, many of our listeners that are listening right now may have questions about like what questions should I be asking? You know, like maybe I already have bookkeeping or maybe I'm thinking about getting a bookkeeper for the first time. Like, are there any questions that you think a business owner should, you know, have top of mind when they're in the search for a new bookkeeper or accountant?

SPEAKER_02 15:44

Yeah, they take consistency is uh unfortunately one of the things we run across in our work is having uh uh consistent bookkeeping for our profit force consulting. You know, in our business, we do offer bookkeeping, and primarily the reason is is is being able to find uh where those books are being done consistently. So the question would be hey, if your current bookkeeper or accounting firm isn't able to do it every single month on a time, then it's probably better to look for uh somebody who can do that. Because like I said, consistency, whether you're paying somebody to do it, doing it yourself, that is the most important thing. And reviewing those financials, if it's three months after the fact, it loses some of that relevancy to be able to make good decisions for your business. So that's how I would uh assess if that current accounting bookkeeping relationship is working for the business owner.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Yeah, yeah. That consistency piece so that you can make better decisions that are happening in the business today, not 90 days ago.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Correct. Yeah, it's it's uh it's kind of like a the for the time uh value of money and vice versa. It's also the time value of the information as well. It loses some of its efficacy for you as a business owner the further away it gets from it. Also, it's likely that there's gonna be things that are either misapplied or put in the wrong category because it's too far after the fact uh to recall exactly what was happening then. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

I appreciate that. Thanks for sharing. Um, in our previous conversations, you talked a lot about you know, you work with e-commerce businesses and you worked with like contractors like in the you know home services space, like electrical. Are there any other industries that you work with?

SPEAKER_02 17:40

Yeah, so we have e-commerce contractors. Uh after that, it tends to spread out to to be of many different types. So we work with some manufacturing businesses, uh, wholesale distribution, and also the termite uh CPG or consumer products uh goods uh as well.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah, yeah, gotcha, gotcha. And are there any I assume that there's probably some common things that you run into with e-commerce businesses and that are different than like electrical, for example. Is there anything that you like to share in that regard in terms of like what pitfalls you typically run into per industry?

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Yeah, it there like you said, there there is a value for having niche knowledge of a particular industry. And there are certain clients that if they asked us to come and help them advise them, that we wouldn't have the knowledge, and so we would like to pass an outsider profit first. So if they're looking for CFO level advice and either we don't have the experience or I'm not confident that we're gonna be able to support them, then we would refer them to somebody who can. We could still support in bookkeeping or something, but as you're pointing out, it's important to have some niche knowledge, especially when you get into the CFO advisory level services. Uh, you that niche knowledge is going to be important uh to help give you uh the guidance that you're looking for. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

What about selection of like accounting software? Is there any advice that you have for business owners on that? There's obviously several options in the market, QuickBooks being one, zero being another, and I don't know if stage is a conversation for early startup businesses, but what do you typically see when it comes to selection and proper selection?

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Yeah, so there's uh QuickBooks Zero, probably in the the the smaller scale of the market, uh that's usually pretty easily deployable by a business uh owner or an entrepreneur on their own if they're uh self-starting. Like you mentioned, uh Sage products and the Net Suite, uh the enterprise level market, there's Zoho, there's FreshBooks, there's there's several players out there. Um, I would say be intentional about what you're looking to do, especially if you're in a startup uh phase of things, in that your technology integrations are gonna be a big important part of uh how this works. And you want to build something first, especially if you're looking to grow from start to five million in in three years. Yeah, I would pick an architecture that's gonna support that for that three years because shifting ERP, shifting accounting softwares never goes well. It's never gone too planned in any of the times that we've been involved in it.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

And there's always gonna be hiccups and things. And so try to build something that's gonna support that or you can grow into even if it costs you a little bit of extra money the first year or two, depending compared to your revenues, because the cost savings is gonna show up in that three to five year window when you don't have to shift to another platform because it can't support that growth anymore. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Wow. Gosh, you're talking about change management and and just uh yeah, changing systems like two, three years in can be a huge headache. And I talk to business owners all the time where it's like, man, we tried to switch to another system, another technology provider here or there, and it just caused so many problems for them that it wasn't it just almost wasn't worth it to do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very painful.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

It's a big understanding, very painful, and even with the best intentions and smartest people, um, there are factors that are outside of our visibility and or control that will cause that. And so the plan the idea is to reduce that from happening as much as possible.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Yeah. Yeah. Um talk to us a little bit about that planning piece because it sounds like that is a critical component. to be able to make good decisions not only in selection of software, right, that you're gonna run on, but when to get alone, when not to get alone, when to when to structure some form of a benefits program for your employees. All of these things come down to the numbers and the story that the numbers are telling, right? So talk to us a little bit about maybe some of the planning questions that you ask for clients that are beyond just managing like the day-to-day did this did this purchase get categorized or this expense get categorized properly.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

Right. Yeah. And that is a question that we ask of pretty much everybody who joins uh one of the onboarding questions that that I'll be asking is what's your plan for the business three to five years from now?

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Um and many times it's it's it's not wrong, but it it there doesn't seem to be a lot of intention behind it of hey I'm looking especially in our e-commerce space where uh at least early on there was a lot of hey I want to sell it in three to five years uh and things and so okay assuming that that's the direction we're gonna go is okay we need to build a system uh information system if we will an ERP that's gonna be able to give that visibility to a buyer. Yeah uh so anytime there's a transaction between a uh seller and buyer of a company there's a lot good amount of due diligence and they're gonna want to be able to see and be able to corroborate the the the financial data that you put into report and have traceability to see what's going on. Having been a business broker for a period of time I can tell you that dramatically can affect the supporting the valuation that you do come up with to market many times it gets dinged or dropped lower because the buyer doesn't have confidence in the numbers they're presented because they don't have transparency in the numbers that are being put in QuickBooks et cetera and things like that. And so using that as a because that's a very common one that I run across uh using that as an example we would advise the client hey we need to build a clear transparent as much as possible system and processes so that you can document how you record your revenue how you record your expenses that you're not mixing personal and business. You know some of the fundamental basics that I'd say that we want to make sure the client is following and so and I'll use let's say an e-commerce business as an example of building a financial architecture that allows that traceability visibility without an overwhelm of transactional data and because the common mistake is they have their their sales platform let's say like Shopify and they're assuming that they have to post every transaction in the QuickBooks or zero that's incorrect. There's ways that you can bring that financial data over that provide that transparency and visibility but don't overwhelm with thousands of transactions a day or hundreds of transactions a day and things. That's where we would advise them because it aligns with what their goals are and things. And we would give different advice if they have a different goal of mind or what they're they're trying to do. But generally that's going to be the the one that most of the time we run across is almost everybody's looking at some point to exit the business.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Right. Yeah so it having that transparency from the beginning um impacts the ability to sell the business right not having that transparency they usually get dinged so how do you know you talked about like having all these transactions flowing into Shopify and that's unnecessary but building a system where you do have the transparency how do you know like from the get go it sounds like having an advisor like yourself who has participated in not only loan brokering but business brokering to understand what's needed is critical for building this financial architecture because you could be going it alone and just saying hey everything's inside of QuickBooks and I have someone go in and um you know categorize my transactions. I'm good but it sounds like having that goal in mind of hey I want to exit this business in five years shifts like what that's what that needs to look like because there's other things that can that can play a factor in a potential buyer looking and saying no I I don't think that this is the business that I want to buy because of how it's been operated for the past five years.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

Correct yeah it's it's part of the story you know it's since we're talking about business exits uh that's one of the factors uh you know you've got your numbers you've got your supporting uh write up if you will uh of what you were doing in the business uh assuming that you're the seller uh a buyer's gonna be looking at it from looking at not just the financials but also the ease of working with the seller is things accessible or are they talking are they transparent about talking about the the business and that's all part of the package of assessment from in my experience working with buyers of in our conversations is how easy are they to work with is it like pulling teeth to get questions answered uh does it show up messy etc those are all part of the factors that come into buyers deciding to pass or move on to another opportunity if the the the data one that it starts with the data it starts with the reports but there's also a broader scope that buyers also think about and because we've talked about it as when I've advised buyers that they bring those things up as things like you know I'm not getting a good feeling about it because I'm this this this uh hasn't answered my questions in a week or you know it came in in a messy format or you know the they showed up with the the company truck and it you know was rusty and it you know just it gave them the wrong impression and things and so all those are part of the the picture uh when buyers are making their assessments to pursue opportunities for that.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Yeah yeah yeah that makes sense and so it it sounds like having someone just do the numbers or do the work is not sufficient if you're not having the conversations and being able to communicate what's happening with the numbers and how the operations have been influenced by um your personal decisions and how that translates down to the books. Right, because if if you're a buyer and I'm a seller and you're asking me questions that I don't have the answer to or I can't articulate, I could see how someone might pass on a business just because of a communication breakdown versus there being like an owner trying to like hide something per se. You know it's like like I'm not being I'm not not answering the question. It's just that I'm not used to answering these questions because I'm not really regularly talking with my professional about what's happening.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Right. Yep and that's also another thing is there's many uh founder led businesses I'll refer to it and what I mean by that is that they're integral to the the primary value creation of the business. Yeah and so wherever possible if a seller knows that that's their trajectory in three tenure whatever that trajectory is what they're planning to do is get themselves out of the business as much as possible meaning that they are not integral to the the business creating value where they're at a CEO level or uh you know general manager level whatever that place where they can be where a buyer can come in and take that role instead of taking that role and also having to do the sales or having to be the product producer etc that's where many uh valuation um changes occur from the buyer's perspective is when they know that they're not gonna be able to replace that that part or it's gonna be very difficult where there can be a significant uh um uh adjustment to the valuation from the buyer's perspective and it also creates friction because the seller may hey I I have this target that I want and I want to sell it for this but they hadn't planned for that uh as well so but those are all things as a as a seller you want to plan to get yourself as many out of many aspects of the business as possible.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Yeah yeah is that something that you help business owners with or guide them to make that decision through your work with them or how do they make that transition because it's it's I can see how as owner as an owner operator and as an entrepreneur who loves being involved right it could be hard to like shift out of that.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Yeah yeah it it it is and it's something I'm going through in my own business as well where you know I've I'm the I guess the term IB Rainmaker the one who gets and and gets all the business the leads and things and so in our own business uh we're transitioning away from where I'm developing the leads to creating a systematized approach where my team can do most of that if not all of that work and then at some point in next year uh we're gonna look to transition myself out of 50 to 80 percent of the sales work. I don't think I'll ever entirely be out of it but it'll probably be more of a business development where I'm going to trade shows, conferences and things and and igniting some of those uh relationships and things yeah uh but where I can get out of most of the the sales work as well uh because if most all the the work can now be handled by the team whether it's the the bookkeeping the accounting the prof first consulting uh even some of the CFO work uh has transitioned as well and now where I'm primarily doing uh the sales work and also looking to transition out of that as well and so a business owner that comes to us most of the time that's going to be through usually a business advising CFO uh work package with them where we're supporting them as part of that but yeah those are some of the things that we would the some might call it coaching but in my experience that needs to be combined with the review of the financials because the financials are effectively an accountable accountability factor meaning it's showing different things that are going on in the business numbers wise yeah and that's why I said earlier about it's painting a picture it's it's it's uh writing a story about sort what's going on in the business.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Right, right right yeah I appreciate that and that makes sense what what has that transition been like for you right like that the mindset shift and the operational shift for you has it been a pretty easy transition for you to say yeah I'm gonna move out of doing or reduce significantly my input as it relates to the specific tasks.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

It's I don't remember where I can attribute it to but I've heard the the saying of the the things that got you to where you're currently at aren't the things that are going to get you to the next level.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:48

And early on you know you're doing all the work uh at least in my case uh I hired bookkeepers right away from the beginning because I knew the more of the work that I was doing the less I would be able to be out there connecting building new relationships building sales opportunities and things and so that was from the beginning that team that's pretty I've been involved with none of the bookkeeping uh pretty much from uh day one yeah and the hardest the one for me personally that's been the most difficult is the sales one and because just because I enjoy those conversations I want to filter yeah uh for me sales is a filtering process it's not trying to you know push and get somebody to buy something it's hey is this going to be a good relationship for everybody because there are uh times where I'll say no we're not gonna be the best person for you because whatever that reason is yeah and I don't want to get a bad client that's going to cause issues with my team that are frustrated, don't want to deal with it, etc. And so I used it as a filtering process and now got that experience and then working with one of my coaches to come up with a a sales program, if you will process that I can then delegate and teach to uh a future sales leader for our for our team. And I think it's actually going to be better for us because I end up many times problem solving on those calls rather than actually guiding the client through or the future client through a process of evaluation of hey what's the best services that we're gonna be able to support you with rather than me problem solving for them during those calls and things. So I think eventually it's gonna be better for us going that route. Wow wow wow yeah I can see how being like the doctor you know is like oh we can solve that right away yeah yeah let's let's fix that yeah yeah so well that's great that's awesome thanks for sharing that thanks for sharing that yeah so awesome well what's the best way for people to learn more about you if they want to either engage with your services or learn more about your journey as an entrepreneur yeah so our uh main company if you will is Main Street Financial that's where we do our bookkeeping accounting profit first CFO advisory work uh and then we also have a second company uh kind of grew out from there because we have a significant team in the Philippines Peoplewise which is our accounting talent and recruiting um for uh uh Filipino talent for accountants and CPA firms and things okay um probably the best place is LinkedIn you may have shirt show notes and things you'll be able to share and we'll give you the link uh but LinkedIn's probably the best place to to connect uh things yeah I love it I love it well I'll make sure I get that link from you and then also link your LinkedIn in the show notes so people can connect and reach out directly if they have any questions.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Yeah great thank you yeah absolutely man I appreciate you being on the show today yeah thank thanks for having me again yep you bet have a rest of your day thanks to the