Randy started her bookkeeping business after the age of 50. She had been working in a dance studio for over ten years until things went awry, and she felt that if there was no security in the traditional job market anymore she might as well do things her own way. [3:25] Freedom means being able to go out for lunch with her son completely unplanned, without having to run it by a boss first. [4:25] Randy is currently working with attorneys and has between 15 and 20 clients, depending on how you co...
Oct 01, 2019•35 min•Season 1Ep. 32
Once you’ve documented your processes and created the checklists, you need to put yourself into a different frame of mind and ask “how do I improve on these?” [0:55] One of the biggest traps that people fall into is documenting their processes while trying to improve them at the same time, which is a recipe for disaster. You have to clearly distinguish between documenting your processes and working to make them better. [2:00] Just like advisory services, you need to set aside time when you have ...
Sep 24, 2019•10 min•Season 1Ep. 31
One of the most common questions that Ben gets is around documenting processes because they are often all over the place. [0:35] The first thing to do is to distinguish between process documentation and process improvement. Whether or not you have your processes written down, you will have processes in place on how you do things. [1:00] The reason you want to document your processes is to do more with less time and improve the quality of the services that you offer your clients. It also opens up...
Sep 17, 2019•11 min•Season 1Ep. 30
Jessie has a background in education and actually worked as a history teacher. One day in her third year, she wanted to teach some new classes and was given a flat refusal from her boss. At that point, she realized her days as a teacher were numbered. She stumbled upon Bookkeeper Business Launch on the Penny Hoarder and it seemed like a good fit. She enrolled in the course in August, launched her business in October and got her first client in November. [5:25] Before jumping into bookkeeping, Je...
Sep 10, 2019•46 min•Season 1Ep. 29
Brooke started off in the industry as an account manager with a construction company, until one day she got fired which was a first for her. Brooke was a day trader for a few years after that but once that became stale, she started looking for other opportunities. She had always wanted to start a business and after doing some searching, she found Bookkeeper Business Launch and decided it was the right fit. [4:10] Brooke’s business is now one year in and she serves a number of clients, some of th...
Sep 03, 2019•48 min•Season 1Ep. 28
Dave and his wife have been working together for a long time. She took on the bookkeeping side of things, while Dave had been running his pharmacy. After selling off the business and traveling for a while, they got into real estate investing and eventually started looking at bookkeeping itself as a business. [4:30] Dave knew what his niche was going to be even before signing up for Bookkeeper Business Launch. As real estate investors themselves, they understand their needs and pain points, and c...
Aug 27, 2019•48 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Kevin has been hustling his entire life. Multiple streams of revenue have always been a focus for him and that has manifested into multiple businesses during his adult life. [6:00] Math had always been a favorite subject for Kevin, and he worked with his father in an accounting role during high school and college, but eventually wanted to do something different. He decided on teaching as a profession and did that for a few years while growing his side businesses at the same time. Bookkeeping was...
Aug 20, 2019•45 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Kevin started off in the IT world and he quickly got pretty tired of getting yelled at all the time. One of his friends started a business, and Kevin started doing the IT stuff for it, which eventually developed into business management. After that Kevin went back and got his MBA, graduated in 2016, and along the way, dabbled in real estate. The real estate led him in a roundabout way to doing a few bookkeeping jobs via Upwork, and finding Ben’s Bookkeeper Business Launch course. [8:20] In addit...
Aug 13, 2019•41 min•Season 1Ep. 25
Prior to bookkeeping, Annette was a dental hygienist for 35 years. Her life was very structured, and every minute of her time was accounted for. Her journey into bookkeeping was pretty tumultuous. After her husband suddenly died, at the age of 56, she took over his business and realized that the books were a mess. In the process of trying to figure everything out, she saw Ben’s ad for bookkeeping, and it seemed like a way to kill two birds with one stone. [5:35] Eventually, the chemicals in the ...
Aug 06, 2019•51 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Jackie’s family had always wanted to live in America so her family moved to LA, but for various reasons, it didn’t work out. She needed to set something up that was relevant to her degree in order for it to be seen as successful in the eyes of Immigration and be able to stay in the States. She stumbled across Bookkeeper Business Launch in 2016 and it showed her a way to make her plan real. [4:50] Jackie officially launched her business in January of 2017, and she landed her first client a few we...
Jul 30, 2019•49 min•Season 1Ep. 23
Jessica’s personal style is hyper feminine, but deep down she likes math and numbers. That synthesis is where the moniker Sparkle Bookkeeping came from. [2:50] When Jessica was in college she had an opportunity to work for a cannabis tax firm, and got a feel for the industry as well as learned bookkeeping directly. After a while, she wanted to try something new. She felt like she would be able to do it on her own and she discovered Bookkeeper Business Launch. [6:20] The mindset aspect of the bus...
Jul 23, 2019•51 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Jenna used to work as an auditor, but the position involved being surrounded by negative people as well as physical demands that didn’t work with her family’s schedule. After getting denied when she tried to adjust her work schedule, Jenna realized that she should probably venture out on her own. She found the Bookkeeper Business Launch program and once someone she trusted vouched for the content, she signed up. [5:00] Jenna currently has 10 clients and is not looking to build an empire. She’s p...
Jul 16, 2019•35 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Kerrie went into corporate accounting after getting her accounting degree. She decided after 5 years that it wasn’t her cup of tea and opened her own business that lasted for a couple of years. A major move meant she had to find something else and she ended up working in a public school for 13 years. During that time, Kerrie’s husband developed a chronic illness and Kerrie knew she needed to find a job that gave her more flexibility. She discovered Bookkeeper Business Launch and that’s where it ...
Jul 09, 2019•44 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Heather got her accounting degree in 2014 and worked in corporate accounting for a few years. That’s when she realized that she was meant to be her own boss and really didn’t enjoy the corporate environment. She discovered Bookkeeping Business Launch and after giving birth to her son, she decided to dive into it and give it a shot. [4:10] Initially she was skeptical about the program and whether she could handle it with a newborn, but something clicked once he was two months old. She took her ti...
Jul 02, 2019•45 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Elizabeth was looking for a way to earn money that also allowed her to spend time with her children. Bookkeeper Business Launch seemed like a good fit so she signed up in August of 2017. She didn’t originally do much with the program until she was talking to someone who essentially told her that they would hire her if she finished the program. She officially had her first client by June 2018 and has since built a business of seven clients total. [4:30] Elizabeth’s vision for the business is wher...
Jun 25, 2019•48 min•Season 1Ep. 18
Ashley is very organized and isn’t afraid to ask for help which is the thing that makes her business possible. [2:15] Ashley was a stay-at-home mom to her four kids in the beginning, but she always wanted to be able to contribute more to her family and the world at large. She felt that starting a business was the first step to contributing to her surroundings. Her husband was actually the person who referred her to the Bookkeeper Business Launch program and a few months later she decided to pull...
Jun 18, 2019•39 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Mary can remember always being good at bookkeeping, even when she was young. While going to school, she worked full time in a corporate office in the accounting department for three years. She never finished her bachelor’s degree. Instead, she moved back to where she and her husband were from and worked for a local pharmacy where she was mentored by the in-house CPA. [4:30] During that time Mary’s husband deployed so she needed something to keep her busy. She was nominated to be the president of...
Jun 11, 2019•48 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Melissa was working 70 to 80 hours a week at her job and was starting to get really burned out. She decided that she needed to make a change and that was when she was injured during a run. This gave her plenty of time to look for opportunities to work from home. She found her first client online and that gave her three months to find more. Word of mouth and BNI has been how she’s found the majority of the clients she has now, with the process being largely organic. [4:45] Melissa serves 62 clien...
Jun 04, 2019•57 min•Season 1Ep. 15
In January of 2018, Christopher was two years away from retiring from the military and was thinking about the future. He wanted to figure out how he was going to make money once he was out and found the Bookkeeper Business Launch course and thought that it might be a good fit. Turns out it was. [3:45] Chris got his first client one month after completing the course. He connected with them on Craigslist and is still working with them today. [4:30] Chris used the money from the first client and jo...
May 28, 2019•56 min•Season 1Ep. 14
Hannah found that with her previous business she was traveling a lot and wasn’t able to spend much time with her husband. She was researching jobs that she could do from home at that time and came across the Bookkeeper Business Launch course on the Penny Hoarder website and decided to give it a try. [6:10] Hannah serves around 12 clients at this point. There was a lot of fear originally, taking on a client beyond Hannah’s husband who was her first, but she realized that she really did have all t...
May 21, 2019•44 min•Season 1Ep. 13
David went to school to be a math teacher but ended up in engineering and getting a math degree. Due to the recession, he got laid off and found himself wondering what to do without a job. He started working at a church and did some of their admin work, which was David’s first real exposure to bookkeeping. One bookkeeping gig turned into another. [4:45] David realized that bookkeeping was a skill that he could start a business with and since he always wanted to start his own business he thought ...
May 14, 2019•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 12
After Daniel’s last deployment he was looking to start his own business. He had some experience and education in accounting so that field made the most sense. When he discovered the Bookkeeping Business Launch program, he decided to take the leap. [3:50] Painters were the niche that Daniel served, mainly due to running a painting business of his own in college and because he knew where to find them and no one was serving the market directly. [5:10] Daniel planted a lot of seeds early on, includi...
May 07, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Amanda was a bank teller in the past, which is where she discovered her love of working with money. She started her bookkeeping business in 2017 after going through the Bookkeeper Business Launch program and has since built up a base of 15 clients. [3:30] Amanda gravitates towards artists and creatives; 90% of the people she works with fall into those categories. [5:15] Amanda didn’t want to quit her job, but circumstances forced her hand to consider other options. She started looking for ways t...
Apr 30, 2019•49 min•Season 1Ep. 10
In many ways Jeremy started his bookkeeping business on a whim. He encountered Bookkeeper Business Launch online and always had an entrepreneurial streak so it seemed like a good fit. The freedom to call his own shots and choose his own destiny is what Jeremy was looking for, combined with his appreciation for numbers and it just made sense. [5:30] Jeremy currently has 8 clients, 6 of which he is working with on a monthly basis. On top of his bookkeeping business, Jeremy is also a Financial Mana...
Apr 23, 2019•55 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Kim started in late August of 2017 after purchasing Bookkeeper Business Launch. Four days later she registered her business name and closed her first client, who later on became her husband. [3:00] Kim had been in the banking industry for 16 years and knew that there was definitely a need for bookkeepers in business. When Kim’s husband decided to start his trucking business, Kim made the choice to start her own bookkeeping business at the same time. [4:15] Kim currently has 8 active clients. The...
Apr 16, 2019•57 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Kirsten took an accounting class in high school many years ago and she really enjoyed it. She eventually dropped out of college where she was studying accounting and became a mother. She was a stay-at-home mom for 18 years and tried a number of business ideas but none of them really resonated. She eventually got an email from Ben about becoming a bookkeeper, ended up on one of his webinars and ultimately took the course. [7:40] Kirsten currently has four clients but has had up to nine at one tim...
Apr 09, 2019•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 7
Jaime has been running his bookkeeping business for the past two years and has acquired 13 clients in that time. He’s hoping to get more clients and continue growing, but it’s a scary thing to think about. [3:10] When Jaime first started, he was going to partner with a friend of his that had a degree in Bookkeeping. He discovered that a lot of random tasks end up on your plate as a bookkeeper and felt that he just didn’t want to work for someone else anymore. His friend wasn’t ready to make the ...
Apr 02, 2019•55 min•Season 1Ep. 6
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. Wh...
Mar 26, 2019•59 min•Season 1Ep. 5
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’...
Mar 19, 2019•57 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Amy worked at a bank for 14 years and eventually it became not worth the hours she had to put in anymore, so she decided to retire. This led her to thinking about what else she could do for work, ideally from home. Since she was good with numbers already, bookkeeping seemed like a solid choice. She signed up for Bookkeeper Business Launch and went from there. [6:00] Nonprofits were the niche that Amy chose to work with because working around or in them has been a part of her history and experien...
Mar 12, 2019•59 min•Season 1Ep. 3
