![106 ⎸ [NICHE] Bookkeeping for Female Real Estate Investors with Randy Ballen - podcast episode cover](https://assets.metacast.app/images/podcast/artwork/EWYKOZAj)
¶ Intro / Opening
I think a common misconception about niches people do feel like you have to be 110% in and and like, it's counterintuitive, right? It feels like you're going to lose business. Like, all these people are not going to be interested in my business because I'm, I literally stood at a trade show. We had a big pink banner that said like, you know, helping women, real estate investors take over the world, one property at a time. And like, we had a guy come up like, Oh, I'm a contractor.
Like, could you do my books too? Like they just don't, it doesn't, don't care. They don't they care about you if they feel like a connection to you, then it, it doesn't stop anybody from asking, and you can take them or not take them it's entirely up to you right that's the point of having your own business and I think that's kind of the biggest lesson is figuring out what works for you.
In terms of clients, in terms of advice, you know, people will tell you, Oh, like to be a good business owner, you have to do this and then you have to go, okay. But also I could do the opposite and be super successful. Welcome back to the ambitious bookkeeper podcast. I'm your host Serena Shoup. This is part of our niche series as part of this series, spanning July and August.
¶ Introducing Randy
You'll be listening in on interviews with niche, bookkeepers and accountants. I thought it would be really inspirational and super valuable to bring on bookkeepers and accountants who have built niche firms to take you behind the curtain of what it looks like to get to the point of serving in a specific niche. My hope is that you'll gain the inspiration and information that will help you hone in on your niche. Or if you already have one. Find different ways to help your clients.
I'll be asking some similar questions of each of our guests, like what their minimum fee is, how they got into their niche and what their firm team structure looks like. I'm super excited to bring this to you. And I hope that you enjoy. If you're ready to hone in on your own niche and build a bookkeeping business that gives you the life that you want, check out the bookkeeping business accelerator by going to ambitiousbookkeeper.com/bba the link is also in the show notes.
If finding a perfect fit client is something that you've needed. Check out my mini course, the bookkeeping client closer, go to ambitiousbookkeeper.com/closer. All the links will be in the show notes. Now let's get into today's episode.
All right. Today kicks off a special series that we are putting together on niches or niches, however you want to say it.
No one knows. No one knows.
No one really knows. Right. but I thought it would be awesome to get a bunch of different firm owners, different bookkeeping firm owners, accounting firm owners who are in a niche specialty and talk about kind of how they got there. A little behind the curtain, behind the scenes of what it's like, with different aspects of their business and to just kind of inspire, you and the audience on like how, what it takes to break into a niche and how things kind of form and all of that.
So I'm going to be asking a bunch of questions, but without further ado, would you please love to introduce yourself to our audience? Who you are.
¶ Before the bookeepping business
Who you help. If you'd like to share the name of your firm, go for it and give everyone kind of a background of you.
Okay. So I am Randy Ballin and, I am actually in a partnership firm called REI Bookkeeping Babes, and we focus on female real estate investors. I started late. I'm, I guess, a late bloomer. I started my original bookkeeping business, Ballin Bookkeeping, in January of 2018 at the age of 50. So it's never too late. And, I went from never wanting to own a business to now being a little bit of like a serial entrepreneur.
So, bookkeeping is a great business and a great kickoff to other businesses as well.
Yeah. We definitely have some inside knowledge about what it takes to run a business that is transferable to any, any industry, honestly, as long as you're willing to roll up your sleeves.
Yes. Yes. Everything is actually work. There's not really,
unfortunately. Yeah. So, so you mentioned that you got into this. Later in life. So what brought you to this point? What was your background before you started your bookkeeping business?
So up until the age of 50, I'm, I'm a pretty simple girl. I just wanted to have a steady paycheck. I worked for borders bookstore for a long time. Some other retail jobs, you know, running stores and doing things. I was happy to work for someone else. But as you get older, as a female, it becomes increasingly harder. To do that. And I think, when I was growing up, there was this idea that like, you would be loyal to your company to your employer and your employer would be loyal to you.
And I don't think that that exists on either side anymore. So, as things happened and I learned I worked at a dance studio as like office manager and a million other things for about 10 years, and then that ended poorly. And I was actually just looking for a remote job, something that I could, I came from that job was like six, seven days a week when we were in production.
And so I really missed a lot of time with family and friends and I thought I want to work remotely and I can go and do things. And, this bookkeeper launch program just kept coming into my line of vision. And I eventually thought, well, if there's really no job security anymore, then I might as well count on me. Like I'm the one most likely to come through for me. Yeah. And so in January of 2018, on my, literally on my 50th birthday,
¶ Picking a Niche
I opened Ballin Bookkeeping. And. That's kind of all she wrote. I, all the things that I thought I would not like I ended up loving, you know, going out and meeting people. I'm an introverted person. I'm a shy person. Like, I'm the child that literally didn't talk to people in my own family. That's how shy I was. So, again, kind of like if I can do it, anybody can do it. And over time, what happens is you start to see like the good part of that and really enjoy meeting people.
And it wasn't at all like I thought it was going to be, I don't have to be salesy. I don't, you know, I can just be myself. And that's, so it's worked out great for me. And then that led to, real estate investing. Which led to a change in niche for me, and then actually a non profit that I just started. So it really is kind of like a gateway drug to, to whatever you want to do, whatever you want to be when you grow up.
Yeah. So you said that. You changed niches. So when you first opened your, your bookkeeping business, did you have a niche with that or did you like walk me through that whole process?
Of course. So when I first started the bookkeeping company, I did not have a niche right out of the gate. And, I had gone to like a marketing conference and I literally had like one client in it. all different niches. There was no common thread. And the person, the marketing person that was present at the meeting said, well, who's your favorite client? And I said, this attorney. So he was like, okay, that's your niche. Like just pick a niche. It doesn't really matter what it is.
People get so it's like coming up with the name. People are like, got to have this clever name. Got to have like, everything has to be said in this name. And I was the same way. And then of course I couldn't think and I'm like, okay, this is going to be ballot bookkeeping. That's it. And at the end of the day, you learn no one really cares what the name of your business is. Yeah. So, so that's how I picked my first niche was, was attorneys and I like doing trust accounting.
I felt like, I liked the, the challenge of it. and it was interesting to me. And so I thought, well, if I'm going to pick one thing to focus on, that was a good thing. Yeah. And that's how it stayed, for a while until, 2021, I think in about September, I went to a workshop, like a leveling up kind of workshop. And I had just started doing real estate investing and at the workshop, they were talking about going to trade shows and, you know, different ways to build your business.
And I thought, well, I'm going to be like. Having to do everything twice, like, I'm going to have to go to trade shows for real estate as an investor, and then I have to go to, you know, bar association trade shows for my clients. Like, it just sounds better to have it all be 1 thing. And then also I have so much more value to add. With a client who's in real estate investing than I do as an attorney, since. I obviously have never been an attorney.
Right. So, so I approached someone, who we had worked together. She had contracted work for me for actually most of the
¶ Switching Niches
time during my business. It was the 1st person I contracted with. And we discussed our, our individual businesses quite a lot. And I said, I'm going to switch my niche and I want to make a partnership. And I feel like these are the things I'm good at, and these are the things you're good at. And if we put them together, I think we can really like knock it out of the park. So that is what happened. And then in January of 22, we started REI Bookkeeping Babes. Awesome. And it has been fantastic.
And the, for me, it's so rewarding to be able to talk to people in that larger sense, right? Be able to relate to them and help them and, share information in a way that's so much more personal because it's what I do as well. So, that. Switching a niche can be kind of intimidating. And I wouldn't always recommend it, but in this case it really was the answer. Like it's what, where I was meant to be with it.
So walk me through the process of like making that change. When you created the partnership, did you close down, your other business overnight? Like, what did you tell your clients? Do you still have some of those clients? What's the story there?
Yeah. So, we actually did a bunch of investigating and decided that our two entities, would own the new entity. So it's not us as individuals that own it. It's Ballin Bookkeeping and Easy Bookkeep, own it. We worked with a DBA so that we have a generic name for people that were already clients that were not in the real estate niche. And also I do have the occasional well behaved male client as well in real estate. I love that.
There's a caveat. You have to be well behaved. I'm kind of the same way about the men I work with in, in my business, but
I feel like we're like a kinder, gentler alternative. Like we're kind of mellow. And so it's definitely a different vibe and, you know, real estate
¶ Working with related niches
investing is super heavily male. And some of them a very high energy vibe and that's kind of not my thing. So, definitely, there's men I resonate with as well, but it's kind of in that same pocket of, like, don't know everything, like, A little bit more mellow, it just works. So, yeah, so it's under the 2 businesses. We took, we took most of our clients at 1st and then gradually as things kind of change and our pricing changes and all those things, it kind of. Corrects itself.
You know, you always have to be prepared to lose clients that are not on board with what you're doing, that are not willing to pay prices when you increase prices, that's just the nature of the beast. Yeah. And then as we go, you know, it shifts more and more to be exclusively real estate investing. I don't know if we'll ever be a hundred percent exclusive because I think that there's also value in having related fields. That enables me to help my real estate investing clients even better.
Yeah. So what are some examples of like those related fields that you help, in your business?
So, could be realtors, could be HVAC, any of the trades, really contractors, anything that kind of relates to the process, title agencies, real estate attorneys. Yeah, so it can be a lot of things, but again, I just feel like. It just has to be a good fit. It has to be a good fit for where we're going. I think a common misconception about niches people do feel like you have to be 110% in and and like, it's counterintuitive, right? It feels like you're going to lose business.
Like, all these people are not going to be interested in my business because I'm, I literally stood at a trade show. We had a big pink banner that said like, you know, helping women, real estate investors take over the world, one property at a time. And like, we had a guy come up like, Oh, I'm a contractor. Like, could you do my books too? Like they just don't, it doesn't, don't care.
They don't they care about you if they feel like a connection to you, then it, it doesn't stop anybody from asking, and you can take them or not take them it's entirely up to you right that's the point of having your own business and I think that's kind of the biggest lesson is figuring out what works for you.
¶ Number of Clients
In terms of clients, in terms of advice, you know, people will tell you, Oh, like to be a good business owner, you have to do this and then you have to go, okay. But also I could do the opposite and be super successful.
Yeah. Yeah. I think out of the box. Yeah. That's that's, I love that. And I'm hoping that like, cause you're the first niche interview that I'm doing, but I'm hoping this is like a common theme across everyone where it's like, yeah, this is the niche that I've chosen for. Marketing purposes, basically. Right. And to have like a good solid process in my firm that most clients fit into, but I'm the same way I have clients that don't fit the niche that I market towards, but it doesn't matter.
Like those came as referrals or those people have found me online and they're just like, great. I know, you know, your stuff, your marketing towards this one niche, but can you help me too? It's like, yeah, of course, if we're good, if it's a good personality fit, and they're willing to use the systems that we use, then absolutely.
Absolutely agree. A hundred percent. Yeah.
So, are you comfortable sharing? Cause one of the other things that, when I was, when I put the call out for this, this series of interviews, I asked a few questions of like, are you comfortable sharing like what your minimum fee is? What kind of pricing methodology you use, whether you're like package or. Value based or hourly or whatever, just so that our listener can get an idea of like.
All the little pieces that once you do niche, those seemingly become easier, like pricing is easier once you have a niche because you have a solid process in your firm, you understand how long things are going to take in general and, and things like that. So I wanted to highlight if you're comfortable sharing, like, that pricing structure and, and all that kind of stuff.
Yes, of course. And I don't know. So the question of, like, how many clients we serve is always super complicated to me. Because most of my clients have multiple businesses. So I never know. And sometimes they're related and sometimes they're totally not related, which is the other thing about niche, right?
To me, I want if you come to me and you do real estate investing, but your husband has this business and you have this other side thing like I want all of that because that deepens the relationship that we have. So why would I not want to take that and refer it to somebody else? To me, this is, deepening the relationship and essentially like, creating job security for me, right? Like, you're more attached to me in different ways.
I can be more helpful because I understand your big picture, not just this little sliver of your picture. And so that to me is really helpful, but as a result, when people ask me how many clients, I have no idea, like 1 client I have, does investing in these different partnerships. So he has like 11, right? So is that one, is that 11? I don't know. And some people want it either way. Like when you go, like, do you want just the clients? Do you want just the businesses?
Like depending who's asking the question, they want different information. Yeah. I would
say, let's go with the number of entities that you serve, like however many books you close each month.
Right. Yeah. So that's probably. I would say, like, 75 ish. Again, much fewer. Yeah. And again, it depends both ways because also when we have a monthly meeting we're not meeting with 75 people. Right. And honestly, I've Not all our clients even want to meet at all. We have some that are very like every single month we're going to sit down and talk about stuff. And then I have some that like, when they're concerned about something, they'll meet until they figure it out.
And then they're like, okay, I'm good now. See, you know, we'll talk again when I need help. So
how do you structure that? Is that something that, um, you kind of, it's like an add on when
you. So I have a strong feeling a strong opinion about this that the week like the monthly meeting is part of the price because I don't ever want anyone to not
¶ Metting with clients and team dynamics
meet with me because of a pricing issue. So, they're paying for it either way I will explain to them they're paying for it either way so if you choose not to take advantage of that, that's okay but it's not a savings method. Right. Because I do feel strongly that we should be meeting regularly, but again, it's. It is their business and, we can all relate to feeling overwhelmed and pulled in too many places. So I don't want to create more anxiety for them anyway.
I think, my sub niche is anxiety ridden people.
I think that's pretty typical for like. Anyone who hires a bookkeeper, because it's just not their genius and it makes them nervous, them hold money
things. So, and they're worried enough about it to actually find a professional, right? They're not just like, cause a lot of people, it's not their genius, but they're like, I, you know, have some receipts in an envelope. I'm good. I'll just see my CPA at the end of the year and it'll be good. So I guess by nature, we do attract the ones that are a Yeah.
So are you the one that is meeting with all the clients? Do you split this with your partner and do you have a team that supports
all of this? So we do have a team. We are a total of 10 of us, including my partner and I, and those are not full time people. That's, that's all different levels of part time, which I like because I need the flexibility. We, Take on project work. In addition to the monthly recurring revenue, we take project work. We do setups. I do training. So there's different things that come up and then also, you know, when you get those big cleanups, we had a huge, like, 5 year cleanup.
So that was able to be, like, farmed out across different people by entity. to be able to get that taken care of faster. so I think that's always important and I'm always concerned about burnout. In the people that work with us, I don't want anybody to be over committed to the point that they get stressed. I'm always in for the long haul. So my goal is to get, like, a range of what's acceptable.
¶ Pricing and Packages
And then we keep them. In that range as much as we possibly can. Yeah. Recently we started with an onboarding specialist. I'm just trying to again, create a good workflow and also, help detach people from us specifically and create, that's an area of frustration for a lot of the people we work with. So it just kind of helped. So that was our solution to that. Yeah.
Yeah. I think that's a really good solution to have. And that's how a lot of, like, if you look at other industries, that are not bookkeeping, like other agency type models, there's always like the point of contact. There's like the salesperson and then they hand it off to The onboarding person or team, right? And then once you're onboarded, you get rolled into maybe another team that does the ongoing maintenance. So it's like, we can learn a lot from looking at how other industries operate.
Things don't have to, just be the way that they are just because of our industry.
You know what I mean? Absolutely. And I always encourage people, like there's a benefit to master mining with bookkeepers and accounting people, and there is a whole separate benefit to masterminding with people in completely different industries, because most industries have similar problems. There's overall problems that all business owners face and the great answers. Like we talked about earlier, the outside the box answers are typically not going to come from internally.
They're going to come from someone outside going like, did you ever think of this? No, I never did. Yeah. Yeah. And then pricing. So we do monthly pricing, we actually have a spreadsheet from the program I was in, but it's looking at things like, how many accounts do we have? Are there partners? How many loans do they have? Do they have payroll? Are we doing AP, like, all these different questions and it comes up with a monthly number.
We do offer quarterly because I work with a lot of new investors, as well as seasoned investors. So we offer quarterly packages that start at $450 a month and then monthly packages at $600 a month.
Okay. And within your package, I know you said you have meetings are always included. What else is included across the board for people?
just that's really basic bookkeeping like that number. And a lot of times, honestly, we have people that haven't even had their first deal yet, or they have one deal like that's really the start out package. you know, quarterly is kind of like enough transactions. That somebody else would have in one month. You have in three. Um, so we're doing just basic bookkeeping. Basically everything is added on the number of transactions really can greatly affect the price, the complexity.
We do, I know a lot of, accountants don't love profit 1st. We actually do love profit 1st. We use it for ourselves and we encourage them to use it. And so that is also, we kind of take that into account when we're pricing because the truth is. Yes, it's a lot of accounts and it makes extra transactions, but in QuickBooks, that's one transaction, right? Like I click the button once and now it's done. And most of those secondary accounts are hardly used except for, you know, tax time or whatever.
So we kind of, we're familiar enough with how it works to be able to adjust the pricing for that, because just like the meeting, I want to encourage them. I think it encourages good behavior in our clients. And honestly, if I think about the number of clients I've gotten. Because a their bookkeeper was hourly and all of a sudden their bill was much larger than usual. And as a bookkeeper, I know exactly how that happens.
¶ Giving Value through the Niche
I'm not surprised by it. Like, it's going to happen. And then also people who sit down with their CPA and get a huge tax bill and they're like, Oh, I don't have 8, 000. Well, you did, you just spent it. So we tried to like, take it in a less painful way that you won't notice, but you absolutely had that money at one point. I promise. Yeah. You've just lost
track of it. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, like I don't see an issue with like the profit first method unless clients aren't doing it properly. Right. If they're, yeah.
And we do a modified version. We don't do all the things correctly. But again, even if you can just get someone to have like their taxes set aside, that makes a huge impact. Yeah. In their business and with real estate investing, there's a lot of unexpected expenses that can cripple your business in a heartbeat. And so to be able to be prepared for that, again, we're about like limiting the stress and the drama. And I think that that is one of the ways we do that is with cashflow management.
Yeah.
Do you, so I'm assuming since you work with a lot of real estate investors, you do a lot of like, you have to do a lot of transactions for like house flips and things like that. It gets pretty complex, right?
Yeah. Yes. All the time. And then of course, you know, too.
When people start investing a lot of people, this, this is not people that necessarily had a business before and it's super even for me, like, it's super complicated when I started out trying to get the flow of everything and things move really fast and like, what you understand on paper is very different in the reality of the moment where they're like, well, I got to know now, like, what you're like, wait, wait, I have notes at home and I'm supposed to do ABC and you're like, and.
You don't have the time. So, that's been really helpful too, I think, cause I can like, from my own experience, I can see like, oh, these are the things that hung me up. This is what was confusing to me. This is how I solved that problem. That has nothing to do with bookkeeping, but is super helpful in running your, your investing business.
yeah, that's so true. And the value that you're bringing your clients is. It's just so much higher because of that. So I like to encourage people if they are looking to go into a niche, try to find something where you have more knowledge about the thing or you find the knowledge, right? Like you choose the niche, you, put yourself in the room with other people where you're going to learn about it, operationally, right? Because it's going to make you so much more strategic if you want to be.
having those conversations and adding that value.
Right. And that's where the value of the niche comes from is like, that's what you're really going to focus on learning how to be the best person
¶ Education and training
dealing with people in this industry. And like, for us, we wouldn't take on an industry that we have no experience with. That's like kind of our thing, like any education that we're doing. Yeah. Is geared towards real estate investing. That's the only thing we're going to invest time and money and energy and resources into is things related to that. That said, we've both had long careers doing bookkeeping for a variety of type of industry. So we can still do that.
Well, just it doesn't have that added value of understanding these extra so I don't think that you have to obviously sometimes there's a clear you've had experience in that field, or you're, planning on going into that field or whatever, but it doesn't have to be but you do have to have the commitment to it. Yeah, to really become the expert in that field, whatever that is. So, you know, when it was attorneys, I was contacting the bar association.
I was like, learning all that and, you know, now with this, like I said, it's just a more natural thing because I have to learn it for both ends. I have to learn it for my personal investing and I have to learn it for my clients.
Yeah. Yeah. And so you mentioned, education and things like that. Is that something where you send your team to conferences related to real estate investing? Is it you and the partner that mainly attend those things and then kind of share the information that you learned? How do you handle that?
I'm a big believer in education and training. I think, you can never have too much. Like, you just have to be strategic with it, which just happens as you go along. You kind of learn this is the area I need to work on. This is going to be really beneficial. This is like a nice to have, but I don't really need it kind of thing. Also. I think what they don't tell you about owning a business is it's really all personal development, right? Like, like, like, that's what it is.
It's personal development and a lot more photos than anyone told you about, right? Like, they're always every networking event, you know, any awkward position. There I am. So, So like I personally, I do a lot of personal development type of courses. I feel like if I'm gonna attribute success to anything, for me that's what it's been. It's been mindset work, it's been manifesting, it's been like really, you know, all that thing where I am just becoming a better person.
Yeah. And that always pays off for me. I. Have completely changed my view about money in a lot of ways. I used to be very conservative and now I, I just believe there's like a flow with it. And when I. Like, hang on tightly and so I don't want it that cost too much. I can't do that. Like, that's fine, but no money comes in either. Right? Like, when I'm spending it, I'm always getting benefit. I've never been to a training that I just said, like, oh, I didn't get a single thing from that.
Now, as you go, obviously there's not really any new ideas out there. So it's just like, did somebody say it?
¶ Having a Booth at a Trade Show
And yeah, did somebody say it in a way that was more meaningful to you? Or maybe you're in a different place now. So that thing you heard in the beginning, that was like way, way over your head. Now you're like, okay, I'm ready to take that in. So I think that that's important. We use a real estate, investing bookkeeping course and offer that. To our employees and contractors, so that we're all on the same page, with how we're approaching things, conferences.
We haven't really gotten to that stage yet. We also are planning for a retreat. Eventually, that will be an annual retreat that we'll do so that our team can get together as a team and work on like whatever conference I've gone to whatever we're working on, because I think that's important to to really have your, team in with you on the vision that you have for your business and where you want to go with this. And we are all committed to like making this a huge successful, business.
So everybody on our team is kind of aware of that and, cares about it.
Good. So when, you mentioned earlier that you had a booth at a trade show Can you speak a little bit to like the process of, doing that? Like what it was like, what things that hindsight you didn't think about, but now you're like, okay, I would have done that a little bit differently. And then was it successful? Like, did you get a lot of leads from it? Was it like, you know, sometimes it takes a while for those leads to come through, but, if you've measured that, how did that go?
So We only did the one, and it was a very strategically small local, like up the street from me, very inexpensive, very small one.
So what I did was the year before I went to it, not as a sponsor, but just to attend it and to see what it's like, and to see how other sponsors are set up and what to do, And then signed up for it as a sponsor the next year felt comfortable that it was small and that was like the 1st year that they had done it after coven so I wasn't quite sure what to expect the 2nd year. And it was actually, I think, smaller the 2nd year, but for us that was perfect.
Me and my partner, Loretta, neither one of us are like, extroverts.
Yeah, that's always been my fear. I'm like, in theory, it sounds like
a small number of people is still a lot of people for me. But we brought one of our contractors came with us and she is extroverted and she loves people. Like she was out there greeting everyone and talking to everyone. And so between the three of us. It was manageable. It was a great experience. Number one, it was like, kind of like an unveiling of our brand to an audience to see what the reaction would be. And it was fantastic. It was better than we could have hoped for. So that was great.
I think definitely we were memorable. It definitely was put together. I think that's the biggest thing is like, it's going to be expensive, even for a little one. so you have to, like, make peace with that and think about what you want the image to be in your head for people to remember you. And so we did have a really nice setup. We had giveaways. We had all different things.
the biggest thing we learned was, like, if you're doing, like, book a call, like, they have to actually show up to the call that is. That is key. So we learned that, but we had like barcodes, barcodes are your friends. So there was a barcode to sign up for our newsletter. There was a barcode to book a consult. That was all good. And, again, we spent the money to have like the proper physical pieces, like the backdrop and the counter and stuff.
We didn't use the counter for that one, but we have like a proper setup. And it's kind of humorous because like, on a personal level, I never wear makeup. I never dress up like I'm where I am who I am and there and I feel strongly that that's how it needs to be. But for this kind of thing, I kind of have the opposite approach.
I feel like this is not a personal statement of authenticity, but you're putting your brand out there and you want your brand to be communicated in the best possible light. And so you don't want it to look like things were haphazardly thrown together. You want to spend the money to get it done correctly. So people remember that.
Yeah. Did you hire, I'm going down a rabbit trail, but did you hire somebody to like design the booth layout? And like the backdrop and everything like that. Did you hire like a company to do that? Or did you guys kind of like bootstrap it?
Yeah. So, the, it's interesting. And I do have the privilege of, of starting two bookkeeping businesses, one where everything was bootstrapped and another that wasn't. And so with this. For REI Bookkeeping Babes, our goal has always been like, if we're not good at it, like, let's just pay somebody who is good at it.
Or if it's going to take us time, like some things we're capable of, especially my partner, Loretta is capable of a lot of things, but it's just like, where do we want to put our time? We both have finite time. Is it best spent doing like the design work? No, it's not, you know, is it best spent building a website? No, it's not. One of us could do that. Not me, but, but, you know, even though she can do it, there's other things that she needs to be doing for the business that are important.
And we can hire that out to someone who can do a better job. Who's that's their expertise. So I'm a big fan again, that money thing, like it does cost money to make money.
¶ The Importance of Events
Invest in yourself, invest in your education, invest in your branding and your business. And so, have discussions with professionals. You know, we went to the promotional person, like, what are things that you think are good at trade shows? And what would you recommend for this? Because again, like, we're doing this and you want to have it for us. I wanted all the pieces at the same time, even though I knew we weren't going to use them all at. Event number 1, but I want it to all be together.
So I know it's all cohesive and we did hire someone to help us. You know, create a branding guide and and all of that. So again, things I did not have the luxury of the 1st time around. So it absolutely can be done if you're bootstrapping and, you know, I bartered. I did a lot of things myself. I had no business doing and it was just fine. Yeah. But to scale I do see the difference and now I don't hesitate.
Like I used to be very, like, I'd do it in the beginning like, oh, that hurts to like pass over this money. And I'm like, I can't give it away fast enough to like get this off my plate.
¶ Advice for People Who Don't Have a Niche Yet
Yeah. I love that. So, oh my goodness. So many good things to think about for people, as they start. You know, maybe breaking into a niche or growing within the one that they're in. I think events are a big thing, like wherever you can get that personal interaction with people and build those, relationships is going to be beneficial, whether it's a small networking event or like sponsoring something. Right. There's just the human touch. Is
absolutely, absolutely. I'm going to a real estate investing conference. And again, there was like a casual dinner set up that ended up being a bunch of people. And they're like, maybe we could have sponsorship opportunity. Like I am all over that. Yeah, I'm all over that. So just looking for those opportunities to really share your brand with people. and I think also like just learning that you have to think of it as a brand, right? This is what you are.
You want it in a way that it's easy for potential clients and other people to really digest what you're about.
Yeah. I love this. Okay. So do you have any pieces of advice for someone who is, like just starting out that is like, I, want to go into a niche, but any words of encouragement around whether or not they end up in a niche.
I think unless you have a really compelling niche out of the gate, like your former career just ties perfectly into this thing. In the beginning, I think you just want to focus on getting clients, like it just, just get out there, get clients. Because the thing is, even if you have in your head, like, Oh, I think I'd like to do this. You may do it and find out you hate doing it, right? People are like, Oh, e commerce is really interesting.
Yeah. It's also like huge workload and super confusing and you may hate every minute of it. So find out what you like or people that like end up specializing in cleanups, right? Like that's not typically something you would go into saying, Oh, I know what I want to specialize in, but then if you start doing it. So I think just focusing on getting those first few clients so that you. Feel like a real business owner. And a lot of times they say the niche comes to you.
In my case, I mean, it did ultimately like 5 years later, but in the beginning, it just wasn't coming. And at some point, just pick it right. Just like the name, like at some point. If you don't have the perfect package, like, just sitting there waiting, just get started and just pick a niche that you find interesting. If you've got, you know, 5 clients or so you can kind of say, okay, what's what do I like working on the most? Or where can I add the most value?
and then go out and learn about that. niche. I think the best advice I got on that was, like from networking, just asking
¶ Where to Connect with Randy
people in that niche, you know, so for me, I just asked attorneys, can I just sit down and ask you some questions? Like, I'm not trying to get your business. I just want to like, ask about what things are important to you, what the, you know, what things do you love about your bookkeeper? What do you, you know, what are, pain points that you have? And then like, also taking in the language that they use, as well as.
What's important to them and not, I think, as bookkeepers, we try to maybe impose what's important to us, right? Like, how many times do you hear like, oh, you know, clean, accurate reports. I've never had a client express any interest. Like, they just want to know, like, where's my money going? Like, that's what they want, right? Like, yeah, or. You know, that sort of thing.
So I think it's really important to just familiarize yourself on that level of how people in that niche communicate about. Their industry and what are the, the issues that they're facing and how can you make yourself helpful to them.
Yeah, so good. Well, thank you so much for sharing your experience today. Where can people connect with you if they want to learn more about what you have going on?
So, info at REI Bookkeeping Babes. we have a great website. You can go to, you can reach out to us from there. I'm on Facebook, LinkedIn, all the things, all the places. Yeah. But really, I'll only answer you from Facebook or LinkedIn because again, remember hiring out what you're not good at. So, yeah. Yeah. Instagram, not me. That's the marketing person.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time today and it was amazing getting to learn about your niche and we'll talk
to you soon. Thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it. Yeah.