By Linda A. Hunt

Last week I received an email, from a potential client who needed to meet with me the very next day on some important business. He left me his contact information, so I followed up with a phone call. I did not reach this person so I left a message. I immediately received an email back at his displeasure that I could not meet with him the next day. He then proceeded to seek free advice via email.

This inquiry had red flags flying from the moment I read it. Even though I knew that this was not someone I wanted to work with, as a professional courtesy I followed up.

This is where having strong boundaries in place comes in. How did I know I did not want to work with this person? I have created criteria (aka boundaries) that must be met during the first interactions with a potential client. This potential client did not even register on my scale.

Sometimes you cannot miss the red flags and other times they are not so easy to see. Like a couple of summers ago we had a client who knew that we do not handle cash, nor prepare/make deposits on behalf of our clients. This was an onsite assignment and the client assumed that they could literally bully my new staff person into preparing the deposits. Because I educated my staff person on the internal policies of the firm, my new staff person was able to bring this to their supervisor’s attention and the matter was handled.

Setting boundaries can be as simple as setting your office hours or be a bit more complex, such as what you will and will not spend money on and why. Once those boundaries are set, the next step is to clearly communicate them to all involved so that everyone is on the same playing field.

You can tell where you need to create and implement a boundary by what annoys or exasperates you and/or your staff the most. For example, you are in your office trying to finish your marketing letter and you are interrupted for “little” things that your staff has questions about. Creation and implementation of a boundary in this situation is easy, simply close your door and tell you staff you are not to be interrupted for an hour.

Sometimes creating a boundary is not always that easy. Here is an exercise I learned that has helped me tremendously in setting and communicating boundaries. It is called “My Spokesperson” and the exercise goes like this.

1. Sitting in front of you right now, is your “spokesperson.” It is their job to convey the “what” and “how” message of your business and get that information across crystal clear, without hesitation. Let the sense of relief that they will be the perceived “bad guy” wash over you. (This step was huge for me I didn’t want to be known as the bad guy.)

2. Now tell them or write down the information they need in order to communicate the “what” and “how” message that is to be done in this situation. The spokesperson has no ties to the baggage around fear, rejection, or confrontation. They are here to do a job: get your message across.

The first time you write or say what you need to have communicated, don’t be surprised by the emotion that may come out. That is okay, you are working it out so that the message can be conveyed simply and effectively. Simply try it again until the emotion, blame or justification has been removed.

3. Assume the role of your spokesperson and communicate your message.

Remember boundaries do not have to be mean, harsh, or sterile in how you convey your message. You can be firm and kind, clear and concise while being easy to deal with and all the while not violating your boundaries. Here are a few things I have learned about boundaries and why they are so important both professionally and personally.

□ Boundaries are the cornerstone of your business (and person) – it tells people where you stand and WHY.

□ Boundaries make the difference between being taken seriously or not seriously.

□ Boundaries are critical to your business and personal growth. They must be in place and adhered to.

□ Boundaries require applying the idea of tough love to yourself. If you yourself have established boundaries and stick to them, so will everyone else.

□ When learning boundaries, start with yourself and then move on to teaching others.

Hi – it’s Laurie this week.  I hope everyone had a relaxing fun Labor Day Weekend!  It was nice to have a long weekend.  I was actually able to put some serious miles on my bike this past weekend.  If I am lucky I probably can ride up to October that is if the New England weather stays warm.  Many of you, like myself are sending our children back to school. Where did the summer go?

In this week’s article Red Flags Are Flying! Linda shares a fun exercise to help develop excellent communication boundaries.

Wishing you financial serenity,

Linda & Laurie

By Laurie L. O’Neil

Taking the time out of your busy day to sit back and evaluate your practice is not always on the top of the agenda. Our days seem to get caught up with the details of our business and racing against the clock. You know what I am talking about, we have all been there. It is too easy to get caught up in the day to day and lose focus on our goals. For me, it wasn’t until I started tracking every second of my day that I realized I was getting in the way of making my business successful. I was doing all the marketing, the administrative work, the bookkeeping, the consulting etc. How was I supposed to get ahead when I was spending every moment of my day trying to just get caught up?

Can you say burnt out?

I was so busy trying to do everything myself and I was working an incredible amount of hours trying to get it all done. I think I was up to 70 to 80 hours a week. It took me a while to realize that by stretching myself so thin, I was limiting the potential amount of revenue that I could make in my company.

Here’s what I learned I had to do to in order to get ahead:

1. Learn to give up some of the control and delegate. You can not do it all. Put controls in place so you can trust someone else enough to take over some of the burden for you.

2. Take risks. Don’t be afraid to take chances, learn to trust your gut instincts.

3. Don’t dwell on your mistakes. Learn to accept them for what they are, valuable life lessons learned the hard way. You can not move forward until you put the past behind you.

4. Hire reliable staff. Finding the right employees is not easy, learn to recognize the traits you are looking for.

5. Figure out where you need the most improvement. Is it your marketing or pricing model? Do you have the right service levels in place?

Once you figure out what is getting in the way of your success. You can focus on improving those areas. In my case, getting out of the way of myself took some time, but all my goals were achievable; keep that in mind.

This week it’s me, Linda. 

This week I am taking it easy and getting ready for the long Labor Day weekend. This is my favorite summer holiday. We always have a huge picnic where we eat lobster and homemade stuff clams! The stuffed clam recipe comes from my great-great grandfather on my Mom’s side of the family. I wish I could invite you all so that you could taste them!

Don’t forget to check out the BRN Recommends section in this ezine – we’ve got some great speakers lined up over the next couple of months that you won’t want to miss!

By Linda A. Hunt

My answer none! That’s not entirely true. I enjoy the work that I do and the fact that the majority of the time I get to work and play when I want to. Life/work balance is what they call it and being entrepreneurs we actually have more control over this factor than our counterparts who work for others.

Back in 2003, I was in the process of re-tooling my business and began thinking how nice it would be to work 4-days a week and enjoy a three day weekend, every weekend, without decreasing my current level of revenue! At first I cast the thought off as a “pipe dream” – there is no way I could do that and I came up with all kinds of reasons as to why I could not:

• How will I sustain my current level of revenue?
• What happens if my clients need me that day?
• How will I sustain my current level of revenue?
• What if there is an emergency that my staff just cannot handle?
• How will I sustain my current level of revenue?

 I was letting the repetitive thought “How will I sustain my current level of revenue” dominate my thoughts. Obsessing over this thought kept me thinking inside of the box, making me unable to get out of the way of myself. One afternoon, I was so sick of thinking about this I stood up in my office and started doing the “Hokey Pokey”. That’s right, the song and dance we learned as children – “put your right hand in, take your right hand out…” It was such a silly thing to do that it helped me to break the obsessive thoughts about why I could not work a 4-day week and relax.

For the rest of that afternoon, I enjoyed peace and quiet within my mind. I worked on other things and then the next morning it hit me like a ton of bricks! In order to move to a 4-day work week I had to change my pricing model!

This time I started thinking about pricing from a completely different perspective – how much revenue I wanted to earn that was directly related to my billable hours. At that time I was still performing client work and billing out about 50% of my time. If I wanted to work 4-days a week, I had to evaluate the tasks that I could delegate and those that I could not within my new work week and apply that to my current level of revenue.

Here are the steps that I followed:

1) Determine the number of hours you want to work. You can do this on a weekly, monthly or annual basis.
2) Determine the percentage of those hours that are billable.
3) Determine the percentage of those hours that are not billable.
4) Calculate that number by your current billing rate.
5) Determine the shortfall and make the necessary adjustments. For example, delegate client work to staff, adjust your billing rate, etc.
6) Work your reduced work week!

PS - I bet you will be humming the Hokey Pokey all day long!

Hi – it’s Laurie this week.  I do not know about many of you but I am gearing up for the fall.  I know already?  I have a son heading back to college and I am looking forward to that.

This fall, I am finally trying to achieve my goal of transitioning myself out of doing the sales portion for my company to hiring a Marketing Director.  I have tried to do this in the past without much success.  So what makes this different?  I have spent part of the summer putting together a standard operating procedure together for a sales person.  Stay tuned I will let you know how it goes.
 
In this week’s article How Many Hours Do You Want to Work? Linda shares some great goal setting ideas and a catchy tune to boot.   I hope you all forgive me, but I just couldn’t resist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDmCSvqhhoI
Wishing you financial serenity,

Linda & Laurie

By Laurie L. O’Neil

Let’s face it everyone has had that difficult client that they stumbled upon. You know the one I am talking about, the one that makes you cringe when you see the number come up on the caller ID unit. So how do you recognize that vampire-like, energy-sucking client at first sight?

1. Watch for the warning signs. In that initial interview process you may recognize traits you do not like. It could be a behavioral issue, they may be needy, demanding, or just have unrealistic expectations. I recently was out on a sales call with a potential bookkeeping client. He was looking for someone to come on site weekly. He started to dictate to me how he was going to oversee and review everything we did and then told me how to write the proposal to him. In a very nice way, I told him really what he is looking for was an employee. He was not the type of client I was looking for.

2. Watch out for the drama! Let’s face it, all of our clients have drama but the ones who have constant drama are the hardest clients. Learn how to stay out of the drama. I recently terminated a client relationship because of all of the drama. He was an auto repair shop that had two employees embezzle from him. On top of that he had two previous bookkeepers that did not do him justice either; I knew about one of the bookkeepers but did not realize he had gone through two. One of them represented herself as a forensic bookkeeper – there is no such thing! He was being audited by the state as well. We cleaned up the books for his audit, but he just could not get past all the previous stuff that had happened to him to focus on moving forward. I did not want to be part of his drama.

3. Your client’s emergency is not your emergency. These clients can put you into chaos. I received a call the other day from a mechanical engineering company that was looking to get their books cleaned up in a day and wanted me to come in the next day to do it. One of my staff members took the call and nicely told him I book a week out and asked if he wanted to meet me then. It’s your choice whether or not you want to stay in chaos. People will only do what you allow them to do to you.

4. Set boundaries for your clients. When I take on a new client, I immediately set an expectation of when the client will send us the information or when we will be onsite to do the bookkeeping. If the client can not follow these simple rules, fire the client. These clients will run you ragged, with you constantly trying to chase down their information.

As you grow your practice, it is not necessarily the quantity of clients that you are looking for but the quality of clients. The next time you are out on a sales call, stop to really listen to that client and think is this really a client I want to have and do not be afraid to say “NO”.

This week it’s me, Linda. I hope that everyone has been enjoying their summer and was able to squeeze in a vacation or at least a couple of days off to recharge your batteries.

Once September rolls around you can expect to start hearing from those businesses who have just realized that their books are not up to date and the end of the year is just around the corner. Spend some time this month putting together your marketing letters targeted towards those businesses and be sure to read this week’s article on how to spot potentially difficult clients.

To your financial serenity,

Linda & Laurie

The 6-Figure Bookkeeping Coaches

By Linda A. Hunt

This month, I have been really frustrated – there just does not seem to be enough time in the day to get everything that I need to done. I was becoming irritable and burnt. Then it hit me! I was not maximizing my most precious resource - managing my time and I was allowing those “Time Vampires” back in.

A “Time Vampire” is anything or anyone that steals your time – a new employee, a talkative client, the telephone, your mother-in-law, broken office equipment, etc. Time is an irreplaceable resource and effective use of your time, more than any other habit, increases your productivity. While it is important to understand how much time you spend on activities that produce a result, it is equally important to identify ways in which your time is stolen from you.

Here are the 6 secrets I use to eliminate “Time Vampires” and maximize my productivity:

1. Create a Daily Routine. I actually do this by the week. I have an excel spreadsheet that lays out what I will work on during the week and when. It includes everything from answering email to the time I will have lunch each day. I do this on broad terms. For example, Monday 10 AM to Noon bookkeeping.

I also schedule in two hours of unscheduled time just to handle those unexpected things that come up.
 
2. Plan Your Phone Calls. Plan your phone calls. Make a brief note of what you want to say and what you want to find out. It saves time for everybody and makes for better communication.

3. Set “Do Not Disturb” Periods. Plan a definite time each day when you conduct a meeting with yourself!

4. Don’t Over-Commit. Beware of over-commitment. Remember you are the only one who can protect your time. Learn how to politely say “no.”

5. Set Deadlines. Set reasonable deadlines for all jobs and stick to them. Available time always gets filled with something!

6. Think, Then Act. Avoid the “Shoot First, Ask Questions Later” phenomenon. Think first, then act. Nothing is so urgent that there is no time to consider the decision-making process.

Hi – it’s Laurie this week. Unlike Linda, my office this week has slowed down due to clients’ on vacations. I love this time of year because it gives me an opportunity to review current procedures and make any necessary changes to improve work flow. Also Linda and I have been so busy working on our upcoming Pricing and Packaging Boot Camp that will be coming out in late September, so keep your eyes open for it.

In this week’s article Linda covers one of my favorite topics, Maximizing Your Precious Resource that is time. Here are some great tips!

Laurie