Why Did You Start Your Business?

Welcome to Accountants Law Pod, where accounting professionals and law firms converge. Hosted by Lynda Artesani, Sarah Prevost, and Stephen Libhart.

And today we have an amazing topic, like we always do. Why did you start your business? And I think we're just going to kind of tell our personal stories and maybe interject a little bit. And we drew straws and Sarah wins the short straw, no pun intended.

I love the humor in that one. That was good.

First, why did you start your business, Sarah?

Yeah, so we can go there first. So it was interesting the way I started. It was actually very influential by a few people, but it was also like probably many people that listen to this podcast. When you're tired of feeling beat up, underappreciated, undervalued. You know there's something better out there and you just don't know. There's the magic of like, how do you do it, Steve? I don't know, how do you do it? And the why becomes really more a desire and then almost a necessary need. So, um, I was pretty much in the crossroads and I didn't know, and I, I was in a space where Thank God my mentor and my absolute dear friend who I adore, Seth David, knew something was off with me, reached out to me, and very giving of him and kind of him, he gave me an hour of his time and mapped out how I could run this business. Now, this was 4 months before I— or 3 months before I literally walked away from the, the W-2 employee job.

What year are we in?

We're in 2016.

Okay.

2016. Now, I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit, so I've done kind of like Steve and I've commiserated on. I've done kind of a line of stuff that's very similar. Lynda and I have very similar crossroads too. But anyways, so we were, I'm sitting there and I'm going, and one thing he said to me, and I tell you what, and I'm going to say this to our audience members too. He laid out at the time just factoring what an hourly rate would look like. And of course I know what my hourly rate was as a W-2, but he lays out this thing that's like almost 4 times that number, right? And he goes, are you comfortable charging that? And I thought, no. And he— I said it, I said no. And he dropped it down like $10. How about that?

Oh my God, I love him.

Oh my God. I'm like, um, okay, I'll think about it. He goes, you've got to be comfortable with that. Once you're comfortable with that, you can do it. And he left me the Google Sheet with a whole bunch of notes, sent me a little bit of notes.

Were you scared?

Oh, terrified, right? But then there was that thing deep down inside of me that I knew I had— this was it. I was— that was it. Like, I just knew it in the gut. So I made this decision and I had just turned 40 a month prior to this meeting with Seth. And I provided for my family. I was the provider and the main provider. And I just went home one day and said, I was at my end. I felt cheated about something and hurt. And I just said, I'm gonna do this. My husband looked at me and said, thank God, been waiting for you to change. And I literally just started down this journey. Well, I had between— I allowed myself between that time to kind of marinate on it and think about it and sort of gravitate to what could be. Um, didn't know really where I was going to land per se, but made sure I, I financially set myself up to allow for this moment. And really, once I came out of it, it was like the very next day, like the same day or something, I was closing up here and that LLC was filed and on its way and I was ready to go. And because of just my personality naturally and the community I'm in here where I live, I was referral-based from the day one moment. It was almost like I was, almost like this moment of like the universe just confirmed my value and I didn't know it yet. And I grew through that process. Mm-hmm. And so that, that whole start really changed my mentality and it has really adopted and shaped where I am. And it really came from a place of somebody who was much senior, had been doing this for so long, and really thought more of me than I had thought of myself. And that's where my mom came in.

Mm-hmm.

And she brought it up to me and said, you know, and, and Seth wasn't the only one. I, I did have a, a My other business partner, she really just helped me out too and really kind of helped me through that process. And the same went for her when she was going through a major change. Of course I would give back. And so those were some really key people that had I not been open to listening to it, I wouldn't be here in this way, in this capacity. And man, I regret it because I have no regrets over making that change.

Did you have customers already set up or?

Basically within— I told the first two that called, I said, could you give me about a couple more weeks? I'm not quite there yet. So yes, I did, but I gave myself a little bit more time, a little bit more of a leeway. And I utilized tools like I encourage a lot of people who are starting out or kind of fine-tuning. I, you know, used the SBA. I did a whole bunch of webinars. I allowed myself the time. To understand I might not have had all of the perfect sauce, but I made sure I stayed in groups that were relevant to what I was going to and moving to. I wasn't going to stay in groups that were, I did that years past, I'm going to try and resurface this, or I'm, you know, I wanted to stay in a network of things. And I said yes more than I said no to opportunities of networking, to just kind of seeing what's out there. Mm-hmm. You don't know what you don't know. And then I started to— that's where the no came in in a positive way. It was to card me. The no came in in a way that was like, okay, I've grown to a level that doesn't satisfy me and I need to work towards this.

So it took everything that came by in the beginning. Probably we all probably can say that we did.

All of us did. Yeah, we probably still have. I mean, you and I both talk, Lynda. We have our legacy. Like Steve.

Did you charge what Seth said or did you go a little less?

No, I did. I charged what he said. I didn't do it by the hour. I made sure, you know, obviously I've been in his group for months on end.

Thank you.

And as soon as I knew that, I was like, okay, I'm going to pay. As soon as I— he was the staple I paid for his. So Yes, it is nice to have somebody that gives you that moment, but the payback is if they have a group offering, you pay it. You, you give them back what they gave you. Um, and always question if it's for free, why, why is it for free? What am I giving away because you want my data? So pay to play, it's where I'm at with that in my mind. But, but probably like all of us, We had that starting point, that fear. It felt like a cliff, Lynda. Honestly, I felt like you were just going to— but it also felt— I felt so free. And the first time I felt like I was becoming what I feel confident in right now is I'm just me. I just get to speak more openly. I don't need to be talked down to. I don't need to, you know, and it's not that I needed to. It was just the way I was treated and I didn't know any different. I couldn't see through that forest yet. And a lot of humility and a lot of empathy. And I'll remain there always. I might be super confident in my delivery, know what I know, but there's a big part of me that has a big heart and a big thank you, always.

Gratitude. That you came from a not a great situation in your W-2 job, that that launched you, 'cause it was like a low point that launched you into being able to just be fearless. I mean, you had the money in the bank. That's huge that you had that. I mean, not everybody starts that way. But you had to, like, if you were happy in that job, you might not have ever gone down the road of it. So to think that that was the turning point that got you to go, and I'm wondering if Steve's going to have a similar story to that.

Yeah, I'm sure.

I know you started back, back in my day, so I'll let you go next and tell your story.

Thank you. I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. We Gosh, my grandparents owned restaurants. My mom owned her own income tax business. My dad was an engineer for Samsonite for about 40 years. So he, you know, he was the breadwinner in the family. And I had the best parents on earth who said, "It doesn't matter. We don't care what you do as long as you're the best at it." And I knew—

Mm-hmm.

I knew that I had their vote of confidence. And I went to work in the hotel business for just under 20 years and did really well with that. And then I bought a day spa. I actually built it from the ground up with a partner, and we were very successful with that and sold it for a great profit. And so I, I've always had that in my blood. I've never had the fear of striking out on my own. But after the day spa, I've always been attracted to the legal industry, and we're talking 2004 now. And the man that hired me in the very first law firm that I worked in is still a client of mine today. And he's, he's an enrolled agent, a CPA, and an attorney. And Mr. Suri, if you're watching this podcast, you know that you're in my heart.

I love it.

I learned so much from him.

Yeah.

And he took me under his wing and he trained me and, and groomed me. And the law firm, of course, you know, law firms tend to break up a lot and merge a lot. And there's a lot of movement in the industry. So there's for me, that attracts me. I love the change, and I love the variety. So I was able to just move along through law firms working for people that I had worked with before as they evolved in their firms, and we built that trust amongst each other. And as you know, as time went on, the firms evolved and different things happened. And, and then we, we came up to 2008 and the big crash, the big financial crash. And I was really blessed in that one of the firms that I worked for went out of business and I needed a job. And I was, I was select to be the, selected to be the chief financial officer of this huge multimillion dollar law firm. And they were recovering money from the banks who had defrauded people that caused the financial crash. Mm-hmm. And I learned so much in that job. We had a staff of about 40 to 50 attorneys, a lot of them contract attorneys, and I was tasked with the cost accounting by square foot, by every pencil, by every, you know, penny on the electric bill, by everything. I mean the full accounting job, in addition to all the trust accounting with the millions of dollars and the billing. And we worked with, with a software that was not very good. And so there were a lot of challenges in the billing environment. We were able to pull that together and there were always challenges. And that's what I've liked about the legal industry. And, you know, attorneys are very good at what they do generally, and so are accounting people. But the two don't meet. The two are two different things, and together they're very powerful. And that's what attracts me to this industry. I just absolutely love it. Well, when the Obama administration went out and the Trump administration came in, a lot of the laws were repealed that were protecting consumers with banks. And we're seeing some of that today with the smaller banks and some of the issues that they're having, that that's starting to rise up again. The firm that I worked for, this large firm that I mentioned, ended up closing down. And one of the principals is still an attorney and the other one's now a federal judge. And they're still very close friends of mine and just love them to death. I'm very connected in the community here, the legal community, and I'm so blessed.

Mm-hmm.

But that was when I decided, and we're talking 2017-ish now, '18, somewhere in there.

Mm-hmm.

I was like, I'm going to go full-time and I'm going to go for this in my own business. Now, to your point, Lynda, I did have some clients obviously that I had kept in my back pocket through the years. And, you know, I was doing the typical QuickBooks Desktop, going to their office, dialing in, struggling with their servers. All those kinds of things and charging them $20, $25 an hour, working on Saturday mornings for them, you know, that sort of stuff. And I'm like, you know, I can do this in my own business. And for all of us, the timing has been so perfect with, you know, the way technology has come along and with Zoom and, you know, as awful as COVID was, it really forced all of us to find creative ways to work remotely. And I think we've done well with that in our industry. It's really allowed for us to do that in— Yeah. In so many ways that other industries can't. Like, if we owned a restaurant, we'd have to go to work in the restaurant, but we don't have to in this job. And we've really, all of us have worked so hard to build trust with our lawyer clients that they now embrace what we do and they trust us and they look to us for guidance and those sorts of things. So that's my passion for coming into this business. And as far as, you know, I'm always subscribing to the thought of if you, if you build it, they will come. I don't worry about the money. I do passionately believe in charging for what we're worth.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. There's, and I'm, that's one of my biggest mantras when I talk to people who are, you know, asking about getting into this niche. It's like, don't undercharge. Be the best at what you can be. Learn it, embrace it. Enjoy it, have fun with it. If it's not right for you, get out of it. But that's what brought me along this path, and that's where I'm at now. And this is the last career I will ever have.

This, this is it. When you started your business, did you find that you right away went into legal, legal bookkeeping? You didn't even go like— I mean, you might take other clients here and there, but did you when you started, did you go right into the legal because you like it?

One of my largest competitors was another day spa, and she just closed her business down this last year. And so I just closed her books down and had dinner with her about a month ago and we're done. She was my last one, but the rest of them were all attorneys because I knew then that that's what I wanted to do. I remember the first day I sat down, my desk had 3 legs and I had to hold it up with phone books for the 4th leg in this law firm, the very first law firm I worked in. And they put me in the mailroom and that was the accounting office.

Oh.

And I didn't know what a trust account was. Mr. Suri, the gentleman I mentioned, came in and sat down and talked with me. He's like, this is— he said, I see this in you. You can do this. I believe in you. I mean, he was so cool and he taught me trust accounting and off I went with it. So to answer your question, yeah, once I, once I took off with attorneys, I took off with attorneys.

Well, what year was that when you started?

2004.

You were real cutting edge then.

Nisha, I was going to say there's two things that I'm thinking of when you're talking about this story, obviously. The entrepreneurial spirit for all of us, right? We've had those family members, and I love that you've had this. I mean, I feel the same way, like your heart, you just know it.

It's your heart.

Yeah, your heart.

Yeah, your passion.

But I— what I love is, is kind of similar to what I didn't even myself describe, but I loved and appreciate what you're saying is once you find a vertical that really complements you without even knowing that it complements you, and it is that puzzle and it intrigues you. It just— I feel like it kind of— what I'm hearing in you too, it propels you. You've had such an amazing opportunity in, in a similar— both of us came out of hospitality. You ran an amazing spa, so you have this, this thing where you know how to manage people, employees. And build that calmness and then—

And inspire them and—

Yes.

Let them know that they're important.

Yeah.

Isn't that what's pulled the three of us together? I mean, we have a lot of the same traits.

I mean, think about it. When I, my grandfather ran his own business, he actually was an employee in a screw machine factory and he saved every penny and bought the owner out.

Oh my God, what an amazing story, Lynda.

I mean, I have stories about him. He was a workaholic and he— when this blizzard of '78 came and they closed all the roads down in Rhode Island, he took his Volkswagen Beetle and drove over the snow and got to work. He didn't care. Nobody went to work but my grandfather. And so he— and he pretty much brought me up because my dad passed away when I was young. So he was my inspiration. But I actually have a similar story to Sarah. I had a boss That was not very— I learned a lot from the man, but he was the crux of making me— I just, I just up and left that job because I couldn't take it anymore. I worked at a big— I was a property manager and I worked in a big office complex downtown Providence and 300 tenants.

Wow.

And I ran the budget and did all those things and made sure he You know, I told him when I started that job, I said he had a vacancy factor and I said, I will have it so you have a list in your drawer and all of those office space will be rented. And he was like, that's never happened. The guy before you, I said, I don't care what the guy before me did. He probably got— I'm gonna do this for you. And he lived in Florida and he would come up, but he would undermine me. So I would do all these things to get him in the, get him in being in the black. And he would come in and they, people would complain, oh, she, won't do this or she won't do that. And he would go and give it to him anyway after I said no, they couldn't have it. And he did that so many times, I just couldn't take it anymore because it was just— he wasn't valuing me. So I decided that that was going to be my launch point to start doing this. So I didn't do it full-time, so I stayed in my full-time W-2 job, had benefits, and in the meantime I did this on the side. So I would come home from work and work until I only had like enough for a part-time. So I would work—

Sure. Part—

and I— what I did, I was— I would actually go into the Providence Journal and look for part-time work, and I would work on Saturdays and Sundays, go to these offices, drive. It was desktop days, and at some point I ended up having the ability to work with LogMeIn. So I was a big follower of Michelle Long. Still am. She was my, like, guru in QuickBooks, and I started to follow her. But in all of that, and starting my business, it got to the point where my now husband, which was my fiancé, said to me, It's 2 o'clock in the morning. You have to get up to go to work at 8 o'clock. You can't keep this up. You need to leave that job. And I said, I can't. I don't know if I can afford— because back then, as you know, Steve, you did the work, you got paid. And I was too fearful. I had enough to cover it, but what if somebody didn't pay me?

What if?

Yeah, what if? Yeah.

Bills, you know, I had a lot of things that I paid for. I had a new car, and it was after I got divorced, and He said, this is not working out for us because all you're doing is working. But it started to take off. Somebody saw me and then I got hooked up with a nice CPA who was like, he said, oh, I'll give you more clients. And he took me under his wing and gave me a lot of— I learned a lot from him. But the funny thing is, is I think back to my school days and I loved accounting. I loved everything about the paper grid sheet and the teacher that told me I couldn't use a calculator and I learned all along manual way. Mm-hmm. And my first job, I was 15 years old, and I worked as an intern in a law firm. Forgot all about that. At some point it came back in my head, and then I had— after, um, before I got the job at Richmond Square, I had a job working for a lawyer and a CPA, and I learned a lot from these two guys. They were so much fun. So I learned along the way, but I always had a law firm somewhere in there. But then I was a generalist for a lot of years. And then at some point at QuickBooks Connect, I said, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna listen to all these people who keep saying how smart it is to switch. And I loved, I figured it out with the same dear friend of Sarah, Seth David, who said, I said, I wanna do this, I wanna specialize and I don't know what to pick. And I went through this, he said, just pick 3 and the right one will come. And then I figured it out. And then lo and behold, right after that, Sarah comes into my life. Wow.

We came into our lives earlier. We didn't know it, remember?

Right.

We didn't— that crazy story was just wild. I, I was in a session. It was a panelist session. Mariette was speaking.

Oh yeah, Mariette Martin.

I was sitting in the front. Lynda was sitting in the front. I raised my hand and said, I literally just started this business less than about— I was about 3 weeks in. She remembered that moment.

Yep. I had to be sitting next to you, Sarah, because we had to have been at QuickBooks Connect. And we're talking about me starting to go to the specialty area. And I told her I was— that was QuickBooks Connect. And we started talking about— and we started talking about this one particular session. And she says, about, where were you sitting? And I said, oh, I always sit in the front. I'm past the age of hiding in the back. And she said, oh my, I was in the front too. And the same—

I love it.

Telling the story of the session, like, we had to be in the same seat. So it's kind of a karma thing that we ended up combining forces. And I think a lot of times I'll be thinking about my business and what we're doing now and how we're moving forward with the Proper Trust. And I think that I don't think I could be who I am today and how I handle things today without Sarah, because she's changed me in perspective. I've— it's still— I'm still learning. And then doing the Law Lab with her, and then we meet you, and I learned so much from you. Yeah. It's like this ability to learn, but we've had so many same paths, because even back to when my first job, my real job out of high school, I didn't work in hospitality, but I worked at Blue Cross, and I was the person in personnel. That's how long ago it was called personnel.

And I—

When people were hired, I had— I did the orientation, and a girl who was terrified and very shy, I landed this job.. And I had to stand in front of all these professionals and take them to their boss. And that's my opening door to being outgoing and more expressive and being more like my dad was. But I got that piece of being not afraid to talk to people from that job. And I was terrified in the beginning, but then I got a groove and I realized they're just people and you just kind of get through. But people skills balances. So I think that— Mm-hmm. For anybody listening, I did the gig job with a side gig until I couldn't do it anymore. I had so much work, I had to let go of the real job. And even at that, I let the boss know I was leaving and he said, oh, please don't leave, I'll give you X amount of dollars. I'm like, nope, I made my mind up. And then I stayed on for 3 more months because he needed me until I realized 3 months in, he's never gonna look to somebody until I leave.

Sure.

I'm not gonna take it, but then he's just gonna keep stringing me along. And I finally, I finally left like in February and I had quit at the end of the year, but I stayed through to make sure that he was okay through that and I just left. But if Sarah was in my life, she would've had my butt out of there in November. She would've said, what are you doing? No, he can find his own person.

You know, it's funny as what you said and I, I thought it was really, I feel like it's kind of a, a, a thread of, of us. But you said something where we took a chance on ourselves is what I'm hearing from all of us. Right. And I— you reminded me, I was— oddly, it's funny to hear it say this now because people go, really? I was pretty shy for a while, and I went and I signed up to sell Mary Kay, and I sold $1,000 in one month just like that. I had to stand in front of everybody, had the whole thing, and talk about learning how to be an entrepreneur, learning how to hustle. I was like, I'm not— I'm not going out and knocking on door. I don't want to go knock on that lady's door with my paint bag. But I did. I went and knocked. I did Cutco. I did that too.

Can I tell you what my first one was?

Which one?

I was 9 years old. We lived in a little town up in the mountains of Colorado, and I was a cheerful greeting card salesman at 9 years old. I had a little suitcase and I went door to door in this little town and sold greeting cards. And I had a little box that I would keep my money in and I would count my money every night and I would I would pretend like I was the banker and I would pay rent. And that's where I started learning all this crazy stuff. But I, right there, learned how not to be afraid to knock on doors and ask for business. It's not that hard.

Yeah, it's different. It's different for everyone too, right, Steve? So for you, it's one style. I guess the thing is, is what your mind, 'cause what happened was my fear, was preventing me, and I didn't see it in that view at that point. But what my mind, what my gut told me, and my heart told me— and I always do trust that— because one thing I will say is my grandfather, who was an accountant in Egypt, was not allowed to practice that profession. How many times do we hear this about people that have these really prominent jobs in their country, but it doesn't translate to ours, right? Mm-hmm.

Right.

And so they have, there's no conduit for that. And so when I think about like this counting and this analogy, Lynda, that you've had, it's the same, that same kind of entrepreneurial, and you do have a mixed bag. And I feel like we're sometimes the most kind of bipolar people in the sense of like, not in a diagnosis, but had an amazing time today and then it just went to shit after the end of the day. It was like, go back up again. But you have to be okay with that. You have to have strength in that and a voice. So I love your stories, I have to tell you, all of you, both of you.

Well, you know, likes attract. We've attracted each other because of our background and our passion for this industry. And that's huge. And I think a lot of people are looking for that path in their own lives and we've been blessed. That we found it.

And I think the Law Lab too, I think that, that, that's kind of where some of our passion funnels through because we've got the Law Lab and we meet young people that have one lawyer client and they're like, I want more and how do I get more? And I think that that's some of the fun of doing— it's our way of giving back, but it's nice to share. I think giving people that confidence like Seth did, that's kind of our way of giving back because there's plenty of people in our group that they have what it takes to do it. And this past few weeks, Sarah and I have met a few attorneys that have said right out to us, I didn't even know there was a bookkeeper. They all say they can do legal bookkeeping, but they don't realize that it's not so easy. And they don't really know legal accounting. They know bookkeeping and accounting, but they don't know the trust accounting, the advanced client costs, the things that you need to know for knowing accounting and he said to work with attorneys. And I think that that piece of it, he said, I wish there was a way to find you all. And he said that he found both of them, I think found us. No, one was a referral and one found us through the videos. And I think that sometimes you, you know, you have to get it out there that that's what you do.

Exactly.

And the pressure that's less on the attorneys when they hire us, we know what we're talking about. And I think that that in the long run will be what gets us through. It's just getting— letting the word out to know that you can charge more for this. And Steve, I charged $25 an hour too in the beginning. I meant to tell you that, that I charged the same darn rate. So I guess I was charging okay because it feels like— That was my beginning rate, and I did hourly because we were desktop. And yeah, portal to portal, I charged a fee to drive there and drive home.

I think there's a message too in this, you know, Somebody lends a hand. I mean, we see this a lot. We have a lot of people ask things for free, understandably, but there's also this respect line. We've been doing this for a long time. We have paths and avenues we've created out of demand need. That's another way to support our community and us, not just us as individuals, but our community. And you, you just never know where you're gonna make a collaboration, or you're gonna— you just don't know what the— staying open. We— it sounds like we all stayed open in these weird moments in our lives and these turning moments. I mean, that's a huge thing to sell a very successful business. And Steve's told me this story where it's like the, the attorney was like, no, you, you do want— he's like, I don't want to sell. And he's, no, you, you do want to sell for this price. You want to sell for this, right? He's like, wait, I'm done? Okay, now what?

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I strongly believe there's enough business in our niche for everybody that we know in our legal community, our legal bookkeeping and accounting community. There's enough business for everybody. And one of my passions is to support people and help get everybody busy. Get past your fears and get busy because there's enough work out there. There really is. And once you build that trust, That's one of the reasons I love your name, The Proper Trust. I've always loved that. Once you build that trust with the attorneys, they go practice law and you do accounting and the two meet in the middle and everybody's just fine. When you say something, they believe you because they know you're going to stand behind it. There's tons of work out there for everybody.

I think that's what we have to have is Steve's got a happily, happy ever after moment here.

Does he have a quote or we not give him a heads up enough?

Well, I do have a quote that I think applies to today. Instead of feeling the fear, feel your fear. Embrace this journey and reach for your success.

Oh, I love it.

So good. I love it. You're so good at that.

I come from the spa business.

You know it.

If I knew you and that spot, Lynda and I would be there. Like, I love it. Oh man. Well, I can't wait to see you in a few short weeks.

Oh, I know, I know. It's going to be like meeting your sister and brother that you haven't met for 1,000 years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm jealous. You have to go to QuickBooks Connect.

Oh yeah, I've got it on the calendar.

Yeah, it's definitely— and And if anyone's doing Scaling New Heights, we'll be there too, Lynda and I. She says I drag her, but you know, we're two peas in a pod. We're going to go together.

It's going to be a short trip, but we'll have a lot of fun. And Sarah's speaking there, so it's going to be really great on a great topic. So I am excited to go to that session.

In Dallas? Isn't it in Dallas this year?

St. Louis.

Oh, in St. Louis.

Okay. I think it's Uh, was it BKX? That's, uh—

They run against— they overlap each other, unfortunately.

Yeah, yeah, unfortunately. That's always the topic.

Really, really good, uh, sessions. I mean, so I'm going as a student, which I'm really excited about, and I'll get to Sarah's class and heckle her. But yeah, so another great podcast this week, and I think this was really interesting, and hopefully some people out there, the listeners, will be like, wow, they can do it. I have the same thing going on. I'm going to do it too. On that note, we'll see you all next time.

Thank you.

Thank you.