Episode 13: Profitability in Virtual Bookkeeping with Gabrielle Fontaine

From the studios of Fractal Recording, this is the Profit first podcast.

Episode number seven plus six, which is 13. Yes. Yes. Dude, that's the counting joke.

Oh my God.

Dude, these guys. Who are the guys playing the guitar and drums and like. We don't know the band.

No, no, this is.

This is like some guy in a studio. I bet you just want. Here's what it is. It's a 13 year old kid. Kid who did it in his bedroom.

Yes.

And he's making coin off of us. I mean, we pay what, a dollar? I mean a penny of royalty each episode.

I don't know, something like that. More than that.

More than that.

But we should have a live band one time coming.

I want a live band doing this song.

Yes.

Yeah.

So welcome everyone to the Profit first podcast. I'm Chris Curran, I'm the founder of Fractal Recording.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz, author of Profit First. And on this show we talk about profitability. Actually, we talk more than just that. We talk about all these different businesses, we talk about their numbers. We have a lot of fun throughout. But we get to the bottom line of really what the numbers are like in the business.

That's right. And there's a lot that goes into profit. It's not just numbers. It's attitude and authenticity and a lot of other things.

Yeah, that's what we're learning. You know, when we started this, we said we're going to be talking all about accounting and stuff like this and it's turned out to be way more than we ever expected.

Right.

It really hasn't. But they sounded.

It's very broad.

That's. Yeah, yeah, broad.

And folks, two broads walking to a bar. And so we got some great sponsors, though. We really do.

No, we do have amazing sponsors because they keep on re upping. This is our 13th episode.

That's right.

I mean, if you didn't do the math. 7 plus 6, 13 episodes. The first sponsor on board was Nextiva, the phone provider. Voiceover ip. Amazing. They called me literally right before we started recording this and said, we're in again. I said, in again for what? They said, what do you mean? And I said, I don't know. What do you mean? And then there was total confusion. I said, no, we're good. Everything's proceeding perfectly. And then the managing director over there says, oh, fine, good. So they don't know they're still sponsoring us. This is what it boils down to. But they're awesome. I love that company. Yeah, we Also have Fundera, the funding source. One spot fund funding. You need money for your business, Any aspect, go to fundera.com and tsheets. It's time tracking software. So we all need to track our time so we can have accountability to our clients and blah, blah, blah. T sheets is the source.

Yeah, T sheets, Fundera and Nextiva. We have links for them on the. On the show post.

Yeah, we've linked. Yep. Right at the bottom in the show notes. They're always linked there. And, you know, and we're willing to take on more sponsors. You know.

That's right. If you want to get in front of our billions of billions.

Our billions of listeners. Well, we have almost a billion downloads. I just sit there myself and just download, download, download.

That's the English building. Billion?

Yeah, yeah.

Is it a billions different in the UK than the United States. Did you know that?

I did not know that. What's an English.

I think in the UK it's like, what is what we call a trillion? They call a billion. I think. Really, I might be wrong.

That sounds so bizarre.

Maybe one of our listeners can comment on the show post and set the record straight on that one.

We'd like to hear.

Maybe our guest knows.

Oh, yeah. I hope you muted her now. She's right now. You know what Gabrielle's doing? She's on Google. Oh, my God. What's a billion in English? I mean, British. I mean. I don't know.

Right.

Can I talk about our guests or do we know? Well, dude, first of all, man, what have you been up to? I haven't seen you in, like.

I know. Well, it's a week. It's a new year and it's been good. It's been a little cold here and everything, but it's good. My meditation. I'm doing a lot of meditation these days, and it's. It's really helpful.

I love it.

Yeah, it's really cool. What about you, man?

You notice this thing?

What? Yeah, you're. You're putting something on my lips here.

I had. When we filmed. Filmed. We didn't film. When we recorded the first episode, like this red blotch going on. Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I mentioned on air, and you're like, God, dude, it's hideous. And I'm like, I don't know what it is. I went. I had to go to a dermatologist and he says, oh, you're having a reaction to your Burt's Bees. Your Burt's Bees chapstick. I'm like, oh, my God. And I was. It was like turning into this lump. And I said, well, my lips are getting really chapped. He goes, oh, just use. This is coconut oil. Just use coconut oil. Or coconut butter. Yeah, this is coconut. You could literally eat. Look at this. Look at this. See, that's Pooper Scooper. I'm eating it.

You're eating it.

I'm eating my Chapstick and putting it.

On your Princess Chapstick now.

Over my face.

Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my. This is. I wish Rick Clemens was here. Oh, no. Two episodes ago. Rick, if you're listening, and you would love that one, you know who our guest is today?

I do, actually.

It's Gabrielle.

Yes.

Gabrielle Fontaine.

Yes.

So let me tell you her background first.

Sure.

Gabrielle and I met. She'll remember this, I hope. In Philadelphia. I took her out for a Portuguese dinner. Now, we met at. I'll remember. Maybe she'll remember the event. I think it was the Yellow Pages. Decks one. It's. They own the Yellow Pages.

Okay.

Met her out there, started talking. I remembered her. She forgot all about me. I reached out to her. Two years later, I'm like, you're really into this accounting bookkeeping scene. I want to learn from you. And we hooked up again at a conference at Intuit, and now we're best of buds. She consults businesses, micro businesses, freelancers, small businesses. On getting her books under control, managing the cash flow, all the taxes and that stuff. She's an author of a blog for professional bookkeepers called the Freelance Bookkeeper. And she's a runner. Like a marathon runner.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we can ask her lots of marathons.

Question, does she run up the steps in Philly? Like, I want to do that.

In the Empire State Building, they do that. Where do you run up the steps in Philly? Like, no.

What. What Rocky did in the movies. Right.

Oh, well, we gotta ask her.

We'll ask her that.

Okay.

Should we get her on?

Let's bring her on board.

Gabrielle.

Gabrielle.

Hey there, guys.

So first question. Did you run the steps like Rocky?

No, I haven't run up the steps, but I go there often to go running to the art museum in Philadelphia.

Do you wear just gray sweats with a hood?

No, I wear more fashionable attire.

When we come to Philly, can we film you running up the steps like Rocky and raising your arms and celebrating and everything?

Sure. And gasping for air?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. And then bending over and then just throwing a big left hook into a.

Meat slab and limping home.

That's it.

You can bring the meat up to the top of the stairs.

That would be a scene, that half to see me and Chris hauling up a half of a cow up there. So you can get.

I'll have to get permission from the city.

So, Gabrielle, how long have you lived in Philly?

11 years now.

And have you run your business out of Philly the whole time, or were you running it elsewhere?

Well, I've been in business over 25 years, Mike, but I don't believe it. Actually, since 2003. Yeah. When I moved here is when I restarted my business. And that's when I decided to go totally virtual, totally through the Internet. And so, yeah, my business, ever since I restarted it or started it again in Philadelphia, has been virtual.

Well, tell us what the business does, what you do exactly.

Well, I'm a freelance bookkeeper, and I also do consulting with small, as you said, micro businesses. But when I started writing a blog, just because I wanted to help out other bookkeepers, they saw that I was working virtually and started asking me to consult with them, to help them out, to teach them how to work through the Internet. So then that all grew into kind of the other arm of my business, which is consulting and helping freelance bookkeepers to start and grow their own bookkeeping business.

It's no surprise that there is that appeal to the virtual business model. That's what Chris and I were talking about. We wanted to learn from you today. Tell us about. First of all, why is there such an appeal? You have all these people coming to you, asking, how do you run a virtual bookkeeping business? Why is there such an appeal to it in the first place?

Well, it feeds into that. I don't want to go to a job and work for the man. I want to be my own boss and work at home. But if you're already an established business, the big draw to working virtually is you're not just limited to the clients that are in your local area. You can work with clients anywhere. Usually that means within the same country, but it can mean all over the world.

But what about the resistance from clients? You know, I want my bookkeeper to be in my back pocket when I call him or her. Usually it seems to be a her, but him or her. I want her to be able to drive her to my office. Do you get that resistance from clients?

Not anywhere near like we used to with technology, especially mobile technology is driving everything to go quickly. But clients actually want their bookkeeper to be virtual so that they can call you and deal with you from anywhere. They also want the books Online more and more. I've never seen it like it is now. Everybody wants their books online so that everybody can. Meaning the client and the bookkeeper and the accountant can all access the information simultaneously. It's a lot more convenient to work virtually than it is to wait for the bookkeeper to come into the office. Because it used to be everybody was afraid of the security, but there's less fear of that now, believe it or not.

And do companies expect to pay less for someone who's virtual than someone who comes in?

That's a great question, but I would say no. It's actually the other way around. They expect you to be much more professional as a bookkeeper because, see, some small businesses think of a bookkeeper. Oh, that's data entry clerk, you know, that's administrative. That's just somebody. I should be able to pay minimum wage. Well, they think of the bookkeeper that way, if the bookkeeper is showing up to do the books on site. Whereas when you're running your own business and you know the technology now, you become more of a professional. And they. I think that they respect us more and more expect to pay a professional fee.

Do you sell it? You basically just sold me on virtual bookkeeping. Do you sell it that way? When you speak to a prospect of client explaining that by being virtual, not it's not that the bookkeeper has freedom to be wherever, but the owner of the business themselves can be anywhere.

Absolutely.

Do they understand that going into it though, or is that something you sell and educate them on?

Well, I'll tell you, the acceptance curve of the technology is pretty wide, Especially here in Philadelphia, I've found, because I'm originally from Boston, which we're used to high tech there too. But coming to Philly. Philly's an interesting city in that the business community, you have some cutting edge technology here. But then you also have, especially here in South Philly, I found a lot of small businesses that they still do things by hand. I know of one business that I saw was shocked is still using ledger cards by hand. And also some doctors offices, they're using Selectric typewriters.

I don't know if they heard of this new invention called the wheel.

Yes. I had one doctor that I didn't continue with because when he found out what I did, he. He's like, oh, you deal with those computer things.

Oh my God, like, who is this guy?

I was like, ah, let me out here. He's gonna kill me. He doesn't know technology and still in business.

Like, who are his Customers.

Oh, yeah. And I Even from. I can bring this back to profit, too, because from a cash flow standpoint, they make their patients pay by cash or check. They will not even accept a debit card to make payments. And, I mean, that's not that unusual here with some very small businesses. But then you have other companies, like the Neat company is in Philadelphia, you know, for neat receipts. That all technology that's here in Philly. So the learning curve is. An acceptance curve is pretty big. So that when I do get calls for potential clients who are like, hey, you know, I want you to come into my office and do this, and I. I just explain to them that I don't go on site, that I work totally virtually. Explain it to them. Explain the advantage to them. But I know the technology is new to them. I will let them know that. I'll train them and show them how it all works. And from there, I can see how they react, whether or not they're ready for it. Because either they're like, no, I want somebody on site, and I'm like, okay, let me refer you to someone. Or then they're like, yeah, that sounds cool. I think I'd like that. Let's try it.

Chris. You know, this show is coming off the wheels when our guests feel obligated to say, let's bring this back to profit. Oh, my gosh. So what about the seclusion of being virtual? You're at your office or your home office, and now you don't have access to these other businesses that if you had a business suite, you'd be naturally networking. Is there some downsides to being virtual?

That's a great question. I thought you were gonna say more feeling isolated and lonely. Because that's usually what I hear about people working at a home office, which I've never experienced that.

Chris, can you queue up our therapy music and then we'll ask.

Actually, we have some therapy music to be alone.

Okay, hold on. Now we're gonna pull up some therapy music. Hold on. So, Gabriel, when you're home alone trying to keep your business afloat, how painful is that?

Ever since I was a child.

Tell me about the first time you punched a slab of meat with Rocky. All right, so we're back. And we're back. So my original question. What's your answer? Because I can't remember it.

Everyone's like, what about the isolation or not being.

No. Does the compromise for the networking.

Not a problem at all? Because the networking happens online. I mean, a good example. And it's gaining momentum Even More so is LinkedIn. I do a lot of networking on LinkedIn and then attending industry conferences, whether it's for an industry of whatever niche I'm in or if it is for my industry, accounting industry. Then I meet people that I have already met online. And you continue the relationships. Kind of like how you and I grew this relationship.

Oh, totally. Do you call yourself an introvert?

Yes.

Oh, my God, it's so funny. I would say she's the least introverted person. I'm Chris. I'm walking to the intuit. Quick connect. I think it was called Gabrielle. She's with, I don't know, five or six other acquaintances. And she's like, I'll save you a seat. And this, this conference has 2,3000 people going to the keynote, which is like Magic Johnson and Martha Stewart. And all of a sudden I go like, where's Gabrielle? All of a sudden I say, mike, I'm over here yelling, jumping up and down. People are like, oh, hey, Gabrielle. Gabby the gapster. So introvert. Yeah, right. It's funny. It's funny how people call themselves an introvert. Yet I wonder what that really means. I don't know.

Well, it's interesting that your memory is that, Mike.

Why is that wrong?

I didn't call out to you. I just stood up as a beacon.

And you found an introverted beacon.

Oh, she's an ib. She's an ib. She's an introverted beacon.

I have a hard time to speak in front of a crowd or to be in a large crowd, that's all.

Well, right now you're speaking to 18 million people, but I can't see them.

Oh, I gotcha. So you should. You know what you should do is you should do public speaking with a blindfold on. And you would just crush it, Mike.

That's why I do webinars, which.

We did a webinar together, Chris.

Yes, we did.

Gabrielle has the most loyal community ever. How did you build a community that ravenous for what you're doing?

The reality is just be real. How do you like that? That's valid point, isn't it?

We gotta fill it more than a minute, so keep going.

No, it's be authentic. Just be who you are. I'm out there doing the bookkeeping with clients and then talking about it with colleagues and they wanna talk about it. So it's just building relationships on an authentic level.

This is a common theme we're hearing on the show over and over again. It seems like the formula to profit starts with authenticity. It's just an interesting theme.

Yeah, it's real.

It's real. Well, you know, I'm sorry, Chris. Yeah.

Quick question. Is it difficult for a bookkeeper to be profitable in general? I'm curious.

Hmm, That's a. Where'd you get him?

We have one smart person and one smart ass person.

And I lost the. The. Who's gayer?

Oh, we'll talk about that in a second, Gabrielle. I'm gayer, by the way. So what was your question?

It's hard for a bookkeeper to be profitable when bookkeepers struggle. The issue is, number one issue is their own confidence and charging enough. Because as much as I just said about how some business owners will view a bookkeeper like a data entry, you know, administrative clerk. A lot of bookkeepers view themselves that way so that when they go start their own business, they think they should charge what they would get paid per hour in a job. And they kind of cut their own throat when it comes to profitability. So once they realized acting like a professional should get paid professionally, then they have no problem. It's a high profit business.

You know, one challenge when people charge hourly is the more proficient you become at your work, the less money you make.

Yes.

How do you navigate that?

You could move more to a flat rate, but with bookkeeping, that can be a little tricky because especially when it comes near tax time, bookkeepers get potential clients coming out of the woodwork who haven't done their bookkeeping all year and have screwed up books and they want them cleaned up and they want to know, so how much is that going to cost me? And there's no way to know when the books are really messed up. So often we will charge hourly on that because you can lose your shirt if you do flat rate on something that you're going in totally unknown how messed up it is. And as a tip to any bookkeepers listening, they know this, that when a client comes to you and says, hey, you know, there's a few things that are not quite right with my books, could you clean that up? How much is that going to cost? The books are probably a huge mess. Because whatever a client thinks there's a problem with the books, it means they're really messed up.

Isn't that funny? And people ask for the price first, of course. Right. That's normal human nature. You know, how much is going to cost me? And then they. They downplay what the work is going to be.

Right?

Gabrielle, when people ask you, what's your fee before they even know what you do. Exactly. Because you're just a bookkeeper in their opinion. How do you navigate that one?

If price is your only consideration, your number one consideration, then I'm not the bookkeeper for you. Let me refer you to someone who is affordable. More affordable, I hope.

Ron, my sales guy, is listening to that right now because this is a common objection we get, like, how much does it cost to be part. Whoa, whoa, Mike, you're charging too much.

Gabrielle, man, you are tough. Right?

That's not tough, though. That's the way to do it.

No, no, it's not. It's not hard. And I'll tell you, most small businesses that are calling for help don't first ask what the price is. They will usually talk about their pain. And that's what you want. You want them to tell you what the problems are.

I see.

So we're at the breakpoint. Yes, we, Gabrielle, we've introduced a game show. About two weeks ago. We did. We also have a different game show. And we did. Last two weeks ago, we did the who's Gayer? Game show. And How Gay are you? Game show. Because our guest was a coming out coach. You, Gabrielle, are invited to be the first contestant on the Best Worst jokes game show. Welcome. Come on down.

The best of worst jokes.

Okay, so we have a collection of six jokes. Chris will read off three, and I'll read off three. And your job as the contestant is simply to pick which is the best worst joke. Okay. Okay. Chris, you're the first one.

Okay. Is the top and bottom the same or just. They're all just different jokes?

They're all different jokes. You pick your favorite three. If you're not ready, I can go first.

Go ahead.

Okay, first joke. What does an accountant say when boarding a train? Mind the gap. Okay, that was number one. That was the.

Wow.

Chris, can I hear yours?

Okay, remember, these are the best of the worst jokes. Yes.

What happens when you lock a wild hyena and an accountant in a room? The hyena stops laughing.

That's hysterical. Okay, that was number two.

All right, Mike.

All right, number three. Did you hear about the deviant forensic accountant? He got his clients charges reduced from gross indecency to net indecency. Okay.

Okay, number four. Doctor. Doctor, I've taken the medicine you prescribed, but it's not working. What should I do? Try using your calculator. How will that help? I'm not sure, but it's something you can count on. Oh, that's the winner. Oh, that was horrible.

She caused the winner. Here's my last shot. Here's my last attempt. Gabrielle, what do you call an accountant with an opinion? An auditor. Okay, last joke.

Oh, terrible.

Last joke of the day.

Okay, so you want me to pick?

No, wait, wait. One more. One more joke coming. One more.

All right. Did you know that 10.

This is that good.

I'm sorry, did you know that 10 out of 9 accountants can't count? You're gonna have to rewind the podcast for the beauty of that whole thing.

All right, Gabrielle, what's your favorite?

Oh, yes. You have to pick your favorite, best, worst joke. What is it, Gabriel?

You were right, Chris. The Dr. Dr. One is the best one.

All right, read it one more time for us, please.

All right, Doctor. Doctor. I've taken the medicine you prescribed, but it's not working. What should I do? Try using your calculator. How will that help? I'm not sure, but it's something you can count on.

All right, well, good. The score is now 1 to 1. Chris Curran wins the best of the worst jokes contest. I won the who's Gayer contest two weeks ago. Oh, my gosh. Oh. Okay, let's get back to losing your shirt. That's what you were mentioning earlier. So where do.

That makes sense that you'd be the one to talk about that.

Right? Right. Oh, geez. So where do most bookkeepers, the folks you're working with, virtual bookkeepers, where do they go off the tracks and start losing money in their business?

I think it is with the fees primarily and the marketing. They're afraid to promote their services. But those two areas, just like everything, right?

Yeah, but why are people afraid to promote their services? They believe vehemently they should be in this business. They've proven it. They've started the business, and then they're afraid to sell what they do.

Yeah, I think most service based businesses have that problem. And it's usually because they don't want to brag. They feel like they're bragging about themselves. Plus they feel like they're bookkeepers. They just want to do the books.

So how much, when you work with folks, how much do you work with them on communication? How they can sort of give their 30 second commercial and their elevator pitch all the time?

Yeah, and a lot of it is mindset because marketing is really communication. That's a message that I always give to them. It's not about promoting yourself and bragging. It's about communicating. The clients need our help, and it's just letting them know that we're here to help because they're not going to get that help, unless they know that we exist.

Now, I want to flip it the other way. When you serve an accountant, when you serve a client and you're doing their bookkeeping, you have inside access to all their numbers. You know exactly how profitable or not profitable that company is, everything about them. And you're charging them a fee. Does that put you in a ethical or awkward position? Because you kind of have insights into what the real numbers are like.

Well, it depends on what your fees are based on. You know, I mean, if you're charging a flat rate, it doesn't matter how much they're making or not. You're providing value, and that value is at whatever price you set. So you just know whether or not the client can pay you.

But you can call bullshit on your client, too. Your client's like, oh, it's been a quiet month. I don't have any money. I can't send you a check. And you're like, dude, I was just in your account. There's money in there. Oh, and by the way, I hope you're enjoying your new Mercedes. I mean, can't you. Doesn't that put you in a weird position? Because they can't pull that bs.

I've never had a client that tries to pull the bs.

Oh, you've never done business with Chris before?

Because they know I know their numbers. If anything, my experience, at least with the clients I serve, which are micro businesses, I know their finances better than they do. So if anything, they're asking me if they can pay something. Do they have enough? They really put me as the one overseeing their finances, not them trying to not pay me.

And if they get too. If they get too crazy, you can always do what Richard Pryor did in the one Superman movie and just set up a computer program to take the half pennies from everyone's paycheck and funnel it into a separate account for yourself.

That became a real fraud. There's a TV show called Dirty Money or something like that where there's this guy with this really ominous voice. He's like, dirty money in America. And they do different studies every week of people that commit fraud and so forth. And there was. That was a legitimate scam. There was guys in the stock market that were taking a penny off of each trade and facilitating, say, a hundred thousand transactions a day. Well, add up a hundred thousand pennies over a year, and these guys made millions. Wow. Or skimmed millions. But no one knows because there's only a penny, right? Yeah. Gabrielle, what do you say about that? I'm out of questions. I don't know.

Play the silent game that you need.

Bookkeepers to be honest.

Yeah, what about that? Because my bookkeeper has direct access to my bank accounts, she can actually cut checks from it. Am I being an idiot?

No, it depends. You should have security in there, meaning that you have to give approval or there has to be some kind of paper trail. You certainly don't want to be giving her the equivalent of blank sign checks. And if you are, I would tell her that she's documenting everything because that is a prescription for problems.

Now I feel uncomfortable.

Problems first, because.

No, I do reconcile my own books though.

You can also check to make sure she has liability insurance because bookkeepers should have that for errors and omissions, you know, if they screw up your books.

Yeah, you know, insurance. Yeah. So another thing I did not do.

You have to make a phone call.

Yeah, I know, I know. This has been a fascinating. I gotta go, I gotta go. How's the profitability in your business?

It's doing quite well and better since I implemented Profit First.

Oh, like clockwork now.

We do love him.

I do.

Because Profit first is so perfect for what we do.

Oh my God, I love you so much.

Do you pass the Profit first teachings or gospel onto your clients?

Yes, because my focus has been with my clients. Even when I do training on QuickBooks, I'm always showing how to maximize cash flow. So when Mike's book came out and I read it, it was like voomp. Immediately I said, this is it. This totally complements what I do with the cash flow. So yes, I've already been teaching the bookkeepers to use the Profit first system.

So not to self promote myself too much.

But you know, you wanted.

I totally want to. You're a numbers expert. This is what you do for a living. And you're saying since you implemented Profit first, your profits have increased. Why?

Because of the structure of it. I had already put into place certain methods that I used to make sure the cash flow was working fine. And then of course, I use it with my clients. But then, because the way Profit first is set up, you're already. You're pre designating. Most bookkeepers, by the way, already tell their clients to have a separate bank account for taxes. We've done that for years. And some clients do it, some clients don't. But using that same principle is what you do in Profit first for your profit, to have that ahead of time for your owner's pay. Those two are so powerful. And it's just the Structure. Because bookkeepers are great at just following the rules. So, you know, you set up the rules, they'll follow them. Business benefits.

Yeah, for sure. As you've increased profit for your own business, where have you made the cuts in your business to support the additional profit?

Well, what I have done is because of profit first, I have implemented a system where I'm watching all of the expenditures going out by vendor so that I know what's going out. And then I started labeling which ones were considered quote, unquote, luxury. How much return made me really look at it to say, what kind of a return am I getting on each of these? And then I target them for elimination, even if I didn't do it right away. But I'm watching. Am I really getting my money's worth over this quarter again? That structure that you put in, Because I know my profit percentage is going to go up the next quarter, so I've got to find that money somewhere. I'm able to eliminate unnecessary expenses in the business.

And when you've taken. You've taken profit distributions from your company, right?

Yes.

When you've taken profit distributions, what do you use the money for?

I have been putting it into a special account for buying a new car.

Yeah. This is a common theme, too. Authenticity in car buying. All right, we got one last question for you. Give me a second to cue this up on the thing. Okay. This sound. What's the. The first city that comes to mind when you hear this music?

Wow.

What city?

Philadelphia.

There you go.

Wow.

Yeah, that's right. Start with some meat beat.

Silver Lang.

What is that?

I'm gonna kill you, fool.

Gonna kill you. No. Oh, yes, Mr. T. That's right.

Mr. T. That thing is loud.

Yeah, that was loud. Was that distorted and everything?

It was fine.

Gabrielle, it's been an absolute honor and pleasure having you on the show. Folks are listening in right now. They're like, she's awesome. She's a runner. She can deal with Mike and Chris. And she picked Chris as the worst joke of the day. Where can people learn more about you?

Well, you can go to my main bookkeeping site, which is bookkeeping directly. And if you are a freelance bookkeeper, you want to check out my blog, which is thefreelancebookkeeper.com blog.

And we can. We'll see you as the beacon at the next conference.

Yes.

Look for the Beacon. Gabrielle. Thank you.

Thank you, Gabrielle.

Thank you, guys.

We'll see you.

This is awesome. Thanks. Yes, sir.

My God.

Good job. So we're gonna do a recap of what we learned.

But first, our sponsors.

Our sponsors.

I'm going to do them in reverse order. I always go Nextiva. Fundera. Tsheets. Oops. I stim in the same order, but other than reverse order. First T sheets.

T sheets.

T sheets. It's a time tracking system. Folks like Gabrielle who run bookkeeping businesses help people entrepreneurs integrate this basically, here's the real simple deal. You have employees, you work for clients yourself. You need to track your time accordingly for a client to properly bill your clients. Also for purposes, tax purposes and so forth. Most people do this by paper, you know, by hand still. Hello. 2015 just arrived and 1960s like we want our paper back. Implement. T sheets.

T sheets. Yeah.

Do you want to talk about either one? I'll give you a Fundera or Nextiva. You can talk about either one.

Well, Fundera I think is cool. Fundera. If a business wants to borrow money, you can go to Fundera and basically you, I guess you fill out like almost like an application and they kind of shop it around and they get different quotes for you.

Yep.

They can get money from all different places.

That's exactly right.

Yeah. So it's cool. You just go the one stop shop and. And they'll provide you with all these different options.

Yep.

So cool.

Yeah, that's exactly it. So you used to go to banks and different loan providers and so forth. Fundera has. Now it's the one stop shop. You go to one site and they outsource it, but they don't charge you a fee. They get a fee from whoever the loan provider is. So it doesn't cost you anymore. Right. And then Nextiva, I know these guys personally. I know Tomas, he's the founder of nextiva. I know Yaniv Masjidi over there. He is the, the gentleman I work with regularly. I visit their offices because I'm that addicted to nextiva. It's awesome. It's an awesome phone system.

There's a Jedi over there.

Yeah, his last name is Mass Jedi. Like Master Jedi blended together.

Lightsaber and everything.

Yeah. I went over to Scottsdale, Arizona, that's where they're based out of, to see what's that auto show, that famous auto show where they're auction off cars. Barrett, Rick Barrett or something. Barrett Auto show.

Okay.

And I said I'm coming out. Yaniv who works there says, dude, I'm going with you. We're gonna have the time of our life. And you're gonna tour our facility and I'm gonna show you all the new, new edge cutting Stuff we're doing in voiceover ip. Best time, My life.

Oh, that's so cool.

Yeah.

There you go.

Okay. So that's it.

Those are our sponsors. Thank you to our sponsors.

Yeah, thank you. And then so gonna. We're. Thank you to your thoughts about the show.

So the recap. What did we learn on this show? Every. Every interview we do, we learn so much. You know, and I, like, We talked a lot about being virtual. One of the things is that Gabrielle talked about was networking when you're virtual. Because if you're not getting out there and meeting people, how are you doing it? She mentioned networking on LinkedIn, which. I mean, that's kind of. The concept of networking on LinkedIn is popular. I don't know how many people are actually implementing it successfully. So maybe that's a place where you, the listener slash, business owner, might be able to really improve things. And she also mentioned that she attends industry conferences as well.

Yeah. She's a niche player. Right. So I've gone to these conferences. You always see Gabrielle there, so you think she's everywhere. But no, she's just very concentrated and focused. The funny thing is, as you were taking your notes, as she was talking, every time I started writing notes, you're writing notes down. I'm like, oh, my God, it's gonna be the exact same stuff. So here's my notes. Virtual. The powers of being virtual. Network via LinkedIn and go to conferences. Literally.

There you go.

What I like about virtual is the cost efficiencies there. Meaning you don't need office space. Right. And there's other things. At least you don't need traditional office space. You don't need to be present where clients are, and you can attract clients from elsewhere. I get all that stuff. The one thing I didn't know was you can make this or spin this. So for your clients is the biggest opportunity they've ever had because now they can be virtual.

Right. And I asked her if. If being a virtual, doing things virtually pays more or less.

Yes.

I thought it would be less. She said more. Because, you know, companies like to know if you're a bookkeeper, that you own your own business, number one, and number two, that you basically have superior technical skills because you're sharing everything online and you have to be able to do that properly.

Yeah. And security used to be the big concern. And she. It sounds like it's been mitigated.

Right.

Which is kind of cool.

So there is value in virtual. I like it.

Yeah. Okay. I think it's time to Crack the cookie.

Let's do it.

I need a sound effect.

Oh, horrible.

Oh, God. It sounds like you left a little shih in your pants on that one. All right, here's what. Here it is. Wealth is the ability to fully experience life. Henry David Thoreau. And there it comes. That's.

Thank you, everybody, for listening. This has been a great episode.

That's what was inside the cookie, was this music. Yeah.

Thanks for listening. Our website is the Profit first podcast dot com.

Yep.

You can see all of our previous guests and all of our shows.

Yeah. Listen, if you like this show, this is nothing compared to other shows.

Yes.

Yeah.

And game shows and everything. We did all fun stuff.

Hey, if you have ideas of stuff you want to hear us doing, all this stuff is coming in from our listeners saying, you got to do this, you got to do that. We want to make profit fun, so do that. Oh, dude, I forgot. Tell people what you do.

Yes. I'm the founder of Fractal Recording. I help businesses host their own podcast shows. It's a great marketing channel. I do everything technical. That's it.

And just so you know, if you're listening right now, which technically, you have to be listening right now, if you do your podcast. Oh, I just wait for the music pause there. Our podcast. Itunes. What was it? This got up and coming and popular or something?

Yeah. New and noteworthy.

New and noteworthy because of Chris Curran and I don't know, it's just a blast to be doing this with you, and it's a privilege. If you want to learn more about me. I thought the music ran out. If you want to learn more about me, you can go to mikemcalowitz.com but if you want, if you're a bookkeeper yourself or an accountant or a business coach, I need your help, and you may need my help. We can team up through profitfirstprofessionals.com. check that out.

Awesome. Thanks, Mike. See you guys.

Thank you, Chris.