mentorship week 7

Hey, Stephanie! Welcome back, week 7! Oh my! Last week! I'm not happy.

I know, time flew!

It did, I don't like it! I like, it's been fun! Time flew, and it's been a lot of fun. And, just to simply recap, you joined the mentorship program 7 weeks ago, and we've been just working together, one-on-one, through instant messenger, and you've been asking me questions, and I've been learning from you. You've been learning from me, which is kind of cool. What the mentorship program is about, it's not just a one-way street for sure. And this week, week 7, is celebrating wins. Reflect and celebrate the progress you've made towards your goals. Every bit of progress counts, even if you haven't met your entire goal yet, which is important because when you set goals, a lot of times you have to revisit them. You know, I set a goal last, last November and I need to revisit it completely because it's not anywhere. I'm nowhere near what I thought I was going to. I set the bar really high. I think sometimes you need to bring it back to reality a little bit. It's good to kind of reshift it. And it says this week marks the end of the mentorship curriculum, and, um, but you and your mentor can still work in this space, which I'm sure we will because we've developed a friendship, and, um, work towards some new goals and refer back to any, um, resources you might need as a refresher. So congratulations on your accomplishments this far. And let's just talk about what, um, what you're most proud of, because I think Well, actually, let me just say what I think I'm most proud of with you. First of all, number one, I picked like a rock star person to be the first one in the mentorship group, because you just like, okay, I'll be on camera. Okay, I'm going to do— and you like laid it out on Trello, and you did all this stuff. And, and you really worked towards it. And you had a lot of things that you were planning on doing, and you've really set your mind to it. You've actually tackled a lot of it, and you haven't tackled it all, because you've made a pretty big list, but you've done a great job. So.

Thank you.

I have to say, you've done a really good job. You ask me questions, I answer the questions, and, and I've learned from you, so I am grateful for that. So, um, what do you think you're most proud of being here?

My friendship with you and answering my questions and giving me a backbone. I really appreciate that. And the number of resources and podcasts and sites and And that, um, the disengagement letter that you posted after our last video was, um, was very helpful. And so I'm going to be using that hopefully soon. Um, I have a troublesome client that hasn't paid, and he had 5 invoices. He paid 3. It's some power play. He just wouldn't pay the last couple, and I want him to pay in full so I can get rid of him because of numerous other things.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so I was Asking, you know, wondering if I should bill. My first year I'm billing hourly at the end of the month for the work that I've done, and I was doing that with the intention of being able to gauge how much time things take me.

Mm-hmm.

But this guy, I feel like I should bill in advance, and when he doesn't pay, I don't work, and then we can disengage or something. I just, I just want to be done with him, and I feel like this is gonna drag on forever if I don't do something decisive.

I think for you, I know you have your goal of 10 clients, but I think for you, getting rid of him is going to just be better for you altogether. I think that you're going to be too much time trying to get your money.

Mm-hmm.

And like I told you earlier when we were talking about this, I would just, going forward, I mean, hourly, I wouldn't go there. I mean, you're going to have to feel your way around, like, what you think, because you just don't think of yourself as an hourly worker anymore. You just think of it as a job and what you want to make off the job. And then, you know, if you want to use the hours to kind of gauge it a little bit with a kind of a number in mind, that's fine. You're gonna win some, you're gonna lose some, and overall, hopefully it'll all work out where you end up winning in the end. We make mistakes and it's just part of being in business. So, you know, it's just part of it.

Yeah. Okay. You know, I think of you— I think of you all the time when he calls me. He's the only client that calls me. Everybody else just emails me or texts me or something like that. He calls me, his name pops up on my phone, and I have to deal with this guy.

That was my rule.

Red flag number 1. But to counter that, I did have some good news yesterday. I had a new client sign with me on the spot. We went— I went to talk to them yesterday, spent a couple hours helping them with a few various things on the spot, and then they signed the contract and we're going to get started today. So I'm really— and it's catch-up work from last October to present, so that'll be some money. And then They'll be a year-round client and stuff. So I think it'll be good. It's a husband and wife landscaping company. Craig's Landscaping.

Craig's Landscaping, we've never heard of that before. That was funny, I'm sorry.

I don't need anything.

Just use the test file, you're good.

It's like she's the brains and he's the brawn because she's very highly organized so I'll be dealing with her which makes me Awesome. That's working out good. So we got along great and it's gonna be lucrative, I think. So I'm very happy about that.

And if you like the person, right, doesn't that make you feel better? Because like I said, when you see the phone ring and you're like, oh God, I'm gonna hit the button, like I don't want to talk to him.

Yeah, so I got a new client yesterday, Craig. I'm gonna call him Craig to his face now, watch this. But the way I got to them was interesting because I was on that Nextdoor app. It's sort of Facebook for your neighborhood kind of thing.

Yeah.

I don't spend much time in it at all, but I have— I get a summary, like a weekly summary or daily, whatever. And somebody was looking for accounting services, so I thought, let me see what happens. So I put a little post there with my contact information, which then prompted me to change my profile to reflect my new business. And then this guy called me— who is not the guy who— it's not the woman who posted the Original question, but he saw my post and called me, which then made me change my voicemail, which I hid in my outgoing message. Anyway, it's a chain reaction is what I'm saying.

I can't believe that you've got a client in that. I signed up for that once because I thought it'd be good in case something bad happened in my neighborhood, and I got so many like posts in there, I was like, oh, this is getting shut off. And you already found a client in there, so that just goes to show you can find clients in a lot of different creative places, right?

That was unexpected. I just— it was a throwaway thing. Let me see what happens. And it worked out well. So I worked with them yesterday and helped them with a couple things on the spot. And then they signed up and here we go. I'm excited.

That's really great. I mean, getting somebody to sign up right there on the spot is really wonderful. That doesn't happen too often. Usually they have to think about it. They sit back and look at the fees. That's great. I mean, that, that is amazing. And I'm telling you, you're just doing so well. You should really, like, I want the balloons and the confetti to come down from the sky. No, really, you should be proud of yourself because you've put in a lot, you've put in a lot of work. I mean, you've done a website, you've changed the name of the business, you've done a lot of things. And you should really give yourself that pat on the back that you, you know, you deserve because you've worked hard for it.

Thanks. It's amazing. It's fulfilling.

I love You're enjoying it.

It's a challenge, and I love a new— learning new things, sort of, so it's all cool.

Yeah, and that's the thing, you know, I was talking to my mom this morning on the phone, and she said to me, do you love what you do? 'Cause you're working too hard. And I said, you know, I actually do love what I do. That's a good thing, because you spend most of your life working, right? So I do love what I do, and she's like, okay, but you shouldn't work so many days. And I'm like, I know, you're right, you're exactly right, Mom, I should not be doing that. And, you know, nothing like your mom to tell you at, you know, my age of 50.

I know.

Plus, to have somebody, have your mom tell you that. But yeah, see, sometimes the wise words of your mom, right? Well, I really want to congratulate you and I want to thank you, thank you, thank you for everything you did for helping the community too, because everybody, I think a lot of people are listening, you know, and I think it's great that you've been open to being on camera and being here and doing this. It's not easy being on the camera. I have to tell you, it took me a long time. You got like right into it like that. And it's, It's gonna be a little bit nerve-wracking at first, so I commend you on that too, being open to doing this.

Well, I know it's helpful to other people. I'm a visual learner. I need to see and talk, whatever, you know, so I know it's helpful. It's for the greater good.

No, and that's the thing. That's caring and sharing, and I think that that's a great way to end this week of this mentorship, couple of months anyway, 7 weeks. Let me share my screen because I have the mentorship group up and there's Several people in there, and I wanted to give like a little shout out to show that like we've got Roseanne Garza in here. She wants to have help with advanced cleaning of files. Sheila Edwardson is anybody's involved with nonprofit. Maybe it can help her with nonprofit. We've got in here Sajjad. I'm sure I'm butchering his name, Hussein, and he wants help with actually went into his and it says he wants help with factoring. So I don't know factoring, so I really can't help there. Although I think Seth helped him on that one, and Cindy Nelson. And she's looking for some advanced methods. And she's just— she works in an accounting firm and wants to know some options. She uses mostly desktop. So we've got these people waiting in this group here. And it would be great if maybe somebody in the— anybody in the group can mentor. You don't have— you can mentor if you wanted to. And you don't have to be on camera. So, you know, if you want to be on camera, that's great. But if you're— if you want to do it privately, it can be done privately with instant messenger. And the camera is kind of nice. You can do the Zoom and not record it, right? So that's always an option.

Yeah.

I think it's nice to be able to help other people, 'cause a lot of the things that have come up during our conversations have been things that I think a lot of business owners go through. And it's kind of helped me with— we're doing a series now of going through what it's like to become a ProAdvisor for the first time, and it's kind of helping me remember.

Wow.

Yeah, 'cause it's different, right? If I wrote a book way back when I started my business, it would not be applicable today. So it's kind of fun to go through the ProAdvisor program as a newbie, as we named the accounting company, and then just go through the steps and learn from that experience and just share what we know, which is what our group is about. So on that note, thank you, thank you, thank you for your time. This is not going to be the end of it. We're still going to stay friends and still stay connected. If you have any questions, feel free, and I might ask you questions too. That's the way it's been working.

I can't thank you enough for, for what you've given me, so I appreciate it.

I, I— you're welcome. It's been, it's been fun. I'm so glad it was just destined to be that you are my person, you know. So thank you, and, um, we will definitely stay connected, and especially in the group.

Very good. Thanks, Linda.

Thanks. Bye now.