008. Let Me Tell You 'Bout My Best Friend!
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INTRO
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Lisa: [00:00:00] Simplicity, balance, and efficiency shouldn't just be items on your eternal wishlist. If you're a side hustler or mompreneur who wants to level. Up and be a true CEO, create a business that supports your family while still maintaining a life you love, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Lisa Kinser, and you're listening to The Simply Booked Podcast. I'm a wife, #girlmom of two, bookkeeper, and owner of Simply Booked, LLC. Where I help small business owners like you and grow their profits. So heat that cup of coffee for .The third time this morning, and let's get started.
CONTENT
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Lisa: Thank you for listening to episode Osho of the simply booked podcast. I have another shorty, but goodie for you today. Actually this might not be short because. The topic I'm talking about my best friend. Is probably going to Pretty chatty. So we'll see. I've been saying for a long time in my bookkeeping business, that I'm going to hire an assistant
And I say [00:01:00] soon all the time what does that mean soon? Here I am almost a year into my business and I still haven't hired anyone. But when I sit down and think about it, I have hired, I just didn't really think of it that way until So I invest in software, which I think is the way that new businesses start out. Like you start out just on your
Like really bootstrapping everything. Investing in some softwares. And then you grow your business. When you're an online service provider, at least I could say that some businesses you just need help right away. And that's more obvious, but for me
I invested in software, which ultimately saved me hours of time through automations. And that's allowed me to get this far without hiring a human. So what's the software I'm talking
Does anybody want to know? It's my BFF Kajabi.
It's where I designed and host my [00:02:00] website. It houses all of my client payments. It's it serves as a CRM for my business. It has a Stripe integration, which is glorious. It has an email marketing platform. A course platform that I haven't fully utilized
It's also where I host my podcast and I don't know if I would even have a podcast, if it wasn't able to be hosted so easily on Kajabi. So that's same with my email marketing. If I had to use a separate system, it would be too easy to delay, creating freebies to grow my list, sending out beautiful emails, because I can't do anything halfway. I have to make them pretty.
But since it's all in this platform in Kajabi, I use it for the rest of my business. So anytime I've been there looking at a client payment, Or I get a discovery call scheduled or anything, any kind of form that I received I'm in Kajabi. So I see that like it's staring back at me that I can host a podcast here and I can send out emails [00:03:00] here. So those features are constantly staring me in the face.
Begging for me to utilize them. So utilize them. I have. All of my bookkeeping clients are on an auto billing subscription system. And the analytics in Kajabi are beautiful. You all know by now that I'm a data girl. I love staring at spreadsheets and graphs and charts. And I can wholeheartedly say that my business statistics class in college was one of my favorites. It's a weird addiction that I know many people don't understand.
I know I have bookkeeping friends who listened to this podcast and they totally get it. We're all the same flavor of nerd. And I know the others feel the same, even if you don't have a business or life built around numbers. Like I do. Some people just love numbers, anyhow, I resisted Kajabi. When I first started my business.
My bookkeeping, coach Katie Farrow. Loves Kajabi. And I was [00:04:00] always like, whoa. And my mind, I was like maybe I would love to do that eventually when I can justify it. But in the meantime, I'm going to piece together, all these little different softwares. That are free and I'm going to form a cohesive puzzle.
That will work well for me. And I did that for a little while. It didn't last, very long. Because as soon as I got my First a few bookkeeping clients. Those pieces of my puzzle in the backend. Just start falling apart. And I wasn't able to keep up with the backend of my business. Like I wanted to.
So it was hard to remember where all the pieces were, especially since I was getting busier with client work and not necessarily tinkering around with the background softwares as much. So when it came time to tweak something that needed to be updated, I had to tweak several different places and then test to make sure the integration still worked.
And. It was not fun when you add that frustration on top of growing pains of a new [00:05:00] business. And I got a lot of clients really quickly really early on. I just blew up and I wasn't necessarily expecting that to be the case. And if I did, I would've joined Kajabi like day one, and I still say that.
Anytime someone asked me if you were to start your business over today, what would you do differently? I feel like that's a really common question in the entrepreneur world and I would say. I would start Kajabi you on day one first off, like that would save me a ton of time that I wasted at the beginning.
So once I decided to switch to Kajabi, first of all, I'm a researcher. So I dig deep to find out everything about everything before I make a decision. And people that know me personally know this well, like I. I read all the reviews on Amazon, even the fake ones, because a lot of times they're funny.
Side note, this has nothing, no relevancy whatsoever, but my favorite Amazon review, my husband actually found, we were [00:06:00] looking Packing tape. And the review was too loud. One star packing tape is too loud.
So, you know, you're taping up a box and it's like, Like screams at you. Yeah, one star packing tapes too loud.
Wow, I'm on a tangent, but anyway, So I research, that's my point here. Once I decided to commit to something like Kajabi, especially if it's costing money and I'm feeling grabby and cheap at the moment. I really go in and watch all the videos. I learn all the hacks because I want to get the most value from this. Okay. So I've agreed to pay this fee.
For the software, but I really have to go above and beyond to get even more value than the average person, because that's just who I am. It's complicated anyway. Once I decided to commit to something like that. And I learned all the hacks and I learned all the things. I built my website really quickly.
Much faster than I [00:07:00] could build on show it, which was my other platform that I was trying to use for awhile. And I even bought a template that came with a course and it was beautiful and lovely. And I went through the whole course. Because again, I do things very thoroughly. It still took a long time. Like I would get stuck. It was almost too customizable and I got frustrated and.
I wasn't able to quickly build out a landing page and move on. It w I would just delay it. Until things were perfect and tweaked to death before I could post a link. And by that time I lost steam and I lost interest on whatever the idea was. And. And just things never got You know, when my to-do list was just growing constantly and it just got frustrating. So on the other hand with Kajabi, the website builder portion is one of the main reasons I switched.
I can build a website so quickly. Once you plug in your brand colors and how you want the buttons to look like the buttons that people click on the call to [00:08:00] action You don't have to do that crap anymore. You do it once. And then every page. And that little template just. Matches. Anyway, I don't need to customize more.
On a website than what Kajabi allows me to do. So if I give some crazy idea, I can always drop some HTML code on a page. And have a little magic sprinkled in, but it's never needed. Another side note, I'm like going off on tangents today, but another fun side note is in college. I was in a marketing class and I felt like I knew everything. I don't know, I just would pull out my notebook and I would hand write HTML for my personal website that I was building on geo cities, by the way. I would just write HTML code. So that when I got home from my class, I would just type it all out from what I wrote and it would just work. So I wouldn't have to do the, I'll type it in and just see if it works.
That's how much of a geek I am. I speak HTML.[00:09:00] I was building websites before it was cool. So anyway.
That's the end of that tangent. But the ironic part about all this. Is, like I said if anyone asked me, if you started your business over again today, what would you do differently? And I always say I would use Kajabi from day one, but the hilarious part is that my friend, Jen and I, who I'm collaborating with for the profit society membership that we just launched.
We started this collaboration to piece together, both of our bookkeeping businesses and help entrepreneurs who want to DIY their own bookkeeping. So we want to support people that want to do that. We Saw a gap in the market and felt like that was an opportunity for us to just have some fun. And it's a little passion project because.
I don't know I feel like. I'm getting off on another tangent again. I'll get back to it, but. When I started my first business. Which was a party rental business. I almost hired a bookkeeper because I felt I'm the owner of a [00:10:00] company. I'm not a bookkeeper. Now I am. But at the time I was the CEO of a party rental business.
I wasn't about to do the numbers. I wanted someone to do that for me. I quickly learned that's what I wanted to do as a business, but, I just see the desire for people to want to do their own. But want to do it right? Because not everybody has gone to school for bookkeeping. , I went to school for accounting and I still felt I didn't know, bookkeeping. And so I took a course on it.
and now I feel confident in it, but it was a weird thing at the beginning because bookkeeping is considered the low man on the totem pole, in the accounting world. When I decided to be a bookkeeper. It was funny that I felt like I didn't know how to do it at first. It all came rushing back to me.
When I took, become a bookkeeper course by Katie Farrow. I love her. I feel like I probably talk about her every episode because I'm obsessed with her and I get to meet her next month. [00:11:00] Yay. Anyway, I'm going to a retreat that she's hosting and again, I'm getting. Way off topic. I don't think I've rambled this much on a podcast episode.
But maybe get used to it. Maybe it's a new thing. Anyway. Back to my story, Jen and I were trying to piece together all of the freebie software because it was like, we're starting this new joint venture. And We don't want it to just say we're each going to put $50 into a bank account.
And wouldn't that be cool if this is the only time we have to invest. And knowing everything we know. And having all of this other software that we use for our separate bookkeeping businesses, we can piggyback on that. Like we tried to piggyback on my Kajabi for a little bit and we piggybacked on her Kajabi account for
And tried to make it work, but you can't host. Two different domains on one Kajabi account, unless you have the top tier. And it didn't make sense for us to upgrade to the top tier cause that's like you have three Kajabi subscriptions. Which anyway, that's a whole [00:12:00] nother thing. I'm actually not going to let myself get down that tangent
But it's just so funny that I say all the time, I would do Kajabi day one. If I did it over again, and here we are starting something new and did not immediately jump to Kajabi. It's crazy how that works. So I say that's how I would do it again, but what I really, I don't know, probably not, obviously.
But I would regret not doing it again. I guess that's ultimately the question I'm answering. I would regret. If I did this again, not starting with Kajabi. So she and I both put $50 in a bank account. We're trying to do all the freebies. We started with convert kit because that's free until you I think a thousand subscribers for email software and.
We were going to use her show at account and. Just piece together. Like I said, piecing together free softwares. But it ends up taking away more time. To figure out how to piece all those together. And I feel like I'm [00:13:00] a pretty technology minded person. So all of this stuff just makes sense to me. So if it doesn't make sense to you, save yourself some time and get an all in one software, it doesn't have to be Kajabi.
It can be one of the others, but. Just save yourself the time. Seriously. It pays for itself in the amount of frustration that you won't have to put yourself through. So anyway, we started getting really behind on some of our launch deadlines. We had it all mapped out and click up. And we just had to keep pushing things back because things just weren't as simple switching to convert kit and trying to relearn I've used convert kit before, but trying to relearn.
How do you use that email marketing platform? And then thinking oh, do I need Zapier to like, make a zap to go over here when somebody buys our membership and it just, it got to be a lot. I don't remember. Honestly her or I, that came up with the idea to just buy a new, fresh Kajabi [00:14:00] subscription for the profit society.
I do remember that we were messaging on Voxer while I was driving to drop off Cora my daughter at dance class. And I was just like, duh, we need Kajabi. So there's just no other way around After I got home from dance class with my daughter, Jen and I signed up for a new Kajabi account. We marked so many things off of our delayed to do list and record time. So not because the system was familiar because we both use Kajabi.
Admittedly in our bookkeeping businesses. Like she and I have separate bookkeeping businesses. So we're familiar with But we had to start from scratch still. So even though the system was familiar, We just didn't have to figure out how to piece everything together.
We could put a landing page up with a form and automatically that forms feed feeds into the email. And then we just type out an email and then done like half of our to-do lists that we had delayed was done within two hours.
[00:15:00] And. It's all because we were just working in one system. And. When someone purchases of subscription. On this platform, how do we get their email over to this platform? And then how do we make sure they get access? They need to this other platform. It's just a mess. And I know that Zapier is amazing.
And we will be utilizing that to a small degree. Even though we're using Kajabi because our community is hosted in heartbeat. And that's a different platform, but that's just a really simple, that's one or two zaps that is just really easy. And. That's the only thing we, you have to use Zapier for. So we have the free subscription to
Anyway. We were both pretty amused at how long it took us to realize that was the only viable option was to get a new Kajabi. Like it's a no brainer. And that brings me to thinking about no brainers. That doesn't. Mean that it's always going to seem like a no-brainer at first. And why is that? There's some weird [00:16:00] psychology element.
The things that should be a no-brainer aren't always, and. We were thinking about this a lot. When we priced the profit society membership, we wanted it to be a no brainer price. We wanted everyone who has the littlest inkling of an urge to join, to go for it because you have nothing to lose, but everything to gain. That's how we want people to see it.
So you aren't stuck in a long-term agreement. You can cancel it any time. I still know that there's people who think $40 a month doesn't seem like a no-brainer price. That means it's up to me in gen. To convey the value of this membership. So I feel like it's easy for me to know the value for myself.
And assume that others just understand that. If Lisa's building something, it's definitely worth it. But. Not everyone knows that I'm tooting my own horn here a bit, but to It's true though. I care deeply about the work I do and what [00:17:00] offers I have available.
Trust me when I say $40 a month as a And it's even less. If you joined last week as a founding member. And I think by the time this episode airs, the founding member launch will be closed, but you can always save a little bit. If you want to sign up with the annual subscription. Anyway, there's my Ted talk about calling something a no-brainer my point is that I get it. If something doesn't feel like a no brainer, because obviously I thought Kajabi would be a no-brainer if I had to start over and it wasn't, that's the crazy part. It wasn't.
And then I look back now and I'm like, why wasn't it? What is wrong with me? Why do I try to cut corners at the beginning? And make things so much harder, but I think there's a lesson in that. But dude, there are so many other platforms. Similar to Kajabi. So basically everything I'm saying about this software, you could substitute with teachable or Thinkific or whatever the heck else is similar.
I love Kajabi. Cause it's the closest to how my brain works. [00:18:00] It also happens to be how my coach, my bookkeeping coach, who taught me everything I know about building my own bookkeeping business in a sustainable way. She teaches the platform Kajabi. That's what I learned. And that's what makes the most sense to me. I'm not saying that's the way everyone needs to get it, but, I love that the payments integrate with Stripe. There's just so much goodness that I don't even have time to get to on this.
And this is already like a 20 minute episode and I'm not even done talking. So far aside from the episode with, Jen, who was my first guest , this is my longest episode, my longest solo episode. So I always thought I was going to post 10 minute long episodes, but leave, it took a job to get me blabbering for longer than that. I do have a discount code for a free 30 day trial.
This is an affiliate link, so I have to make that clear, but even without earning any affiliate income,
I signed up for Kajabi at the annual price. So I saved a little bit from doing that, but I pay about $119 a month. That's [00:19:00] one hell of a cheap first employee. If you ask me and she's so organized and reliable, like girlfriend is the best hire I could have made. And. You just can't say that about anyone else. Try to find a good VA that charges less than $119 a month. I will wait.
No, just kidding. I won't, because you won't find it. Nobody's going to do as much work as Kajabi will do for you. If you utilize the system correctly for less than $119 And the return of your investment, the ROI on Is tenfold because. Like I said, features will stare you in the face. If you're not using it, like you need to be using email marketing. You need to be like, if you want to start a podcast, it's going to be there looking at you every day. Like, why aren't you starting this podcast and using this feature it's free with your subscription. It doesn't say that. And it's not pushy like that, but that's like how I
Like if I [00:20:00] have something in the back of my mind and I see something pop up. I'm like, okay, I get it. Stop being so pushy.
Anyway, that's all in my head, but. I'm really excited that my business has grown. So quickly. Now that the prophet society is fully launched, enrolling. I'm actually going to put my first ever pause on taking new clients for a short while. And I'm going to hire myself a bookkeeping assistant or two, and I'm really excited that I've grown to this point in less than a year.
If you're interested in joining my team, I would love to chat with you. If you like numbers, if you like data. You don't have to necessarily have bookkeeping or accounting experience, but having a love for numbers I would say is probably very important and the rest is pretty trainable. So DME on Instagram at simply booked by Lisa or email me at Lisa at simply booked dot [00:21:00] LLC. And we can talk more soon. These positions can be fully remote. And I like to think that I would make a good boss because I've had some baddies in the corporate world. But I've had the benefit of learning what not to do. If this interests you hit me up or share this info with a friend.
Thanks for joining me on today's episode and I'll see you next time.
OUTRO
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Lisa: Thank you so much for listening, and you've made it all the way to the end! To view the complete show notes and all the links mentioned in today's episode, please visit simplybooked.llc/podcast. And before you go, make sure you leave a rating and review because even though it just takes a few seconds, it really does make a difference. Thanks again for joining me in this episode of The Simply Booked Podcast i'll see you soon!
