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Small Business Conversations about QuickBooks Online

11/30/2018

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Phyllis:                                 00:31                    Greetings and welcome to another episode of small business conversations with PKJ. I am your host, Phyllis Johnson of PKJ consulting, where we help companies follow their passion, understand their knowledge, and go along their journeys that they can grow and succeed. How many times have you heard as entrepreneur or small business owner that you need QuickBooks, that 50 percent of businesses fail in the first five years due to not tracking their finances or as an entrepreneur, you need to know where your money is being allocated to. Have you ever been turned away from a company loan because you couldn't produce your financials or how about that shocking tax bill you may have received because you weren't tracking your money, didn't know where it was going to and didn't understand the liability that you were going to have at the end of the year or maybe that time where you finally looked at your numbers that you put on a piece of paper and realize that you invoiced a client incorrectly or that you've been paying for a $49, 99 a month software program that you haven't even used in two years.
Phyllis:                                 01:35                    Therefore wasting over a thousand dollars or maybe you lost out on a sale because you couldn't send a potential client an invoice quickly. Do any of these resonate with you? I know they do with me as I've consulted on this topic quite a few times with clients and through training. So today I want to do a different type of episode that wasn't going to be an interview, but more of a discussion with my cohost, Shante Martin, bookkeeper and office manager at PKJ consulting to discuss the uses of QuickBooks online and how can ultimately make and save you money so you can focus on accomplishing all of your business goals. You see, we've all heard about QuickBooks and how it's the largest accounting software, but most of us who aren't accounting professionals aren't sure as to all the benefits and things that it can do. A lot of times people will call me and say, Hey, I've installed QuickBooks online, but I'm not quite sure how to set it up. Or maybe they've tried to set it up and everything is incorrect, or maybe they just have a question, you know. So what I want to discuss here today is what can QuickBooks online do that you may not have been aware of. So let's jump right on it.
Shante:                               02:46                    Accessibility. QuickBooks online is accessible everywhere. No matter where you are, your phone, your laptop, your desktop, tablet, your friend's house, you're on vacation, you're out of the country. No matter where you are, you can always access
Phyllis:                                 03:00                    QuickBooks to get your stuff done. Exactly, so I love QuickBooks online because literally you can be anywhere, anyplace, anytime. You know, a lot of times when we go on vacation as an entrepreneur, we all know we have to bring our computers or re stress about business or we're stressed about finances. The great thing about QuickBooks online is you can just hop on your phone real quick, send a client an invoice and then shut down and go back to enjoying your Mai Tai or even if you're all the way out of country. Last year I had the pleasure of going to South Africa with all of my friends, but as a business owner, business never stops. I was able to just go onto my laptop, sign onto QuickBooks online, even in another country, in a place that has secured Wi-Fi and still get my work done so that I can afford to go on more trips later on.
Phyllis:                                 03:50                    So the second topic that is going to discuss is sales. So sales at QuickBooks online can increase your sales and profits by immediate invoicing, ease of payments, recurring invoices, tracking your invoices, and auto follow ups. Great, so to enhance on that immediate invoicing, what that means is a lot of times when you're using other invoicing programs, do you have to log in there, type in the information, or maybe you've created something in word or something pretty inaccessible. Then you have to go and manipulate the information, go onto your phone and pull that client's contact information, pulled the information from the email to remember what you should build that person will QuickBooks online, all of that is in one place. You have your customer's name, their address, their phone number, their email, their tax id. It's all in one location and you can easily look at any past invoices and send it out to them with just the click of a button.
Phyllis:                                 04:50                    Ease of payment. So that's the big one. I know I like to get paid on time. Well, what happens when you have to print out your invoices, put them in an envelope, put them in the mail, wait for snail mail to get there, wait for the accounting department to open up that invoice way for them to then log into their accounting software way for them to print out a check and then give it to the owner of the company who may be super busy on vacation, running around, doesn't sign that check until another 15 to 20 days and now you're not getting paid for net 45 or sometimes net 60 or even worse, net 90. Well, with QuickBooks online, you click a button, you send the invoice. That person gets the invoice immediately in their email and here's a little secret. The second someone opens up an invoice, you can see that they opened it, so not only can you do that, you can also have it set so that you can have someone paid immediately.
Phyllis:                                 05:44                    You can also set up recurring invoices, meaning that you don't have to every single months and that $5,000 invoice to your biggest client. You can just set it up that every Tuesday at 4:00 it goes to them and then they can automatically pay you. And like I said before, you can track your invoices. Not only can you see if a client, you know, future invoice, you can have a conversation regarding that specific invoice. Maybe they want you to change the title. Maybe they want you to change the name of the project. Instead of going into your email, you can see what they put on that direct invoice. So you have a history of that. So six months from now, if you can't remember why you made that change, that invoice, you don't have to search through your text messages or your emails, you could just go directly to that invoice.
Phyllis:                                 06:31                    And lastly, most important is auto follow up. It is a pain to try to get payments. Sometimes QuickBooks takes the headache out of that where you can literally set it up so that, you know, maybe every couple of days you say, Hey, by the way, you know, just haven't checking on you because we haven't received payment. Um, it makes it a lot easier. So that you can increase yourselves and grow your profits. And the other thing that I wanted to talk about is if you have your phone and you are standing in front of a potential client who says, you know what, send me an invoice right now so I can pay you. Imagine if you call your accountant back at the office or she's gone for the day. Well, with QuickBooks online, you can pull up that invoice, send it to them immediately, and it's a one stop shop.
Phyllis:                                 07:15                    Don't lose out on hundreds of thousands of dollars for your business because you aren't able to take advantage of an opportunity when it's sitting right there. So now we're going to have Shante discuss the third benefit of QuickBooks Online that you may not have been aware of. Okay, so QBO obviously Phyllis thing going through all of the great things it offers. It saves you so time, which allows you to focus on more important things like growing your business and making more money. So, you know, really at the end of the day, we all have a passion for what we have a passion for, but we want to make money, we want to make money so we can take care of our kids so we can buy our dream home so we can retire. So we could do whatever it is that we want to do.

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Small Business Conversations with a Self-Employed Accountant

11/21/2018

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Have you ever wondered why we have so many labels when it comes to business? There's self-employed, small business owner, independent contractor, entrepreneur and much more. What does it all really mean? Can you be one and not the other? I consider myself to be a small business owner but also self-employed and an entrepreneur. Does a label really make a difference?
  Ultimately, the title doesn't matter as long as you're happy with the path that you are on. To me, all these are people who are on their journey and can make their own goals like today's special guest, Shante Martin, a self-employed accountant who wants to have a balance between motherhood and her career. Shante grew up in San Diego, California. After obtaining her BS in Criminal Justice and her AS in Business Office Technology, she moved to Las Vegas and discovered a love for bookkeeping and the financial upkeep of businesses. In 2015, I was lucky to have her join my company, PKJ Consulting, as a bookkeeper and office manager. She has worked in a wide range of industries with the heavy emphasis on team operations, administrative support and customer service. In her spare time, she's an animal lover, a great mother to a hockey player and skateboarder, and an avid runner.
 I INVITED SHANTE HERE today because, well, she works for me and it's her day to be in the office. But more importantly, she's the epitome of someone who has to set her own rules for her career. She started with me three years ago when I was in the beginning stages of my journey to start my company. She's been an amazing asset to my team and I call her the E-Commerce, Accounting and PayPal Guru. She's the mother to an amazing ten-year-old girl who skateboards and plays hockey for the Vegas Junior Golden Knights, which, as we all know, having a kid who plays sports takes up a lot of time. There's travel all over town and even out of the state.
 
I wanted her to share her journey today because I wanted to understand more of how she managed both as a mother and her career as one of the reasons that she started working for herself because she shares that same reason as to why I actually started working for myself was because I wanted to spend more time with my daughter. So, let's welcome Shante Martin. How are you doing, Shante?
 Shante:              Good. How are you?
 Phyllis:               I'm doing great. Thanks for asking. So, tell me, what was the passion behind your career and the reason why you started working for yourself?
 Shante:              Okay. First of all, I just want to say that I'm so happy to be here today, so thank you. The passion behind why I started working for myself is really I just want to go through every day with more smiles. I'm a very logical person. I love numbers. I love bookkeeping. It has to match. It's either black or white. It's concrete and it tells a story. Then for my personal life, working for myself, I can create my own hours, and then I can be there for my child when she needs me most.
 Phyllis:               That's excellent. It sounds like you and I have the same passion behind bookkeeping, of course, and our love for our daughters, which is amazing. So, tell me, how did you get the knowledge in order to do bookkeeping and to become successful?
 Shante:              So interesting enough, when I was in San Diego obtaining my degree in Criminal Justice, I landed a position as a receptionist and that led into a bookkeeping position. So, I started about in 2010, and in 2015 I started working with Phyllis at PKJ. I've just built my knowledge base on the job with Phyllis just by the different companies that she obtains and the new software we have to use and doing research on my own and things like that.
 Phyllis:               So on-the-job training, a lot of times people will start a job and they don't really know exactly how to do the actual work. One of the reasons why I actually hired Shante was because of her personality and her willingness to learn. And so, a lot of times people want to start their own business or their own company, but they don't know everything. No one really knows everything until you actually start trying to learn everything. So, it's really important to be that person that says you know what? I may not know everything, but I am going to figure that out. That's exactly the reason why I hired Shante. She has learned so much. Right now, if there's a PayPal question, she's the person I go to. I probably don't know the answer anymore because she's been a really great research and asset person to kind of figure these things out.
 
                             Let's dive in more about your journey. You told me that you moved to San Diego, you were a receptionist and bookkeeper, and of course, you started working for me. But tell me a little bit more that kind of led you here today.
 
Shante:              Okay, so more about my journey. I guess everything kind of changed when I had my daughter. I realized the importance of time management, of work-life balance. That pretty much led me, well, through trial and error of trying to work for corporate America, it pretty much led me to become an independent contractor and working with Phyllis.
 
Phyllis:               Great. So, tell me about how do you balance between motherhood and working for yourself? I understand your daughter is on the Vegas Knights. I actually saw her commercial. If you haven't seen it, feel free to email me and I will send you a link. But her daughter is a really great hockey player. I know Shante, she travels all over the place. She goes to California, she goes to Arizona, and amazingly, she's still always on top of everything as far as getting the job done. So how do you actually balance the two?
 
Shante:              I think it's just important to make sure you have secured Wi-Fi everywhere. I'm thankful that Phyllis is -- it's a matter of getting the work done efficiently, correctly. There obviously are due dates and things, but if you keep on top of everything and you always have your laptop with you, I can be at a hockey tournament in Montana, I have my laptop, I'm fine. I can get everything done. There's no problem with that. That's what I love about this.
 
Phyllis:               So, she touched on anyone who really knows me, my favorite quote. If I have a laptop and Wi-Fi, I can work anywhere. That's the one thing that I know I like about being self-employed is you kind of set things the way you want to set it. She said she's at a hockey game watching her daughter, but also able to work.
 
                             I know obviously being self-employed has its bonuses, but what is the most difficult thing about being self-employed? Have you ever wanted to go back to a full-time what people would consider normal employment?
 
Shante:              I think it's really not that much of a struggle, but the thing that stands out most to me is deadlines. Whereas if you're working a 9 to 5, you're in the office from 9 to 5 and you're paid hourly, and when you go home, you go home. But when we go home, our laptop and our secure Wi-Fi is right there waiting for us and it's open and there are always things going on. Sometimes just realizing that it's okay to just -- if it's not due right away or it's not time-sensitive, it's okay to just play that game of Yahtzee really quick and then do it later or whenever. Sometimes it's hard to let the work aside. That's the only thing that I would -- and it's not really a struggle, but that's my thing.
 
Phyllis:               I definitely agree with that. I, myself, have multiple laptops and Chromebooks and tablets and phones, and sometimes you have to learn how to disconnect. I know when I first started, I was working every day every hour. At 3:00 in the morning, you get an email from me. So, I definitely agree with you.
 
                             Let's talk about some fun stuff. So far on your journey, tell me what's your biggest win. Give me a good success story that you have.
 
Shante:              I guess the biggest success story that I have is obtaining my bachelor's degree. The fact that I am now a mother and preach education to my daughter, it was really important to me as an adult, as a mother, to go back and get that degree to see the changes in her and how important it is for her to get good grades. She's already talking about college and what she's going to be and the scholarships she's going to get. That's a big win in my head.
 
 Phyllis:               Discussing scholarships at ten years old, that is amazing. I'm trying to get my daughter on that path too because college is very expensive. So, tell me about a loss or like a lesson learned, maybe a mistake that you've made and what you learned and gained from it.
 
Shante:              Probably the biggest mistake that I've made is when I first started working with Phyllis, I got a job offer for another company which was a 9 to 5. I took the offer and I tried to make it work. I know I missed Phyllis and the bookkeeping and everything so much. Every day was just like a nightmare because I was not enjoying what I was doing. Also, my daughter had to go to before school care and after school care, which was there was nobody there for her, so she started feeling a lacking as well and it was expensive. I guess I had to try it to know that it really wouldn't work, but it also kind of set me back as well.
 
Phyllis:               That's interesting. I mean a lot of us have that moment where you're an entrepreneur and things get hard, and so you try to go back to a traditional way and some people go back to the traditional way. I have clients all the time who they have a business, I'm doing their accounting and doing consulting for them and they love what they do, but then they get this job offer and it's a hard decision to make. You have a job that's secure, you have 401(k), you have benefits, and then you go there and then you realize that's not what you really want to do. So, a lot of those clients of mine that have done that, for some reason, always end up quitting and coming right back. If you have that entrepreneurial spirit and bug, it never really goes away.
 
                             I am someone who always tells people go for it. If it doesn't work, there's always an opportunity to get a job, but there's not always really that opportunity to go after your passion, to go after your goal. Even Shante, when she did leave, I was sad. It was a sad day for both of us, but I always am going to be supportive of someone having to go on their own path and be successful. We kept in contact, and so I said, "Hey, do you want to come back?" She came back, and it's been great and now we're doing this podcast. So, she's someone who, even though she works for me, she is always someone who is inspiring and pushes me to succeed and helps me to accomplish my goals. As an entrepreneur or a small business owner, you want that person that's in your corner that's going to kind of push you outside of your comfort zone.
 
                             I have my favorites, but this is a section that I like to call "What is Your Favorite?" Shante, tell us about a favorite book that you have.
 
Shante:              One of my favorite books is called "You Are a Badass" by Jen Sincero. It's really a fun book. She goes into financial success, women empowerment, just creating do's and don'ts that lead to success. The way that she says things, she's very funny and you just want to keep reading it. She also has a book now that I'm reading. It's "You Are a Badass at Making Money." I'm only on page 30, but it is also awesome. So, if you get a chance to check it out, you should.
 
Phyllis:               "You Are a Badass" by Jen Sincero. I am going to have to check that out, especially the one at making money. Do you have a favorite podcast or website that you like to go to?

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Importance of Blogging as a Small Business by Karen Johnson

11/3/2018

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Blogging regularly is a necessity when establishing your social media presence and has several benefits for growing your business. If you haven’t been inspired to blog on your own, perhaps these benefits can convince you to get started.
Sharable Expertise - As a small business owner, you are the expert in the product or service that you are providing. If you sell haircare products, writing regular blogs on haircare tips that include your product can only increase your credibility as an industry expert. This could also lead to better opportunities where you are able to share your expertise through even bigger established platforms and speaking engagements.  

Social Media Exposure; Blogging can serve as a great supplement to your existing social media content. Blogs are also easily shareable on social media, providing you the opportunity to have a reach beyond your audience. People are constant sharing posts Facebook and re-tweeting stories that they find interesting. Having fresh, shareable content is a key part of establishing your social media presence. Customer engagement is always a good thing and blogging provides another platform for you to engage with your following.

SEO; Search Engine Optimization- Even if you may not be familiar with the term, SEO, you see how it works every time you use Google or any other search engine to find content. As an overview, SEO is how you rank on Google when someone searches for a certain subject matter. For example, if you search, “how to do your own taxes” the items that show up on the first page have the current highest SEO rankings on Google.  Blogging is one of many elements that can help with this ranking. The more searchable words and content you have, the more likely you are to appear in a Google search!
Want to Get Started? Here is how!

If you already have a website, you likely have ability to start a blog right away. Most popular website platforms such as WordPress already have this function built in. All you have to do is talk to your webmaster about enabling this function, pick a subject matter and get going!

Set a realistic goal and stay consistent. There is no magic number that determines how often you should be blogging. This would be determined by your goals as a small business owner, your time, and resources. However, a good starting point would be one blog a month and to eventually increase that to at least two over time. This will ensure that your audience is getting fresh new content from you on a consistent basis.
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Evaluate your resources and outsource if needed. If writing a blog isn’t your biggest strength or you do not have the time or resources to focus on creating consistent content, consider outsourcing this function. This can vary from having an editor to review your content or delegating it completely to someone you trust to maintain the integrity of your content. Either way, you should ensure that the content is reflective of the message you would like to send.
Hopefully you found these tips helpful and you are ready to add blogging as essential piece of your functions as a small business owner!

Written by: Karen Johnson
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Contact Info
Website: www.cjanepublishing.com
Email: christinajanepublishing@gmail.com
Facebook: Christina- Jane Publishing


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