Behind The Hustle: Travis Thompson
I try to paint a holistic picture of my bookkeeping business in the “Kate Builds In Public” section of this newsletter. But I do worry that sometimes it might come across that my life and business is all unicorns and rainbows.
Though I know my life is mostly free from sorrows and struggles right now, everything is not perfect and I really do find entrepreneurship quite difficult!
So I wanted to make sure to share some of my 2025 Ls with you.
One of my written goals on my formal goals list was to hit Inbox Zero. Plus it is also one of 2 things I have written in big letters on the whiteboard in my office. But y’all, the number of UNOPENED emails in my inbox is in the 5 digits. It feels truly clownish. I read the goal every day and just can’t even begin to tackle the problem.
The situation with hiring a part-time operations person to support me in 2025 did not work out like I had hoped. And then when I tried to fill the position a second time, that hiring process didn’t work out either. I paused the whole search situation in November because I did not want to deal with all the moving parts over the holidays. I will try again in 2026, but I can tell the whole situation has me spooked about my abilities to hire, lead, inspire, etc.
I wanted to maintain at least over 30 people in my FreshBooks Office Hours membership group and do not have that many. Every time I get close, someone exits the group. This is the main service that I want to sell in my firm, so it is really disappointing.
And speaking of my FreshBooks Office Hours membership group, it has such a terrible name and essentially zero branding. I know the name stinks. People get it confused with the monthly free FreshBooks Q&A I host which is supposed to be my “lead magnet”. Every time I think about trying to improve the name or get fancy with branding I just want to crawl in a hole.
I played golf in high school and wanted to try to get back into golf this year. I had a written goal of playing 6 times. I played zero times.
I wanted to onboard 4 more recurring advisory clients in 2025 and only added 2.
I tried to do a paid webinar. I see other people do this. I assume they are successful at the endeavor. Mine was about converting clients to FreshBooks from other bookkeeping softwares. ONE person bought it. UNO. I hung my head, cancelled on the day of the event, and refunded her money. Because even though that meant complete failure, I thought that doing a paid webinar with one person would have been worse than just cancelling.
I hoped to hit the required metrics to monetize my Fix Your FreshBooks YouTube this year. It was a written goal. But sadly I am not that much closer than I was a year ago, even though I have put in some real effort at making more FreshBooks tutorials. What the heck!?! You don’t make much money from YouTube if you hit the threshold for monetization, but it is certainly an important milestone. I am ticked that I am still so far off.
Every year I tell myself I will “do next December better.” Annnddd…I guess I get to try again in 2026 because this December is the same-same as it always is. My husband and I did totally joy-less Christmas shopping last night as it was December 19 and we forced ourselves to escape to Starbucks and spent 2 hours on Amazon and I just feel like such a grinch. I am barely even excited about what we did buy. Also, not a single Christmas card has been sent. I have cards but no stamps. Half of my lights on my tree have stopped working. I don’t know what I want December to look like in my house, but I just know each year I feel like I am doing it all wrong.
I told you in a previous Kate Builds In Public section (you read all my Bookkeeping Side Hustle emails, right???) that I had a plan to hit $1,000 in monthly referral income from Relay. I had a specific plan to sling the link in some videos on my FreshBooks YT channel and via my firm email list. Well, I only received about $50 from my most recent Relay referral commission payout. My daughter makes more than that baby sitting the neighbors! I only have gotten over $500 one month’s payout this year. Total bust for this “passive income” idea and very far away from that $1,000/month I was sure I’d hit.
There are more Ls that I could list, but I will move on.
Hopefully this gives some insight to the disappointing side of things. I would hate to only present a rosy picture all the time.
But I’m not stopping. Even with these Ls there are many blessings that I would not want to give up. I know that just keeping going is a huge part of the battle.
Note, I will share my 2025 Ws next edition, on January 3rd. So I hope you are subscribed. 🔔
Before we move on, allow me to point you to a useful tool for a moment. I recently updated my Bookkeeping Course Comparison Chart.
Some of you readers might be giving yourself the gift of a training program for Christmas. This chart might help you decide what to get. I tried hard to make sure there are resources for every skill level and starting point. And if you aren’t sure what to pick, you can just reply to this email and I can help you narrow things down.
💰Akadian is offering $1,100 off their Bookkeeping Fast Track* course. Use BFTScholarship. This is the kind of course that helps you get really good at technical bookkeeping with a lot of hands-on practice, in case you want to really be a bookkeeping wizard. Code valid until end of year.
💰Bookkeeper Launch is offering the Premier Plan for the price of the Pro plan. The difference between the two plans is basically more business coaching, so if you know you will need a little more of the rah-rah, motivating coaching, and have been eyeing that program, now is a good time to snag it. Compare the two plans here*. That code also gets you Complete Marketing Arsenal ($1,500) for free. Use code upgradenow500 for this deal.
💰Veronica Wasek of 5 Minute Bookkeeping announced a sale for 18% off. Shop her courses now so you are ready for the discount code. Her best sellers are her Paid Diagnostic Review System and her Complete QBO Cleanup course. Reply back if you want me to share the discount code when it comes out.
💰Ticket prices for Wave-Seattle conference go up on Jan 1. Buy a ticket and print your receipt for your ticket and shove it in your Christmas stocking.
Please always send me any news of deals that you hear of that others might benefit from.
Items with a “+” are hosted by me. All these events can be viewed and registered for in the DESCRIPTIONS of each event on the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Calendar.
📅+ December 22: Behind The Hustle: Melissa Harman. I’m closing out the year with the Melissa Harman. Hear how she started her business - the easy and the hard. Tune in HERE and click HERE to see the whole playlist.
📅 May 4-6: GrowCon in Utah. THE Conference EXCLUSIVELY for OWNERS of Bookkeeping, Tax & Accounting Companies.
📅 May15: Wave-Seattle. See what happens when Erin Pohan bring together a community of forward-thinking women in accounting and finance who are shaping the future of our industry.
📅 June 14-17: Scaling New Heights in Orlando. I’m attending and have a ticket for my husband. We are going to consider this conference his bootcamp for understanding what it would be like to come work for my company after he retires from the Navy.
Subscribe to the YouTube Channel
🌶️Michael F. is new to QBO and asked why some people are frustrated and leaving the platform. Well, y’all had thoughts - a variety of the good, the bad, and the ugly - but overall, the comments were a good insight to what real users think about it.
🌶️Liz R. shared about how she was skeptical about her client wanting his glasses being claimed as a tax deductions. But here y’all come in the comments about those blue-blockers so many of you use! I will need to look into this!
🌶️ In the last newsletter, I shared Travis T.’s post about losing a client - well, he updated us about what happened next - maybe this will be encouraging to you.
💪 A listener commented on the recent 🎥 Behind The Hustle interview with Travis Thompson. She said “This is by far my favorite series of interviews.” I am so honored she feels that way, but also not surprised. Cheers to real life. Real stories. From the real person’s mouth. No better way to grasp what is possible with this bookkeeping entrepreneur path. I am grateful to Travis for all he shared!
He shared the really tough origin story of how it took him over 11 months of actively looking to get his first client. Though in year 2 he was able to get over 30. Talk about whiplash.
When you listen to his story and $ figures, remember that he is still working a day job and hasn’t even been in business for 2 full years. 👀
💪 So the up-and-coming bookkeeping software called Digits did a demo for our group about 2 months ago. Not sure what happened in the last 2 weeks, though, but the stats in that video exploded. The chart truly looks like a hockey stick. My hunch is that means sooooome of you are going to go all-in with Digits, and I am here to celebrate it. If I am honest, I bet you will naturally have some frustrations as you figure out how to really develop an expertise in a new software (especially if you are already very good at a different bookkeeping software), but golly, I bet you will have some fun, too. Oh, and make a great living by supporting businesses that use Digits. Making money is good, too. If you are curious about it, you can become a Digits partner and take their certification training.
💀 There is a very fun auction for some stickers of industry influencer Jason Staats happening on LinkedIn that is helping raise money for The Accounting Cornerstone Foundation. Thanks to Nancy McClelland for doing this! Go comment. Go BID!
💼 Any one in the Austin, TX area? There is a job posting about a forensics accounting position, and a few others - Check it out the Job Guide HERE.
Don’t forget the standing opps on my Find A Freelance Job article. 1099 and W-2 opps.
🎪 Blocking Birthdays
If you use any sort of meeting scheduling tool where anyone has the ability to book time on your calendar, I’m about to give you the best tip you will receive all year…
Here is the quick backstory.
My husband recently sent me a calendar request to go on a lunch date with him on his birthday.
Y’all. I had to turn him down. 💔
Because my calendar was littered with meetings.
I felt super lame.
Now reader, don’t be distracted by the fact that my love life was being managed via Google calendar invitations. That might be deserving of some of your criticism, but that is missing the main point. Because I would have been in the same position even if he had asked me face-to-face or sent me a flirtatious text or wrote a cute note or any other way more romantic ways to express an interest in spending time with me.
I scrambled to move some things around, and I was able to reschedule that lunch date 2 days after his birthday (a.k.a. Used the “Propose a new meeting time” feature and kept our hot home fires burning).
But I also did not want this to ever happen again. So I put in a never-expiring, recurring blocking meeting in my calendar all day for his birthday and my kids’ birthdays.
Here is how to do it:
Go into your calendar that is linked to the app where the clients get access to meet with you.
Add a meeting called Block for {NAME’S} Birthday.
Set the time from 5:00am to 9:00pm
Go to the additional settings to make it recurring
Set it to never expire
Boom.
Now I may or may not end up needing that day to be open to do something with these loved ones on their special day. But at least now I am in control of the events. I can always delete a single instance of the meeting if I do need to open that day back up for work.
So, after you are finished reading this entire newsletter (cough cough), go and put blockers in your own calendar today. ✌️
Babe, if you are reading this, feel free to schedule lunch next year on your birthday. My calendar is wide open!
🎢 My “office” is closed until January 7. Holla! For me, that means no one would see any availability on my calendar booking links.
I do have 2 cleanups in progress that are almost completed (one conducted by me and one a contractors), and we will hold the 1-hour debrief/training meetings during my days off. But other than that, I am at enough for the year. Feels great.
🎢 I recorded footage for multiple FreshBooks videos last week so that I could use my Christmas break time to edit them. I know my body will still wake up early before my family. I like working and don't actually not want to do any firm work until Jan 7. I am proud of myself for managing the workload to have some good stuff to occupy me when I want to work.
🎢 I chaperoned the 5th grade field trip this past Tuesday. That is not big news. I take a lot of days off to be involved at school. BUT this past Tuesday something great happened. See, Tuesdays at 1:30 are my FreshBooks Office Hours membership meeting time. The field trip was set to end about that time. I knew I would have to host the meeting from my car (Remember my mobile car office set up I have told y'all about??? I will link that video down in the From The Vault section, so keep scrolling), but I was worried I might be a bit late or have technical difficulties. So I sent an emergency text to my sub-contractor (and FreshBooks expert) and asked if she would just join the call for the hour to be my wingman. This is BIG. Because I do need to find a way to let my office hours service still be valuable even if I personally cannot be there. So after the meeting last week, she and I came up with a plan for her to visit one of these meetings once a month so she can get face time with the members and my goal will be that in 2026 she is able to host one of the meetings completely by herself when I am OOO or sick. Look at me building a real business and not just a J.O.B.!
⚡Here is the video of my Mobile Office Setup. I drive my kids to a lot of different places and then have to wait.
Keep hustling!
Kate
-Chief Hustler-
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