Redefining Your Value: Lessons from Bench’s Unexpected Closure (Wheel of Rants)

There may be errors in spelling, grammar, and accuracy in this machine-generated transcript.

Alicia Katz Pollock: In this episode of the unofficial QuickBooks accountants podcast, I have with me special guest Veronica. How are you doing, Veronica?

Veronica Wasek: I'm doing great. Alicia. How are you?

Alicia Katz Pollock: I'm doing really well. I'm really glad to have you here. This week's episode is another edition of our Wheel of Rants, where we have this list kind of on the back end of all the things that we complain about [00:00:30] in our industry. And we wanted to, you know, give some thought leadership and some, some help to people who have these same concerns as we do. So let's go ahead and spin the wheel. And we get, ooh, corporate venture capital funded bookkeeping solutions. In other words bench. Let's talk about these [00:01:00] companies that jumped into the bookkeeping space thinking how hard could it be? So let's couch this whole thing in terms of bench, since they're the hot news. Bench accounting was founded in 2012, and it was a leading online bookkeeping service that catered primarily to very small businesses. And they were known for their own proprietary accounting software, which was quote unquote, easy to use. And they were one of the first companies who [00:01:30] introduced the subscription based model. They raised over $100 million in funding. They had 11,000 customers and 820 employees. And on December 27th, 2024, they unexpectedly announced that a shutdown. And so they completely left thousands of business owners completely uncertain about the future of their bookkeeping services. A couple days later, Mplayer.com acquired bench and [00:02:00] so on December 30th, they just announced that they're back in business and the website came back up again, and they just kind of picked up where bench left off. But, you know, that's a disruption that introduces a lot of fear where there doesn't need to be any. And it really does highlight how vulnerable these automated platforms really can be. And so I think it's a great opportunity for you and I to reframe this event, because [00:02:30] this really is a pivotal moment for accounting professionals that we have an opportunity to showcase our value and the personalization and the reliability, and how much better a real bookkeeper is than an automated service. So, Veronica, tell me how you feel.

Veronica Wasek: Oh my goodness. I have a lot to say about it. And so I'm so I'm going to be careful with what I do say. But to me, this felt like [00:03:00] a vindication of something that I have been, uh, ranting about in the past of the large venture backed companies or large, heavily funded companies that have jumped into our space thinking, how hard could it be to do this bookkeeping? Because we can just automate it. And in realizing as a firm owner that, hey, it's not that easy. And there's so much more to providing bookkeeping services [00:03:30] than just making a profit or bringing profits to the the investors. And so, yes, I wanted to to talk about it. And also I realized that this wasn't just something that happened over a weekend and that we can forget about it. I really think it's the beginning of of something greater that's happening. And we really need to be aware.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. With the invention of, of [00:04:00] AI and that's one of we know that that's the goal of a lot of the firms, is to be able to use AI to help with the categorization of transactions. But what a lot of these companies don't think about is, you know, they're not bookkeepers. They're all in it for the profit, right? And they don't realize how hard it is to know what the how Starbucks actually should be categorized. Is it meals, entertainment? Is it an owner draw or is it [00:04:30] an event? Supplies? It really does depend.

Veronica Wasek: It does. And and really in a very simplistic way. Could you and can you automate bookkeeping? Absolutely. But I think bookkeeping has become a lot more complex because of e-commerce, PayPal, stripe and all of the other things and the And the integrations that we have available with QuickBooks. And so really the thought of, can we just automate it all? We're [00:05:00] not there yet. And so what happens is that we get these venture backed companies that are prioritizing profits over a customer or a client relationship Underpricing Bookkeeping services, which is really affecting our bottom line, because now we think we have to compete with them or we just think, hey, I could never compete, I might as well give up. And these companies are heavily investing in automation and AI models, as you said, Alicia. But it's really [00:05:30] all at the expense of those personal relationships. And ultimately, I think at the expense of the accuracy of the financial data that is being provided to the clients, to investors, to bankers, and even the IRS.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah, there's something in what you just said about the about the pricing structure of it, because that really does impact the industry, that when you have a company like bench who wants to scale and they're VC [00:06:00] backed, they're looking for client acquisition, like their number one thing is we need clients. And one of the ways that they do it rapidly is by underpricing. And while that helps with their client acquisition numbers, they're thinking they're going to just make it up by keeping the client long term. But if they're not providing a good service, it's not going to be sustainable. And the worst part is, like you said, it undervalues the profession because they're offering bookkeeping at [00:06:30] a rate that's literally too low for the work that's being done. And then it makes all of us who are earning an honest living look like we're gouging when we're the right price.

Veronica Wasek: Right? And yeah, and it is a significant problem for our industry just because even by, uh, I'll take bands, for example, that they were switching their customers to pay a year in advance. And so now if you have a cash flow problem [00:07:00] and you get your customers to pay a year in advance, then you can make it through in theory, even though apparently that's not what was happening, you can solve your cash flow problem. But even that didn't, I'm going to assume, didn't solve their cash flow problem. And so again, it's that that problem of how do the independent accountants or small accounting firm owners compete against these large corporations?

Alicia Katz Pollock: Well, I think the key word there [00:07:30] is compete. Do we want to compete or do we want to just stand strong and proud in who we are and what we bring to the industry, that their shutdown kind of highlights how unstable that model is, and it really underscores how important it is that you get personalized, relationship based bookkeeping services.

Veronica Wasek: Yes, and I think now is the time then to rather [00:08:00] than feeling like we have to compete on price or, or feel like we have to lower our value and lower our offerings to clients, we have to start redefining our value after what happened to bench. And so really now to capitalize on on the things that we're doing for clients, the service, that accuracy and that personal relationship. And again, start redefining our value.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Well, [00:08:30] how do we do that? If it's people, you know, every small business owner, their first thought and their first inclination is that they need to do as best as possible for their bottom line. So their inclination is what are the cheapest services that I can get. And, you know, being able to position ourselves so that our value is the we're leading with value and we're leading with benefit and not with just who's the cheapest out there. [00:09:00] You know, like I can pay somebody, you know, $15 an hour to type these things in. And that's not really even a clear understanding of how bookkeeping works.

Veronica Wasek: Yes. I mean, the perception of you're just doing data entry, I think is big. But because of what happened with bench and because of from what I understand, the service wasn't there already. The accuracy wasn't there that there are a lot of of [00:09:30] these 11,000 customers that they had, I would think a portion of them just probably continued on with bench. It's seemingly inexpensive. Expensive. It was more convenient to to continue with the new owners of bench, but I would venture to guess that a large portion of those clients really want another alternative. They saw what they got from the cheap services, the, the revolving [00:10:00] door of, of, uh, employees that they were dealing with, the lack of accuracy, the inability to even be on their own accounting software. So I think they've seen what they can get for what they paid and have seen what they got from that type of, of business model. And they're looking for alternatives.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So when you look at Bench's website, they they say that they have been acquired by Mplayer.com, but it looks like they've kept it as a pretty seamless experience. [00:10:30] And the the pricing on it is $349 a month, which is actually kind of an interesting price. On the one hand, is that low or is that high? And it really depends on on the level of bookkeeping. Like, you know, I have a couple clients who are like $100 a month for like my micro clients, like my, my, my therapists that just they're fully automated. But then, you know, $500 or $750 [00:11:00] a month is a perfectly reasonable price for complicated clients. So I'm wondering how bench makes it work because it doesn't even look like they have a scale. It looks like everybody comes in at that price.

Veronica Wasek: I don't know, but I did hear some feedback from some bookkeepers who said they they were able to sign on some former bench clients that that's just what they advertised. [00:11:30] But the the bench clients were paying a lot more per month, and they were also prepaying for a full year of Are of services.

Alicia Katz Pollock: We as ProAdvisor. There's been a lot of talk in the last five years about shifting how we're doing things from hourly rates and after the fact, like, oh, it took me three hours. So let me go ahead and bill you for those three hours. And you know, when I started in the industry 15 years ago, that's how bookkeeping was, was approached. [00:12:00] And then it became, okay, let me prepay for it so that you're not losing money from people who aren't who are delinquent. And now the conversation for the last five years really has about been about value added and really emphasizing that it's no longer just data entry. That, you know, bookkeeping when I started 20 years ago, was literally, here's the date, here's the vendor, here's the category, here's the class, here's [00:12:30] here's the date, here's the vendor, here's the category, here's the class. And it's a whole different set of skills now.

Veronica Wasek: It is. And I think that's where we need to start looking at again, as we said, redefining our value and really understanding what is our value. Because I think that people don't really realize the value that we bring. They think, well, our value comes from timely and accurate financial statements, and there's so much more to that. And going [00:13:00] back to what you said about pricing and fixed pricing, when I started looking a few years ago about how do I create value from clients and started listing everything that I was doing and many of those things I wasn't even charging for. There's so much value if we stop and think about it. So one of the things, or one of the areas in which we create value is just in how our clients pay us. If they're paying a fixed price per month on a monthly [00:13:30] basis with the ability to terminate a contract with, say, a 30 day notice. There's value to that for the client because now they're not tied to a long term contract seemingly, and then they're paying you in advance. They know exactly how much they will be paying. So again, value is something that we take for granted. But compared to the business practices that bench had in contrasting [00:14:00] to what they were doing, then there is value in that sort of pricing relationship.

Alicia Katz Pollock: There absolutely is. Now when we were talking earlier, you had you were talking about how we can reposition ourselves and like, how do we take what's happening with bench as an opportunity for us. What can we do? Do we want to acquire these clients? Do we want to find a way to leverage this as an opportunity?

Veronica Wasek: I [00:14:30] think that there is a huge opportunity. We just have to get past this, this mentality of the bench clients where cheap clients, because I don't think that they all were. And even if there were clients who weren't paying as much as they would say pay you or me, that because of the situation in which they were left in when bench, you know, they logged into their bench app and all of a sudden it's like, sorry, we're out of business. That's [00:15:00] it's ridiculous. Okay. How how could we as professionals do that to our clients. And yet bench did that. And so when we start looking at even the nature of of the relationship that we have with clients, which is a personal relationship, they're dealing with a real person. They're dealing with with an assigned bookkeeper or manager who's going to be there. And it's not going to be a different person each [00:15:30] time. The fact that bench has its proprietary accounting software. And so if the client leaves, they don't get to take anything except for reports. And even when bench closed down, they couldn't access any reports.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Now, one of the things that I keep thinking about is, well, what's what's really important to the business owner. Like, does the ethics come into play if you turn to somebody like bench? Bench isn't in business in order to help you [00:16:00] succeed as a business owner. Bench is in business to make money for their shareholders. And they've decided that bookkeeping is a good way of doing that. Whereas every single person listening to this podcast, we're in it because we want our clients to succeed and grow. We want them to be the statistic of the businesses that succeed after five years or seven years. We want to be we want to help them have a legacy to pass on to on to their kids. We're in it for the [00:16:30] end result. Two steps down the line of the client's success. Not how much money can we put in our own pockets?

Veronica Wasek: Absolutely. And I think that's really at the core of our profession, is that deep care that we have for our clients and in fact, to our own detriment, because in many cases we care more than they do. But I think this is the opportunity then, to start shifting our perception and the client's perception of the value that we provide and of the nature of the relationship [00:17:00] that we bring to the table, starting with working with an expert who cares about their clients. And as you said, Alicia, that it's not about profit for the the stakeholders. It's truly about a relationship in which we as professionals care about our clients.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah, absolutely.

Veronica Wasek: And then another way in which we need to shift our perception is realizing that our professional expertise and experience [00:17:30] cannot be replaced by automation.

Alicia Katz Pollock: With that, I gave that example earlier. Like Starbucks can be three different categories. So how do you actually program for that? Is it overtly? Is it transactions under $15 hour owner draws and transactions between 15 and $30. Are our employee meals or meals. And then if it's over $30, it must be for an event. But that's not going to capture [00:18:00] the when you go to go to Starbucks and you meet with a client and you each pay for your own, then there's no way to capture that accuracy.

Veronica Wasek: There's not an even. You cannot replace your professional judgment with automation. And in that case, some judgment is involved. And even looking at the nature of of, you know, why were you having a cup of coffee today.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Right?

Veronica Wasek: Another way in which we can shift our perception [00:18:30] is working on the client's accounting software. The fact that we are working on the client's accounting software, and that the client should always own their accounting data. It shouldn't be held captive somewhere else. The client should have full access to their data and never be shut out of their data, as it was with with bench.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah, I actually want to extend on that a little bit though, because that's something that, you know, you and I answer in the forums all the time, is that [00:19:00] for the proadvisors on this call, you may be the only person working in the client's QuickBooks. Sometimes you're just helping, sometimes you're doing review, and the client's doing all the work and you're just doing the reconciliations. Other times, you're the person in charge of their whole process and you just send them reports. You're going to fall somewhere on the on the in between in that. But it's really important that your client is the primary administrator user on the account. According to Intuit, [00:19:30] their policy is that your client owns their data. You're the bookkeeper working in their file. Even if you started the client for the very first time, and they're on your wholesale billing and you're paying for the file, it's still not your data. And I just want to reinforce to everybody here that if you separate from a client, you want to just immediately make sure that if they're not already the primary admin, that they are right now. I've [00:20:00] heard stories from people who are like, well, you know, I put in all of this work and, you know, they've got ownership of it because they've been they've poured their soul into these numbers. But if a client leaves, you don't burn a bridge and say, well, you know, I'm going to hold this, this data captive, even if they owe you money, even if they haven't paid you, it's still their data. And you are much better taking the high road and giving them [00:20:30] the access. Maybe let them remove you from their account login instead of instead of you doing it, but don't make them have to call into it and fill out forms to prove ownership of data just so that you can get removed. That's not a it doesn't make us look good on the whole. So I'm just, you know, want to implore everybody, go look at your users and make sure that your company owner is the primary owner on all of your files.

Veronica Wasek: I totally [00:21:00] agree, and that's a whole other rant for me. Yes. And I mean, I agree with you 100%, Alicia. Um, and in fact, just recently someone in one of the Facebook groups was asking about the fact that they did all this work in the client did not pay them and apparently was not going to pay them. And they were asking, should they go into the client's QuickBooks and delete the work that they had done? And I thought, no, it's once it's on that client's books, it is their [00:21:30] data. And you're just really opening yourself up to liability at that point. In my opinion, if you're going in. Because to me it's malicious. Even though they didn't pay, you let it go because now you've learned a big lesson, which, by the way, I learned a big lesson too, because I did work for a client and they didn't pay me and it did cross my mind. Should I just go in there and and, uh, you know, not give them access to the QuickBooks or delete things? And because I was mad, but ultimately [00:22:00] I'm a professional and I did my, you know, I did what I was asked to do. They chose not to pay me. But the big lesson was that I needed to get paid in advance. And so from that lesson, which actually it took me maybe 2 or 2 or 3 times to learn the the lesson, but from from that lesson. Then I was then started asking for payment in advance or for a deposit in advance. And it was a game changing [00:22:30] for my business.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah, it really reduces your risk. And it is just really important though as professionals that that you try and be. You know, I'm a big believer in the four agreements. And the first one is be impeccable with your word. And it's not just the words that you say, it's the things that you do. And if you get petty and hold somebody's data hostage, then that's going to come back around because they [00:23:00] will go on social media or they'll leave you bad reviews or, you know, just bad karma. So, all right, I think I can get off my soapbox now.

Veronica Wasek: Going back to, uh, what is the value that is being created? Is the fact that the that yes, the client owns the data and you don't. Another way in which we can shift our perception about the value that we provide is that, again, we're focused on our client's success and not on our own profits [00:23:30] and assess it to our own detriment at times. And and even what we just said that if the client didn't pay you, you just okay, you leave the work there because, again, we're more focused on their success than our own. Mhm. And go ahead Alicia.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah I just want to kind of throw in on that one just last night. I have a client who is in e-commerce whose e-commerce. And we have the QuickBooks integration set up for her Shopify store. And back [00:24:00] in June, it changed so that it started importing PayPal payments. And it started, but it made its own set of general ledger categories for it. And so it so it was not on my radar at all. And I discovered last night, when I was doing their year end review, that all of their PayPal payments for since June onward had been completely doubled. And so I was like, okay, I need to go clean this up. Do I is this billable? [00:24:30] And I'm like, well, no. She's on a she's on a contract. I didn't find it. I probably should have found it, but for several reasons. There was no way for me to notice until I did this extra service. So I sent there last night and removed $60,000 in duplicated income and took it on the chin. And it's not billable, but I'm committed to her success. It's not about me. Absolutely.

Veronica Wasek: Yeah. [00:25:00]

Alicia Katz Pollock: And even my time. Yeah.

Veronica Wasek: Yeah. And even at times of, um, deciding that maybe I'm not the best fit for that particular client who's coming to me for services, I think is a way of. Of providing value is sometimes saying we're not the right fit. But here's someone else who can help you. Rather than, again, the larger companies that are they just take anybody because it's just salespeople. They're just signing [00:25:30] up clients that that's their job. They just sign up clients regardless of whether. They're a good fit for that company.

Alicia Katz Pollock: You know, we've seen some of that even with QuickBooks Live sometimes. Is that like they do vet to make sure that it falls under their very narrow set of requirements? But sometimes somebody starts with QuickBooks Live and it turns out that it's not what they need. But companies like bench, they'll take you. They don't care. Yeah. They just they just want. The want your dollars.

Veronica Wasek: Right. And then there's you know the I'm sure [00:26:00] the the sales line or whatever. Oh yes. We can handle everything and, and you're probably talking to a salesperson who doesn't even know anything about bookkeeping to begin with.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Right. Exactly.

Veronica Wasek: Another way in which we can really redefine our value and our expectations and clients expectations is that as accountants, we are dependable. Our team is dependable. We're there for the long haul. As we said before, we're there for that relationship. [00:26:30] Another way is is, as I said, monthly pricing, no long term prepaid contracts because bench had that, uh, that, uh, business practice of, well, you have to pay us in advance. And I think they even offered like financing to their clients, which I think is crazy. And, um, that, that everything is really about a relationship when it comes to working with accountants. We're [00:27:00] about a relationship and not a transaction. Um, and I think another way is we need to set the expectation with our clients or with prospective clients, or even just in for some of us. Alicia, you're a content creator. I'm a content creator of you get what you pay for in some of these relationships with these other alternative, larger bookkeeping firms.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah, I mean, [00:27:30] there's it's a missed opportunity or we don't want it to be a missed opportunity anymore because like, you know, we may look at people who are like, oh, if they're going to go with bench, then they're just, they're they're cheap. They're not worth my time. Um, but 350 bucks a month is actually a right in the ballpark for a lot of small bookkeeping firms. And so if you can show them the alternatives, that's kind of what our mission [00:28:00] is now. Well, how do we reach these people? How do we let them know that there are better options?

Veronica Wasek: Yes, and we do need to let them know there are better options. And as you said, Alicia, I think there were some missed opportunities. Um, not just in that weekend when. Okay, Ben shut down and everybody's going crazy. But even now and in the future because of, you know, this, as I said, this wasn't just a fluke. I think that this is just the beginning of [00:28:30] perhaps other large firms that are providing this, this sort of, uh, this type of bookkeeping business model. I'm going to guess that none of them are really running sustainable businesses. And so when, uh, everything happened during that last weekend in December, you know, there were a lot of people posting content on their social media directly to former customers. [00:29:00] And, uh, and in And in fact, I was putting out content for other bookkeepers like, hey, here are some posts you may want to to put on your social media. And and I did see some of it. But then as soon as bench was acquired, everybody thought, oh, it's over and it's not over. As I said, I think it's just the beginning. And so we need to really take advantage of those opportunities. And by first, I think, really giving up that notion that all of the bench customers were cheap clients. [00:29:30] So even though bench I think, as we said, really advertises to to seemingly the what I'm going to call quote unquote cheap clients, I think that's just the way to get people in the door. And so I'm assuming that they upsell you or they they probably have additional pricing tiers that we don't know about. And even the fact that they're then getting paid in advance, they're making money [00:30:00] from that and from just investing the money that they get up front. And so we need to give up that notion of all of the bench clients were cheap because there were 11,000 clients that we know of. And so even if 50% of those clients are not cheap clients, we're still talking about a large number of business owners who are probably looking for an alternative.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. I mean, this is really pointing to a [00:30:30] shift in the landscape. And, you know, our our industry has been in big flux for a couple of years with changing pricing, changing models. The role of AI, all of it. And it's just, you know, if you have don't really have any kind of marketing behind what you're doing, maybe you have enough clients and that's all you need. But if you are looking to grow and scale, I mean, that's really what the last five years [00:31:00] have been about at all the conferences. How do we scale? How do we get bigger? And this is that climate where we have an opportunity to okay, we'll figure out what your internal processes are so that you can take on more clients. And then where do you go find those clients. And is it is it advertising. Is it going to Chamber of Commerce meetings. Is it Upwork. You know there's a lot of different places. But the important part is that you focus your efforts where the business owners [00:31:30] are. And it's hard for it's a challenge sometimes with social media because like my Facebook thread or my LinkedIn thread is all bookkeepers, and that's sure my market for my trainings. But when I'm looking for more bookkeeping clients, I'm not going to find the bookkeeping clients inside the bookkeeper channels. And what I've found really effective is picking a Picking a client profile. Like, what kind of client do you want? Is [00:32:00] it by industry? Is it by size? Is it by style? Like e-commerce? And then where do those businesses go to get their information and do their research? And that's where you belong as a bookkeeper who wants those clients is inside the space, is coming at it from the perspective of the business owner.

Veronica Wasek: Exactly. And I think, as we've mentioned before, now, that we have redefined our value and have a better understanding [00:32:30] of what that value is, and especially for that sort of that disgruntled bench type customer or someone who, you know, just a business owner looking for a better relationship, a different relationship with their accountant and bookkeeper, that, as you said, Alicia, we really need to then, um, very clearly communicate our new marketing message to those ideal [00:33:00] clients. And so, as you said, we do have to then start defining who is an ideal client for us and understanding that for many accountants, you think that you have to to appeal to everybody. So anybody for anything, for any service, for any amount of money. And while I would say I started that way, you may have the same started the same Alicia and many of us have that. Ultimately [00:33:30] you start to you need to start really narrowing down who is an ideal client for you. And as you said, Alicia, then find where they're hanging out and it's a lot easier to narrow down who that ideal client is by then narrowing down your service offering, as well as narrowing down your area of expertise. So ultimately finding a niche or some something that you're doing that sets you apart from everybody else. So, for example, one of the things [00:34:00] that I did when I started my my business, I realized that, you know what? Everybody keeps asking me about QuickBooks. They don't want to talk about bookkeeping, accounting, a comptroller, CFO. They just they would ask me, do you work with QuickBooks? Do you do things with QuickBooks? And I would say, well, yeah, of course. But then I realized that I need to change my, my marketing message and to, to start marketing myself as a QuickBooks expert. And, and when [00:34:30] I did that everything changed.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Mhm.

Veronica Wasek: And literally everything changed and everything that I have done since.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. The I was I'm thinking of I just saw a post go by. Oh it was Penny Lane Kroll. Um who has decided that you know construction is her thing, so she has her entire QuickBooks business or bookkeeping business based on construction. And she actually just went to a construction conference [00:35:00] and had a booth about construction, bookkeeping. And, you know, you think about it, it's like the flip. We're used to like accounting conferences where we talk about our specialty. But what she did is she went, okay, construction let me go to a construction conference because these construction people need a bookkeeper. And so it's a whole different positioning of where you're at.

Veronica Wasek: Absolutely. And I think positioning takes some courage because there's a lot of fear around [00:35:30] feeling like maybe I'm narrowing my options. Maybe I won't get as many clients if I go really narrow, I should go wider. But the wider you go, like if if you're talking to everybody, you're talking to no one in terms of your marketing. So if you're marketing to everyone, you're marketing to no one as opposed to, as we said, Penny Lane is doing a great job of of servicing a certain type of of client and then [00:36:00] narrowing down her, um, her QuickBooks expertise to those areas that really affect those types of clients. Same with e-commerce, for example. That was a really a very important shift in my bookkeeping business when in 2020, I decided to focus on e-commerce, which took many years, to to decide, I'm going to focus on an industry. We were QuickBooks online focused and and really were known for our QuickBooks [00:36:30] online expertise. But I felt that, you know what? All the other bookkeepers are coming up and they're all mastering QuickBooks online. So now we have to find something. We need to narrow the offering. And and I thought, okay, e-commerce because some other bookkeepers were talking about e-commerce and how successful they were in that niche. But what I found is that e-commerce is so broad that we need to even narrow it down further. So we narrowed it down to two Shopify [00:37:00] sellers only using QuickBooks online and then using one app to do the integration. Just because there are so many sales channels, so many integration apps that it just was impossible to then call ourselves e-commerce experts when they were just way too many methodologies for for doing e-commerce accounting.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Right. And, you know, if you come from a scarcity point of view, you're thinking to yourself, oh, well, that means that I only do this one little thing and there's only [00:37:30] a couple people who need it. But on the grand scale, what it's doing is making you an expert with a level of expertise that's unmatched and unparalleled. And when you find a Shopify A seller, then you, just like you, have all the answers and you're speaking their language and you solve their problems because you have one option that works really well, that you can then just focus in on like a laser. And that brings them the peace of mind because there's no second [00:38:00] guessing, there's no questions, there's no research, there's no which app should I use? It's just this works. Well, let's just get you going. And instead of that being less valuable because it takes you less time, it's more valuable because you have the answer before they've even asked the question.

Veronica Wasek: Exactly. And then tying this back to how do we compete with those larger bookkeeping companies that think, how hard could it be is we [00:38:30] need to run toward the complexity and toward those niches in which those larger companies don't have any expertise.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. Or you can also go with my business model. My most of my work is all training set ups, troubleshooting and the complex stuff. But my bookkeeping clients are all like the micro clients. It's like I said, the therapists who just have billing income coming in [00:39:00] from the health insurance companies and we can just automate everything. So I went to the micro clients, where even the 350 bucks that bench is charging is a fortune, and that allows me to do scale, because it really only takes 15, 20 minutes to to do their books for the month or sometimes even for the quarter. So it's a different approach.

Veronica Wasek: And I love that approach.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. And so there is no right answer. There really is. It comes down [00:39:30] to what floats your boat. What are you passionate about? What industry do you enjoy or what industry do you have experience in? You know, what did your parents do for a living? What did your did? Your partner? What does your partner do? Like finding an area that you already have experience with or something that if you weren't a bookkeeper, that's what you would be doing. Then that's, you know, you want it to be something that you that makes you smile, that makes you want to get out of bed in the morning.

Veronica Wasek: I totally agree, because, [00:40:00] um, again, larger companies don't have that level of passion that we have. And in fact, even in, uh, why did we enjoy working with with e-commerce clients and especially those Shopify clients? Because they're very creative and I'm a very creative person. So I felt that there was this connection. And I think even the clients can see that. They can feel it. And so, um, again, when we start to differentiate ourselves based on the value that we're creating, [00:40:30] based on our own interests, our own passions, you cannot compete with that. They cannot compete with you based on on again your value on who you are and your expertise.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So wrapping it back around to bench and what we can learn from bench is the lesson that we take away is that we're not bench. We don't want to be bench. The [00:41:00] very, very bottom line is companies like bench are in it to make money. We are in it because we love what we do and we want to see our clients succeed. So Veronica, at the end of every episode, we also do a segment called What's Going On in Your World? So tell us about you and what you do.

Veronica Wasek: Absolutely. And yes, there is a lot going on in my world, but I'll start with what I do now. So [00:41:30] I am a educator and mentor for bookkeepers and my passion is to help bookkeepers to build the the, uh, the bookkeeping business and life of their dreams. Um, you can find me on 5 a.m. Academy. That's where all of my courses are. Or five minute bookkeeping.com, which will then take you to all of my videos, courses, and content that I provide. Uh, the big change in my [00:42:00] life is that after 14 years of owning my own successful bookkeeping business, I sold it to two of my employees as of the beginning of of this month.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Congratulations.

Veronica Wasek: That's why I said what I'm doing now, because when I was doing for 14 years prior, I was running my own bookkeeping firm, but five years ago made the decision that I needed to really set a path for for my two key employees to purchase [00:42:30] the company. So we have been working for and work for the last five years to make that transition, to mentor them, to get them ready. And and actually, as of the last six months, I just acted like a okay, I'm not in charge. They were in charge and did wonderful. So I think we we really did a a great transition for them and I'm super excited for them as well.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Well congratulations to you and congratulations [00:43:00] to them as well. Um, for me, I'm, you know, delighted to have you back in the training space a little bit more because, you know, we've been working together for ages and, you know, it's been a great relationship. So thank you for joining us on the podcast as well.

Veronica Wasek: It was great to be with you. I look forward to the next time I can join you.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Absolutely.

Veronica Wasek: And Alicia, what's going on in your world?

Alicia Katz Pollock: So for me, this is my my big cleanups [00:43:30] season a couple days ago, I just taught my year end cleanup for tax time, and I know this is a topic near and dear to your heart because you also specialize in cleanups, but I just did a two hour course on like where to look in your QuickBooks online to identify bad data and then what are the techniques to clean it up. And so people can head over to Reuters.com for that. And then I'm also just taught a course on converting [00:44:00] QuickBooks from desktop to online. And now I'm kind of beginning the the next series of beginning classes. So there's an intro to bookkeeping and accounting for for newbies. And in a couple weeks I'm teaching my banking feeds class or my banking center class. And that class has grown over the years that I've taught it. It started as a one hour class and just here's how to use the banking feed. And now it's banking feed, best practices and how to trick it out and how to leverage it. And [00:44:30] here are here are the shortcuts. And now that the banking center, it's not just the bank feed, but it's receipts and app transactions and all the other little apps involved, like all the little tabs across the top. It has become a three hour class. And so I'm teaching that one on March 4th. And so I'm like the biggest banking feeds geek there is. And so if you want to learn like literally every single thing that you can do in the banking feeds, and this three hour class will save you literally hundreds [00:45:00] of hours over the rest of your career. So I really love teaching this class, and hopefully everybody can come join me and learn my secrets. So they're not secrets anymore.

Veronica Wasek: That sounds very exciting.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you very much, Veronica, for joining us on this edition of The Wheel of Rants. And we will see you in the next one.