15Hr - What Got My Firm Through The Last 5 Weeks
Hey - it’s me this week! I have a couple more guest writers lined up, but some days writing feels good. So I’ll go with that feeling today :o) Thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers. The kids and I are hanging in there the best we can.
-Erica
As I’m sure you know, 5 weeks ago, I lost my husband. (And if you just joined the newsletter, my condolences. That’s a rough first line for your first newsletter here.) Our family is shattered. And still…I have two businesses to run.
As a community of solo (or almost-solo) accounting firm owners, we talk about “emergency planning” (i.e. something happens in life) or “succession planning” (i.e. something happens to me**). This is one of the biggest operational risks of running a solo / lifestyle accounting firm. We actually had a roundtable discussion on this in Aligned Accountants back in May (here’s the link).
Life, unfortunately, happens…
Here’s what’s gotten my accounting firm through the last 5 weeks:
Claude - do you hate that it’s #1? I’m sorry, it’s true. Claude, connected to my email and calendar, was my triage in those first two weeks. I needed to let clients know what had happened and that I’d be out of the office. I needed to cancel meetings. I hadn’t slept. I couldn’t put sentences together. I couldn’t think. Claude was already trained on my business and did it for me.
Good Clients - for years, I’ve carefully and continually carved off non-ideal clients (both for personality and services). This is when all of that mattered. I only received love from my clients. No one emailed me anything other than support while I was out of the office. I looked up 10 minutes before my husband’s memorial service and saw one of my clients sitting 3 rows behind me. She got on plane a and flew across the country, then drove 3 hours to the middle of nowhere, to sit with me. She had never met my husband. You control who you work with. It matters.
Part-Time Contractor - my day-to-day bookkeeper kept all the QBOs running while I was out. I was also midway through three onboardings and cleanups (the most I’ve ever done at once) and she picked them right up and did what she could. My husband passed on 9/10. I’m not currently prepping tax returns, but I don’t know what I would have done if I had been totally solo and sitting on returns for 9/15 and 10/15 deadlines.
Documented Workflows - My brain was (is) not at 100% when I tried to come back to work. Having documented workflows for everything I do was my saving grace here. Being able to follow my own directions in this situation gives me (and my clients) peace of mind that I’m not missing anything.
Boundaries - I turned off my firm website a few weeks ago. I can’t imagine meeting a prospect right now. I can’t imagine having a sales call. I love all my current clients (see #2) and I plan to continue what I’m doing, but I don’t know what I want my firm to look like in the future. I don’t know what my life will look like in the future. And I don’t want to think about it right now. I just need to get through each day. So I turned off my website and I don’t feel bad about it.
Community - Aligned Accountants community really showed up for me. They offered to pick up my bookkeeping & CFO work. They sent messages and prayers. I felt their love and support. We have one hellva group of good humans in Aligned. I’m not special. They would show up for anyone like this.
We have almost 3,000 people on this email list. Unfortunately, life will happen to many of us: a sudden loss, an illness, a natural disaster. Or something like this will happen to someone you love and you will drop everything to be with them.
Make sure your firm is ready for life to happen.
In the words of Morgan Housel:
Plan on your plan to not go according to plan.
Thanks for being here,
Erica
**Literally writing this made me realize that Ben was my succession plan. I hadn’t thought of that until just now. There is now no one with my own succession information. I will add that to my to do list now… 🙃
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