Done with Onboarding for the Year
A couple weeks ago, my car started making a funny noise (it’s 11 years old, so it’s allowed). I wanted to take it to my favorite mechanic in town, Mike, but he’s hard to get ahold of. For one thing, he only has a landline phone number…and no voicemail. He also doesn’t have regular hours and sometimes goes to Florida for three months without telling anyone.
In a different headspace, this would really frustrate me.
But as I thought about it more, I was impressed with Mike as a business owner. My guess is that Mike doesn’t like checking his voicemail, doesn’t like the internet, and doesn’t like cold weather. When you go into Mike’s shop (he’s a solo owner too), it looks like a living room, complete with a dog laying next to his shop-couch and wood burning stove. The space looks like he genuinely enjoys being there. I’m also guessing that Mike is doing fine financially, otherwise he would probably care more about the voicemail, internet, working hours stuff.
Good for Mike.🙂
In a similar vein, I’m officially done with onboarding new clients for the year.
Why? Because I really like to lean into all-things-holidays in November and December. I also don’t want to take on all the inevitable accounting clean up that I tend to find with new clients this late in the year.
Sometimes I feel alone in my methodologies, so I was happy to see fellow “15 Hour Accountant” newsletter subscriber, Logan George, share this on LinkedIn last week:
Thanks to Logan for letting me share his thoughts here (and congrats on baby #4!). It’s a good reminder that we can all be like Mike, the beats-to-his-own-drum mechanic.
Run your firm with intentionality.
Maybe you’re in a season where taking on new clients at the end of the year is important for profit. That’s great! Know who and how many you’re targeting.
Or maybe you’re not in that season. That’s great too. It’s okay to say No. Or take the discovery call with the understanding that your next onboarding slot is for X months in the future.
You can decide what works for your firm, regardless of what the noise of the industry feeds to you.
If you’re curious about what happened with my car…it’s fine now. I (read: actually my husband) eventually got a hold of Mike, I dropped off my car, and Mike fixed it in a couple of hours. When I went to pick it up, Mike was nowhere to be seen. His shop was closed and my keys were in the ignition of my car sitting out front.
He asked that I put $60 cash under the log by the front door when I picked up my car.*
Cheers,
Erica
*Mike likely doesn’t have a saleable business for when he wants to retire, and that’s okay. Or on second thought, maybe he’s already retired. I actually can’t tell.
What’s Happening in Aligned
Pricing Increase Workshop (Part 1 - Determining Your Prices)
Recording Available until Nov 7th (for what it’s worth, the Q+A was really valuable during this session)
Office Hours w/ Erica:
Pricing Increase Workshop (Part 2 - Drafting Client Communication)
Speed Networking
Pricing Increase Workshop (Part 3 - Updating Your Systems)
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