Latest / Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast / Common Ecom Bookkeeping Mistakes

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Common Ecom Bookkeeping Mistakes · Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everyone, this is Selling On Giants, the e-commerce marketplace show, where we chat with experts in the e-commerce industry about the latest insights, strategies, and best practices they need to succeed on major e-commerce marketplaces.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Victor Dwyer, and today we have the pleasure of speaking with Nathan Hirsch.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Nathan is a successful entrepreneur and CEO of Ecom Balance, account balance and outsourcing school.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Specializing in bookkeeping and hiring, he notably scaled free up to$12 million in annual revenue and currently leads an online bookkeeping service and platform for effective online hiring, making him a respected industry expert.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Before we dive into the common e-comm bookkeeping mistakes, Nathan, please give us a little intro about yourself and share what you're currently working on.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Victor, thanks for having me on.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I started off as a seller when I was in college.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: This was 2008, 2009.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: I had some internships and I didn't want to get a real job after college.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I started hustling and trying businesses.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I started off uh buying and selling textbooks out of my college dorm room and I created a little referral program.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Before I knew it, I lines out the door of people trying to sell me their books to the point where I got a cease and desist letter from my college telling me to knock it off and stop competing with my school bookstore.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that was my first glimpse into being an entrepreneur.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And from there, I had this Amazon account that I was selling books on and I started to experiment with other products.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And through just a lot of trial and error, I came across baby products.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: They had high margins, easy to ship, easy to return.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I started building relationships with different manufacturers in the US that made baby products and didn't know anything about Amazon.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they would keep my card on file, ship it to wherever I sold it to.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Years later, I found out it was called drop shipping.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I ran this multi-million dollar e-commerce drop shipping business out of my college dorm room.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the one thing that my partner and I really struggled with was hiring.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: We hired a lot of college kids, they were super unreliable.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we kind of learned that that we had to hire full-time, long-term people that were really invested in our business.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: So we we found the virtual assistants out of the Philippines, and that kind of changed everything.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, Amazon became more popular.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: There were courses and gurus and conferences and all these people teaching e-commerce, and that didn't exist the first five years we were there.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we had all these e-commerce VAs and freelancers, and that didn't really exist back then.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's a lot of e-commerce agencies, but that wasn't really a thing.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is back 2015-16.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we started offering these different VAs and freelancers and agencies on a platform that became free up.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we ended up scaling free up for four years.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we exited in 2019, which is a whole nother story we can chat about if you want.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And since then, we've been busy kind of building other businesses.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: We have Outsource School, which teaches people our hiring process and gives other entrepreneurs our SOPs that they can plug into their business.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And more recently, we launched two bookkeeping businesses, e com balance uh for e-commerce businesses and accounts balance for agencies, software companies, and other online businesses.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm a lifelong entrepreneur.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: I love just starting creating businesses and seeing what works and what doesn't.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's really amazing.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: I love how you start out with internships because I started the same exact way to like really get hands-on experience, figure out what you're doing.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to like really see, I understand your flow of how you got to that point, but what was the decision making of why you kind of became an entrepreneur in the first place?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: What was your reasoning behind that?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I know it was a natural flow where you kind of fell into it, type of thing, but what made you take that step saying, like, you know what?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: I want to try to be an entrepreneur.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what made you take that first step?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it sounds like you and I are similar.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: My parents always made me get jobs from the second I was like 14 and up.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was mowing people's lawns, I became an umpire in my town, I worked at a local store, and uh I hated every second of it.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I working for other people, I just learned wasn't for me, and I had to get up and drive to work every day.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And but meanwhile, I learned a lot about just customer service and sales and managing people and all the stuff that kind of goes into business.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I was fortunate enough to have an internship uh with Dave Edwards, who runs Aaron's, uh, which is kind of like a rental center.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember he came into the store one day and he was never in the store.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he kind of told me one way or another that he just runs the whole business from his phone and is like golfing half the time.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So in my mind, I'm like, whoa, like this is awesome.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when I got to college, Quinnipiac University had this entrepreneur program.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I went in undecided.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember all the deans went up on stage to all the business students and they kind of gave their pitch on why you should major in economics or finance or whatever it is.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the entrepreneur person just got up there and said, Hey, if you ever want real financial freedom, if you ever want life freedom, the only way to do it is to become an entrepreneur.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then she just walked off the stage and that was it.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so from that point, I just really wanted to be an entrepreneur, and it was just about figuring out how.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I'm fortunate enough to never have a real job.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: But when I got to the end of college, I kind of had this Amazon business, but no one really knew what being an Amazon seller was or how sustainable it was or anything like that.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I had these full-time job offers, and one of the toughest decisions I had to make was kind of turning that down and and going towards uh being an entrepreneur.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: And really diving into like e-com balance and account balance, what led you to like starting that and start getting into like bookkeeping?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because you went to like free up and then let's be honest, bookkeeping isn't very sexy.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: So um I love to hear like what kind of got you started into that.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if anyone follows me on LinkedIn, I like to focus on the unsexy parts of business, hiring and bookkeeping.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a part no one wants to talk about, but it's so important.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of learned this the hard way, like a lot of entrepreneurs do with the Amazon business.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was really held back from bad hiring.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then after that, I was held back by bad bookkeeping.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't make decisions every month because I didn't really know what my numbers were, and I would dump it on my CPA at the end of the year.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I tried doing it myself.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I tried hiring college kids to do it.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the best business decisions I ever made in my life was hiring a bookkeeper from day one when we started FreeUp.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: While it was still an idea, we weren't profitable, we weren't big, but I hired a bookkeeper.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And every single month, the month would end, I'd get income statement, balance sheet, cash flow.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'd look at how the business was doing and I'd make decisions based on what the numbers were telling me.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that helped us scale.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And not only that, when we went to sell the company, we had four years of immaculate books going back to day one, and that helped us pass due diligence and have a pretty nice exit.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, I when we sold free up, the original plan was to kind of take a year off and travel the world.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: COVID hit like five months later, so we were kind of stuck inside with nothing to do, just brainstorming business ideas.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we ended up launching outsource school.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And a year later, of again, just bad brainstorming bad business idea after bad business idea.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of said, Hey, what if we carved out a business for bookkeeping?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're not bookkeepers, but we're entrepreneurs.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: We know what entrepreneurs want.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: We know how to hire, we know how to scale, we know how to market, we know how to build a good service and listen to feedback.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And like anything else, we kind of do the minimum viable product.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: We offered a bunch of people two free months of bookkeeping to help us break everything and give us feedback and help us learn what we don't know.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and that kind of got it off the ground.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And luckily, those people had a good experience and we've been growing ever since.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And what are the biggest bookkeeping mistakes that you see sellers making right now?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: I would bet there's a lot.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: To kind of start a high level, you should never do your own bookkeeping for two reasons.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: One, it's a just a terrible use of your time.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like as a business, even if you're a small business, focus on growth, expansion, strategy, hiring, good decisions, whatever it is, bookkeeping is just gonna suck your time away from things that are really important.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And second of all, nine times out of 10, if you do your own bookkeeping, you're just gonna have to pay someone to redo it later.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And cleanup work always costs more than just doing it right from day one.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there, I've done that, and it was a mess.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you got to remember, you're not gonna go out of business because of your bookkeeping expense.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like your bookkeeping expense, if you're small and new, it's hundreds of dollars a month, but you will go out of business by not making good decisions and not being on top of your numbers and not knowing what's going on in your business, or by just spending your time in the wrong place.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of my my overall message because I think a lot of entrepreneurs get in the mentality of like, oh, like once I get over a certain revenue stream, uh then I'll hire the bookkeeper.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, if you're if you're starting a business, just like you're gonna file your taxes, just like you're gonna file in your state, like hire a bookkeeper from day one.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Going a little bit more into just e-commerce, segmenting your books just becomes super important.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like you might sell on five different marketplaces, you might have 10 different products.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like you, I've seen sellers who are selling 10 products and only two of them are profitable, and they have no idea because it's all just lumped together into one um income statement.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you really want to know what's doing well, what's not doing well, what's a good use of your time.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just a big part of bookkeeping in general.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: But e-commerce, because there's just so many different places to sell and so many different products and brands that you might have, knowing that is even more important.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And when I first started my business, I was just like that, where I just like push off the books because it was just horrible, didn't want to look at it, and then it really smacks you in the face.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like you really just can't get rid of it.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: You can push it off, but it's always gonna come back and smack you in the face every single time.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's not one time I haven't looked at the books where I haven't been smacked in the face, not a single time.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it's unfortunately true that you gotta be on top of it, even though if you hate it, you still gotta look at it, unfortunately.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I mean, off of that, you you should have a finance meeting in your calendar every single month that you don't miss for any reason and have a process where the month ends within the 10 to 15 days, your bookkeeper gets you your books, and you have a meeting on your calendar with your partner, your wife, your team leaders, whoever it is, and you're going through the books line by line, making decisions based off the books.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're not making a decision based off a gut one day or on a random Tuesday or based on money going to your bank account.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: You're making them at the monthly finance decision or meeting every single month.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if anyone wants my the exact agenda that I've been using for six plus years, go to econbalance.com slash agenda.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: You can grab mine, you can use it, you can tweak it.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: But it's so important.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Connor and I have been doing this for every month for over six and a years now, and it's a complete game changer.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it sounds like it.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a very actionable thing to take away from this is like, hey, have those monthly finance meetings because I guarantee there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there that aren't doing that right now because they're putting it off so much.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Question for you what are some other actionable tips that you have for entrepreneurs that they're probably not doing right now and should be doing when it comes to their bookkeeping and accounting.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I got two more that are kind of more high level, but they're so important.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: People miss them.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you say accounting.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Accounting's kind of like the big bubble.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Everything's under accounting.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Accounting in your business should be split up into three sections.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: You got your monthly bookkeeper, you got your CPA or tax person, and maybe you have a CFO or a fractional or outsourced CFO.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is optional.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've actually never had one, but a lot of businesses, especially as you get bigger, do.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they all need to be stay in their lane.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I'm I've always been against having like one accounting firm that does everything.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Usually those don't work out.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: You want a bookkeeper whose only goal it is is to get you your books every single month in an easy to read format that you can understand and make decisions on.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Then you got your your CPA or tax person if you're international, they're there to help you.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, should you be an S-corp?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Should you be a C Corp?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Give you tax strategy and tax advice, actually file your taxes, and your CPA and your bookkeeper should be communicating and on the same page.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, should you be cashier accrual?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Those are all conversations you have with your CPA, not your bookkeeper.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then lastly, is that that CFO, they're there to help take the books and make decisions off of it and help you make decisions or help you forecast sales or forecast cash.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's what they're kind of there for.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you really want to make sure that you have them on their lane.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna end up drastically either overpaying if you don't, like if you use a CPA for bookkeeping or or whatever, um, or you're just gonna take people out of their element.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, don't go to your bookkeeper and ask if you should be an S Corp or C Corp.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: They might know and have some good information for you, but this is a real decision for your CPA.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of my overall tip.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then the second thing is just setup.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like you need the right tools.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: You got to have QuickBooks Online or Zero.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the top two accounting tools.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Only use those, pay for them every month.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Don't even consider using another free or cheaper software.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna regret it, you're gonna outgrow it.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be hard to switch bookkeepers in the future because not many people use it.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Use the top two.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Have business checking accounts, credit cards that allow view-only access.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: So your bookkeeper can get access easily, you're not intermingling personal and business, and it has all the functionalities that you need.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Less is usually more.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need like a client that signed up today, has 17 bank accounts.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I've run pretty big businesses that you don't need 17 bank accounts, few accounts as possible.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've never really believed in in profit first and all that.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then a connecting tool, like we use A2X.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you sell in a marketplace, it doesn't connect well to QuickBooks.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's other ones like Link My Books, ConnectBooks, but you need kind of that in-between, and your bookkeeper can have it, you can have it, whatever, that connects from the marketplaces to QuickBooks to pull it data.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess my last tip there is own your own QuickBooks account, own your own zero account.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Don't make your accountant the owner of it.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is important information.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's horror stories of bookkeepers disappearing and they own all your books and you'll never get it back.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So the right setup is just as important as knowing who to go to for what in terms of CPA versus bookkeeper.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, question for you when it comes to like a tech stack, what do you recommend?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're selling on Amazon, okay, Amazon hides so many fees, you don't know where anything is.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: What is a good tech stack for saying, like, okay, you said zero and QuickBooks?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: What are what is a good tech stack for these Amazon sellers that they should be using for their accounting?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I mean it's really simple.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: QuickBooks Online, not QuickBooks Desktop, but QuickBooks Online is my favorite, uh, plus A2X.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's my favorite as well for the tool.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have QuickBooks Online and A2X plus a good bookkeeper, that's really all you need to do everything you're doing.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's other things you can add on, like you can use other tools, like you can have a seller board going on to give you day-to-day information, but all that is bonus.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there's other tools like HubDoc to help you pull in invoices, like there, there's things you can add on to that, but the bare minimum you need QuickBooks Online and A2X.
• 14:50
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• 14:55
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• 14:56
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• 15:03
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• 15:09
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• 15:15
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• 15:19
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• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, question about the bookkeeper.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: So you said to do it like on day one, you gotta have a bookkeeper, but a lot of people can't afford like the salary and it's very expensive.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: How do you find the balance of finding someone, a bookkeeper you can trust, and a bookkeeper that is not gonna be like$80,000 a year, like super expensive?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: What's the balance?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so to clarify, you shouldn't hire.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know many people that hire a full-time bookkeeper as their first hire.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're usually hiring a bookkeeping service like Econ Balance.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's others like our service starts at$399 a month.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: So not cheap, not super expensive.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's we kind of consider it fair pricing.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Are there cheaper services out there?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, or they're more expensive, of course, but and that's our minimum.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like we've got other clients who are$2,500 a month or whatever.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to find a bookkeeping service that yes can be affordable, obviously, but also just understands e-commerce.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to go with like a bench or something that's just not designed for e-commerce or something that traps you on their software, where if you have a bad experience, no one else uses their software and you can't switch over later.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I think for us at least, the reason we started e-combalance is we didn't think that there were many affordable, fairly priced, high-quality e-commerce bookkeeping services out there, and that's why we built it.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: But that's really what you should be looking for is something affordable, but that really understands e-commerce and is using the right tools and setup.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: So what does a bookkeeper really do?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because like on QuickBooks, you can obviously like make rules to say, like, hey, if it's this fee on Amazon, this goes to this rule of and categorizes it.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you can set up these rules within QuickBooks.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, what does a bookkeeper really do on the back end?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, every account has to reconcile, it has to match.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, like the money going into your bank account has to match what Amazon's paying you, and all the fees have to be included there.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you've got two bank accounts and two credit cards, they have to reconcile every single month with the ending balance from last month and the the new balance from this month.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So they're going through piece by piece and making sure that everything uh matches and reconciles and there's no good discrepancies and digging in if something's off.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's usually off for a reason.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: On top of that, you've got cost of goods when you're dealing with e-commerce.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: You have different platforms that have to be segmented.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really going through the data to make sure that we have everything and that nothing's missing and everything reconciles, and that we can put it in a clean, easy way that you can read every single month and look at trends in your business.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's really cool.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: And from your experience, what financials are most important to know and follow as a business owner?
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, there's three reports that you got to learn how to read income statement, balance sheet, cash flow.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's YouTube videos, whatever you got to do to learn how to do it.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: My personal favorite is look at your own every single month and ask questions, and you'll get to learn it pretty quick.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're gonna run a business, if you're gonna invest in stocks, if you're gonna invest in privately into companies, you gotta know how to read these three statements and they each kind of serve their own function.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And don't just focus on the PL, you gotta learn a balance sheet, you got to load, learn cash flow statement.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: But those are the three reports.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else is extra, but those are the three main three that you gotta master.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and how important are financials when it comes to selling your business?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because I assume that you have to have your books really in together when it comes to selling a business.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me more about that.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, you you can't sell a business without clean financials.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people that go to sell and then they gotta pay a bookkeeper to go back years and fix everything up.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And no bookkeeper is gonna do that within weeks.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like that takes months.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: So for us, passing due diligence, a big part of that was clean financials.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: It it helped us build a lot of trust with our buyers.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not only that, but just knowing your numbers.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: The initial conversations that we had with the buyers, we answered a lot of questions, and when they got into our books, it matched everything we told them on the phone because we knew our numbers inside and out by having those monthly finance meetings.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, if you want to sell your business, a lot goes into it, but the bare minimum, you you need clean finances.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we know Amazon has tons of hidden fees.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we know that they're really good at like putting out these hidden fees.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: What are some common fees that you see that sellers are like, oh crap, like like they did not expect it?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Could be like sales tax.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what are some things that really hit sellers afterward where they're like, oh crap, what am I gonna do now?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm not sure I can answer that because you got to remember, I'm not a bookkeeper, I'm the owner of the company, so I'm not necessarily like digging through all the clients' books or like even looking at them in any way.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have bookkeepers and controllers that do that.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I will say that like tools like A2X do a really good job of pulling in those fees, and our team does a really good job of just mapping those so they're all labeled correctly.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're getting a report from your bookkeeper, all the fees should be clearly broken down.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Shipping fees, returns, refunds, all that stuff.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there shouldn't be any question of what Amazon's charging you, and and that's gonna really help you make decisions and and see what you're actually spending or wasting money on.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I totally agree.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And what are some benefits off of like probably having your books all in a row?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: I love to hear like obviously most entrepreneurs probably don't have their books in a row.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we know that, and we know the downsides of that, but what are some benefits of having your books in a row?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: What can entrepreneurs have the benefit of seeing when they have their books in a row?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I mean, if you ever want to sell your company, if you ever want to get funding or investments, you you need clean books.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: It also makes tax season the end of the year way less stressful because you're doing it every single month, you're never behind.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: You turn over the books to your CPA, they file your taxes, that's great too.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the real reason and the main reason that entrepreneurs should be having clean books, because a lot of people aren't gonna sell, they're not gonna get funding or investments, is decision making.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: The thing that's gonna make you the most money, the thing that's gonna help you the most is good decisions every single month based on what the numbers are telling you.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way to do that is to have a good monthly bookkeeping process.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: So again, everything else is bonus and extra and and super helpful and might come into play depending on where you're at, but do it for the decision making.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you should be, why you should be doing it.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: And is there any other tips that you have when it comes to accounting, bookkeeping that would be valuable to any entrepreneur out there?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you go to uh think about e com balance, actually, I think my business partners are launching this today.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: So go to e combalance, maybe wait a day or two, uh, but we'll have like the full list of the 10 common mistakes.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: A few others we can touch upon, like doing them quarterly instead of monthly.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of chatted upon that.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: You should do a monthly, having your your CPA and bookkeeper communicate, have them on the same page, CC them in emails.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: They should be talking all the time.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Having the top line of your income statement be what the money that's deposited into your bank account, that's Incorrect that like it should be Amazon sales, fees, refunds, returns, all that, and then the net deposit, your bank account.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's a correct way to do it.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're not going to file your taxes correctly.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: You probably have a bookkeeper that doesn't understand e-commerce, but go to econbalance.com, you can grab the full list, it's broken down there.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I think we touched on what I consider the most important ones.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then let's go into like free up for a second.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd love to go into like how did you get free up off the ground?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And what made you guys different?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why do you think you were more successful than others in that space?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you got to remember, whenever you start a marketplace, there's always a chicken or the egg situation, right?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like Airbnb, you gotta do you get more people that want to rent homes or do you get have homes to rent?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: So for us, I think we had an advantage because we had all these VAs and freelancers from our Amazon business that were part-time, that were seasonal, that we trusted throughout the years that we could offer to Amazon sellers right from day one.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think timing was also a factor in it.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of mentioned Amazon was up and coming and booming, and there were that many service providers out there.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And podcasts were a big thing too.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I started going on podcasts, no one else was really being a podcast guest.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I was able to go on hundreds of podcasts and get the word out and got a lot of free marketing and connections and SEO that things with it.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, the things that I try to make the differentiator in all my companies are customer service.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like we had great VAs, we spent a lot of time making sure only the best of the best got on our marketplace.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: But if even the smallest thing went wrong, we made it right with the clients.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: We gave them credit to a new person, we refunded them, whatever it was.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And same thing on the VA freelancer side.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: We want to treat them fairly and make sure they were happy too.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we did a really good job of that.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of learned that from my internships and also having like an Amazon business where you want to get five-star reviews.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we kind of take that over to outsource school with great support there and e combalance with great support with our bookkeepers.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: So my philosophy is always like you can't compete with the big players on software and marketing.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like we couldn't compete with Upwork and Fiverr.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're publicly traded companies, but we can compete with them on customer service and and that personal touch.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of the approach that that we take in all our companies.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I always talk about how the smaller you are as a company, the more faster you can move.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of these corporate companies, they are like snails when it comes to like actually changing.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, do they have a lot of dollars behind them?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: But when it comes down to the speed of which they move and able to try and test new things, they have to go through a three-month approval process that tests one new ad.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like really, really bad.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're a smaller company than them, it makes it where you're able to test a lot faster and you're able to get results a lot faster.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it like makes it where you can move at insane speeds.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're trying to compete against these huge corporations, sometimes you have a huge advantage just from the ability to test new things and get results a lot faster, in my opinion.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I couldn't agree with you more.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that that's definitely our uh philosophy as well.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to get your thoughts on what are some key lessons that you've learned as an entrepreneur on that journey?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I bet there's a lot there, but I'd love to hear some key lessons that you learned.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm a big proponent of just consistency.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, one of the ways that I kind of focused every day is I'd start off the day pitching five influencers, five potential partners, five podcasts, five blogs, five people to just network with in the space.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't seem like a lot that you're not moving the needle, but over time you just meet a lot of people, you get in front of a lot of people, your business slowly appears everywhere.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be um used in other ways too.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: When I had an Amazon business, every morning I would pitch 15 different suppliers and you get rejected all the time.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: But here and there you land some, and that consistency to me is what kind of makes you stand out.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm a big proponent of doing the same thing every single day and having it kind of build up and gain momentum, opposed to just burning yourself out and working through the weekends and all of that.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of my biggest takeaway as an entrepreneur.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Focus on customer service.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of talked about that, and surround yourself with people that are the opposite of you, that have skills that you don't have, that approach things in a way that you don't do it, and make sure that you can kind of focus in your area of genius, whatever you're the best at.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm curious, how did you get into that mindset?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of people would never like push that because it's hard to tell where to pee consistent.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: For example, like you can be the best janitor ever and be consistent every single day, but the amount of opportunities you get as being a janitor is very low.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: So how did you know mindset-wise, like, hey, I'm gonna pitch five influencers, five of these, five of these, and just do that every single day?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: And what made you so confident that that was going to work?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: And what made you, what was the mindset to consistently do that every single day?
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: I did sales with my internship and I worked with Firestone, and I still know nothing about cars.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to sell people car services for like summers at a time.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And nothing makes you learn more about rejection than than having to do that.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I think kind of starting business, I don't really take rejection personally.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of go into it that like, hey, 99% of businesses fail.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like most of the time you reach out, you get rejected, and it it just makes the wins like even better.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, there's been podcasts that I've pitched for years that have rejected me, and then finally, for some reason, they let me on and and then they've had me back again.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, I I try not to burn bridges, I try to treat people well.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if someone's mean to me or rejects me or whatever it is, like I'm always the bigger person.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think over time, just having that kind of attitude gets you into a lot of opportunities.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Rejection is so hard.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: And like, for example, when I started dancing and going through that rejection, is like before you like do it, like, first of all, let's get something straight.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: As a guy, going up and asking someone to like um do anything, like a girl that's your age, that's like the worst thing you can do, like fear factor-wise.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: And before you've done it, your brain thinks it is like, oh, I'm about to jump off the cliff.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same amount of fear.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: Before you do it, your brain's like beating fast, it's scared that it's going to die, and things like that.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: But you have to realize you eventually have to ask the girl out, you eventually have to start the business or something around those lines because you're going to have that rejection, but the world is not going to end.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Your brain will think the world is going to end.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to say, Oh my gosh, you have to be scared.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: You're about to jump off a cliff.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're about to be, you're you should be terrified right now.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's your brain's gonna say all of those things, but at the end of the day, you're not going to die.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, literally, the first girl I had to ask, I was like, Okay, I just go ask her.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: And like, my hope was she just said no.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that was my goal.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, and then I went up, asked her, and I was like, Yes, I accomplished it.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: I went home.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like, she said no, and I was like, I was totally happy with that.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was proud of myself because I got the balls to ask, and you have to take those like small steps.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds small, but over time it just makes such a big difference.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: But you have to start somewhere, and having that rejection is so powerful.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a hundred percent.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're gonna get you gotta get over getting rejected in life.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can't take it personally, and there's a million reasons why someone might reject you.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know what's going on in their life and their business.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's sometimes it's not now, but maybe later.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, that's kind of the approach you gotta have.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm curious, talked about some good moments as an entrepreneur.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: What are some of the worst moments as an entrepreneur where you just had lots to learn from?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've had so many.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: I had this vacation in Myrtle Beach where on this vacation, I had three things happen to me.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: My manager, who I had spent six months training, quit on me.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: My biggest supplier dropped me, and someone filed a fake tax return on my name and stole my identity and stole like$40,000 from the government.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I went from like this unbelievable high as like this college kid crushing e-commerce.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start this whole thing all over again.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I learned a lot about diversifying and everything that goes into that, and we built the business back stronger.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's been tons of things that are just out of your control.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like we had a hacker with free up uh try to or they set up something that would have a new person, a fake new person, uh sign up like every minute on the minute, like 24-7.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that was just going on for days at a time, and we had to just stop everything we're doing to try to fix it.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: And like business school, reading courses, stuff like that doesn't prepare you for just the life of an entrepreneur where anything can happen, anything can blow up at any time.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's really crazy.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: And how did you get through that?
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what was that inner conversation you had with yourself saying, like, crap, what am I gonna do?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: What was going through your head when all that was happening?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: The first story, I was a lot younger and I didn't have a lot of experience.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I was pissed, annoyed, angry, all that stuff there.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: I remember just drinking my sorrows away on the on the vacation.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was in college and I didn't really have any plan.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and when we got back, we kind of my partner and I we regrouped and we were kind of like, all right, like this is a sinking ship.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: We got two options.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: We can either throw in the towel or we can say, hey, this is the money we have, this is what we have like on our disposal, and rehire and learn from it and hire instead of having one person do everything, kind of spread out the work so that if someone quits, it's not that big of a deal.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of having all our eggs in one basket with one supplier, spread it out and have different suppliers um do different things.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that was kind of our approach, at least.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think now we're a little bit more numb to it.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Where when something bad happens, we we've been there before and we're like, all right, we're gonna get through this, it's gonna be okay.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we're not gonna be homeless, the world's not gonna explode, like we're gonna we're gonna figure this out one way or another.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: And failure is just kind of a part of being an entrepreneur.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Is there any other tips that you have to really just help understand your financials better or just make better decisions when it comes to your business?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, there's no substitute to just going line by line through your three reports and writing down questions you have and sending them to your bookkeeper, sending them to your CPA.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's the best.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, sure, go on YouTube, watch some videos on income statement balance sheet, cash flow, cost of goods, inventory, all that stuff, but there's no substitute from actually doing it line by line in your business.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I totally agree.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then out of all the things that we talked about, is there anything that's been top of mind for you lately?
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: It could have been anything related to the topics we talked about, or just things that like saying, Oh, I've been seeing a lot of entrepreneurs doing this, but they need to be doing this.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything that's been top of mind lately that you've been wanting to communicate?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was on a show yesterday, uh talking a lot about just minimum viable product.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if you have an idea, figure out a way to get it out and see if it sells.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to your ideal client.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I get so frustrated when entrepreneurs are like, all right, I need$400,000 and then I'll do something, then I'll create the business, then I'll get sales.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, like go talk to your customers, do market research, get them a minimal viable product out there.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you can get sales, if people like what you're doing, everything else will take care of itself.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: But that's kind of the approach I've always had and what I encourage people listening to have.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a great mindset.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's really sometimes can be very hard to have that very like long-term mindset, to be honest, where it's like a lot of people don't think that far, where they're just worrying about like, oh, how much money am I gonna get this month?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: How much money am I gonna get this year?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: And they think like the amount of money they have in their bank account is their success metric.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: So they're not wanting to invest it.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: They would rather spend it on other things like cars and things, what like all these other things that don't matter.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: What is your guidance or advice to people that are spending it on things that don't matter and where they could be investing it in a business, stocks, bookkeeping, and things like that?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have any thoughts there?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was fortunate enough to have parents that were teachers and and just very frugal.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like they saved their whole life, they were able to like retire early, and I kind of learned from them.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, like I got asked yesterday, like, what did I buy when I sold Free App?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't buy a Lamborghini, I bought like a second house and I used my first one as a rental property.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like that's it how I think.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: And like, what did I buy?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: I put a lot of money into the SP 500, and I'm pretty like boring when it comes to that kind of stuff.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm a big proponent of of just playing it smart and being frugal.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: And like the more successful you are doesn't mean your lifestyle just needs to like ramp up every single time.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: I spend the same money on stuff that I spent money on eight years ago, and and that doesn't really change no matter how much I make.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you got to think of the future as well.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you want to retire?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to have kids?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like all the things that you can do, and it all kind of comes down to making better decisions with your money.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's another thing I want to communicate real fast is so many young people think that these rich people are the ones that like have the Lamborghinis, they're like, oh my gosh, they're so successful, that have the mansion, that have the house, and everything else, like that.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: But those are most likely not the people that are actually happy with their lives.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, those are the people that are just barely making it by, but have to show off to the world that they are better.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, for example, for people like you and people that like billionaires like Warren Buffett, when they see someone driving a Lamborghini, they're not, oh my gosh, look at that guy.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: That is not what they're going through.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, they're thinking, like, wow, that either that guy's insecure or something's going on there, and that they're not impressed by that.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's so fascinating to see, like, even though you have more than enough money to probably buy 10 Lamborghinis, that you're like, nah, like, it's not my thing.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's probably what how you got to this place is by having that long-term vision rather than doing it only for the Lamborghini.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's really amazing.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's upbringing that fortune and luck and just having really good parents that kind of teach you the way.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, my wife and I were foster parents, and you get people who weren't that fortunate.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, luck and timing plays a big piece in it.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, sure, people work hard and they accomplish stuff, but like, did you have food on the table growing up?
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have a place to live, parents, like stuff like that?
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: You don't think about.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: So there's definitely advantages that you can get along the way, too.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: And for our last question, what advice do you have for other entrepreneurs looking to sell their business?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: The best advice that I ever got, and I we did this, is we vetted the buyers just like they vetted us.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: We wanted to make sure that we were selling it to good people that were gonna honor their word, that were gonna take care of our reputation, our clients, our team, our freelancers.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't want to end up in like a court or in a lawsuit down the line.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we wanted someone who would just pay us every penny and honor their word and and have the same values that that we did.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we couldn't have sold it to two better people, uh, Mark Hargrove, David Martin, who treated our team well, gave our team a large bonus when we sold it.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: We still have a good relationship with them.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: They've helped us promote outsource school and econ balance, and they paid us every penny and and did everything they said.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and so that was a great advice that we got.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of people just try to get top dollar.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know if we did sacrifice any money, but I would have rather gotten a little less money and sell it to good people than sell it to the wrong person and just end up in uh chaos down the line.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry for the dogs.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're watching my uh sister's dog.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I thought it was my dog.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, man, that's the weirdest thing.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: I've never heard them this far.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought it was my dogs.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's funny.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um but but unfortunately, that's all we have time for today.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: Nathan, please tell them how to find you, how to find your latest businesses you're working on, and everything about you.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, connect with me on LinkedIn, Nathan Hirsch.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: I post a lot of tips daily on the boring and unsexy parts of business, hiring and bookkeeping.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Go to outshoreschool.com.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can actually schedule a meeting with my great virtual assistant Anna if you want to see what an A plus VA looks like.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then go to econbalance.com, mention this podcast.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: You get two months free if you want to check us out there.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for coming on.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you everyone for watching, and catch us next time.