How I Made $12,000 In 1 MONTH - Online Bookkeeping Business

what's up everybody my name is Zach pascarello and in this video I want to tell you how I made twelve thousand dollars in one month as a bookkeeper so I own Harrisburg bookkeeping I started this business in 2020 I've been doing it for almost three years now and I've been running my business full time very successfully and I've been making a lot of videos talking about my trucking company and I want to start sharing more about my bookkeeping business because I know a lot of you are interested in starting a bookkeeping business and I've been really successful so I just want to share what's worked for me what I've learned and if you want to schedule a consultation with me there is a link in the description you can schedule a 30 minute or a one hour meeting with me and we can talk about anything your business bookkeeping taxes Trucking anything you want to talk about I'd be happy to help but in this video I want to talk about the details specifically how I made twelve thousand dollars in one month as an online bookkeeper to put things into perspective I started my business I launched my business from day one with no experience in October of 2020. so for reference for timing this month that I made this twelve thousand dollars is going to be May of 2021 which is about seven or eight months after the very first day that I launched my business so the business is still relatively new first of all I want to start by saying this was not easy so in the beginning I was doing a lot of research I was listening to podcasts I was watching YouTube videos just like this one about how to start a bookkeeping business and everybody made it seem like rainbows and butterflies everybody made it seem so easy you can Lounge at the pool you can chill at the beach and do your bookkeeping everything's going to be perfect you're just going to get these clients you're going to make all this money working fully remote it's not that easy I wish it was but I promise you if you go into your bookkeeping business with that mindset you will not be successful successful you are going to need to put in work but with that being said it's definitely possible which is why I want to start making these videos because I've been in business for three years I've been pretty successful and I want to share what's worked for me what I've learned so that I can help you okay so first this was not easy and second of all starting a business is all about marketing and sales a bookkeeping business is no different just because you are working with other businesses just because you're doing accounting and bookkeeping it's more analytical it's more data driven does not mean that you do not need to Market your business you does not mean that you don't need to sell your business and cold call people and DM and create social media digital marketing content all of those business fundamentals remain the same even for an online bookkeeping business I cannot stress that enough if you are not interested in cold calling people if you are not interested in putting yourself out there and create creating social media content it will be more difficult for your business to be successful because that's how I was able to launch my business that's how I got my name out there nobody knows who you are if you haven't started your business yet if you don't have an online presence nobody knows who you are nobody's going to be knocking on your door calling your phone asking you for bookkeeping if they don't know who you are and if they don't know what services you provide so I cannot stress enough the way I got to make twelve thousand dollars in one month the way I got all these clients was by putting in the work I legitimately worked eight hours a day sometimes 10 hours a day cold calling people making social media content dming people on Facebook and Linkedin sending emails to prospective clients doing research I seriously put in a lot of work and you're going to need to put in a lot of work I cannot stress that enough I see so many people on Facebook and YouTube talking about hey you know start this bookkeeping business it's going to be great it's going to be so easy all you need to do is just get a a laptop and get clients and you'll make a living you can quit your full-time job you all that is possible but you're going to need to put in a lot of work I just I cannot stress that enough so I'm going to keep on saying it in the very beginning any second that I was not doing actual bookkeeping in QuickBooks I was I was selling I was marketing so I was either doing bookkeeping and QuickBooks for current clients or I was trying to get new clients that's the mindset you're going to need to have if you want to launch a successful bookkeeping business like I did now not only do you need to get a client but you also need to deliver a Plus customer service and that was what scared me so much because I was still pretty new so I did a good job of marketing I did a good job of selling I got all these clients but like wow now I have 15 recurring monthly clients who pay me for the bookkeeping now I'm absolutely terrified of losing these clients so if I wasn't selling if I wasn't marketing I was doing everything I could to deliver the best possible quality to my current customers because is you want to keep clients and you want your current clients to refer you to other businesses because so many business owners know other business owners so if you do a really good job for Jane Doe across the street who has a jewelry store I guarantee you she's going to refer you to her electrician or to her plumber to her real estate agent she's going to a property manager like she's going to refer her really good bookkeeper her really good tax accountant to her other business owner friends so it's really important that you deliver a Plus customer service to your current clients with that being said you will lose clients I have lost clients throughout the years mostly due to just us parting ways because maybe they hired a full-time in-house bookkeeper maybe they went with a larger CPA firm because their business was growing too fast and they wanted just you know a big an accounting firm to handle their bookkeeping or maybe they went out of business like I've had so many different situations where I've lost clients but then you gain you know one two three clients every single month you lose one or two clients every single month or maybe you know you go a month without losing anybody it all kind of evens out so don't stress out too much just focus on getting clients focus on doing the best possible job that you can do a Plus customer service to keep your current clients and you'll be fine as long as you're putting in the work as long as you're being honest with yourself and your customers you'll be fine okay so now I want to talk specifically numbers that's that's my other frustration with seeing people talk about their business on YouTube or Facebook like everyone talks about how they made so much money or they did so many great things but not a lot of people talk about the actual numbers to back up what they did and that's what I'm going to do I'm going to be fully transparent with you obviously I'm not going to give out my clients information but I'm going to talk about real numbers with you so I in the video in the headline of the video I said I made twelve thousand dollars and that is 100 true and I'm going to tell you what made up that twelve thousand dollars how I got those clients and how much they paid so I offer two kind of different Services first of all I do monthly current bookkeeping so like if you call me up and like hey I need bookkeeping for this month and next month and like every month moving forward cool I can do that for you it's usually like 250 a month and I can do your bookkeeping in real time that's awesome that's like monthly recurring Revenue subscription style invoicing that's great I love that the other thing I do is I do like catch-ups and cleanups of previous years or previous months of people who have maybe haven't filed their taxes in a couple years they haven't done any of their bookkeeping I can also do that which is also great because that's usually a lump sum of transactions which means it's usually a big paycheck to do somebody's like an entire year worth of bookkeeping so that's I got a combination of both in the month of May 2021. so first of all talk about my catch-ups cleanups whatever you want to call it so this first client I got through Facebook DMS direct messaging or I don't even know what DM stands for direct messaging I I assume so I sent I friend request a lot of business owners on Facebook I find them in local local business groups I just find them through searching for people I find them through mutual connection questions whatever I could do to friend request and connect with local business owners I probably did it so I did a lot of that in 2021 and this particular business owner just so happened to have not filed their taxes for like the past two years so I did an entire cleanup so I did an entire cleanup for 2019 and 2020 and they paid me three thousand dollars to do two years worth of bookkeeping so that was a pretty big so 3 000 bucks 2019 and 2020 I did all of their bookkeeping and I got another client through doing cold calls so I went through like Google my business pages and I looked up just business owners sometimes I would look up restaurants sometimes I would look up advertising and marketing agencies other times I would look up software companies sometimes I would look up General Contractors electricians plumbers and I just did cold calls one day for like two hours and if they didn't answer I just left a message and one thing I want to say real quick about my DMs and my cold calls I keep it straightforward and simple there's nothing more frustrating as a fellow business owner to get those catfishing DMS or those catfishing phone calls that are like hey how are you doing can you know what school do you have going on can we get can we get coffee can we grab coffee you want to meet up do you want to you want to catch up on a zoom call nothing is more frustrating than those roundabout sales pitches I am straightforward hey my name is Zach pascarello I'm a bookkeeper I do QuickBooks do you need any help with your bookkeeping or taxes no okay thanks have a great day yes okay cool okay so I got this second cleanup by doing a cold call so like I said Google my business page looked up a bunch of local businesses called for two hours I probably called 120 businesses and one of them ended up calling me back a couple days later it just so happened that he had not done his taxes for the past year so I did an entire 2020 cleanup for 1 500 and then I also caught him up for the the first quarter of 2021 for an additional 400 a month for three months so that was twelve hundred dollars so I got three thousand dollars I got one thousand five hundred dollars and I got an additional one thousand two hundred dollars and then the last cleanup I did was just two months March and April and I charged the guy 200 bucks and he actually found me on Facebook so I put out a lot of posts so I put out a lot of videos I interact with a lot of people on their posts and in their comments so I just really got my name out there to the point where this guy was actually able to find me on Facebook only seven months after I started my business so that's why it's so important you need to have an online presence so all in all with those four cleanups I made five thousand nine hundred dollars in one month obviously this is I'm not making twelve thousand dollars every single month this is an exception but I just want to show you how it's possible you put in the work and you do a good job and customers will come to you you'll find customers and you can make twelve thousand dollars in one month not gonna happen every month but you can make twelve thousand dollars in one month if you put in the work and you do a good job so I got four cleanups five thousand nine hundred dollars now the last six thousand one hundred dollars to make up the twelve thousand were all from monthly subscriptions I got my first monthly client in December of 2020 and then I got 14 more monthly clients in January February very March and April so I averaged about getting three new clients per month and up until this point I have not lost any clients so I have 15 clients who are paying me monthly and the monthly fees I said in the beginning that on average a client pays me like 250 bucks it might be a little bit more but these monthly fees ranged all the way from 100 a month up to one thousand dollars a month depending on what kind of services I provide for you and also how big and complex your business is if you're just starting out and I'm just categorizing your transactions maybe 100 bucks maybe 200 bucks a month if you've been in business for 10 years and I'm creating your invoices and I'm paying your accounts payable and I'm paying your contractors and I'm reconciling your five credit cards and your three checking accounts it's probably going to be you know six seven eight hundred dollars a month so I'm gonna stop start from my start from the top I'm gonna tell you how I got all 15 of these clients so my two biggest paying clients one thousand dollars a month and 800 a month were personal referrals I knew a guy from you know a couple years ago and he reached out to me like hey you know Zach I see you started a bookkeeping business I actually have another friend who is in business and he needs help with his bookkeeping so kind of a roundabout way it's all about who you know personal referral I knew a guy who knew a guy who needed bookkeeping help and that's how I got those two top paying clients one thousand dollars a month eight hundred dollars a month from personal referrals personal referrals were always the best okay another client I got from Facebook DMS paying 500 a month this was actually the same client who paid me to do a 2019 and a 2020 cleanup they wanted to keep me on to to do current monthly bookkeeping so after I finished 2019 and 2020 I continue doing bookkeeping for them in 2021 and they continued to pay me 500 a month now these next three clients all paid 500 500 and 400 and they all actually found me on Google so not only is important to have a Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Maybe Twitter maybe Tick Tock it's important to have all those social media platforms and to post content on social media platforms it's also really important to have a Google my business page everybody knows that people go to Google first to search for anything so a lot of people go to Google looking for you know bookkeeper near me and you know Harrisburg bookkeeper you know Philadelphia tax preparer a lot of people go to Google to try to find somebody so if you go to Google and look up Harrisburg bookkeeping I guarantee you I'm going to be on the first page either my Facebook page or my Google my business page so these three clients in the past three months they found me on Google and I've been doing their bookkeeping for 500 a month and 400 a month this next client also pays me 400 a month and this was through a cold call so this was the same client that I did the the 2020 cleanup for and then the the quarter one 2021 cleanup for so he also kept me on as his bookkeeper ended up paying me 400 a month for his bookkeeping and that was through a cold call so I don't really do a lot of cold calls now because I'm I get a lot of clients from personal referrals and I get a lot of clients from Facebook and YouTube but in the beginning you're going to need to do cold calls this next client pays me 300 a month and I actually got him through upwork I definitely don't use upwork anymore this is one of my first clients that I got I got him in January I use upwork in the very beginning I stopped using upwork I don't know why I stopped I just didn't really like it I guess but I did get one client from upwork and he pays me 300 a month now these last six clients just to wrap it up they all pay me between like 100 and 300 two of them found me on Facebook another one was a personal referral two of them were Facebook DMS and the last one found me on Google so that's how I made twelve thousand dollars a month doing catch-ups and cleanups doing monthly bookkeeping it's not easy don't let anybody ever tell you starting the business is easy because I promise you it's not it's all about putting in the work you need to know how to sell you need to know how to Market your business any and finally you need to know how to do a good job if you deliver a Plus customer service and if you find clients you're going to be successful use the link in the description to schedule a consultation if you want to talk about your business

Channel: Bookkeeping Expert

Views: 33,184

Keywords: small business bookkeeping, online bookkeeping, bookkeeping services, xero bookkeeping, bookkeeping business, bookkeeping services for small business, accounting and bookkeeping services, virtual bookkeeping, bookkeepers near me, bookkeeper launch, accounting services for small business, bookkeeping services near me, business bookkeeping, online bookkeeping services, bookkeeping, bookkeeping course online, quickbooks bookkeeping, bookkeeping course, bookkeeping meaning

Id: dEZi_O-I8eA

Length: 15min 34sec (934 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 24 2023