You're listening to Cubicle to CEO episode 254. The media tends to portray women as overspenders who are bad with money, causing Kickstart Accounting founder Danielle Hayden to notice that many of our new clients would come in asking, Where can I cut back? But Danielle, who runs a seven figure, bookkeeping and accounting agency challenges that narrative by examining where women are actually under spending in their businesses in a way that is prohibitive to reaching their goals. In this case study we dissect how Danielle is spending $113,223 on outsourced services for her business this year to drive growth and why she has no desire to bring these roles in house will itemize every outsourced service, how much return she gets on these investments and the process she uses to discern which roles should be hired in house versus outsourced to an expert.
Welcome to Cubicle to CEO, the podcast where we ask successful founders and CEOs the business questions you can't google. I'm your host, Ellen Yin. Every Monday go behind the business and a case study style interview with the leading entrepreneur who shares one specific growth strategy they've tested in their own business, exactly how they implemented it, and what the results and revenue were. You'll also hear financially transparent insights from my own journey bootstrapping our media company from a $300 freelance project into millions in revenue.
Hello, everyone, welcome back to the show. Today I have with me Danielle Hayden, welcome. We're so excited to have you. I was telling Danielle in the greenroom that I always love it when our guests our fellow data nerds like me, and Danielle especially is queen of spreadsheets and numbers as an accountant, as an owner of an accounting agency.
Obviously, this is you know, her her playground. So we're really excited to dive into today's data surrounding her case study on how she spends $113,000 a year in outsourced services and the kind of the strategy behind that. So anyways, Danielle, thank you for being here.
Thank you for having me. I am really excited to geek out over all these numbers with you. I was so excited when you were asking me the questions and excited to share.
Well, Danielle, I want to first start off with your Cubicle to CEO story. So what was the catalyst that led you to take the leap into entrepreneurship full time?
You know, I've had I think like most entrepreneurships, a pretty roller coaster ride, but it's really around me finding a love for helping people helping business owners understand their numbers. I actually started my career as a hairstylist. So working at a salon. Yeah, I was actually going to college because I wanted to become an entrepreneur and opened up my own Hair Studio.
So that's what I was going to school for. And learning the background there. Yeah. And what I learned at the salon was I loved to use the numbers to hit my goals and my quota and I was making more money for myself, but then for the salon. And then as a team, we were all making more money together. And I started teaching the other girls at the salon how to do it. Fast forward, I changed majors spent some time in corporate and found my neck once again for helping the Board of Directors, the managers, the CEO, helping them at a high level, understand the numbers to make business decisions.
And there was a moment like there was literally actually a moment sitting around the boardroom, where I was talking to our private equity firm, and the management team. And I said I can do this for entrepreneurs, right? Like everything I've learned from these people. And I learned a lot they were freaking amazing people. I didn't leave corporate because I hated it. I left corporate because I felt like I could do more. And I said I want to bring access to small business, like every single business owner needs access to this information so that they can grow in the same way. And it was like that day a light bulb was flipped.
That's amazing. I think there's so much we can learn from big business. You know, I love kind of reading about how big businesses think. And they have such long term forecasts compared to I think a lot of small business owners and micro business owners. And so I love that you're bringing that perspective to the table. Also if you're watching this on YouTube, it does not surprise me that in a past life you were thinking of owning a hair salon because Danielle's hair is gorgeous and voluminous and we all need the secrets so anyways, Daniel so you are the owner of Kickstart Accounting and you are helping hundreds 1000s Really of business owners like you said better understand They're numbers.
And so this idea of money and how we spend it like a lot of times in especially an online business, we love to talk about how much money we're making. I'm really glad we get to see the flip side of the coin today and, and talk a little bit about an avenue of spending. And one thing that really caught my attention in your pitch to us for this case study is that you kind of had this hot take around, you know, a lot of clients you observe come to you asking, What can I be cutting back on? Like, where am I overspending? Because there's this narrative right in the media, that women are bad with money that we are overspenders that we splurge all of these things.
So why do you feel like that's asking the wrong question? Where can I cut back? And what should women be asking instead?
When a client shares with me or somebody on my team, that they are not hitting their goals, I can look at their income statement and tell you exactly why they're not hitting their goals. And so all of us, most of us want to set growth goals in our business. But we don't actually map out how we're going to get there. Like we want to grow by 20%. I want to grow by 30%, I want to hit six figures, I want to hit seven figures. Awesome. I love that you have that goal.
Now, how are we going to get there? And that generally means that we need to spend advertising, marketing, getting support, who is going to serve those clients? How are you going to grow your infrastructure to support the growth, but a lot of times the conversation to your point stops at the revenue, right? Like, I'm going to hit this revenue goal. And we don't talk about how we're going to get there. And we don't talk about how we're going to map that. And I think a huge reason for that is our money mindset, like we're most business owners are struggling with money mindset, they're scared. They feel like somebody is judging them, we have like report card effects from growing up, though true. The numbers tell us if we pass or fail.
And so we're all scared of the numbers. And some of us can start to embrace looking at our income statement or balance sheet, then the next step is really looking at planning to the future. How can I budget for my my growth into the future? And so I think we're asking the wrong question by saying, I just want to hit the revenue goal. The real question is, how am I going to hit the revenue goal with what dollars am I going to spend? How am I going to reinvest back in my business? And one of the thing I hear business owners say, they'll say, I'm air quote, reinvesting in my business. And I'll say, tell me a little bit more about that, right?
Because what we find is that really, people are just have a keeper mentality, meaning that they love the idea of having money in the business saving, and they aren't paying themselves. And then they just call it I'm investing in my business, but they haven't actually invested in anything. Right.
That's a very interesting point that you make. And I think it also, you know, I've been someone who has publicly shared our business income reports now for five plus years. And so that's been a challenging practice, especially during times where we have actually aggressively invested in different things. And our profit margins as a result, dipped below what you know, you would want to share. And it's interesting because I do see this common practice of owners not only maybe shooting after arbitrary revenue numbers, but also wanting to artificially inflate their profit margins by exactly what you said, adopting that keeper mentality of, okay, if I earn X amount of money, and I just spend less of it, my profit margins are going to look really good.
And then that's going to make me look like a successful business owner to my peers or to my clients, or whatever it may be, when in reality, like you're saying it could be stifling their growth. So for yourself, and the case study that we're going to cover today, you're spending about $113,000. In outsourced services this year, I want to place an emphasis on outsource for our listeners, because you already have a robust in house team of 31 team members.
So I it kind of begs the question, if you have this really awesome team that you've already built, and that infrastructure that you've built within your company, and most of these staff members are full time, right? So how are you discerning what roles you needed to outsource in the first place. And we'll get into the line item by line item of exactly how this 113k breaks down and expenses.
But when you first like started thinking about outsourcing, how did you decide I'm going to outsource this to an expert instead of trying to just hire for an in house role on this?
So what I found true for myself and so many of our clients is that as we start our business and as we grow, we are really buying back our time. And as we buy back our time Do I recommend for our clients to first hire experts to buy back their time? Because then you don't need to be the expert and you have somebody who is going to come in and show you the way, right? They are paving the way into whatever the strategy might be.
And then as we feel more comfortable with the topic, we may bring that that position in house, especially if it's somebody who is revenue, generating and service, so for my business, my team of bookkeepers, accountants, account managers, they started in the business as contractors. So, back nine years ago, when I started the business, they all started as contractors. As we grew together, they became employees. Now, I grew as a business owner.
So I knew very clearly that I wanted to, I wanted my brand protected. So we have a very specific way that we perform the bookkeeping, we have our strategic framework, every single one of our clients is in alignment with that framework. Every single one of our clients receives the same set of financial statements in the same format. They all receive a snapshot. So it's not this bookkeeper does it one way, this bookkeeper does another way, every single one of our clients receives what we call the snapshot. And it's an easy to read document, walking our clients through their numbers. I say all that because that was really important. It was an important decision for me to say I'm not hiring freelancers, to do the bookkeeping, I want to control the way that they do the work and in the format in which it is delivered to our clients.
So as we continue to grow, I needed to decide whether I needed experts in the business or if I felt like I had the skill set to be able to manage that task. Where I felt comfortable, right, where I felt like the expert, bookkeeping, tax, CFO work, we brought in people who could follow the framework that I laid out, because I am an expert in that, for the areas where I don't feel like the expert. And I don't want I'm gonna call it the responsibility of managing those drivers. I really wanted to know that I had an expert partner, so we had to make this decision, and over and over and over again, and I think that's what makes business so fluid.
So we have to keep on redesigning and re pivoting our business. I redesigned, pivoted, you know, eight years ago, and we do it annually of which positions? Do we need experts? Which positions do we need internally?
And, you know, hearing you talk about that I see. And I'm looking at to at, you know, your breakdown of your team members, like I already mentioned, most of them are full time the vast majority of them are your bookkeepers, you have 20 bookkeepers on your team full time. And as I'm looking even through the other roles that you mentioned, like account managers, or the three part time team members, you haven't sales, all of them are really centered around like you said, your core competency, which is very interesting to me, like the only two that fall outside of the purview of either acquiring clients or serving clients are your operations lead your manager and your lead, and then you have one marketing leads.
So I find that just to be a very interesting observation that I wanted to pull out for our listeners in case they're thinking through exactly what you said, like, what is your core competency as a business? And what are you an expert in? And what are some of those areas that you would rather I mean, even if you manage them, if you don't know how to what is the word like optimize, then it's not actually that helpful for you to be the the final, right, the reviewer, yeah, have said, you know, KPIs or whatnot. So let's take a look at this $113,000 spent.
So like I said, your marketing team internally is very lean, but you do invest heavily in a podcast PR agency. So this year, I'm just reading the numbers off of what Danielle's team had sent. So in podcasting, you have kind of lumped together a bunch of different types of tasks like coordinator editing, hosting, pitching, and you're paying different contractors to fulfill those different roles. But in total, the direct podcast expense is around $51,000. Is that about what you have in your head to?
Yep, that's about right. And this includes both my podcast so we have our podcast business by the books. So that includes that team, who edits our podcast does the show notes, creates the reels alongside my marketing director, and then the podcast pitching agency who we work with who helps us align our marketing strategies to come on amazing shows like yours, and continue to bring our expertise because one of my biggest passions in the world is being able to share this information with a entrepreneurs, right? That's why I remember sitting at that boardroom table. That's why I laughed.
And so I want to continue to share that that message. And the marketing team member whose internal, we were very intentional about that role being internal versus external. Because I am part of the voice of Kickstarter count, Inc, right? Kickstarter count is not Danielle Hayden, I'm not coaching you, our clients don't work with us. However, I represent the voice of the business. And I provide the vision and the direction of the business.
And so it was really important that that person set internally so that I can help deliver the voice, deliver the vision of the business to her. And then she takes that vision. And she coordinates with other outsource team members to make sure we're delivering on that vision.
I love that I love that. I have a friend who is a, like an ops expert and leadership expert. And she had something very similar to me in the past about how she finds that the best marketing teams, whoever is in charge of holding the vision for the marketing or the brand of the company is internal because team management is not like something that you can pop in and out of it's like a full time like you have to be present in the team that you're working with.
So it makes sense that the actual execution side of those marketing tasks are the ones that are outsourced. I am curious, though, I mean, obviously, it's easier to measure ROI for outsourced services, on marketing related things like you coming on external podcasts like ours, and maybe potentially getting leads or clients from that. And we'll get into how you've measured ROI to in just a moment.
But for the other flip side of the marketing tasks like managing your own internal podcast, after a few years in the game, have you ever considered Oh, if I could, you know, kind of just lump all of these different tasks like the editing and the coordinator into, let's say, one internal role, it might actually save me they're like, do you ever think through that? Or is it like, No, I've got this system down with our contractors, and there's no need to, you know, bring in a junior person, for our manager for a marketing manager to lead?
We will always consider it right. So we have considered it in the past. And we will always continue to consider it right. So I'm not hard and fast that this will be what the business looks like that is the fun of running a business is that it gets to change, right, and I'm going to continue to change it, we will review that as part of our strategic plan every year.
However, we have tried to bring pieces of this internally several times. And I truly believe that we've received the best return on investment when it was being done by the experts. Even when my team tried to take it internally, there's so much to do in running this business. I mean, I have so many ideas, right? Like I your true case of visionary. And I am constantly saying let's do let's drive this initiative, let's offer this, you know, I want to be able to continue to innovate. And I need my internal team available for the business to be able to pivot and change and to be able to take that direction and run with it.
And so I can't have somebody who's supposed to be doing podcast pitching, which is a very important revenue generator in our business, right? I can't have that person distracted by anything else. And, you know, whatever this month's project is, it can be really easy to prioritize this month's project over the something that has worked, tried and true over the years.
Right.
Same thing with our internal podcast. Business by the books is a once a week podcast, it is really important for somebody to make sure that episodes are coming out no matter what, like no matter what other initiatives are there. And when we've taken this role internally, things got lost. I felt like we were in a rush. Like we weren't getting we weren't being thoughtful with our episodes, we actually lacked in some quality issues. And if I'm going to have our name on something like if we're going to do something, we're going to do it right and I want an expert team to help us.
That's a really, really wise, I think approach. I have to ask for our listeners, if there ever has been a time where you did decide to take something in internally and actually worked out for the long run. What numbers need to happen in order for you to determine this is actually worth you know, shifting from an external role into an internal wall. I know the parameters around that are a little gray because it totally depends on the type of business someone has or what role they're thinking of transitioning but if you have any general things you are looking for in your own numbers when you're making that decision during those reviews. because that would be really helpful to hear.
So when I do this, I am doing it with my CFO, Money Team. So I have a Money Team, just like I encourage every single listener to have a money team, I have a bookkeeper, I have a CFO, I have a business coach, and I have a financial advisor. So when I am looking at making these types of decisions, I am meeting with my money team, and I am running the budget.
So I am always looking at the budget over the next 12 months, and then a rolling forecast. So what was my actual results year to date, plus, where I see myself closing up the year. And that's really most important to me, because if my goal is to have hockey stick revenue growth, right, like if I'm in growth mode, then I am not as worried about saving money. So just because you can save $500 Just because you can save 50% of your cost doesn't mean you should, right like it will rather than require somebody's time and attention and possibly yours.
And there's nothing worse than that, right? Like if your time has to now be spent on that task that you had outsourced. And then you are not providing the vision, you're not providing the service to your clients, you are not delivering on your promises. Because you're too busy focused on that thing, we've done more harm to the business than we would have if we just would have spent the money.
So going back to the spending gap at the beginning of our recording here, like we don't want to cut back just because we can save money. If we have a revenue growth goal, I need to be spending intentionally to keep my focus where my focus needs to be. Now, if there's cost savings that I literally cannot ignore, right. And I have people on my team who are qualified by that is the big piece qualified and have the time and space for the task, then I'm not married to the idea of keeping it outsource.
And I, I suggest somebody go through that same exercise, talk to your money team, run the numbers through through your budget, understand what your goals are for the year, and then don't cut back for the sake of cutting back.
Okay, a little bit more art than science in some ways, right?
We're talking data doesn't mean, you know, I used to try to do that for people like it is 30%. That is the answer. And it's just not the answer. That's why you need a Money Team, you have to find the answer for you. Like, I might be willing to spend more in these areas. But this year, profit isn't the priority for me. Whereas there's going to be years where profit is going to be priority. And I'm going to need to cut back.
That makes sense. That totally makes sense. Just kind of as an add on there is there regardless of whether this is a year that's profit focused or not profit focus, do you have for yourself an internal baseline of we must have X amount of business reserves at all time just to stay in a healthy sustainable place as a company. When your emergency savings or in you know liquid cash somewhere? Do you have a figure for your business that you'd like to stick to.
Of course, so we save for several initiatives, we actually make a weekly transfer. So every single week, we transfer to specific savings accounts. So we have one for tax so that we're always saving 25% of our net income into a high yield interest savings accounts so that that money is accruing interest throughout the year, and we're ready for tax time. We also have another savings account that we accrue bonuses and or just additional cash to ensure that we always have enough money for we do one month's worth of operating expenses.
And my advice on this changes. So for me, it's one month, but I if you're very risk adverse, then I really recommend it be some more like two or three months. And if you're smaller in business, it's easier to do three months worth of savings as you're growing. I mean, if I had several $100,000 sitting in a savings account, I would argue that that's not the best use of cash. So I don't want several $100,000 sitting in a savings account that money is better used actively in the business.
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Okay, that's I see it. This is why I love having conversations with different types of business owners who all have you know, different different priorities, different risk adversity, like you said, because you know, typically you hear in the finance world, like cash on hand, keep about three to six months, just you know, similar to your personal savings and for your business savings.
But it's actually really refreshing to hear like for you one month feels good because you know, what that cash can do in your business, if spent intentionally. And so that was I don't know, just very enlightening. So thank you for being so honest about that. We have covered about the 50,000 or so that you've spent on podcasting services. One more question on this before we move into other expenses of that 113k for the podcast, the PR agency piece. So in 2022, you invested about $21,600 on PR agency costs and you got a 10x return on that investment in 2023, you spent similar amount 22,000, you got a 7x return.
And then this year, so far, you've invested $10,000 in those PR pitching services, and you've gotten a 5x return so far. My question to you is, when you're looking at a strategy that does have a direct measurable revenue ROI, like okay, you booked me on five shows? And you know, each one brought me one lead, and then you know, maybe to turn into clients. When it comes to things like that, how big of an ROI Are you looking forward to even give the green light to spending on that strategy in the first place. So not talking about internal versus external, but just for you to greenlight the initiative, what ROI Are you looking for on these types of strategies?
So my answer is changed through the years when we started the strategy back in 2019, the ROI was much lower. Right, I was finding my voice, I didn't know what I was saying yet I needed to learn. We were on smaller shows. And over the years, I've gotten a level of comfort in speaking in knowing that regardless of the ROI that I am here to serve, right, like part of my bigger mission is to help business owners. And so if one person listening to the show, receives value, like I feel good about that personally, right? So this was a good personal use of my time.
When I'm looking at will we continue to renew our contract with them? For us it it needs to be profitable. And what I mean, this is crazy to hear from an accountant, but like, what are the softer things that it's bringing? Right? So from podcasting, I have met the most incredible people. Yeah, we I was on a show a little over a year ago who her and I just we totally clicked and I now speak monthly into her mastermind group, I'm part of her group, right.
And we work with so many clients together. And the ROI of that probably isn't even captured in that number because she became a referral partner. And so the metric now is being tagged like that revenue is being tagged to referral partner rather than podcast. Right, but I found her from podcasting. We have another one who I met back in 2020. During the pandemic, I met her and I was on her show, she was on my show. She's become a longtime friend. She's a referral partner. Now we frequently do events, she asked me to speak every year at her conference. So it is bringing new people into my world who I have the benefit of learning from you, right? Like, I'm gonna learn something today from you, and we might possibly continue to collaborate, and there's so much value in that.
So I know that that's not a specific answer of like, how do you apply that to all areas, but it's specifically for this one, if it is taking something off of your plate significantly. It is letting you have peace of mind and aiding you in in achieving your goals. To me that's ROI.
Yeah. And you know, I really appreciate how you explain that the softer side of things the the less tangible or immediate effects of strategy implementation because it actually sparked this new aha for me. So I wanted to share it with our listeners, I realized as you were talking about the connections that you've made, and and how they've played out over long term windows of time, that you are absolutely correct in the sense that for you to have made those same connections, like with that woman, who is a rockstar referral partner now, or, you know, the other one that you just mentioned, where else would you have had to invest to meet those same people like to be in the rooms with them?
Like, would you have had to go to a specific conference, or maybe buy a seat in a mastermind or whatever it may be at all the costs associated with travel and your admission into that and things like that. So it's kind of like taking, you know, that same contract, still would have been a cost somewhere, I guess, is what I'm trying to say, even if it's not the primary reason that you decided to invest in a set strategy, but the ancillary effects still has cost efficiency there.
And so I think that's a really, really interesting point that I had never thought about it that way until I heard you talking. So I just wanted to, I wanted to pull that out for listeners in case that was like an aha moment for anyone else, too.
I appreciate that. And, you know, we've talked about that a lot internally of whether or not I want to do additional speaking engagements or traveling to conferences, I have two kids, my daughter is going off to college next year, my son is going to be in his sophomore year of high school, like, I don't have much time left with them. So I don't want to get on a plane unless they're coming with me. And so it has been very specific that we continue to do podcasting, where I can walk out of this room, and, you know, spend time with my family as well.
Ya know, it's it's so convenient. I think, for so many reasons. And same experience as you podcasting has been by far and away the number one networking tool we've ever employed in our business. And I think that there is huge value, like you said in that even if it's not immediately noticeable. And speaking of, you know, things that may not be immediately noticeable. The other half of your 113k that you've invested this year, are on things that are not marketing oriented, they're not necessarily immediately going to be acquiring clients into your business. But they're still important to you.
And so I want to kind of go through those expenses, you hired a financial advisor, a CFO and EOS integrator, which I'll have you explain what that is for those who are not familiar with the operating system. And then also, of course, legal expenses, so about 18,000 on the financial advisor, 30,000 on the CFO 30,000 on the integrator for the EOS system, and then 12,500 in legal expenses. So that totals up to $61,630 and makes up the remaining amount of that 113k We've been talking about.
So these specific roles. How did you decide what experts in the non marketing realm you wanted to add to your team? And the EOS integrator, when you get to that piece, if you could, again, just give a quick debrief of what that means or what that is, that'd be super helpful.
Yeah, going back to needing experts in our business, no matter how much I read up on legal, I am not an attorney, right? It doesn't matter. I am not an attorney. Just like no matter how much you read up on tax, you are not a tax accountant. Right. So these are people that we need in our business.
So I start with that one, because it's an easy one to explain. I have to have an expert. We have to have roles in our business, such as our bookkeepers, our tax accountant, our attorneys that I think are a no brainer, outsourced person because they have to be an expert in their field. Next, the EOS integrator, Kevin has been part of our team for almost three and a half years. couldn't imagine running my business without Kevin. We tried to self implement EOS. So EOS is the entrepreneur operating system. And it is a operating system in which each year you do what's called the BTO you set your vision 10 year goals, three year goals one year goal.
And it's very, very specific in how you do that. Every quarter, you set the vision or theme for the quarter and you set rocks, which I guess aka goals for that quarter. But unlike goals, rocks are something that you are going to complete. So it's not like I want to hit $50,000 in revenue it is I am going to complete these three projects. And here are the milestones I need to complete in order to hit that point. completion got it. We get things done really fast in my organization like we are fast.
And I just recently had our tax manager, she made a comment to me, she said, I didn't understand why we were so fast until seeing EOS implemented over a quarter. Because that is why we are able to move the business forward. We make decisions quickly. And projects are brought to the finish line. It's not like oh, that was the flavor of the month last quarter. That was the flavor of the month last month, we bring things to the finish line, because we are held accountable.
Now. I tried to self implement EOS when we first started. And it was abysmal. abysmal. First of all, I'm a visionary. So it is really hard. Like I want to get greater. Yeah, yeah, like I do not, it is really difficult for me to hold accountable, to stay consistent to have that that level of conversation. So Kevin has been instrumental in allowing us as a business to implement us and to stay consistent with it. He serves as a coach and kind of third party for my executive team.
We just recently over the last few months implemented departmental EOS meetings. So we have several EOS meetings per month with the different departments in the in the business. And that holds every single department accountable. And I felt it when we only had one for ops. Yeah, I felt it and sales and marketing.
Ask what makes this type of role. So this is also a very team management heavy role, right? Not dissimilar in many ways. Just obviously on a bigger scale across the entire company, instead of just the arm of marketing that your marketing manager leads for your outsourced service providers. Is there any reason that this particular team management role is outsourced instead of internal?
And I mean, I'm assuming like in, like a more typical business term for an integrator might be like a COO or like a business manager. Right. So is it just that Kevin isn't needed full time in in your business in order for you to execute what you need? And the full time role therefore, would not make sense to hire for? Or is there a different reason why this particular role remains outsourced?
So I think there's two terms for integrator. So I have an internal integrator, I have a full time operations manager, and we have an operations lead. So we have two internal team members who are full time who are running the operations and the vision of the operations. God heaven sits as the EOS integrator, which is very different. Okay. So he runs the EOS meetings, and he is a coach for myself and my team.
Now he is trained at length, and he continues to educate himself in EOS and other strategies. So we just had an in person team meeting in May, where Kevin came and did a training for my entire management team. And it's because he's continuing to build his skills that he's able to bring that to our company. And he works with other clients. So he's also able to bring the expertise, the things that he's learning from his other clients into our our business.
We had a situation over the last week, and Kevin is the person who I called, I said, Kevin, you know, the dynamics on my team. Let's talk through this before I make a decision because it affects my accountability chart, right, it affects the chart, right? And it was EOS. So, again, I am not the expert. And my operations manager is not the expert in EOS.
And if I made her primary focus being the expert in Eos, which we've talked about, there's so many things we would be missing out on. Like that woman is a rockstar in bringing projects to completion, seeing the vision for the operations team and where we are going and I would miss out on that if she was trying to be the expert in the US
No, that completely makes sense. Thank you for clarifying that. By the way. I guess the way I'm kind of hearing it is he acts more in the role of like an advisor consultant on a very specialized expertise in EOS. And so that makes complete sense to me why that wouldn't be an internal role and one thing you did say that I wanted to make sure I pulled out again for our listeners because it it is such a great point is that because he is in other people's businesses that he can you know bring like you said a diverse range of lived experiences to the table when using that to inform how he might, you know, recommend something to you guys.
And that's something that I think I didn't realize early on in my business. But over the years, I've been much more comfortable outsourcing projects or campaigns to a specialized expert who does have that broad range of client experiences in different types of businesses or even in similar businesses as mine. But again, with different, you know, just different strategies that you can test and pull from in a way that an internal team member can't, because they're only working within that one ecosystem or infrastructure.
So I'm thinking even recently, we just wrapped up today, actually, this morning, I had my onboarding call with an operations consultant that we brought in to really help us rebuild all of our SOPs and lay the framework for how we want to be consistent with that moving forward in a streamlined manner. And I mean, she was with us for about three, maybe four months. And it was so helpful, like I was so impressed with how much we were able to get done in such a short amount of time.
And so I think that is also worth reminding our listeners of when you bring in an expert, it doesn't necessarily have to mean an ongoing forever hire in some cases, it might make sense to but in other cases, it might just be a short term project where you have a very specific outcome you're trying to achieve, and then having an expert step in and help lead your team through that. And then they can exit once that project is complete. So absolutely. Thank you.
You're just like sparking all sorts of things. For me, Danielle. I'm a verbal processor. If you can't tell system has to get that thought out. So I can actually remember the takeaway that you you've led me today. All right, so you've covered legal expenses. You've talked about the EOS integrator, you've already really emphasize how important it is to you to have your own financial team, even though you are a financial experts.
Is there anything else I haven't asked you around these non marketing roles that you feel is important for people to consider when they're thinking about hiring non marketing roles or, or roles that may not necessarily be immediately revenue driving, how they can evaluate, I guess, the KPIs for these roles.
It's really easy to dismiss bringing on outside team members who are not going to be generating revenue and say, I will just do it, right? Like when I think about the CFO that we hired. So having a bookkeeper and CFO, I can do the job, right. And I want my time and energy spent in other places. And it's really important that I have a team of experts who can handle that task for me, and can come in and have a strategic level conversation with me.
But I can understand how hard it might be for somebody to say, but I think I can try to do that myself. And I hear that sometimes, especially with bookkeeping, they're like, I think I can try. I kind of had a handle on it. I always asked, but did you they did you have an angle on it? And is there a team of experts that can not only just take it off your plate, but make sure that it's accurate? And make sure that you are in the role that you need to sit in?
No, that's super helpful, thank you. And you also are unique in the sense that you spend the majority of your budget 70% of your revenue goes directly to payroll. So you are very heavy in the people assets of your business, right? Investing in people and team where some businesses might be the opposite where their team is quite lean. And they're investing very heavily, let's say in marketing and advertising or whatnot.
So I'm just curious, your unique perspective on why are you so team heavy? And was that 70% of revenue? Is that is that a metric internally that you try to stick with? Or does that just happen to comprise, you know, where the payroll currently sits?
I'm very intentional in the fact that when a client comes to work with us at Kickstarter kind of Inc, I am not going to be the one working with them. I am the one creating the framework and training my team to be able to deliver that. And so it's really important that I have an amazing team. And I have the most incredible team like I absolutely love my team and the culture of my team.
And it is important. Just as much of my mission is to help you, the listeners, entrepreneurs to know their numbers to understand the role of the bookkeeper and tax accountant and how that serves our businesses. It is just as much my mission to bring a job opportunity to women in a male dominated field accounts or it's a male dominated field still, and these women have an opportunity to give back to their community to give back to entrepreneurship.
Like they come to work jazzed about what they do, because they're not doing bookkeeping, right? Like you can do bookkeeping anywhere. You are serving entrepreneurs who are going back out into their community, hiring and making an impact, like we make an incredible impact. And who am I like, I want to give back to my team, I am literally building my team. I'm building this business with my team. And it is important that I have the best team there to serve my clients. So yes, I'm very intentional in that.
And it is purposeful, because I can't, I don't want to work 60 hours a week, like I am in this business for a very long time, I want to create a healthy, sustainable, profitable business. And in order for me to have a healthy business, I have to have a team to support me. I can't do it all. And sometimes we mistaken high profitability and low payroll with success. Well, to me, that's probably means there's burning both ends of the candlestick like you probably are drowning, and I am not drowning. I love my job. And I love my job because I have a team.
And we do watch that metric. So I am as intentional, just like I preach my clients to review their numbers every single month. So when our clients get their snapshot, I'm like, read, we are done with you service, right, like we do the bookkeeping, but if you don't review it, it does nothing for you. So same goes for me, I am reviewing that number, every single month. And if it is increasing, and I feel like that is out of control, or going in a direction that doesn't feel intentional, I have the opportunity because I'm so tuned in with my numbers to act quick. Like I'm going to fix it the next month rather than the next tax season. Right? Or the next quarter. Right?
Right, you're on the pulse you're really like with your numbers, and treating it as a evolving living thing as it is in most businesses. What if you feel comfortable sharing this, I know our listeners would probably be curious just based on hearing how you've approached the finances of your company, when you account for all expenses.
So payroll is 70%. But if you account for all expenses, what's the average profit margin that you are shooting for after all expenses, and you can use pre tax profit because I know taxes obviously play or-
We shoot for 15% profitability every year. And that's what I recommend all of our clients shoot for is a very healthy business is about 15%. Last year, we ended the year around 10%. And this year, we're lower, we made a very strategic decision this year to implement two very important software's. So they're software that is going to increase the client experience.
So it's going to make the client experience more efficient, and is going to make it easier for the team to deliver our services. And then we're implementing our project management software, literally right now, as we speak, this month, which is going to change how we run the administration of our business and how we coordinate how we work with clients, it is going to save a ton of time for my team. And then therefore each team member will be able to serve more clients.
So our payroll costs will go down as our subscription costs go up. But that was very intentional. And so I recognize as a leader, that as I invest in these new tools and systems, and I build this out for my team. This is literally what it means to reinvest in your business. Yeah, I am reinvesting in the business so that I can improve our long term work, like the longevity of the business.
Yeah. I really admire that about you, Danielle, just everything you've said today, you keep a very long term perspective, in anything you do. And that's hard, especially in, you know, in the online business space, I think, I mean, this industry as a whole is just a lot newer, you know, a lot of us that even the types of businesses like even my type of business, right, like a, mostly a creator, or content based business is not something that's necessarily been around in this form until like the last 20 years and in the dawn of like social media and whatnot.
And so it's interesting to hear you talk about, you know, how patient you are in allowing things to really run their course, and being able to hold steadfast to that vision, even if you see the temporary dips and being okay with that. So I think that's a really refreshing message. For a lot of our listeners. I just wanted to commend you for that. To wrap up our case study today. Do you have any final questions or favorite questions perhaps that listeners can be asking themselves to determine if they're under spending in their business and what areas maybe even that you see women tend to chronically under spend on.
So like, if you were, you know, the the little angel sitting on their shoulder and be like, reviewing their p&l with them and pointing out these things that they may or may be missing, what would those things be?
I think especially as women, we were the superhero cape, we have to do it all. It's not right. Unless I do it, I'm the best person to do it, or like just wearing these superhero capes.
And I think my advice always is to hang up the cape and get help reflect on your energy, like, literally take your financial statements from last year, last quarter last month, and really take a clarity break. What was your profit? And how did you feel like, if you are profitable, but you are don't feel good, then it's time to get some help in your, in your business?
And, and, and it's okay, right? Like, clearly what we've been saying this entire show is, it's okay to get help, you will still make money, you can see the long term vision of the business. To be clear that 70% also includes my payroll, right? So that includes paying myself and so I encourage everybody who's listening, do not forget your time is not free. You have to be paying yourself and you have to get help in your business. Otherwise long term is this really sustainable?
That is such a good point to end on. That changed the game for me once I hired my own finance team. You know, back when I was, you know, more of that solopreneur phase, I loved the idea of having 70 or 80% profit margins, but in reality that that was not real, right? Because it was based on me not paying myself, but the best thing I ever learned was when you know, expert was like, Well, if you had to remove yourself from the business, what would you have to pay someone to do what you do and your business and if your business numbers can't sustain that like what it would cost that market to hire someone to replace you.
Then you don't actually have a sustainable business. And I was like, Oh, that changed like everything for me. So thank you for that really key reminder Danielle, where can our listeners go to find out more about you connect with you. And of course check out your firm if they if they need bookkeeping and accounting support.
The best place to go is kickstart accounting inc.com/gift. There you can learn more about our services business, buy the books and there are some great downloads for for the listeners.
Amazing. We will drop that link for you in the show notes. So please make sure to check it out. Go connect with Danielle on Instagram. Say hi, thank you so much for joining us today. Danielle. You are awesome.
Yeah, thank you.
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