The Successful Bookkeeper Podcast

Hosted by Michael Palmer

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Jun 2026

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The Successful Bookkeeper Podcast is a weekly show to help increase your confidence, work smarter and build a business you love. Each week you'll listen to inspiring guests who will share their success secrets, so you can take your bookkeeping enterprise and life to another level. Some of them include New York Times Best-Selling Author of E-Myth, Michael E. Gerber, Pure Bookkeeping Co-Founder, Debbie Roberts, the host of The Productive Woman podcast, Laura McClellan and the author of *I Know How She Does It*, Laura Vanderkam. If you're a bookkeeping business owner who is looking for an uplifting, entertaining and informative podcast exclusively for YOU then you have arrived at the right place! Get ready because your journey towards success begins — now. Your Host Michael Palmer is an acclaimed business coach who has helped hundreds of bookkeepers across the world push through their fears and exponentially grow their businesses and achieve the quality of life they've always wanted.

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June 16, 2026Episode 53637 min

EP536: Melissa Broughton - Buy Before They Close: Acquiring Bookkeeping Firms The Smart Way

See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → Melissa Broughton, founder of Busy Bee Advisors in Sacramento, has built a bookkeeping firm that grows not just through referrals and marketing, but through strategic acquisition of other bookkeeping practices. In this episode, she pulls back the curtain on her complete acquisition process — from finding firms before they shut their doors, to vetting the financials, to integrating clients without losing them. If you've ever wondered whether buying a book of business could be part of your growth plan, Melissa's experience — including the deals that went sideways — is exactly what you need to hear. Chapters [00:00] Cold open teaser [01:15] Melissa's growth journey since last episode [05:30] Launching an online bookkeeping course [09:00] How the acquisition strategy began [12:30] The 70% rule and the water test [17:00] Vetting financials and avoiding pitfalls [21:00] What makes a firm attractive to buyers [25:30] Client integration and transition lessons [30:00] Reading the seller's personality [33:30] Capacity, formulas, and skipping brokers How Melissa Got Into Acquisitions It started with a pattern Melissa kept hearing from tax professionals: a bookkeeper with a thriving practice would simply close up shop, send clients a farewell letter, and leave them scrambling. "There were bookkeepers who had successful, thriving practices and they just decided to retire — they just closed their doors." That gap between a bookkeeper ready to walk away and clients who still need service looked like an opportunity. The goal became getting in front of those owners before they pulled the plug. The 70% Rule and Other Benchmarks Melissa's core filter is straightforward: would the acquisition still be profitable if you only kept 70% of the clients? "We look at, is the business still profitable if you only retain 70% of their business? That's our benchmark." She calls it the "water test," and a surprising number of potential deals don't pass it. She also looks at minimum client roster size, client interaction levels, software alignment (her firm runs exclusively on QuickBooks Online), and whether all clients are under a signed contract. A book of business built on handshakes and mixed software platforms is a much riskier buy than it appears on paper. Vetting the Financials — Don't Take It as Gospel Because bookkeepers are numbers people, Melissa says they're actually well-positioned to do the kind of financial scrutiny most buyers skip. "Ask for proof of those deposits. Make sure that the income lines up." She requests bank statements alongside tax returns, digs into payroll breakdowns, and checks lease agreements — because taking on a seller's remaining lease obligations can quietly sink a deal. She also warns against letting a seller's likability cloud the numbers: "Nice has nothing to do with it." Integration: What Makes or Breaks the Transition The smoothest acquisition Melissa ever completed involved an owner who was fully ready to walk away and sent a clean, brief handover note to clients. The hardest ones involved sellers who couldn't really let go. "We generally will not have the owners stay on — I can only think of two situations where we've had the owners stay on, and I will say I regretted it both of those times." For every acquisition, she brings on extra team support and deploys what she calls a "client whisperer" — a trusted admin who calls each new client, makes the introduction, and asks the question most people avoid: what did your previous bookkeeper do that drove you crazy? What Sellers Should Know Melissa also flips the conversation for bookkeepers thinking about eventually selling their practice. The three biggest value drivers in her eyes are: signed contracts with every client, a reasonable level of ongoing client communication (not too hands-off, not so personal that clients will leave when you do), and consistent use of mainstream software. She also recommends having payment on file rather than invoicing after the fact — both as a business practice and because it signals a well-run, collectible revenue stream to any buyer. Starting negotiations, Melissa uses a 1.25x multiplier on receivables as a baseline and works from there. Links Mentioned Busy Bee Advisors: busybeeadvisors.com Contact Melissa directly for her acquisition formula and checklist — email will be in the show notes The Successful Bookkeeper: thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com Pure Bookkeeping: purebookkeeping.com About Melissa Broughton Melissa Broughton is the founder and owner of Busy Bee Advisors, a fully remote bookkeeping firm headquartered in Sacramento, California, with team members spread across the United States. She has built and sold businesses across multiple industries and has applied those lessons to growing her bookkeeping practice through strategic acquisitions. In 2024, she launched an online course to help aspiring bookkeepers start their own businesses; by August 2025, more than 3,500 people had completed it. Melissa is a returning guest on The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. About the hostMichael PalmerMichael Palmer is the host of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast and co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and The Successful Bookkeeper. He started this work because of his father — a brilliant electrical contractor who worked twice as hard as he should have had to, because nobody on the financial side was in his corner. That gap is what The Successful Bookkeeper exists to close. His view: bookkeepers are the most undervalued force in small business — and every bookkeeper who builds a real business changes two families: theirs, and their clients'.

June 9, 2026Episode 53536 min

EP535: Benjamin Tasker - Skills Over Tools: How Bookkeepers Can Thrive In The AI Revolution

See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → AI is moving fast, and the bookkeeping profession is squarely in its path — but not in the way most people fear. In this episode, Michael Palmer sits down with AI strategist and educator Benjamin Tasker to talk about what the shift actually looks like on the ground, which skills will separate bookkeepers who thrive from those who stall, and how to start building your own AI system without a data science degree. Chapters [00:00] Welcome and Ben's Background [03:15] From Data Science to AI Education [08:00] AI's Real Impact on Bookkeeping [12:00] Human Judgment as the Key Check [15:30] Skills That Separate Thriving Bookkeepers [21:00] Data, Systems, and AI Strategy [25:00] Opportunities to Move Up the Value Chain [29:00] First Steps for Integrating AI [32:00] Client Expectations and Transparency [35:00] Fear, Mindset, and Where to Find Ben AI Will Elevate Bookkeeping, Not Replace It Ben is direct about the headline fear: bookkeepers are not going away. "AI will help elevate what a bookkeeper does," he says. The repetitive work — transaction coding, receipt capture, anomaly detection, drafting reports — gets absorbed by AI, which frees up the bookkeeper to move from data entry to data judgment. Think less time in the books and more time coaching clients on their financial pain points. AICPA and Intuit both point in the same direction: the future of the role looks a lot more like analytics and advisory than data input. The Two Skill Lanes Every Bookkeeper Should Know Ben references the World Economic Forum's skills taxonomy, which divides skills into two tracks. AI skills — analytical thinking, systems thinking, coding — pay a premium today, but AI will eventually encroach on those. Human skills — communication, empathy, leadership — are undervalued right now but will command a premium as AI can only mimic, never genuinely replace, them. "AI can put on a facade of empathy and compassion, but it really can't have it because it's robotic." For bookkeepers, the practical focus areas are AI supervision (checking outputs rigorously), advisory thinking, digital and data fluency, and transparent client communication. The Human in the Loop Is Not Optional Ben's background in healthcare data — building algorithms to predict sepsis risk from bedside monitors — gives him a sharp view on why human validation matters. A small data error that goes unchecked can cascade into a much larger problem. "A mistake, especially for a small business owner, could cost tens of thousands of dollars." Bookkeepers already understand this: the work is either right or it isn't. That precision mindset is exactly what responsible AI use demands, and it is a genuine competitive advantage for practitioners who carry it into their AI workflows. Data Is the Oil — Build a System, Not Just a Stack of Tools One of Ben's clearest points: buying an AI tool is not an AI strategy. The framework he outlines is straightforward — start with your data (client records, call transcripts, templates, Google Sheets), run it through a system you build and control, apply AI to it, then validate and iterate. "Just because you buy an AI tool doesn't mean you have an AI strategy or even an AI business." He encourages bookkeepers to build their own processing systems rather than relying entirely on third-party integrations that can change without warning. Start small — something as simple as having AI draft follow-up emails from call transcripts is a low-risk, high-value first step. Practical First Steps and Client Communication For bookkeepers ready to start, Ben's advice is to pick a low-stakes problem, solve it, and let that build confidence. Use AI to profile prospective clients from call transcripts, automate follow-up reminders, or create a client-facing dashboard from existing data. On the client side, transparency is non-negotiable: communicate that you are using AI, explain how it benefits them, and teach them how to give better inputs so they get better outputs. "By providing inputs and encouraging your customers to use AI to show them the benefits of it, they're going to become less resistant over time." That kind of teaching deepens the client relationship well beyond what traditional bookkeeping alone can offer. Links Mentioned Ben Tasker AI: bentaskerai.com Ben Tasker on LinkedIn World Economic Forum Skills Taxonomy (AI skills and human skills tracks) The Successful Bookkeeper Pure Bookkeeping About the Guest Benjamin Tasker is an AI strategist, educator, and speaker with over 10 years of experience in data science and artificial intelligence. His background spans healthcare predictive analytics, higher education, and enterprise AI strategy. Today he helps entrepreneurs and large organizations build the skills and systems they need to navigate the AI revolution. You can find his prompting frameworks, podcast appearances, and upcoming events at bentaskerai.com. About the hostMichael PalmerMichael Palmer is the host of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast and co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and The Successful Bookkeeper. He started this work because of his father — a brilliant electrical contractor who worked twice as hard as he should have had to, because nobody on the financial side was in his corner. That gap is what The Successful Bookkeeper exists to close. His view: bookkeepers are the most undervalued force in small business — and every bookkeeper who builds a real business changes two families: theirs, and their clients'.

June 2, 2026Episode 53424 min

EP534: Sammy Mattingly & Fred Ott - Systems Before Scale: How Two Partners Built A Firm That Lasts - Part 2 of 2

See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → Sammy Mattingly and Fred Ott are back for the finale of their two-part conversation with host Michael Palmer. Where Part 1 covered the leap into bookkeeping entrepreneurship, Part 2 gets into the gritty, practical work of making a young firm sustainable — documenting processes, surviving the first real growth wave, hiring employee number one, and deciding what kind of business they actually want to build. Chapters [00:00] Introduction and Episode Recap [01:18] What Makes This Partnership Work [04:30] Growth Wave Exposes System Gaps [07:00] Hiring the First Employee [09:00] Fixing Onboarding the Right Way [12:00] Joining Pure Bookkeeping and Freedom Gateway [15:30] Walls Hit and Lessons Learned [18:30] Long-Term Vision and the Journey [21:30] The 'How to Make a Few Thousand Dollars' Podcast The Partnership Advantage One of the quieter themes running through this episode is just how much the partnership itself has been a growth tool. Sammy puts it plainly: "Fred is the only one of my friends that I could do this with — and it's mostly down to that accountability piece and the amount of work that each of us is going to put into this." For bookkeepers considering a partner arrangement, this episode is a useful reality check on what makes it work — shared drive, mutual trust, and complementary skill sets — and what makes it hard. When Clients Arrive Faster Than Your Systems The real test of any process is live clients. Sammy and Fred thought their systems were solid after months of heavy networking. Then the referrals started rolling in, and the cracks showed fast. "We quickly realized our systems and our processes are not what we need to be able to support the growth that we have now and that we want in the future," Fred says. Their response was to pull back from networking temporarily, sit down together, and map out standard operating procedures from scratch — building workflows, identifying automation opportunities, and stress-testing everything against real client volume. Onboarding: Break It, Fix It, Repeat Onboarding was the first thing to crack under pressure. Rather than patching it on the fly, Sammy and Fred blocked a Saturday, mapped every pain point, and rebuilt it. When the next wave of clients came through a month later, the process was smooth — but it surfaced a new set of smaller issues. "There's always something rolling onto the pocket of like, okay, here's an issue with our process," Sammy says. "Now we need to set aside time to work together to map out how to fix that and how to implement it." That cycle of deliberate improvement is now a permanent feature of how they run the business. Pure Bookkeeping and the Freedom Gateway Sammy credits early podcast listening for pointing him toward Pure Bookkeeping, and describes the decision to join as straightforward once the need for a real system became obvious. What stood out most was the access to experienced guidance: "Having an hour with Lisa Campbell a week, someone who's done it, who's built a very successful firm — she was great in just helping us learn and develop and how to work on the business." They also appreciated that the system is customizable — their Pure and Pixie setup reflects their firm, not a template. Building Toward Something (Without Telling Everyone What It Is) When Michael asks about the long-term vision, neither Sammy nor Fred throws out a revenue number — and Michael approves. Fred frames it well: "Like we want to grow and do all these things, but ultimately the day-to-day — we want the day-to-day to be enjoyable. We like challenging ourselves, we're curious people, and we like learning." They're also currently working through Traction by Gino Wickman and have launched their own podcast, How to Make a Few Thousand Dollars, which earned an early shoutout from the entrepreneur who inspired the name. Links Mentioned Mattingly & Ott Financial Accounting How to Make a Few Thousand Dollars — Sammy and Fred's podcast (search on your podcast app) Pure Bookkeeping — the system referenced throughout the episode Traction by Gino Wickman — EOS framework book Sammy and Fred are currently implementing How to Make a Few Billion Dollars by Brad Jacobs — inspiration for their podcast name The Successful Bookkeeper Episode featuring Theresa Slack — referenced by Michael as a model partnership story About the Guests Fred Ott and Sammy Mattingly are co-founders of Mattingly & Ott Financial Accounting, LLC, a growing bookkeeping firm built on referral-driven networking, deliberate systems work, and a commitment to serving small business owners in their community. Friends since high school, they made the jump from W-2 employment to entrepreneurship together and are now navigating their first year of real scale — with their first employee, a growing client roster, and a podcast of their own. About the hostMichael PalmerMichael Palmer is the host of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast and co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and The Successful Bookkeeper. He started this work because of his father — a brilliant electrical contractor who worked twice as hard as he should have had to, because nobody on the financial side was in his corner. That gap is what The Successful Bookkeeper exists to close. His view: bookkeepers are the most undervalued force in small business — and every bookkeeper who builds a real business changes two families: theirs, and their clients'.

May 26, 2026Episode 53330 min

EP533: Sammy Mattingly & Fred Ott - From Porta Potties To Bookkeeping: How Networking Built Their Firm Fast - Part 1

See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → Sammy Mattingly and Fred Ott co-founded Mattingly & Ott Financial Accounting in their mid-twenties, with backgrounds in Big Four auditing and investment management — and a brief, memorable detour into portable sanitation. In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, they walk through the early decisions that shaped their firm: getting certified, landing first clients, and discovering that digital ads were no substitute for showing up in person. Chapters [00:00] Cold open and intro [01:18] Sammy's listener origin story [03:15] Backgrounds before bookkeeping [06:30] The porta potty adventure [11:00] Finding bookkeeping on YouTube [13:00] Five-week plan and first clients [16:00] Why paid ads flopped [18:30] Discovering networking as a strategy [21:00] Building one-to-one meeting habits [24:30] Shifting to strategic partnerships From Porta Potties to ProAdvisor Before bookkeeping, Sammy and Fred tried their hand at entrepreneurship the hard way — buying 20 used porta potties off a site called Crapper King, shipping them across the country on a semi-truck, and eventually moving them on Facebook Marketplace after a good pressure wash. The experience wasn't profitable, but it was formative. As Michael notes on the show, it gave them a layer of genuine empathy for clients: "They don't have all the answers, they're making mistakes, they're trying to figure it out." After a few more ideas, a YouTube video on starting a bookkeeping firm was all the spark Sammy needed. "I watched it, and I was like, well, if this guy can do it, Fred and I can do this." The Five-Week Launch Plan Once they committed to bookkeeping, Sammy and Fred moved fast. They built a five-week plan: get QuickBooks certified, become ProAdvisors, and land one client. Two large cleanup projects came through the QuickBooks ProAdvisor directory almost immediately — enough to justify going full-time. Fred describes those first weeks as equal parts doing the work and learning on the fly: "We were certified in QuickBooks, but it's like — we've got to figure out how this works. We've never done a QuickBooks cleanup for this type of company before." Why Paid Ads Weren't the Answer With their first projects underway, they turned to paid social media ads hoping to fill the pipeline. Six weeks and 15 or 16 leads later, the results were discouraging — contacts who were hard to reach and nowhere near ready to hire a bookkeeper. "We were finding they were all super unqualified," Fred says. That dead end turned out to be the pivot point. A conversation with a local small business attorney introduced a word they'd barely considered: networking. Networking as a Growth Engine Neither Sammy nor Fred would describe themselves as natural networkers — both lean introverted. But they committed fully, spending two to three months filling their days with open networking events and one-to-one coffee meetings. The accountability of working as a team made the difference: knowing the other person was putting in the effort kept each of them showing up. Fred's father, a career salesman, gave them the frame they needed: "Unseen, unheard, unsold." They tracked weekly one-to-one meeting goals, walked up to strangers, shook hands, and asked people to coffee — regardless of whether an obvious business connection was visible. Strategic Relationships Over Volume Over time, the approach evolved from broad networking to targeted relationship-building. Sammy describes the shift as following the data: "We took a step back and we were like, okay, what percentage of our referrals is coming from CPAs or whoever? And it's like, okay, well, if 80, 90% of our referrals are coming from these types of people, we need to go to rooms where there are these types of people." Tax preparers, business brokers, and other professionals who rarely attend networking events became the focus — making Mattingly & Ott's presence at those events even more valuable. Links mentioned Pure Bookkeeping — the system Sammy and Fred found through the podcast Pixie — practice management tool they discovered through The Successful Bookkeeper thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com — resources, episode search, and Ask the Show feature About the guests Sammy Mattingly and Fred Ott are co-founders of Mattingly & Ott Financial Accounting, LLC. High school friends turned business partners, they launched their bookkeeping firm roughly a year and a half ago and went full-time within the first few months. Sammy brings a background in Big Four audit; Fred comes from investment management. Together they serve small, service-based businesses and have built their client base almost entirely through in-person networking and strategic referral relationships. Part 2 of their conversation covers how those relationships translate into referral systems and scalable growth. About the hostMichael PalmerMichael Palmer is the host of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast and co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and The Successful Bookkeeper. He started this work because of his father — a brilliant electrical contractor who worked twice as hard as he should have had to, because nobody on the financial side was in his corner. That gap is what The Successful Bookkeeper exists to close. His view: bookkeepers are the most undervalued force in small business — and every bookkeeper who builds a real business changes two families: theirs, and their clients'.

May 19, 2026Episode 53240 min

EP532: Natalia Zacharin - Price It And Zip It: How Confident Pricing Funds Real Growth - Part 2

See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → If you've ever quoted a price, panicked at the silence, and then talked yourself into a discount before the prospect even responded — this episode is for you. In the finale of this two-part series, Natalia Zacharin, Founder and Principal of Zacharin Consulting, picks up where she left off: taking a firm from underpriced and overworked to a multi-million-dollar operation built on confident pricing, high-caliber hires, and fractional CFO services that change businesses from the inside out. Chapters [00:00] Cold open and episode intro [01:37] Non-negotiables and self-care [04:48] The hiring formula and pricing shift [08:00] Price it and zip it [11:00] Joining a mastermind, betting on herself [13:30] Building referrals and CFO services [17:30] What fractional CFO work really looks like [23:00] AI, pricing pressure, and quality [26:30] Hiring up and scaling out of production [29:00] Final advice and where to find Natalia The Moment She Stopped Underselling For a long time, Natalia was closing deals she immediately regretted. She'd set a minimum of $500 a month, get on the sales call, hit silence — and before the prospect could say a word, she'd already dropped the number. "I would get off the call and then be mad at myself because I did it again," she says. The fix was deceptively simple: state the price and stop talking. That uncomfortable pause exists for the client to process, ask questions, or push back — and it's not your job to fill it. Learning to sit in that silence was the turning point that finally gave her room to hire. The Hiring Formula Behind the Growth Natalia uses a straightforward formula: between $200,000 and $300,000 in gross revenue per employee. She was at $300,000 and wanted to hire — but the numbers said she needed to be closer to $500,000 first. So she raised her prices, created the margin, and then hired. Her early lesson: the first hire was underqualified, which meant she spent more time training than delegating. "Looking back, I should have hired someone with a lot more experience that was more expensive, maybe even a manager level." Hiring up — paying well, offering full benefits, building a team that can run without you — is the model she's stayed with ever since. Fractional CFO Services: Already Doing It for Free The expansion into fractional CFO work didn't start with a strategy — it started with Natalia noticing she was already answering CFO-level questions at the end of every bookkeeping sales call. Clients kept asking: how do I get more profitable? How much cash do I actually need? When should I hire? "If you're already giving advice, you're already doing that for free unless you're charging for it." She formalized those conversations into a monthly engagement built around projections, accountability, and the kind of honest focus that keeps business owners from avoiding the hard work that actually moves the needle. AI, Pricing Pressure, and Leaning the Right Direction With AI tools multiplying and overseas competitors undercutting on price, Natalia's response is deliberate: go the other direction. "Don't feel the pressure of constantly lowering your pricing. That's going in the wrong direction. You need to actually be even better." Her firm uses AI to work faster and more accurately, but every file is reviewed by an in-house controller regardless of client size. The value isn't in the tool — it's in the trained eye that knows where to look and what the numbers mean for that specific business. Scaling Yourself Out of the Business Getting out of day-to-day production takes longer than most people expect. Natalia spent four years trying to hand off payroll before she finally found a payroll-only specialist with decades of experience — not a generalist bookkeeper. The message for anyone building a firm: don't give up when a hire doesn't stick. Keep looking for the right person. "It took me four years to get out of payroll… I'd be on vacation, walking the beach, running someone's payroll on my phone because it kept coming back to me." The same patience applies to every role you want to transition out of. Links Mentioned Zacharin Consulting website: zacharynconsulting.com LinkedIn: Grow Your Bottom Line Instagram: Grow Your Bottom Line Pure Bookkeeping: purebookkeeping.com The Successful Bookkeeper resources: thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com About the Guest Natalia Zacharin is the Founder and Principal of Zacharin Consulting, a full-service bookkeeping and fractional CFO firm she built from the ground up as a single mother. Starting with cold LinkedIn outreach and clients at $75 a month, she scaled the firm to multi-million-dollar revenue by combining confident pricing, strategic hiring, and advisory services that help business owners understand and act on their numbers. She is based in the United States and serves clients across industries including logistics, IT, and professional services. About the hostMichael PalmerMichael Palmer is the host of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast and co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and The Successful Bookkeeper. He started this work because of his father — a brilliant electrical contractor who worked twice as hard as he should have had to, because nobody on the financial side was in his corner. That gap is what The Successful Bookkeeper exists to close. His view: bookkeepers are the most undervalued force in small business — and every bookkeeper who builds a real business changes two families: theirs, and their clients'.

May 12, 2026Episode 53125 min

EP531: Natalia Zacharin - Zero Experience, Millions Earned: From Clerk To Inc. 5000 Firm Owner

See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → Natalia Zacharin had no bookkeeping background, no clients, and no safety net when she started Zacharin Consulting in January 2019. She was 49, a single mom, and her invoicing clerk job was being phased out. In part one of this two-part conversation, Natalia lays out exactly how she went from that starting point to building a firm that now employs 16 people, targets $4 million in revenue, and landed at number 802 on the 2025 Inc. 5000 list. Chapters [00:00] Cold open: asking the right questions [00:52] Introducing Natalia Zacharin [03:00] From invoicing clerk to business owner [07:00] Where the firm stands today [10:00] First client via LinkedIn [13:00] Self-teaching bookkeeping on YouTube [16:30] Hiring a CPA manager — lessons learned [19:00] Building the pipeline: 4 clients to 12 [23:00] Doubling down and working 7 days a week [26:00] COVID, the PPP pivot, and early burnout Starting From Zero — And Meaning It Natalia's entry into bookkeeping wasn't a career pivot she planned. Her fiancé suggested it over coffee when she couldn't find another job. She enrolled in an online course, started messaging business owners on LinkedIn in January 2019, and landed her first client on January 29th of that year — a landscaping company owner in California who is still a client today. Her prior experience as an invoicing clerk in Microsoft Dynamics and NetSuite gave her attention to detail, but she had never opened QuickBooks. YouTube as a Training Program When Natalia got into her first client's books, she found the revenue hadn't been recorded — showing a negative $2 million on the P&L. Rather than walking away, she cleaned it up herself using YouTube, watching videos second by second and refreshing the balance sheet after every change to see what happened. "That was how I learned," she says. "I taught myself how to read financials, not how to do just data entry." It was slow, it was self-directed, and it worked. The Formula for Getting Clients Early On Natalia built her first pipeline through two channels: LinkedIn outreach and a local women's business group. Her LinkedIn approach was simple — start genuine conversations, never lead with a pitch, and ask questions. "No one likes it when you just come out with a full three paragraphs of what you do. No one cares." At in-person events, she set a clear intention before walking in: she was there to get a client, not just to have lunch. By August 2019 she had 4 clients and quit her day job. By November she had 12 — enough to cover her bills. Doubling Down on What Works After quitting her job, Natalia worked 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, iterating constantly on what was generating new business. Her core principle: if something moves the needle, do more of it faster. She avoided prescriptive networking formats like BNI in favour of methods she could control and test. "Selling is psychological, it's not intuitive," she says. "I just didn't give up. I didn't feel like I had other options, so I just kept going." COVID, the PPP, and a Hard Lesson About Burnout In January 2020, Natalia called her mother — who had been helping her financially — to say she no longer needed the support. Three months later, COVID hit and her clients' revenues collapsed. She pivoted immediately to helping clients apply for PPP and EIDL loans, achieving near-perfect approval and forgiveness rates. But by August 2020, working alone under enormous pressure, she stopped exercising and started running out of energy. Part two of this series picks up there — with hard-won lessons on burnout, pricing, and scaling a team. Links Mentioned Zacharin Consulting: zacharinconsulting.com Pure Bookkeeping: purebookkeeping.com The Successful Bookkeeper: thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com About the Guest Natalia Zacharin is the Founder and Principal of Zacharin Consulting, a full-service accounting firm based in Maryland that offers bookkeeping, accounting, and fractional CFO services. She started the firm in 2019 with no formal bookkeeping training and grew it to a 16-person team tracking over $3 million in annual revenue. In 2025, Zacharin Consulting was named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies in the United States, ranking number 802. About the hostMichael PalmerMichael Palmer is the host of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast and co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and The Successful Bookkeeper. He started this work because of his father — a brilliant electrical contractor who worked twice as hard as he should have had to, because nobody on the financial side was in his corner. That gap is what The Successful Bookkeeper exists to close. His view: bookkeepers are the most undervalued force in small business — and every bookkeeper who builds a real business changes two families: theirs, and their clients'.

May 5, 2026Episode 53028 min

EP530: Ashley Jocic - No Time, No Problem: Building A Virtual Firm During Life Chaos

See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → Ashley Jocic started Florida Keys Bookkeeping at one of the most turbulent moments imaginable: a separation, COVID shutdowns, and a career pivot — all at once. What followed was five years of growing a fully virtual bookkeeping firm while navigating a new marriage, a daughter, an international move to Serbia, and twins. This episode is a masterclass in building something real when life refuses to slow down. Chapters [00:00] Life chaos that sparked the business [04:18] Early career and Bookkeeper Launch [07:04] Finding the first clients [10:40] Newborn, new marriage, slow growth [13:28] Twins force a systemization sprint [18:35] Running a US firm from Serbia [25:11] Building referral relationships [32:10] Plans for intentional growth [40:55] Protecting your work time Starting From a Real Moment Ashley's path into bookkeeping started with her dad. She'd been handling his books and noticed something: "I remember seeing the relief on his face when he knew his bookkeeping and his bills were handled." That moment made her realize bookkeeping is more than data entry — it lifts a genuine mental burden from business owners. Combined with a background in government accounting and a timely refresh through the Bookkeeper Launch course, she had what she needed to start. Growing Slowly — On Purpose Ashley's early client growth was deliberate and unhurried, mostly driven by a professional website and a referral from her father's network. "If someone called me and wanted a bookkeeper, I ended up doing their bookkeeping," she says. There was no aggressive outreach strategy at first — and that was fine. Her constraints as a new stay-at-home mom meant slow, steady growth was the only kind that fit. She and her husband aimed for 20 hours of work per week. Sometimes she hit it. Sometimes she didn't. A Hard Deadline Forces the Right Decisions When Ashley found out she was pregnant with twins, she faced a clear choice: systemize fast or shut down. She chose to systemize. She leaned heavily on Pure Bookkeeping to document and standardize her processes, hired a team member in Serbia she could train before going on leave, and brought on a second person to review that work while she was away. "I did a lot of things a lot quicker than I would have normally because of that constraint, because of that timeline." The firm didn't just survive her maternity leave — it ran smoothly. Virtual-Only as a Filter, Not a Limitation Living in Serbia with a six-hour time difference from the US East Coast might sound like a recipe for client friction. Ashley sees it differently. Being unable to visit offices or meet for coffee filters out clients who aren't ready for fully virtual work — and those tend to be the wrong clients anyway. The right clients, she's found, don't need her physically present. They need her reliable. A CPA who works with one of her clients has since referred additional business to her, which she considers a strong signal: "He liked my work enough to refer me to someone else he was doing taxes for." Protecting Your Work Time Looking back, the one thing Ashley wishes she'd done sooner is treat her work hours as non-negotiable. "I would too easily say, 'Well, okay, I'll work later,'" she reflects. "I had to treat it like a business and not just something that fits in the in-between moments." That mindset shift — from flexible freelancer to firm owner — is something she says took time but made a real difference in how the business runs today. Now, with systems in place and a small team, she's turning her attention to intentional growth: more cleanups that convert to monthly clients, and deeper relationships with accountants who can send referrals. Links mentioned Florida Keys Bookkeeping Pure Bookkeeping The Successful Bookkeeper About the guest Ashley Jocic is the owner of Florida Keys Bookkeeping, a fully virtual firm she launched during the COVID shutdowns. With a background in government accounting and a passion for helping small business owners feel confident in their finances, she now runs her practice remotely from Serbia while raising three young children. She specializes in bookkeeping cleanups and monthly services for service-based businesses across the United States. About the hostMichael PalmerMichael Palmer is the host of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast and co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and The Successful Bookkeeper. He started this work because of his father — a brilliant electrical contractor who worked twice as hard as he should have had to, because nobody on the financial side was in his corner. That gap is what The Successful Bookkeeper exists to close. His view: bookkeepers are the most undervalued force in small business — and every bookkeeper who builds a real business changes two families: theirs, and their clients'.

April 28, 2026Episode 52934 min

EP529: Anne Napolitano - Stop Undercharging: How To Price & Sell Advisory Services

See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → Anne Napolitano started her firm a decade ago as a solopreneur with an accounting degree, a background as a controller for Hermès of Paris, and a stint as a personal chef. Today she runs a 10-person firm with a specialty niche in food and beverage — and she has learned, often the hard way, how to charge what her work is actually worth. This episode is a practical, honest conversation about building advisory services into a bookkeeping firm, pricing with confidence, and communicating value so clients never have to wonder what you do for them. Chapters [00:00] Anne's Background and Firm Journey [05:03] Early Mistakes and Hard Lessons [09:07] Building Advisory Into the Practice [12:24] Tools, Confidence, and Clean Data [14:33] Selling Advisory to Skeptical Clients [18:20] Segmenting Clients for Higher-Tier Work [20:42] Packaging and Proposals That Work [23:34] Pricing Courage and Recovering from Undercharging [28:19] Communicating Value Before Clients Leave [30:29] Pivotal Moments and What She'd Do Differently From Bookkeeping to Advisory: It Takes Time to Grow Into It Anne didn't launch as a full advisory firm on day one — the advisory side evolved as her confidence and team grew. She credits closing the books fast (her target is the 10th–15th of each month) as the foundation that makes advisory possible. "The faster we can get the bookkeeping done, that allows us 2 weeks at the end of the month to meet with clients and to do the advisory type of work that we really enjoy." Without clean, timely data, there's nothing to advise on. Selling Advisory When Clients Don't Know They Need It Many clients assume advisory is bundled into their basic bookkeeping fee. Anne's approach is to start with bookkeeping, build trust, and then show — not tell — what advisory can do. She uses dashboards, charts, and graphs in prospect calls, sometimes pulling analysis directly from a prospect's QuickBooks file before they've even signed. "We have found that that has been a game changer." Visual tools lower the barrier for clients who tune out a P&L but respond immediately to a trend line. Segmenting Clients for Higher-Tier Services Not every client is ready for advisory, and Anne stopped pretending otherwise. She segments roughly the top 15–30% of her client base into higher-tier engagements based on revenue size, reporting complexity, or multi-entity structures — not just headcount. Clients who don't start there often grow into it. "Some of the other clients move themselves into advisory over time. Either they grow or become more complex, or we've shown them what we can do for them — and by then we have a relationship, so they trust us." The Pricing Trap: Being a Recovering Underpricer Anne is direct about the pricing mistakes she's still working through. She uses value pricing (no hourly billing), offers three-tier proposal packages, and spells out scope precisely to avoid scope creep and client assumptions. But the real obstacle is internal. "I'm a recovering underpricer. You need to be willing and able for them to walk away. Because if they're not going to pay your price, it's not a good client for you." She also anchors pricing against the cost of a full-time hire — converting monthly fees to an annual figure so clients can compare apples to apples. Communicating Value Before Clients Drift Away Losing clients not because of bad work, but because clients didn't understand what was being done for them, was one of Anne's hardest lessons. Her fix: overcommunicate. Her team now sends monthly summaries through their client portal covering what was done, errors caught, fraud signals flagged, and money saved. "We don't always communicate to a client, and we found that that was a big mistake." She describes it as an iceberg — clients see the surface, but the firm's job is to make the work below the waterline visible. --- Links Mentioned Anne Napolitano on LinkedIn Anne Napolitano on Instagram: search Anne Napolitano The Balance Sheet — Anne's monthly newsletter (contact her via social media to subscribe) The Successful Bookkeeper Summit — this year's theme: Owning Your Authority PureBookkeeping.com — episode sponsor Woodard conferences and education (mentioned as a resource for advisory skill-building) --- About the Guest Anne Napolitano is the founder of Anne Napolitano Consulting, a modern accounting and advisory firm she has grown over 10 years from a solo practice to a 10-person team. With over 30 years in accounting — including a role as U.S. controller for Hermès of Paris — Anne specializes in bookkeeping and CFO-level advisory services for food and beverage businesses, nonprofits, and general small business clients. She is based in the United States and is active on LinkedIn and Instagram.

April 21, 2026Episode 52842 min

EP528: Teresa Slack - From $18/Hour To Million-Dollar Firm: The Pricing Shift

"There were times I remember having to pull money out of our retirement savings to cover payroll. We weren't sleeping, we were stressed. We didn't know where to turn, and it was so stressful. It was not a good scenario." -Teresa Slack In this episode, Canadian bookkeeping expert and million-dollar firm builder Teresa Slack shares the hard truth about pricing and what it really costs when you get it wrong. She breaks down her journey from charging $18/hour and burning out to building a profitable, scalable firm using value pricing and better systems, along with the key mistakes to avoid and what actually drives growth. In this episode, you'll learn: The difference between fixed pricing & true value pricing How to raise your prices without losing your best clients Why identifying your ideal client changes everything To learn more about Teresa, click here. Connect with her on LinkedIn. Time Stamps 01:05 – Teresa's journey from struggling firm to success 04:00 – Early pricing mistakes & mindset challenges 07:01 – How poor pricing led to financial stress 09:42 – The turning point: systems & value pricing 17:36 – Where most bookkeepers go wrong with pricing 19:28 – How to raise prices the right way 21:42 – What happened after repricing clients 24:08 – The compounding effect of better pricing 28:10 – Finding your niche & ideal clients 36:09 – Why action builds confidence Your expertise has more value than you think, so Own Your Authority at The Successful Bookkeeper Summit 2026! It's a high-energy two-day virtual experience for bookkeepers ready to lead with confidence and elevate their impact. Join inspiring leaders on November 4th–5th to gain actionable strategies, powerful tools, and the clarity to shape the work you want, not just keep up with it. Don't miss this incredible opportunity! REGISTER TODAY!

April 14, 2026Episode 52746 min

EP527: Justin Atherton - The Clarity Advantage Most Bookkeepers Ignore

" When you start speaking to yourself with more precise and definitive language, it changes how you show up for yourself. Think about how your clients and the people that you work with, it impacts how they see you." –Justin Atherton In this episode, former law enforcement detective, SWAT operator, and leadership coach, Justin Atherton breaks down a skill most bookkeepers overlook: precise communication. He explains how the words you use every day either build trust or quietly destroy it, and shares how vague language creates confusion, missed deadlines, and weak client relationships. If you've ever felt frustrated by clients not following through, this episode will change how you speak, write, and lead. In this episode, you'll learn: How "stop action verbs" sabotage your results How to replace "I'll try" with language that drives action How to communicate deadlines clearly & avoid confusion To learn more about Justin, click here. Connect with him on LinkedIn. Watch Justin's TEDx Talk: The Suspect Within. Buy his book, How To Get To The Damn Point at this link. Time Stamps 01:03 – Justin's background in law enforcement & leadership 05:06 – Why communication problems exist in every industry 06:25 – The danger of vague, abstract language 14:32 – The Wave Method explained 15:27 – Stop action verbs & how they weaken your message 19:10 – Awareness & catching your language in real time 30:06 – How to write clearer emails that get results 36:18 – Using accountability to change communication habits 41:30 – Justin's book & practical tools Your expertise has more value than you think, so Own Your Authority at The Successful Bookkeeper Summit 2026! It's a high-energy two-day virtual experience for bookkeepers ready to lead with confidence and elevate their impact. Join inspiring leaders on November 4th–5th to gain actionable strategies, powerful tools, and the clarity to shape the work you want, not just keep up with it. Don't miss this incredible opportunity! REGISTER TODAY!