265: Building a Successful Remote Bookkeeping Business: Insights from Sherrell T. Martin

Sherrell: 0:00

Nobody wants to pay taxes, but we're all in business to make money and so sometimes you got to pay taxes. But if you don't make any money, you not only do you not pay taxes, but you can't support yourself, you can't pay your team, you can't. You know, you can't do anything if you're not a profitable business. So that's why I always lead with pricing for profit.

Camille: 0:27

So you want to make an impact. You're thinking about starting a business, sharing your voice. How do women do it that handle motherhood, family and still chase after those dreams? We'll listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know. This is Call Me CEO. Welcome back everyone to Call Me CEO.

Camille: 0:52

This is your host, camille Walker, where we celebrate women building businesses, and this episode is all about building a financial bookkeeping remote business. How do you do that? How is that even possible? And I can tell you, with my husband being an accountant background. They are always in demand. He recently posted a job for an accounting lead at his work and got so many applications. But what's really cool about building a business from home is that so many small businesses need the support but cannot afford what it would cost to pay someone full time. So today we have an expert on how to build a business like that. Cheryl T Martin is the founder and CEO of Nitrum Financial Solutions. It is an award-winning financial management and education consulting company and she helps companies and organizations equip their teams with the knowledge, skills and abilities to perform accounting and bookkeeping skills. So how do you build that culture? How do you build a business like that and make it live and thrive. She is going to share it with us today. So, cheryl, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Sherrell: 1:56

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Camille: 1:59

Yeah, so tell everyone a little bit more about you, where you live, how many kids you have, because being a mom is a part of that conversation.

Sherrell: 2:10

So tell us a little bit more about you and your background. Yeah, so I'm in Maryland. I'm right outside of Washington DC, right where if anybody is familiar with the DMV right where the Gaylord is in the National Harbor. I grew up most of my life in Maryland moved around a bit as a kid, as a military kid but most of my life in Maryland Moved around a bit as a kid, as a military kid, but most of my life I've lived here. I have two girls who are officially young adults, which makes me really sad some days, but they are young adults. They'll be 19 and 22 next month.

Camille: 2:39

Wow, I've actually stayed at that Gaylord and it is gorgeous in that area. It's not too far out of the city where you could easily get down and see a show, but it feels remote enough that you're like, oh, I'm in a gorgeous neighborhood and it's stunning. I actually loved that area. It's so beautiful.

Sherrell: 2:58

Yeah, it's really beautiful inside. They got all the trees and things, and it's located right where Maryland, dc and Virginia connect, so it's definitely real easy to get to anywhere within any of those jurisdictions.

Camille: 3:11

Yeah, awesome. Well, tell us a little bit more about building this business. How did this start for you? We had chatted before we started this recording and you had mentioned that you have a background in accounting. Have you always been a big fan of all things?

Sherrell: 3:25

finance, numbers- so funny story. I ended up in accounting in high school. I was taking, I had a half day schedule, my senior year and one semester I took a computer science class and then the next semester I took accounting and I liked them both and I didn't know how to choose when I was going to college and when I got there I was like I'm going to do computer science. And they said, well, you have to take chemistry to be in computer science. And I was like well, that doesn't make sense. And at that time science was a hard no. And so I was like well, I guess I'm going to be an accountant. And that's how I ended up in the field. And here I am, 28 years later. I've done all the things. I worked in public accounting. I have my accounting degree. I did corporate finance. I've done taxes, I've done audits. But I decided that I wanted to work for myself, and the easiest business that I thought I could work for myself doing was the bookkeeping part of it.

Camille: 4:21

Yeah Well, like I said, I think that there are two. Anytime I'm coaching with an entrepreneur or a business owner, the two major pain points are always bookkeeping and marketing, where you, as a business owner, need to keep the big ideas, moving things forward, being the decision maker and really finding resources to hand off the bookkeeping, the marketing and or the admin, because those are the things that have to get done. But it's also something that can really hold you back if you're, if you don't have the resources to get those things done. Would you agree?

Sherrell: 4:57

Oh, I absolutely agree on all three of those, because you need the marketing to help fuel business and get business in the door, but you need to know and you need to understand the numbers and how to actually use that data to grow the business. And you need to stay on top of it, because obviously you have to file taxes every single year, and so that is one of the main. That's usually one of the things that we tell people like no matter how big or small you are, you need to hire somebody to help them do that, because you're not in business to do that and you're not going to understand a lot of things, you're not even going to want to do it, and it'll cost more money later to try to go back and recreate a bunch of years than it would be to just do it straight up front.

Camille: 5:38

Yes, it's funny because, hearing talking about it, I think of my husband talking about this specifically, because this is his background and what he does and his lifeblood accounting. And it is so many times when he has been asked to help someone out of the weeds years down the road. He's just like man. If you even just did QuickBooks like this would solve so many pain points, but we're just not trained in that same field. So, but today we're talking to people who are interested because if you pitched play, chances are you love that language. You love the language of money, of numbers, of business, which, for all of us, we need to understand it. We need to pay our taxes, we need to pay people. What would you say are some key indicators of someone being successful in running a bookkeeping business?

Sherrell: 6:29

Oh, wow, that's a really good question.

Sherrell: 6:31

So one of the things, one of the very first things, that the most important skill that I think a lot of people need is how to problem solve, because accounting is about a lot of people think that accounting is all about the numbers and, like a lot of times people are like, oh, I don't know, I'm not really good at math and I'm like math is like the smallest part of it, because there's calculators, there's computers and the math isn't complicated math, like we're not doing statistics, it's just basic fifth grade math, a little bit of, you know, addition, subtraction, multiplication and some division.

Sherrell: 7:04

There's no statistics and all of that involved, and so a lot of people think it's about that, but really it's about the compliance and the rules. And then what happens is that business owners and sometimes people who they've brought in to help them, don't really understand what they're doing. Or they're coming up with these bright ideas, or they're seeing stuff on the internet that some influencer told them they should try something without all the information and they create these messes and then we have to come in and fix them. And so it's really about problem solving being able to listen to what the person is trying to do and what their goals were, and then get them back on the right path to doing it correctly get them back on the right path to doing it correctly.

Camille: 7:47

I like that you talk about that, because a lot of times with accounting or business, it's about thinking where do I want my end point to be and then working backward where I think if you aren't starting with that perspective in mind, that's where you get into trouble, where you're like, oh no, I'm overspending in this way or this really isn't moving the needle. What do you think are some big hiccups that people make that you are having to?

Sherrell: 8:10

One of the biggest ones is always trying to run their business as their personal stuff through their business. So a lot, you know, we have people who do gigs or freelancing and they want to have they don't want to have multiple accounts, they want to have one single account and so they're trying to do business and personal out of the same account and it just kind of makes it a little messy and so it makes it harder to separate the two right. Or they have a business account and they're constantly trying to pay for personal things out of it instead of just putting themselves either on a set salary or a set owner's distribution or owner's draw so that they can take the money on a regular basis and pay it out of their personal funds. That also gets people in a lot of trouble with the IRS, because now it looks like you're just trying to either rob Peter to pay Paul or you're siphoning money. They call it commingling the money and so it makes it look to them like you don't really have a business and it's more of a hobby.

Sherrell: 9:03

And so the goal is to make sure that people have a business and that it's set up as a business and that they run it like a business, regardless of the size of it. So commingling is definitely probably the biggest thing that we see, or you know, adding their personal accounts to the business books because they want to also, at the same token, where they're paying personal stuff out of the business account, sometimes they're paying for business stuff out of their personal account, and so it's just mixing the money back and forth and it just creates a really big mess. And so being able to understand and siphon through all of that and be able to problem solve and figure out how to fix it is why that's. That is also another example of why that's such a great skill to have.

Camille: 9:43

Yeah, that makes sense. I think that that there are so many benefits to having a business where you can run things through your business. It's a huge benefit, but if you don't know exactly how to do that, it can get really messy really quickly. One thing that I liked about your submission was that you said one of the most rewarding things that you do is help entrepreneurs to pay themselves more regularly and ultimately, more money, because you divide it in a way that it's actually being more productive with the money they're bringing in. Can you talk to me a little bit more about that?

Sherrell: 10:20

Yeah, so in my business, one of our core values is to create wealth and legacy for people in general. That's why I originally started it. I started the business because I wanted to work for myself, from home and be with my children, because I was tired of either choosing business and work choosing work or choosing them. And so I was like well, if I work for myself, then I don't have to choose. I can create some type of harmony I'm not going to say balance, but some type of harmony to where I can do both. And so what happens is we get into this space of oh I done, lost. What am I trying to do?

Camille: 10:54

Just a fast. You were saying that, yeah, the way that you were able to build the business from home was so that you could have more time and then also to help business owners make more money.

Sherrell: 11:09

Yes, yes, and so one of the reasons why I started was so that I could also create family wealth and legacy for myself, and so I use that as the catalyst for why I work with businesses. So working with them, helping them to understand their numbers, making sure all the numbers are accurate, showing them how to create profitability, showing them how to correctly pay themselves and not do the co-mingling, showing them how to correctly pay themselves and not do the co-mingling. So we implement a cash management system where we can help them be able to allocate all the money into different buckets, and so there is a bucket specifically set aside to pay themselves, and so, over time, we're able to increase their whether they're not paying themselves or paying themselves a little bit. We've been able to show them like see the money is here. We've been able to show them like see the money is here and how, when you're taking it and doing all these things that are not business related, how that hurts the business, including being able to pay yourself the correct way. And so, over the years, we've implemented this system.

Sherrell: 12:03

It's not a system of my own. I didn't create it myself. I actually got it. I got it from an author called Mike named Mike Michalowicz, and the book is called Profit First. Oh yeah, I. I read that book and I was like, oh, I'm doing this and I tried it and it worked. And so I started helping clients do the same thing, and and through that system, we've been able to help them pay themselves and and or increase their salaries over the course of within less than two years.

Camille: 12:31

Ooh, that's cool. Yeah, that's a great book. Profit First. I should read that again, Would you say. For someone that is interested in doing a business like this of their own is an accounting degree necessary.

Sherrell: 12:45

I would say no and so and I'm probably gonna a lot of people are probably gonna be upset about it but to do bookkeeping you do not need to have an accounting degree. You just need to be upset about it. But to do bookkeeping you do not need to have an accounting degree. You just need to be properly trained, understanding that and, of course, that teaches you like the foundations of accounting. So you do need to understand what a debit is and a credit is and things like that. But if you have the right type of foundation and understanding, then you can become a bookkeeper. A lot of people who have over the years have kind of learned it on the fly and so they've had to learn through making mistakes and doing things wrong and then having to go back and correct it. So I believe, if you get the training up front, you don't necessarily need a degree. You just need to understand how to do it and understand, like some aspects of business also.

Camille: 13:32

So for you, can you tell us a little bit more about your personal journey, Like how long did it take for you to become profitable and what were the stages or steps that helped you to get to a place where you were like well, this is legit.

Sherrell: 13:48

So because I'm an accountant by trade and I've worked in with small businesses, you know, for a number of years before I actually started doing it as a business, I was always I've always like profitability has to be the number one goal. There were a couple of years where sales were a little low and that I ended up having losses, but I was profitable in like the very first year. It wasn't until later years when I started to try to grow prematurely, where I hadn't experienced losses. And that's just coming with understanding how to operate a business, because I knew how to set up a business legally but I had never run a business. I didn't know how to really operate a business, and so I kind of had to learn that along the way. But I was initially profitable from the beginning until I started to try to grow.

Camille: 14:31

What were some of those pain points that you learned or doing? What did you do?

Sherrell: 14:39

the wrong way that you figured out over the years Like, oh, this is better. So when hiring, like making sure that the person is the right fit. So I was virtual when I first started my business. It was kind of a hybrid. So we had some clients that were virtual and then some clients where I went on site and I decided that I wanted to be 100 percent virtual. And this was before COVID started.

Sherrell: 14:59

So I had been virtual several years before COVID happened and I decided to hire someone and it's not understanding that they were a better fit for an in-person position and I was trying to force them to be virtual. But they weren't as productive in that environment and so not understanding the type of person that I was hiring, also hiring too soon, also paying people too much. So when you're hiring, you have to hire and hire for this, the position, sometimes not necessarily the person's accolades and skill sets, if that makes sense. So as someone who's coming in with you know a CPA degree and they've done all these years of experience, but they want to be a bookkeeper, the bookkeeper role pays a smaller salary than, say, a CFO role. So I can't pay them a CFO role salary just because they have the accolades when the position is a bookkeeper, you have to get paid for that position, and so I learned that one.

Sherrell: 15:58

I learned that one very early, because that is one of the reasons why I started to experience a loss in the business, because I was paying other people such high salaries that weren't commensurate to the positions they were in and, as a result, I had to cut my salary, and so that was. Another hard lesson is that I always have to. Because I was doing it full time, I need to have the ability to pay myself a salary as well. So that was one of our one of my pain points. Pricing was a big pain point.

Camille: 16:31

Oh, that's the worst. It's so hard to figure out pricing. Let's talk about that. How have you learned to do your pricing?

Sherrell: 16:37

So I learned to price a couple of things. One, to not price by the hour. So as an accountant, typically like a lawyer, you're so busy used to selling services by the hour. But I learned real early on to just create like packages of services and so I would bundle certain things together and sell it that way which had a higher profitability on them, because I wasn't doing as many things or I could kind of bundle up and do things in multi steps. So I was able to bundle the packages and charge a higher price point so that I could make more money on the back end.

Sherrell: 17:12

Another tip is to ensure profitability is to add the profit on top. So a lot of business people who have businesses at any level, they don't price their services to pay to include profit. They just price it for whatever they're doing. So let's say they use a software and they pay someone $20 an hour, they're just going to price their services to cover the hourly rate in the software and not include the profit on top of it. So once I change that pricing structure, that also helps create profitability in the business.

Camille: 17:44

And that can be a mindset thing. I mean, I think when I'm coaching people about pricing, a lot of it is getting out of your own way. Are you drowning in your to-do list, stuck in the day-to-day tasks that keep you from scaling your business? You didn't start your dream to be buried in busy work. You started it to make an impact. That's why I am here to help you find how the truth and the beauty of delegation will help you to reach those goals much more quickly.

Camille: 18:13

I am offering a free discovery call to help you identify exactly what you need to do and how to find the right virtual assistant, which are actually. I have many graduates from my course 60 days to VA, who are masters in many, many different skill sets, so that you can find the right virtual assistant for you and you're able to be the CEO that you are meant to be. Imagine focusing on what you do best while a skilled VA handles the rest. It's time to ditch the overwhelm and step into your next level of success, and you can book your free call below at camillewalkerco. We can build your dream business together.

Sherrell: 18:54

So yeah, so the mindset that people struggle with around pricing is something that is real. It is something that happens all the time because people are. So you know, we get caught up in the fact that maybe I shouldn't charge this much, am I good enough? We get all up in our head thinking we're shouldn't charge this much, am I good enough? And we get all up in our head thinking we're not good enough. We can't charge enough. We can't charge those prices. Who are we to think that people will buy from us? Are our services good enough?

Sherrell: 19:20

Like all of that kind of plays into the mindset of should I price the services or should I price the product that way? And so I just try to tell people all the time like you have to price for profit. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but we're all in business to make money, and so sometimes you got to pay taxes. But if you don't make any money, you not only do you not pay taxes, but you can't support yourself, you can't pay your team, you can't. You know you can't do anything if you're not a profitable business. So that's why I always lead with pricing for profit.

Camille: 19:52

Ooh, I like that. I've never heard someone put it quite that way price for profit. I really like that because we are we're in the business to be making money and there's no shame in that, and especially when you know what you bring to the table, that's a huge benefit and peace of mind for people. Was it hard for you to bring clients in? I know that that's a big question that we get a lot, you know, especially as starting a new business not exactly knowing what that's going to look like. What would you say for that? For people who are nervous about maybe they didn't have previous relationships and they're starting from scratch, what would you suggest for them?

Sherrell: 20:26

So so I, if you're starting from scratch, scratch, like you have to get really clear on who you want to work with and how you want to work. So the fact that you want to work remotely versus not going into an office is a real big different, like a real big factor, because there are it may seem like a lot of firms you have to go into the office, but there are a ton of people who operate accounting and bookkeeping businesses that are completely virtual. I wish I had known about them before. I had no idea. I walked into this world and I was like eyes wide open, because there are firms literally across the country, across the world. I've met people in Thailand, I've met people in Sri Lanka, I've met people all across the United States, of course, in Canada, all with businesses that are 100% remote, were remote before COVID and that were still just being remote. And so, obviously, getting really clear on, like how you want to work, because that will dictate where you work.

Sherrell: 21:30

Another thing I would say is being aware of, like who you want to work with, whether it's and by that specifically like industry wise, because every industry is also different, like there's some parts of accounting and bookkeeping that are the same, but when you get specifically into a certain industry, it can vary, right? So manufacturing accounting is going to be different from construction accounting, which is going to be different from retail accounting, as an example. So just being honest with yourself about like, oh my gosh, I really like this industry, like I love design and I love all things creative and so I want to work with creatives because that's what makes me happy inside and I want to see their success. So definitely getting clear around that as well.

Camille: 22:14

That's good advice, especially if you have an understanding of a certain niche, of a product or a service or a type of business. That's a leg up. I would imagine if you said I specialize with retail, online retail, account bookkeeping or whatever, because there are different applications that are specific to programming that they might use or their way of receiving or sending out money. So I would imagine that's a good way to get your foot in the door is to niche down, if you can. Yeah.

Sherrell: 22:44

Yeah, and it also helps with the pricing right Because now you're an expert in with a certain industry. Helps with the pricing right Because now you're an expert in with a certain industry and so you become more in demand for that lane, versus trying to service all the people and learning all new different softwares, new different processes, which kind of stunts your capacity to be able to serve them all well. So if you're specific about a certain industry, a certain niche, you can kind of hone in on that and then you can raise your prices just because of that alone. So it's another way to get more profitability in a business.

Camille: 23:16

I love that. What would be something that if you were to give someone advice, knowing what you know now? I mean, we've talked a little bit about this, but if there was a bit of advice that you could give someone like, or yourself if you were starting out first time, what's a piece of advice that you would give?

Sherrell: 23:38

I would say be honest with yourself as far as like that, that one key thing around who you want to work with.

Sherrell: 23:45

I've worked with all kinds of businesses throughout my career and even in my bookkeeping business I've worked with various different industries because in the beginning it was like I just got to get clients, I just got to grow, I just got to get clients, I got bills to pay and I was in a real big hurry to quit my job, so I didn't allow my job to be the funder of the business long enough.

Sherrell: 24:07

Had I waited to quit my job, I probably could have had everything a little foundation more in place before I left. But I was like I'm ready to get out of here, I don't want to be here anymore, and so I just I jumped out there probably sooner than I would have wanted to. If I had to do it all over again, I would probably wait a little longer and I would do some more foundation stuff during that period where I was doing both jobs at the same time. So getting clear on who I wanted to work with, being more specific and intentional about that versus just trying to accept any and everybody, that would probably be the biggest thing that I would change.

Camille: 24:44

Yeah, that's a big piece of advice and I feel like that's very relatable, no matter what it is. If you're in a place of like I need a change now. Sometimes we jump into things without going through the process of but what does that look like? And really I can go a little bit slower and do it with more purpose, and that's actually something that you help people with in designing their own bookkeeping business. Isn't that right? You have a webinar that you share how to do this. Tell me more about that.

Sherrell: 25:11

Yeah. So we have a program where we teach people how to do bookkeeping so that they can work in jobs for them, for other firm owners or if they want to start their own business. And so we have a webinar next Thursday, the 5th June 5th, where we're going to teach them kind of the foundation and the roadmap, what I call the Rockstar Recordkeeping Roadmap. So it's kind of the foundation and the roadmap, what I call the rockstar record keeping roadmap. So it's kind of the four foundational things you need to know and understand to do bookkeeping. And so we're going to teach people how to do that so that if you want to go and get a career job doing bookkeeping, you can, or if you want to start your own bookkeeping business, you can, because entrepreneurship is not for everybody. That's also something else I wish someone would have told me then. Like entrepreneurship is not for everybody, for those who want to just work for someone else, they can also use the skill set in that space.

Camille: 25:58

And this episode is probably not going to come out in time for that one. How often do you do these webinars? Will you have another one coming up soon?

Sherrell: 26:06

Yeah, so actually I have them scheduled out for the rest of the year. So there'll be the first Thursday of every month for the rest of this year, with the exception of July, because, oh wait, no, the fourth of July is a Friday. So yeah, so the first Thursday of every month for the rest of the year, if a holiday. I don't think there are any holidays on the first of the month, so I think we're good there. So yeah, if they can't attend.

Camille: 26:31

Awesome, okay, well, please tell everyone where they can find you for more resources and how they can find more information to be there, but I'm on.

Sherrell: 26:57

I have videos on YouTube where I'm sharing all kinds of tips and resources every week, in addition to I'm sharing things on Instagram and I'm trying to get into Pinterest. I want to get more into Pinterest, yeah.

Camille: 27:05

Very cool. Well, there's two questions that I ask everyone. It is what are you reading, watching or listening to? And the second is a motherhood moment that you'd like to share.

Sherrell: 27:14

So I'm currently reading a book called the Tapping Solution and it's about realigning your energy and getting in line using the modality of tapping. Very intrigued and interested by that, someone introduced me to it back in the fall and so I've been kind of instituting it into my daily life, just trying to get my energy in line and with the chakras and all of that. So that's what I'm currently reading right now and they actually have like actual ways to do it in the book. It's just not all technical, like they actually give you some prompts and things to follow. And then a mommy moment. Ooh, I have a lot of mommy moments.

Sherrell: 27:52

Part of my recent, most proudest mommy moment presently is that my daughter, who went to school for dance, is currently on tour with SZA and that the amount of pride that I felt that she knew from day one, she knew from two. I would say she was dancing in my stomach because my stomach used to do all the little things, but she's always known that this is what she wanted to do. She's always made it a priority. She is nothing and no one get in the way of it. She people wanted to date her and if they couldn't understand her dance schedule she was like goodbye, like it's always been priority one, and so to see her work this hard and the things that we've sacrificed for her to achieve that goal makes me probably the most proud that I've probably ever been of anything that they've ever done, including graduating from school.

Camille: 28:45

That's amazing. That's a lot of hard work. I'll refer you to and I'll put it in the links below, because I interviewed some people that do that and it's an amazing modality for figuring out how to overcome trauma or how to do mindset work or manifestation. It's amazing. So, yeah, I want to check out that book and your daughter. You need to send me a link, so we'll make sure to put all these links below. If I get a link I can share, I will share a link to your daughter dancing, because that is so cool.

Camille: 29:21

To see such a long dance is hard, no matter what. You know. If you go through this stage of high school, college level, it is such a hard sport. I can and I say this because I grew up dancing but it does not get enough credit for how much these girls put into it. So I just appreciate that you understand that and you supported her. And what a cool thing to be able to look back and say and now my girl's dancing with SZA, like that is so cool, so awesome, awesome.

Camille: 29:47

Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing about building a bookkeeping business. I think this will help so many people and if you're listening to this now and wanting to learn more about it, make sure to check out the links below. I also share content on how to build your own virtual assistant business, which is very similar in terms of creating a business on your terms, in your own way, and I think that's so powerful and so amazing. So thank you for being here today and make sure to leave a rating and review, and we will see you next time. Hey CEOs, thank you so much for spending your time with me. If you found this episode inspiring or helpful, please let me know in a comment. In a five star review, you could have the chance of being a featured review on an upcoming episode. Continue the conversation on Instagram at callmeCEOPodcast, and remember you are the boss.