What Year One of Business Actually Teaches You

What does year one of business actually teach you?

In this episode of The Back Office, Dalayna Dillon sits down with Paul Stansberry, owner of PLS Balance My Books, for an honest conversation about the realities of building a business from the ground up.

From branding and pricing to systems, technology, and relationships, Paul shares the lessons learned during the first year of entrepreneurship — including the mistakes, pivots, and mindset shifts that shaped the business along the way.

This conversation goes beyond bookkeeping. It’s about what happens when theory meets reality. What starts to matter. What stops mattering. And how small business owners learn to navigate uncertainty while trying to build something sustainable.

Together, Dalayna and Paul unpack:

• Why relationships outperformed advertising
• The costly lessons of underpricing
• How systems and technology impact growth
• The emotional pressure of entrepreneurship
• Why adaptability matters more than perfection

This episode is packed with practical insight for business owners in any stage — especially those navigating the early years of building.

No one has it fully figured out.
 But we’re building anyway.

Show Notes

Guest: Paul Stansberry
Business: PLS Balance My Books

Paul Stansberry is the owner of PLS Balance My Books, a bookkeeping and business support company focused on helping small businesses build stronger financial systems and operate with greater clarity.

After launching the business with a focus on trust, communication, and community, Paul quickly learned that year one of entrepreneurship tests far more than technical skill. Through real-world experience, he gained insight into branding, pricing, client relationships, systems, and the emotional realities that come with building a business from scratch.

This episode highlights the lessons learned during the first year of business ownership and offers practical wisdom for entrepreneurs navigating growth, uncertainty, and decision-making.

In This Episode, We Discuss

• Why Paul decided to launch PLS Balance My Books
 • The importance of starting with purpose and strategy
 • Why branding matters more than small businesses think
 • The difference between branding and advertising
 • How relationships outperformed paid advertising in year one
 • Why networking and community involvement mattered
 • Technology and systems as a growth strategy
 • Simplifying software and maximizing existing tools
 • How AI is changing business operations and strategy
 • The hard lessons learned from underpricing services
 • Scope creep and profitability challenges
 • Pricing for value instead of effort
 • Mistakes made during year one of business
 • The emotional side of entrepreneurship and impostor syndrome
 • The pressure of uncertainty and wearing multiple hats
 • What resilience actually looks like in business
 • Advice for entrepreneurs navigating year one

Find them online at:

Website: https://www.plsbalancemybooks.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/plsbalancemybooks

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/plsbalancemybooks

About The Back Office

Hosted by Dalayna Dillon
Founder & Creative Director of Signify Marketing

The Back Office invites listeners into honest conversations about marketing, growth, leadership, and the real decisions shaping active businesses.

Facebook/Instagram: @signifymarketingsocial 

www.signifymarketing.social

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Welcome to the back office. I'm Delena Dillon, the founder and creative director of Signify Marketing, and this is where you sit in on real strategy. Each episode, we step inside active businesses and have honest conversations about marketing, growth, leadership, and the decisions shaping what happens next. No one has it fully figured out, but we are building anyway. Today we're sitting down with Paul Stansbury, owner of PLS. More on that later. PLS, balance of my books. In this episode, we're unpacking what one year of business actually teaches you from branding and pricing to systems, relationships, and the emotional side of entrepreneurship that people don't usually talk about. Paul, thank you for joining us today. I had to say PLS more on that later because I just I asked you, PLS, does that short for please? And then you showed, you like did uh, you blew my brain with all of these other cool meanings of PLS.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Yeah, I'd love to take credit for the name myself. Our entrepreneurial daughter is the one that came up with it, but it works in a lot of different ways. I mean, I'm the P, my wife is the L, we are the S, so that's PLS.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Um, but you could say please balance my books. Uh, and if you really wanted to get sort of accounting nerdy, you can think about profit and loss statements.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Sorry. Okay, go ahead. If you really want to get nerdy.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

If you really wanted to get nerdy, you can think about um, excuse me. If you really wanted to get accounting nerdy, you could think about uh profit and loss statements as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

I was like, that is brilliant. My mind was blown on all of these things. That is so funny. So uh take us back. So you've officially been in business over a year?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

A little over a year, March 3rd of 2025 was when we started.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

So take us back a little over a year ago. And fill us in, what made you decide to start PLS Balance My Books?

SPEAKER_00 2:06

You know, it's a great question. Um, my wife and I are at the point in life where we wanted to sort of slow down, so to speak, which in retrospect is starting a business is not necessarily a great way to do that. But we we wanted control of our own time. We were both full-time employed uh separately, and we wanted to build something that gave us more control. We uh she'd been working for a number of years remotely as a bookkeeper for a firm out of California, okay, and was carrying a large client book for them. And the realization was that that client book represented a fairly large amount of revenue for that firm. Um, and of course, she was being paid by the hour or salary. It's uh much less than that. And the realization was there's an opportunity here for us to build something locally and have control, uh, cut out that middle person, so to speak, uh, have an impact in our own community, uh, and and generally just do something that that gave us that was more rewarding.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Yeah, yeah, than just clock punching the clock, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

We use that phrase, but nobody punches the clock.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

You'd be surprised actually.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

About punching the clock. Yeah. So you wanted to bring it back home for back local, but uh you don't have to just work with local businesses, is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

That's true. Uh our focus is at the moment primarily on the Tulsa Metro and Greater Oklahoma area. We we don't have clients outside of Oklahoma. In theory, we could take those. Yeah. Um, but there is enough business here that uh we have chosen to focus on this area.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

I'm still of a mindset that I would like my clientele to be close enough that I can go see them in person if necessary. Some of our clients struggle a little bit with the technology, and sometimes it's just easier to go see them in person.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Um, and it just helps to kind of make that more of a community feel. That's been a large part of our um sort of marketing and growth over the last year is community involvement. I'm now we're gonna talk a little bit more of that uh as well. Um, but that's kind of why we're focused here.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Yeah. So what are some of the problems that you felt small b businesses needed solved?

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Well, so in our particular case, many businesses, small businesses in particular, struggle with their bookkeeping. Most uh small business owners don't get into business because they want to do bookkeeping. A lot of them don't even think about it when they get started. It's sort of an afterthought once they get into it, and their accountant or or their tax person tells them after the end of the first year, well, your books are kind of a mess, and it's gonna cost you a fortune to get these fixed up so that I could follow your taxes, right? Yeah. A lot of them, that's the first time they start thinking about it. We wanted to step into that space and be able to help provide a service that would uh help those small business owners uh you know, sort of tame the chaos of their bookkeeping uh ahead of time. In many cases, it's cheaper even to pay for a monthly bookkeeping service, even if it's outsourced, uh, than it is to pay a tax professional once a year to do a big cleanup and figure out where that all goes, especially considering that many tax professionals will charge a uh a larger rate to do that cleanup because that's not what they want to be doing.

SPEAKER_02 5:17

Right. Right. They're doing the taxes, not so much the bookkeeping. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

And we're doing the opposite. We basically do everything but taxes.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Yeah, you get everyone's books ready so that everything else they do is just easy and streamlined.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

That's the idea.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Yeah. So I know when we talked, you mentioned as far as being starting your own business, being a business owner, being debt-free was very important to you. So what are some of those what are the reasonings behind that? Because, you know, a lot of times it's pushed down people's faces to get capital, to get investors for, and maybe it's different for different industries, but why was that such an important thing?

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Well, for us, we felt like that was an important decision to make because being debt free uh gives us a lot of runway that many small businesses don't at startup.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Um, we were fortunate enough that um we had spent the last couple of years working to pay off all of our personal debt, so we were personally debt-free. We had begun putting money aside, and so we took the money that we had saved uh essentially to start the business. And so it was uh started with 100% owner's investment, essentially. So the business was debt free, it still is debt-free more than a year later. Um, we haven't taken on any debt, and that's an important sort of core philosophy for us in doing business. Uh, we want to continue to grow um smartly and intelligently uh without taking on that debt.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Um yeah, you know, a lot of people would look at you and say that you're crazy for doing that. Why would you why would you use your own money when you could use someone else's money?

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Well, it's just kind of a fundamental thing for us, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Well, and I've I'm sure that seeing this might feel personal, but seeing people's books, seeing businesses' books, it shows it probably resolidifies why that's so important.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Yes, you're 100% correct. You know, you start looking at other people's books and you realize, yeah, and that was maybe not such a bad decision to start off that way. Uh you see small businesses that are sometimes in over their head, they're in debt, uh, they're in a lot of debt, uh, struggling to do uh to get that paid back off. And that's affecting their profitability and their ability to grow down the road, too. So I'm not saying that that's an invalid approach for some people. Uh in some cases, that is the right choice. For us, it just wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

Yeah. Well, something we I has kind of come up in a couple of the conversations that I've had is just the fact of people a lot of times can evaluate how a business is doing on the outside when really the evaluation on how they're doing is seen in things like what you look at in the books, in the actual finances. And um I it's so important to have this piece nailed down because you can look great on the outside, but on the inside, these solid systems have to be in place.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yes, I 100% agree with that. It's something that a lot of small business owners struggle with, especially if they have plans to grow and eventually sell, uh, you have to get your house in order, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Um, a potential buyer is going to be far less interested in a company that is 100% owner dependent, that is buried in debt. Um, those types of things are gonna make it very difficult to sell that business later if that's your goal.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Right. And so when you start fresh from the beginning and you start with those mindsets in place from the beginning, uh it carries you a lot uh a lot down the road. Like I said, it has bought us a lot of runway in, especially in some of the early months before we were uh in the black, essentially, before we achieve profitability the first few months. That was very important to us because it it uh let us continue to do business knowing that we were making the right moves, knowing that we were growing, uh, but not stressing that um that that money wasn't the we weren't bringing money in just yet.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Yeah. So I actually talked with some business owners who are interested in selling their business at some point, whether it's in in right now or in the near future. What are some things just knowing what you know on the back end of businesses, what are some things that should be a priority if someone has that in the back of their mind or even in the front of their mind that they might want to sell their business? So is it something that they need to be thinking of in the way that they operate now?

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Yes, and it's not just about their bookkeeping, although that's important too, of course. You want to make sure that your financials are in order. Um, but uh you spoke to the systems earlier, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Um, a lot of those types of um buyers, they're looking not necessarily for turnkey, but sort of a business that is running, right? Not something that they're gonna have to then figure out on their own and then make work. Yes, right? Yes. So systems are important, and not only is it important for a buyer, but that's important for owners too, because if an owner is spending 100% of his time doing the work of the business and not taking time to step back and work on the business, then um you're gonna be stalled. Yeah, you're gonna stall at some point. It's gonna be difficult to grow. And that owner in particular is probably gonna end up being uh more stressed than they would be otherwise if he would just take the time, he or she would take the time to put those systems in place, uh, figure out what they need to do to step back, to be able to step back from the business so that it can run without them.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Yeah, that's another common thread that's been in so many conversations of working on the business, not just in the business. And it sounds like a broken record, but it's because it's maybe one of the biggest struggles that business owners, especially small business owners, have. Did the reality of running a business feel different than what you expected it would?

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah, I think that the answer to that question has to be yes for almost everybody, right? Um, everybody sort of goes into this with these picture-perfect ideals that, oh, I'm gonna be my own boss, that's gonna mean that I can do whatever I want to, I can make my own rules. And yes, to some degree that's true, but at the same time, there's also no one else to blame, right? There's there's there are nowhere, there's nowhere to point the finger, so to speak, to say, well, this isn't my problem, this is somebody else's.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

It's another department.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

And so, yes, I think one of those things, especially as a first-time business owner, you know, there are there are things that you've realized that uh, oh, okay, well, now I have to make these decisions.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Right. The decisions you might not want to make. You got no one else, there's no one else to make them.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Yeah, that's right. If you have to have difficult client uh conversations, you have to be the one to have those. There's no one to pass, there's no manager to pass that off to, so to speak. So, you know, those types of things they all fall on you.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Yes. Especially in your industry, your line of work, very personal for business owners. And I would imagine that building trust is a huge part of what you're doing before getting a client, but even maintaining that client. How has really becoming and branding yourselves as a business you can trust come into play?

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Well, personally, I feel like that's one of the more important things that a service industry in particular like ours or a service business like ours has to do because people want to do business with businesses that are trustworthy or that they perceive as trustworthy and experts in the space that they need, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

So that's been a large part of our efforts over the last year is um building that trust through a number of different channels, so to speak, right? Um some of that has involved getting involved in our local chamber of commerce as ambassadors on the chamber of commerce. Um we are in the community regularly with various chamber events. Um we uh you know we sponsor um different things for nonprofits in the area. We work with several nonprofits in our local community. Yeah we try and project um both expertise and sort of education through our social media channels because I want people to be able to come to our space and realize, okay, I may not be ready for their help yet, but here they are providing me tips and and bits of pieces of information to help me do it myself in the short term or in the meantime until I am ready for that. So when they get to that point later, they think, I'm gonna go to that, I'm gonna go to that guy or that that company that has been providing me something and not asking for anything in return for the last several months.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

And that I was able to get useful information out of.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Yeah, I think sometimes people don't realize the value of providing education on places like social media. They might be like, well, why would I tell them that? Because then they don't need me. They no, they they are but you're building trust and creating uh an environment where they can look to you as the source of authority. Um, so you're not trying to replace your services by providing helpful tips and value that way on social media. It's so that they do trust you and they do believe, oh, they know what they're talking about. And it's the visibility of if they're thinking of bookkeeping, well, who have they seen? They've seen who's shown up in their feed and all kinds, and in their community. And so you're based out of Owaso, just in case anyone's wondering, right? Correct, yes. But again, service all of Oklahoma, but Owasso's home base, so to speak. So, but you're showing up in your community so people know who you are before they you're and you're not asking anything of them. So just curious, because you said until they're ready for, you know, to step out, what would someone where would someone be to to realize, oh, I'm ready to reach out and see what that kind of relationship would look like.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Honestly, that really varies from one business owner to the next. We've had clients that have been in business for several years, and we've had clients that have started this year and just know from the beginning that they want that help, right? So it really just depends on uh the individual business owner uh in question. Um realistically, any small business owner could use this type of help and service, right? Um, because it is something that is uh a specialized skill, um, you know, that that takes a while to hone and to understand and really understand the nuance of some of these types of things. Um but it really just depends.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Yeah. Well, and I think one thing that you mentioned earlier, uh it's nice to have it figured out and know you're doing it correct, because if you're doing things incorrect or not doing them, it can cost you big time on the back end.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Absolutely. I mean, your numbers can tell you um different things, right? If you're if your bookkeeping is clean and up to date and current, then the data that's in that can help drive smart, intelligent business decision in ways that uh you you just don't have the same information if all you're doing is looking at your bank statement and say, Oh yeah, there's money in the bank.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

There's money in there.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

That doesn't necessarily mean that you have money to spend.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Yes, yes. So it doesn't just help you in the sense of save you in tax season, but it helps you make smarter business decisions. Yes. That's so good. So a lot of times people, when they're first starting out, year one, you got under your belt, but some people may be in year one and they're looking around like, where do I find clients? Where did you find clients in your first year?

SPEAKER_00 16:52

So our journey on that was much like I think a lot of small business owners, especially in their beginning are, we kind of bounced around at first, right? Trying to figure out how do we go about this. And um, we started out with a lot of folks, like the same way a lot of folks did. We started out by throwing money at various things, uh, Facebook ads and uh Google ads and setting up a booth at the local community events and stuff like that. But as a service business, we came to the realization after a few months, kind of it it clicked one time at one point for me, where essentially you've got to be in the right room, so to say. And what I mean by that is as a service business serving other businesses, we're in the B2B space. Right. That's a very different marketing challenge than a B2C space, right? And also there's there's a distinction between the concept of advertising and this concept of marketing, right? Yeah, advertising is what a lot of people think of when they think of things like Facebook ads or ads in the newspaper or a billboard or whatever, right? That's advertising. Marketing is everything you do as a company that projects into the public space. Right. Right? So that includes um things that you do. It includes your advertising, it includes your branding, it includes how you are perceived. It's all of those things. Every email you send, every website that you host, that is part of your marketing. Yeah, right. And so for us, we kind of realized there was this shift from B to B2C to B2B. And I started realizing I don't want to be chasing individual leads, individual money, right? Um, it's sort of um, it's kind of a one-to-one thing. How do I scale this and fill this pipeline so that those deals and those leads are coming to us uh organically? And that's when I kind of shifted into this mode of um call it network marketing, right? And what I mean by that is I leaned very heavily into getting involved in um the community, uh, in the Chamber of Commerce, in uh some networking groups, both online and in person, uh, and sort of building our network and our circle out of other businesses that do business with the same target customer that I do, that aren't necessarily competing directly with me, right? So, who are some partners that I can think of that would be good for a bookkeeping firm? Well, that would be tax professionals that don't do bookkeeping. Right. That would be um business coaches that very often get asked to help fix um you know operational problems that ultimately stem from, well, you you need better financial information, right? These are people that see these problems, but that don't solve them directly. So if I can make, if I can build relationships with these types of people, yeah, then they can see those problems and they can make that referral when they see them, right? And so what happens is you build this fan, this kind of web that expands out from where you are, right? Of all these people looking for your target problem to solve. And when you do that, you have infinitely more leads coming your way. Yes. And it works. Yeah. Right. And within a few months, our pipeline was full and has remained full since we're still having discovery calls and onboarding new clients on a regular basis. And I'm not doing a lick of outbound cold calling or anything. So I don't like to be sold, so I'm not a salesperson by nature, but I do like to talk and I do like to meet people. I'm an extrovert. And so uh that has worked very well for us. And I think for many service or B2B type spaces, that model works very well.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

100% because also when you're getting those leads, those discovery calls, those are not cold leads. They've already, they've already talked to someone who recommended you, who that probably someone that they know like and trust, telling them about you who they know like and trust, and it works so great. So this is it is definitely, it's not that it couldn't work. Networking environments can still work for B2C, but B2B specifically, this is a different beast, and so to speak. It's you're gonna have to do a little bit different tactics to get to the other, just like you're you're talking about people who align with you who can talk good about you behind your back or in front of your face, either one. So uh what role did you talked about uh network marketing, what role did the community involvement play in your growth?

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Well, I think the largest chunk of that that we were just talking about for us in particular comes out of the Chamber of Commerce, which is a community driven or community focused organization.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Um we got involved with the Chamber of Commerce shortly after we founded a business. And I sort of stumbled my way into the ambassador program by accident because I was just going through all of uh the different events that were on the chamber's calendar and Registering for those. And one of them that I happened to register for was the monthly ambassador meeting. And so I I basically snuck into the ambassador meeting that month and then never left because I fell in love with the program and the idea because the ambassadors are sort of an extension of the Chamber of Commerce staff, right? Small chamber, three three employees. So they lean pretty heavily on the ambassadors to kind of help fill the gaps there. Meeting new members on a monthly basis, mentoring them in how the chamber works, helping them understand the benefits the chamber has for all of those, attending the ribbon cuttings for new members. So we're we're constantly in the community, seeing new businesses at either early phases in their journey or you know, ones that have recently moved into our community, either way, right? And so it's it's a big part of that community. And what I didn't expect, actually, though, was aside from the this is what's cool for me, aside from the business aspect of it, getting involved in the community from the business aspect actually brought us more deeply connected to the community as individuals, right? Oh yeah. We've lived in Owasso for a little over three years. We're originally from Edmund in the Oklahoma City area. And so we had deep roots there.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Virtually no roots here. Um but as we got deeply involved from a business perspective in the community, um, we started making friends on top of business associates, right? And so we started recognizing, oh, we're seeing people in public now, running into people at Walmart or the grocery store or whatever. And you know, we recognize them and then they recognize us too. So uh it's been very rewarding, not just from the business perspective, but personally as well.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Yeah, that's great. I it is great building your network, but also building a community of friends that works nicely. Yes. While bookkeeping is a huge system inside of a business, I'm sure that for you all to run PLS, it's gonna take systems, it's gonna take processes, and technology would probably come into play with that. How has have you how have you settled into your systems, your processes, your technology through this first year?

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Well, I think systems and technology in particular is an area that a lot of small businesses overlook at first, right? Um, and a bunch of spreadsheets or a bunch of Word documents stored in a bunch of random folders on your computer does not a system make. Yeah. Right. And so my background's actually in project management operations and process solving, right? And so um I like to make things repeatable because if you make things repeatable, then you remove dependency on any one particular person. So this is an area, admittedly, that I probably had more focus on than a lot of folks do. But I went into this very early to identify what are the proper technology pieces that we need to actually do this business. And my wife, the accountant, brought in some of these pieces. So the the primary uh practice management suites that we use to actually service uh the bookkeeping accounting pieces. You know, people are familiar with QuickBooks, that's of course one for us. And then we've got uh, you know, a couple of uh practice management suites called Carbon and Double that are specific to accounting and bookkeeping, but then we have very common technology pieces like we're a Microsoft shop. We use Microsoft for all of our document generation and for our secure document storage. Um we have um we use a product called Confluence for SOP and documentation. Uh we've got uh I use Scribe here and there to do some sort of visual uh SOPs, document processes for clients if necessary, or internally. Because I want these things to be on record so that if and when we get to the point where we're ready to scale, showing somebody else how not just the fundamentals of bookkeeping, which you know they should bring to this type of job, but how we do business is not sort of a one-off um process that is it's documented, we can point to uh a series of resources and say, look, this is how we do business. Yes, you know, uh for all of that. Systems are an incredibly important piece that a lot of small businesses overlook at first.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

Yeah. Well, and I think it's great because you're already thinking about the scalability. A lot of times people don't think about these systems processes until they're like, oh, I can add an employee. Now I gotta write, put all this down on paper that's been living in my brain. But starting out with that allows you to kind of blow the roof off what you can do. Yeah, you can really scale and go up and expand in a lot of ways, and you're ready for it whenever it happens.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

That's right, exactly right. That's the goal, right? Is when we get to a point where we feel like we're ready to scale, that onboarding that person uh is a breeze at that point. That's not a big challenge in and of itself. It's just when is the right time to do it?

SPEAKER_02 26:44

Yes. So, what are some software mistakes that a lot of small businesses make?

SPEAKER_00 26:51

Well, I think a lot of this comes back to uh some of the other like trust and projection things that we've talked about, right? Uh I see a lot of small businesses go out of the gate with um they're using a Gmail address or they're using uh a Yahoo email address, something that doesn't actually identify their company or their website is incomplete. I've seen a number of small businesses where I try and pull up their website and I can literally still see template content on there from the WordPress document or the article that they're using, right? Template that they're using there. And I look at those things, and the problem with those is everything's well-intentioned. I get it, but I look at that and feel like, okay, you're not ready.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

And so it makes in my mind, as a consumer of a service, I look to that thing and go, okay, you're not ready for, you're not ready. You're not ready for business. You're not ready for business yet. And so that makes it difficult for me to decide that that's who I want to do business with if I don't have some other external relationship or context under which I would do business with them, right? Right. And so that's a big part of why branding is so important, in my opinion, when you start these types of things too, is you go into these things and I want people to look at our website, to look at any email written by us and see consistent or to see us in person and see consistency in who we are as a brand, as a company, uh, and as the messaging that we project into that, too. Right, right. Right. So all of it ties together.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

It's all very important, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

So when when do you think businesses actually need to incorporate a new tool into what they're using currently?

SPEAKER_00 28:34

That decision can be tough, right? Um, because in a lot of cases, there are some fantastic tools out there for various things.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

But they add up, they're price very quickly. And in today's environment where every software is a subscription, it can bite you quickly if you're not carefully. Our tech stack is one of the larger expenses in our PL. And it's because we use a handful of services that um we might potentially be able to do without, but we've chosen to use those for efficiency's sake. Um, but not everybody can do that. You've got to decide can you afford to do that? Right. Um is there something you can do in the short term that may be a little less efficient, but is a better, a bigger cost saving. For us, again, we come back to we want to remain debt-free, we want to remain profitable, and so we don't want to take on additional cost if we don't have to. Uh, and we reevaluate our tech stack on a regular basis as well. We've been in business a little over a year, and we've already made two or three adjustments to that stack over time as something new has come to light that was either a better deal or better for the same amount of money. Um and so it's one of those things you have to keep an eye on.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Yes. Well, and I'll be honest, it takes it's not an easy decision for me to add something in because I'm like, if if maybe if there's a tool that I already have that is can do the same thing, I'm definitely not gonna add it. But it it can be flashy with all of these new softwares and new tech, you know, even project management systems to just track things. But I also think about the amount of time and the learn of getting over that learning curve of just learning a new system. It puts a bump in it, and is that going to affect a client as we get through a hump? So I it is definitely something you should think through, walk through before adding in. Um, I know a lot of uh mistakes that businesses starting out, including myself, made was pricing. So did that come into play for you all?

SPEAKER_00 30:44

We're not immune to that either, just for the record. So, like many small businesses, um, when we start out, our pricing has been a journey, right? When you're new and you're trying to prove the model, you have a tendency to underprice or to discount heavily because you want to get people in the door, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

It's natural. I get it. We did the same thing. But what happens over time is you have to realize that people pay for what they value.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

And if they're unwilling to pay, then they're undervaluing what you're doing for them in the in the be in the first place. And the realization that you provide a valuable service and that you deserve to be compensated for that service is an important one to learn. It's an important lesson to learn early.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Um, because otherwise you're gonna find yourself chasing uncomfortable conversations after the first year when times when it's time to renew those clients for their fees, et cetera. Uh, well, you know, um, this is all great, but we've been uh we've been undercharging you for the last year, and I really need to raise your rates.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_00 31:48

That's an uncomfortable, uncomfortable conversation to have. Um, so when you get pricing right out of the out from the beginning, that makes life a lot easier. And so we had to learn that journey just like anybody else did. Luckily, we we learned it pretty quickly. We got much better about our pricing in you know, months three, six, and and now certainly uh after more than a year, we're in a much better place than than we were when we started. But um I keep telling myself, look, it's okay for clients to walk away from a proposal.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Right. Uh especially if the primary deciding factor that they're using is the price. Because if the primary deciding factor that they're using is how much it's gonna cost them, then they're not they're not evaluating, they're not valuing what you're doing for them in the first place. Right. Right?

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

They're in the wrong headspace.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

And they're gonna be a difficult client in many cases.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

So well, that's the that's the key there. Who's gonna provide more issues then? I've had I've had a client, I've had this happen. I'm thinking of one particular instance where um great relationship with the client and everything, but they did take a pause because they wanted to take they wanted to try and do the some of the services I was doing for them internally, try to get someone internally on the team that could do some of these marketing pieces that I was doing. Um, but then, and like I said, no problem. That's fine. It's what's best for the business. But they did come back a year, I think it was about a year later, and my prices had changed because I learned a lot more. I knew what I was talking about, like I knew better how to price for my everything that was going into it. And and it was, it wasn't a huge increase, but it was an increase from what they were previously paying. And and they didn't tell me they're like, well, I wasn't really expecting the price to be different. Um, and so they're they said, well, we'll have to figure something else out. And that was totally fine because here's the thing that I learned is I honestly wasn't willing to do it for less. That's the truth. And I like, I like the business, I like the person I was working with. They were great to work with. But I I knew that I wasn't willing to do it. I wasn't willing to cut myself short because every single, every single month, every single week when I was working on their um marketing, I know I'd be like, oh, this is taking me too long because I know how much they're paying me. So it always pays off.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Yes, 100%. It's interesting to me to the realization that uh when you find yourself working on an underpriced client, it builds animosity towards that client.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

You know, you don't want it to, and it's not it's not intentional, but you're like, it's exactly what you said. You're like, I really underprice this client. I know that I could be taking this time and doing work on another client at a much higher uh higher rate. Um, you know, and so you have some resentment to that. And so it's a hundred percent fine to let clients walk away. And it's it's it's it's also important to know when to walk away yourself.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Right? It's one thing for a client to walk away, but it's another to walk away from a client. We've had to do both over the last year, uh, and it's challenging.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

I'm sure it would be. I I'll be honest, I've never walked away from a client, but that it just hasn't happened. I'm sure it could happen, it hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure that would be hard to navigate.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

It yeah, it's one of those difficult conversations that we were talking about earlier that there's nowhere to hand it off to. Yeah, right. So uh you just have to learn to navigate those when they when they happen.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

Well, and that kind of pulls into some of the emotional sides of doing business. Because even that, uh you you don't want to be hurtful to somebody because I I people use this expression all the time. It's just business. It's just business. But I I don't think you can separate business from personal because you're working with people. So business is always going to be personal. So looking back uh at over the last you know year, what has been some of the hardest emotional pieces of this journey?

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Yeah, that's a great question. And uh I think for us, it has been, or at least for me in particular, it has been some of those difficult conversations that I've had to learn to have with uh with clients about either pricing or the direction that their account needs to go, um, you know, or the decision to walk away from a client. You know, um we ended up walking away from our very first client after about five months.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

Oh well, that would be hard because it's your very first one.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

It was, yeah. And and the reality was that looking back on it, he was never really a great fit. That particular client was never really a great fit for us, but because it was the first one and we were sort of desperate to prove the model, right? We kind of went out of our way to do things that looking back now, I'm like, I would never, I would never go to that. Yeah, yeah, do that at this point. And so um, yeah, it can be emotional, but at the same time, you know, um that that works both ways, right? Yeah, because there are lows or difficult not lows, difficult times, but there are great times too when you realize, you know what, it's Friday, it's 10 o'clock, I've gotten uh all the work I need to get done this week. I've got plenty of work, uh time to do the rest of the work this month. Um, I'm gonna take Friday out.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

That's a nice feeling.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

That's a great feeling, right? Yeah, the ability to sew that. And that's you know, love to get to a point where that's every week where we can work Monday through Thursday and have uh three-day weeks. Yeah, it's a goal, vision for us.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

So it's definitely obtainable. So, how do you navigate uncertainty while trying to build something that's stable?

SPEAKER_00 37:36

How do I navigate uncertainty when trying to build something?

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Starting a business is it brings in a lot of uncertainty.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

Yeah, yeah, it absolutely does. And I I guess the best thing that I could say to that is I just try and take it one step at a time.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

It's difficult to you can you really can't predict those kind of things. Um, and so you just have to be flexible and uh ready to respond to those uh and do it as both uh as intelligently as you can, um as thoughtfully and deliberately as you can without being reactive.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

The challenge is to try not to be reactive because when you end up being reactive, you end up in many cases uh either overreacting or going the wrong direction or or responding out of emotion rather than um being thoughtful or data driven in your choices.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

Right, right. So looking back if at year one, what have what is something that you feel like you did right? You're like you're proud that you did that right.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

I think for us, uh the decision uh to go in debt-free was the right decision.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

Um the realization and the switch from that B2C mindset to the B2B mindset that we talked about, those are two examples of things that I think we did right in the beginning. Uh and that we or that we learned quickly. And I would say probably our pricing journey was a third thing that we figured out pretty quickly that um was important in that first year too, and that I'm proud of us for for doing and kind of figuring out quickly.

SPEAKER_02 39:13

Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing is you don't you only know what you know, but you can control what you learn. What is something that you just know you got wrong? Anything? I mean, uh, it sounds negative, but you probably got it right by now.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

But yeah, I think the the best example I can give that's probably the pricing. Yeah. Uh, right. Uh especially very early on. Yeah, that very first client. It's crazy to think what we uh the deal we made for him that just to get somebody in the door. Um, it was a it was a little crazy.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

Um, what is something that you wish you would have changed sooner? I know it sounds like you did make these changes pretty real time quickly, but was there anything that you wish you had changed sooner?

SPEAKER_00 39:56

I wish we had figured out that marketing shift sooner.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Uh for us that happened after probably four or five months.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

And so I spent two or three months at least throwing money at things.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Just trying to figure things out. Uh and that was expensive and that was costly. And I wish we'd figured that that out sooner.

SPEAKER_02 40:14

Yeah. Well, it is it is something there is gonna be elements of things of just trying, stepping out and trying, but it is nice whenever you find your sweet spot and you know this is how we're gonna ride this. So, some advice to other business owners, maybe in year one right now. What would you tell them, regardless of their industry?

SPEAKER_00 40:38

I think regardless of your industry, one of the things that new business owners overlook the most are systems and processes. Yeah. Right? You want to get things documented, you want to make things repeatable, you want to make things not dependent exclusively on an owner operator.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Because you're never gonna scale if it's all locked up in one person.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

Yep. I mean, there's businesses that have been around 15 years and they've been surviving without any of these, but just think of what they could be if they had that locked in. It's it sounds so boring, but it is boring, but it's the stuff that makes such a difference in the direction you can take your business.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

It's boring until you can have every Friday off because you're figuring it out.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

That's right. What is something that you wish someone would have told you whenever you were starting out?

SPEAKER_00 41:34

I wish somebody had sat down and talked with us about pricing.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a hard thing to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

Yeah, yeah, and about the importance of of valuing the work that you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

Um, because it it will it it will poison your your your mindset quickly if you feel undervalued. And underpricing creates undervaluation, yeah, which then creates that mindset in your head.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

Yeah. Well, and I think in both, I know our industry seem very different, marketing and and bookkeeping, but the one thing that one major commonality is there are people could go to other people and find cheaper options. Because I see it all the time. I see people putting out there for specifically for like social media marketing exclusively, you know, I can I'll do this for you for this amount of month. And I'm like, if you're willing to do that, fine, I'm not willing to do that because I know the cost of doing business. And I'm sure for bookkeeping, there might be other people that might be cheaper, but just knowing your value that you're bringing to every client is so it is so valuable. Uh, how do you really uh I guess put down you can it's hard to equate your effort and the value you're adding to dollars and cents, but how do you look at that? How is your mindset shifted on that to really be able to price for the value you're bringing and the effort you're putting in?

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Well that's a great question, and I'm not sure that I know the best way to answer it.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

Well, I you probably knew how much time actually goes into things that maybe at first you're like, oh that doesn't, that's not a big that's not a big service.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Yeah, and so that's of course been a learning effort as well. I mean uh the amount of effort that a that a client will take on a monthly basis. Yeah. Um my wife has always been pretty good about being able to judge that because she had experience with it before. Uh and so she's the one that's primarily been um responsible for kind of helping us uh figure out you know what's the level of effort this, what's the right pricing. We don't have sort of standardized pricing for our stuff as it is. Our process is derived from um uh a very personal. Personal experience where we start with a discovery call, we talk to folks about, or more importantly, we listen to them about their company, about the challenges that they're having, about the services that they're interested in having us um take over for them, and then we put a proposal together that is specifically geared towards that, right based on that. And yes, we have an understanding of what roughly like um what an hourly rate should look like for that. And that certainly plays into when we start putting together um monthly pricing for you know different client proposals, um, generally speaking.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

So yeah, because it's gonna vary based on how large the business is, how many employees are we talking, what are your expenses look like. And I think the same thing is true for me. I do a proposal, which sometimes people don't like that. They're like, well, why can't you just tell me this price? I'm like, well, because I need to know what what are the pain points, what are we trying to solve, what are we real, what's the goal here? Um, just like you do, it's really hearing them out and figuring out what problems do they want solved and how can I help them solve that. And how much time, effort, and everything is that going to take me to full complete that, to fulfill that for them? Uh, pricing in every every situation. I think it's it's it's hard to navigate, it's hard to figure out, but uh, once you do, it's a lot better. So before we close, I always ask this question what is one thing you don't have fully figured out yet, but you're choosing to build through anyway.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

In my particular case, I think that relates to where do we go from here?

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

Right. And for PLS, um realize that uh right now the firm is just the two of us, my wife and myself, my wife doing all the heavy lifting is a relacity accounting work, me doing the operational sides of it. All of the work that I do for the company is important, but it's not necessarily bringing direct revenue in.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

So, how can I take that experience and monetize that or productize that? And so one of the things that I'm exploring and looking is um getting into a space where I at least I am doing some of this operational type consulting on a small business scale, helping other small businesses grow from the beginning uh or scale if they're in their their first few years, figure out some of these processes that we're talking about. Because these are areas that that I have experience in that I can help convey to other folks and maybe help them get over some of these things here too. And so uh right now there's nothing kind of formal around that. Right. You know, it's just kind of something that I'm you know, um looking for opportunities with either with existing clients or with uh with new clients to think, okay, let's explore this together and figure out does this work?

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

And then turn that into a product or service down the road and as a way to grow both revenue and scale for the business.

SPEAKER_02 46:56

Yeah. Well, I think it works nicely with what you're already doing because you see some of the lack that some of your current clients might have, and you're like, well, I could help speak into that. So it it does fit very nicely and very organically into that. So for people who want to connect with you online, where can they find PLS?

SPEAKER_00 47:15

The best place that you can go is directly to our website, pls, balancemybooks.com, or you can find us on Facebook. Okay. And those are, I think, are the two best places.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

Not Instagram, just Facebook, right? There is an Instagram page, but if you don't go to it, it's not heavily used at this point. Go to Facebook.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

Facebook is the right place to go. Um, you know, and then our website directly.

SPEAKER_02 47:37

Yes. Okay, well, connect with them. And also if you're someone who is looking to figure out systems processes, he just said that's something he's building, he's going in that direction, hit him up. So that is it for this session of the back office. If this conversation gave you clarity, a new angle, or even just the reminder that you're not the only one navigating this, then it did its job. Take what's useful, apply it, move on it, because no one has it fully figured out. But we're building anyway. And if you found this valuable, share it with another operator who's building, and you can always hang out with us in between sessions at Signify Marketing Social. I'm Delena Dylan, and we will see you next time.