hey it's patti scharf CPA and co-founder of catching clouds the leader in
e-commerce accounting and I want to welcome you back to our Saturday
slowdown where I like to remind everybody to work on their business and
not just in their business
all right so I just got back from an accounting salon in New Orleans
basically it was a group of people who were invited there to share knowledge
with each other we had people who work just with QuickBooks and zero or zero or
sage or none of the above and didn't have an accounting practice at all some
people were just starting their business some people have been doing it for a
long time and we just kind of shared our stories and talked about where we came
from what our journey was where we wanted to go and we just shared
knowledge with each other about all the things that are going on in the world
blockchain sales tax just development of practices and things like that so I came
away and I was like super inspired a lot of these people I had never met before
and I just knew of them because I followed them on social media or I'd met
them but we'd only spoken a few times or things like that so it was really great
I felt really honored to be invited to be part of that process and I think
everybody who was there they really saw a vision of something better on the
horizon for the accounting industry and for small businesses in general so I
came away from there and I was I was really inspired and I was thinking about
how powerful community is when you can get a bunch of like-minded people into a
group to just brainstorm and things like that and I was gonna talk about like the
power of community and how powerful that is and how you need to find some people
who who think like you do to be part of your tribe and and help you along your
journey and I think that's true but I think that you have to be very careful
about the community that you pick because sometimes you pick a group of
people and they're very supportive and they're very comfortable but they're not
actually challenging you and they're not they're not helping you to advance
yourself propel yourself into something more for yourself so so I think about
this quote that I've heard I to Jack Welch or Confucius or like
anybody in between and it's if you're the smartest person in the room it's
time to change rooms and I think that a lot of people they they find their
community and it makes them feel warm and fuzzy but it's not helping them move
their business forward and I think you have to be really careful about who
you're surrounding yourself with and I think you have to be careful about not
challenging your own ideas like I know some people there there are only
QuickBooks and they don't want to hear from anybody else who uses any other
software and same thing you know Xero or whatever like people get into their
little niches and they forget that they can learn something from other people
even if they're not part of that little group so I think this event in New
Orleans was great because people didn't look at each other like oh you're use
you use Xero like I got nothing to learn from you and you use sage and I don't
you sage so I don't care that's not what it was about at all we saw each other as
human beings and we saw each other as struggling through the journey of
entrepreneurship which I think anybody who owns a small business whether you're
an accountant or whether you're an e-commerce seller or any anybody else I
mean anybody who has a small business I think understands that there are
challenges that are not unique just to one little element of their business
it's it's something that can be shared with everybody so I think it's really
important for people to find the right room that they need to be in to find the
people to surround them to not only give them support but to help challenge their
ideas help spark some creativity like I know that when I was there I saw how
other people were doing some things with zapier or something like that and I was
I came away like oh I know exactly I wha I have some great ideas for what I'm
gonna do next you know and you know had I not gone I might have just kept going
down my normal path and not taking a step back to look and see what I'm doing
or not doing that I really should be thinking about and trying and
experimenting on to make my business so I guess what I want to say is if
you're not already part of a community or honestly even if you are just take a
step back reevaluate the community you're in do you still actually belong
there are you getting anything out of it or is it just kind of comfortable for
you and even if you're part of that community maybe join another one and and
think about what your challenges are think about where you might be able to
find a new group of people who can help elevate you and take you to the next
level if you care about e-commerce we actually have a Facebook group you can
see a couple links down below we've got one for accountants and one for
e-commerce sellers and we'd be more than happy to have you there if you if you do
join I highly recommend that you get active and involved because just like
anything in life you get out what you put in so so feel free to join there if
you're an e-commerce seller you may want to take a look at attending the
conference prosper show if you haven't heard that they have that in Vegas every
year in March I believe and it's just thousands of people who are on the
journey just like you you might want to join take a look at ecommerce fuel and
start chatting with people there and if your accountants they're like a
gazillion different Facebook groups just do a search and I'm sure you will you
will find some and when you find the right community hopefully they will help
keep you on your toes and keep you creative and flexible and making your
business better and better so I hope you like this video if you did please like
comment and share if you haven't already please subscribe and I'll catch you
later