hi Steve Crisler here from bookkeeping life today I want to talk to you about a
common question that I get from people is what level of education do you need
to start your own bookkeeping business and should you get certifications should
you have a college degree all that stuff so let's let's break this down I think
knowing your craft is more important than anything I am a CPA and I have
experienced both a positive and a negative when it comes to getting
bookkeeping clients as a CPA a lot of potential clients think that I will
charge more and which is kind of true being a CPA and that's my charge more
really because of my experience but I do see a negative when it comes to being in
the CPA with potential customers thinking that I will charge more the
other thing is is sometimes they think that I have which is really common for
CPA practice to have somebody that does data entry that actually does the
bookkeeping and in the office and it's not the CPA that's doing it so it can be
being a CPA can be a plus can be a minus but it's definitely not necessary most
most and it's not even expected potential clients don't expect their
bookkeeper to be a CPA by any means at all so you definitely don't need to be a
CPA now do you need to have a college degree the answer is no you really just
need to know how to do bookkeeping nice oh you don't need to know everything
else that you need to study in college to get a college degree you really just
need to know some of the basics of bookkeeping QuickBooks and I teach all
that in some of my programs but you don't need you do not need to have a
college degree you don't have to have a two-year degree you don't have to have
any college at all some of the best bookkeepers out there are have been
doing bookkeeping for 10 20 years and did it straight out of
high school so you don't you do not need to waste your time it can be a waste of
time to go down the roads of getting these degrees instead of just using that
time and energy and money to build up your own practice another thing another
common question I get is about these certifications there's lots of
certifications i vet i've had people ask me if if my program has a certificate
and the answer is no and i don't so here's my take on certificates like the
QuickBooks ProAdvisor program and and things like that I think the educational
piece of it that you gain you you know the education that you gain by taking
these exams to get the certificate is beneficial the educational piece of it
but the actual certificate itself I do not put you know give that any weight I
don't think the potential customer the mom-and-pop shop down the street that's
looking for a bookkeeper I don't think they look for somebody to have a
certificate from QuickBooks I just don't think it you got to look at things
what's going to tip you over the edge when it comes to getting a client and I
always go back to really good branding and really good advertising is it going
to be some you know abbreviations after name or certificates that the general
public does not understand or have any idea what it is it's not that
I mean you maybe want one an X amount you know that's a good thing for but
again you got to think about your time and your energy and what you're spending
your time and energy on if you're spending a lot of time and energy and
money to get these certificates instead of spending time energy and money
towards building your practice and actually learning your craft getting you
know doing the things that I teach that works and that I've seen work
which is really a simple process of a very simple formula you can be wasting
in your time energy and money so you know to get these things that in the end
if you don't have you can do all these things you can have it you can be a CPA
and with tons of certificates and you know lots of education a master's in
accounting or something and you still not have any clients and why because
your branding is terrible and your advertising is terrible and you don't
know how to talk to potential clients so that's that's what I think you should do
is focus all of your energy on doing the things that are proven to work and that
is really good branding plus really good advertising equals clients you're going
to you're going to get calls and emails from potential clients if you have
really good branding and really good advertising you can't do really good
advertising without really good branding so it starts with the branding which
allows you to do really good advertising which will get you in front your
business in front of potential clients and then it's a matter of just talking
to them and gain an experience over time and I talked in other videos about
just-in-time learning how much you need to know about QuickBooks and bookkeeping
before you actually step out into the world of having your own bookkeeping
business but and it's very little I teach just-in-time learning you learn
what you need to know you then you take you further you hit another wall you
figure out what the answer to that problem allows you to move further on I
have a whole video on that it's called just-in-time learning so you can look at
that but so that's what I recommend and although that's why I'm in my programs I
it's all about the branding it's all about the advertising so you might want
to check below for those links about my programs if you're interested in that
and then also if you don't know QuickBooks and bookkeeping I recommend
you look at the one the get my programs to start with learn so
there's we have the start grow program which is all about the branding and and
the advertising getting your business up and running how to talk to clients and
what you need from clients and then there's the learn start grow program
which is has a QuickBooks course in it quickbooks online course in it that
teaches you if you don't if you're not familiar with quickbooks that's an
excellent place to to start and you'll be able to learn QuickBooks bookkeeping
and get your branding and your advertising going and everything about
how to talk to clients and what you need from your clients all that's in those
programs but you can look at that in the links below so don't waste your time
don't waste your energy your positive energy and get frustrated why you know
your business doesn't go in anywhere because you're spending all your time
energy and money on getting a degree that's not gonna help you getting
certificates that's that are not going to help you focus on really good
branding really good advertising getting in front of clients getting talking to
clients potential clients you may not get the first one you may not get the
second one you may not get the third one but you will get one eventually and
you'll learn from all of those trials and errors on how to talk to clients
potential clients and what information you need from them how to get that
information from them figuring out where they're at with their business what
their needs are I talked about all that in my programs but anyways that all that
information is below in the links you can always email me at Steve at
bookkeeping life.com again don't waste your time energy and
money on dead ends or things that are just going to give you a little bit of
reward you want maximum maximum reward for your time and energy so I check
those out email me if you have any questions Steve at bookkeeping life comm
and I wish you the best I'm here to help if you need my help reach out to me take
care have a great day hi everyone if you'd like to learn more
I have a free webinar where I teach you how to quickly set up your own
home-based bookkeeping business so you can start earning that extra thousand
dollars a month or more in that webinar you learn my step by step formula to
getting bookkeeping clients you'll learn how to set up your new bookkeeping
business from scratch so you have more control over your time in your life and
many more freedoms that come with it so if you'd like to sign up for that free
webinar just click the link in the description below and I'll see you there
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