Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Harley Liechty. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Harley, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

First of all, here’s the reality of bookkeeping: Barely any business owner uses their bookkeeping to help with their business. I worked as a business coach for five years and in my opinion, this was the most consistent growth issue with any of the companies I worked with -> nobody knew their numbers.

So Get Better Bookkeeping helps business owners have up-to-date financials & acts as a “small business CFO,” where we do monthly financial review meetings and get into much greater details about how they use their numbers to make effective business decisions.

Going from nothing to something though is always a challenge. And to go from a brand new business on January 1st, 2023, to working with 50 companies in 10 months? Compared to other bookkeeping and accounting firms, this is impressive growth. So how did we do this?

I couldn’t have done this without great people around me. I now encourage every new entrepreneur to have a very dedicated business mentor to help them. So dedicated that they have a minor, invested stake in the business. Not only was it helpful to have startup cash from three individual partners, but since they invested, they believed I could really pull this off and want me to pull it off. As the business grows and is more profitable, so are their quarterly profit earnings!

I’ve had plenty of instances in these first 10 months where one of my partners helped me avoid making a poor management or business mistake. They also give me the time and energy to sort through monthly problems and mistakes I do end up making, sometimes big ones. Then, they also challenge me to think bigger or expand my horizons for what I should be focusing on.

Then, the first bookkeeper I hired was an all-star. It’s so important that the first person that’s hired for a position is an A+ player, and I got very lucky with her. Then, with the two other bookkeepers that stuck it out with me, that’s why we have 50 companies that we’re working with after 10 months. It’s the team and the people around me.

The next big move? I committed from day one to not do any of my client’s bookkeeping work. How could this happen? The startup cash helped, but I worked for a couple of months before January 1st to find ten of my current business coaching clients to add on services with my bookkeeping business. This gave me the financial bandwidth to hire this first bookkeeper for day one of the business.

I also have baked into my business accountability. I have weekly meetings with my bookkeepers and specific things I look for from their work to know that the work is being done effectively. And with the monthly financial reviews with clients, we’ll find other issues and enhances to make about how the finances are presented.

What I also understood from business coaching is that the sooner I can stop working in the business, to work on the business, the better. So from day one, I made it possible to never do any of my clients’ bookkeeping work. That gave me the freedom to pursue leads, maintain value with my clients to stick with me, continually vet new bookkeepers to possibly work here, and therefore, focus all of my energy towards the growth of the business.

Throughout this whole year, it’s also just lots of hours. I work approximately 50 to 60 hours per week. I don’t have the capacity to do 70 to 80 hours per week because of being a new dad and husband, but I can make the 50 to 60 hours as efficient and intentional as possible. So for new entrepreneurs, you need to be highly scheduled and intentional with your time when you’re working. Plan your day every day. Adjust the plan based on how the day goes. Schedule time blocks for everything. Have a to-do list that actually lines up with your time. This is one of the most important reasons why it’s even possible for me to start this business and see it grow so quickly in this first year.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

After I graduated college in marketing from Oral Roberts University, my life felt aimless. I found a job that was soul-sucking after college and I soon fell into a depression. I felt like some little speck in the world, just taking up space without making a genuine impact.

Then, a friend of mine told me about a part-time job he had at a business coaching firm. I didn’t even know this was a thing, but it sounded way better than what I was doing now. So I said, “Can you please get me an interview?” After a couple of interviews, they decided to let me join their small team.

In that first week, it became very clear that this was a place of excellence. Visual growth testimonials on the walls, everyone working very efficiently and being happily productive. It was clear to me that if I just stayed in this cold-calling job and became a business coach for them, I would become a better person as a result of working here. I wanted to quit several times, but I stayed committed to this job. I finally stayed committed to something.

Because growing up, I tried to get good at many things. Piano, gymnastics, tennis, track & field, physical fitness, started podcasts, business ventures and other ideas. But every time, I got decent at it and let it fall away out of habit. I never disciplined myself enough to become excellent at anything. Until this business coaching job came and I realized that if I don’t figure this out now, I have very little hope of really figuring it out later. I didn’t have any other job that looked better!

As a result of five years in business coaching, I wrote my 1st book, became a pretty good jazz pianist, started doing ghostwriting projects, saw great success with coaching clients, got married, bought my first house and we gave birth to our first child. Oh, and I could trust in myself to launch this bookkeeping business and know that it would work out.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Right now, it’s networking (word-of-mouth) and referrals. In our first year, we don’t have a budget to shell out thousands of dollars in ads online, so what else can I do?

This is not a passive thing either. People hear “word-of-mouth” and think that work will just “come to them.” Nope, I have spent 100s of hours in networking meetings and one-on-one hangouts with other entrepreneurs. I contacted companies to refer business to me. I have given my time freely to people and in return, because those interactions went well, they trusted me enough to start working with me or to refer me to business.

We’ll soon have money to spend on advertising, but networking and outbound marketing will always be a way we get business. I always want to have the ability to generate our own business without the help of a marketing company or a key referral relationship or a hot-shot salesperson. That’s a true sign of a healthy company. If all else fails, we can always go out and get our own business instead of waiting for it to come to us.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Being unique in what we provide. What we are doing is not usual for bookkeeping companies. Bookkeepers look to update finances monthly and they typically don’t have CFO meetings to review finances and give them consultative feedback. They just update finances and provide reports. That’s it.

I followed the wise words of Seth Godin and looked to be a Purple Cow in our industry. I saw an opportunity to really stand out because in five years of business coaching, I saw how unhelpful bookkeeping was for business owners and how so many small business owners don’t understand what’s happening with their finances. To truly be a “better bookkeeper,” we go into greater detail than most, update finances faster than most, and provide more tangible value to their business’s financial health than anyone else. It’s as if a small business could have a CFO, which is remarkable.

Then you just work your butt off and make sure to deliver!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.getbetterbookkeeping.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/harleyliechty
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/harley.liechty.58
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-harley-liechty/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@getbetterbookkeeping
• Other: https://tiktok.com/@harley.liechty – TikTok