We were lucky to catch up with Kaela Coble recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kaela, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
Three and a half years ago, a whack on the head changed everything.
I had been an Executive Assistant for 15 years, struggling to find fulfillment in a job I’d grown out of long ago. Working at a hospital in the midst of a pandemic and a cyberattack, the pressure had never been higher. Moving too quickly and not paying attention to my surroundings, (as we tend to do in those moments) I crashed my head into the open drawer of a filing cabinet.
Little did I know, that one second of my life would change everything.
The concussion I sustained that day didn’t heal as 90% of concussions do. Instead, I developed post concussion syndrome. I had migraines so bad all I could do was curl up and cry, I couldn’t tolerate sudden or loud noises or bright lights. Formerly very active, I now couldn’t get my heart rate up past a slow walk without feeling like I was falling off a cliff.
The real clincher, though, was that I couldn’t tolerate being on any kind of screen for more than a minute without getting sick. After my FMLA ran out, I was let go. Because what good was I to my employer if I couldn’t function in my job, which involved being around the very stimuli that made me sick?
I had never felt more powerless in my life, at the mercy of my previous employers and a disability insurance carrier. I literally looked at my husband, tears in my eyes, every few days, asking “what will become of me?” I didn’t know when or even if I would recover. And I am someone who likes to work, to be busy, to be productive, so having no purpose in life other than days centered around medical appointments and at-home physical therapy, was torture (and I couldn’t even watch bad TV to pass the time)!
One of the only things I could do without feeling sick was baking, and I baked so much I ran out of people to give baked goods to. (Literally, people told me I had to stop because I was hurting their wastelines). So I started a small business selling cookies, mostly to moms sending care packages to their college students at the University of Vermont. I tracked all my expenses and income in a spreadsheet (I’d built up to 10 minutes of screen time in a go) so the disability insurance carrier could take my profits “off the top,” of my checks – no cheating here – but it never really ended up turning a profit. It didn’t have to, because it led me to the business I was meant to run.
The business that saved my life.
Bookkeeping might sound boring to most people; literally no one says to me “oh that’s interesting,” when I tell them what I do. But to me, plugging those numbers from the cookie business in and doing calculations and projections felt so exciting and fun. As I learned to do them in Quickbooks instead of a spreadsheet, and then enrolled in a bookkeeping program where I learned everything I could about it (now up to 20 minutes in a go), it served as both physical and emotional therapy. I was increasing my brain and eyes’ ability to tolerate screens, forming new neural pathways by learning something new, and giving me something positive to focus on as I strategically planned to build a business around bookkeeping.
Finally, I had found a path forward. I had found the path that made me feel powerful rather than at the mercy of someone else’s decisions. I never wanted that feeling to go away. And I quickly realized that I could use my skills to help other women stand in their own power.
Two years into my bookkeeping business, I am so in love with the work that I do with (exclusively) women-identified solopreneurs and microbusiness owners in the first few years of their business. My work with my clients goes deeper and more meaningful than debits and credits, categorizing transactions and reconciling bank statements. We talk about the feelings behind money, especially as women who are plagued with imposter syndrome and general feelings of unworthiness when it comes to commanding the kind of income we deserve. I talk with my clients about what lights them up and what matters most in their lives rather than just what is most profitable, and my work and advising is guided by those values. Of course I want my clients to become wealthy business owners, but I also want them to be healthy business owners. I understand that the measure of success is not some monetary figure, but in the joy they experience from doing work that fulfills them. I think this approach, paired with my relentless work to strip away the shame so many women feel around their finances, as well as the type of advising I provide, is what attracts people to my business.
I am constantly motivated by this mission to do my part in empowering women business owners. While many people “don’t want to deal” with their books, (which is fine by me, because it means I have a job), it’s still important that they know how to read and understand their business finances in order to feel confident in making decisions such as when to scale, when to raise prices, and when to say no. Money is about so much more than the things it can buy – it’s the freedom and the power to design the life that works for you rather than conforming to someone else’s ideals. I want my clients – and all women – to have that freedom.
Kaela, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
KPC Bookkeeping works exclusively with women-identified business owners to provide cleanup and advisory services as well as ongoing monthly services such as categorizing transactions, reconciling accounts, running reports, etc. But our work with our clients goes far beyond that.
What sets up apart is the advising and support we provide to our clients. In the initial onboarding and cleanup phase, we include access to our online course (you can see that here, it has two courses within the bundle and if you click on each and scroll you can see the curriculum: https://courses.kpcbookkeeping.com/bundles/bbtb-launch-bundle) as well as provide 1:1 post-cleanup advisory sessions that teach them HOW to read and understand their reports, and walks them through deeper analysis that gives them a better picture of their overall business health.
We also do a lot of work around goal setting. From the very first Discovery Call, we start talking about goals, and they serve as the basis of our advising. We even create a goal accountability sheet that gets emailed to the client once/month so they can keep us up to date on anything new in the business, provide updates on current goals, and seek any advice. When goals are achieved (or progress is made), we always reach out with a personal congratulations – we want to be your biggest cheerleader – and we provide answers to any questions they’re pondering for their business.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
What’s helped me both build a reputation within my market and grow my clientele the fastest is through networking. People in the financial industry mostly get referrals from other people in the financial industry (for me it’s tax accountants and financial advisors), because clients trust their current financial team to make referrals to people they can trust. So right from the jump I started reaching out to people in those industries, as well as local networking groups just to get my name out there and meet as many people as possible. Giving free or low-cost talks and posting educational content (not just sales-y posts) on social media has also earned me a better reputation with women business owners.
Do you have multiple revenue streams – if so, can you talk to us about those streams and how your developed them?
I do have multiple revenue streams. Besides my cleanup and ongoing monthly bookkeeping income, I also do some speaking for groups who can’t yet outsource their bookkeeping and are trying to get a sense of what they should be doing on their own. I was speaking so much on this topic that I developed my Bookkeeping: Beyond the Boring online, self-paced courses (link above, but soon to be broken into smaller courses so they are more affordable and targeted to the student’s needs), so that’s another income stream.
Contact Info:
- Website: kpcbookkeeping.com
- Instagram: @bookkeeperkaela
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kaela.kpcbookkeeping
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaela-coble-06b13329/
Image Credits
Stina Booth Photography