We caught up with the brilliant and insightful LaToya Bass a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

LaToya, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the best thing you’ve ever seen (or done yourself) to show a customer that you appreciate them?

I started this business with the intention of helping people and customer service being at the forefront of that. Whenever we sign a client, the first thing we do is purchase them an onboarding gift. It one lets them know that we are excited to support them and two lets them know that we really care about them and our relationship with them. We get gifts based on our conversations with them and based on their business values.

Buying gifts is a small token of our appreciation. They could have chosen to work with anyone but they chose us and we are grateful for that.

Another way we show our clients we appreciate them is by remembering their birthdays, the birthdays of their loved ones and important milestones in their lives and business. We take notes of these things because we know that different things in life can affect how we show up and we all need support, care and compassion.

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.

I am a wife and mother of 3 ( 17, 10 and 6). I started the business in 2017 but had thoughts about starting my own business as early as 2015 when I was working as a Pharmacy Benefit Analyst. My son ended up getting really sick and hospitalized and that is when I realized something needed to change.

I was constantly working and running around and not really spending time with my family like I wanted. So I started looking for a job with a smaller company and when I switched things got easier in my life and I found myself having more time to research and start my business.

I knew I wanted to support people in the back end of their business but I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to be in human resources, bookkeeping or operations since I had years of experience in all three.

I started off as a freelancing Virtual Assistant helping a business coach with EVERYTHING in her business and getting paid $5.00 an hour. At the time the hourly pay didn’t matter because I still had my fulltime job and I had the flexibility of working for her when I had time the and not having to force anything.

As time move forward and I had gained this experience as a virtual service provider, I started to see where I wanted to focus my work. I wanted to help people with their customer support and their bookkeeping needs. Not only did I have tons of experience doing this in my full time job, now I have the experience of supporting people virtually.

That is what led me to where to I am and where the business is today. We are a Billing and Client Success Agency. We support business owners by being the customer support team and working with their bookkeeper/ accountant on the business financials. We manage everything from the daily billing/ customer support to tracking income and expenses daily for the business owner to continually know where their funds are on a consistent basis. This allows our client to focus on hitting their goals and allows them to focus on helping their clients.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn being on someone else’s time. I was so used to clocking in and out and always being available that I started doing that in my business and it had me feeling like I did when I was in the corporate world.

I had to realize that my clients did not expect me to perform open heart surgery, meaning they would be okay if I didn’t answer an email from them that came in at 10 pm or if I didn’t answer the phone if they called me and it wasn’t scheduled.

I had to realize that owning my own business meant that I could work in a way that felt good to me while also allowing me to do what I love.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I had to pivot my business when I realized I was getting back into the habit of ALWAYS working and not being with my family and friends during non business hours. I had taken on so many clients at such a low rate that I wasn’t making much money but I also didn’t have much free time and that was the opposite result of what I wanted when I started the business.

I was stressed, overwhelmed, burnt out and always frustrated which did not make me a fun person to be around.

So I sat down and worked through the scenarios of me raising my rates and getting rid of certain services that I could not see myself or my growing team doing forever. Once I did that and made a decision, I created videos for each of my clients letting them know the changes that were taking place, why I was changing services and what that meant for them. I wanted to be more personal in my approach and not send an email where things can get lost in translation.

It was received well by all clients but one and that’s okay. We can’t please everyone but I knew that pivot was one I needed not just for business but for me personally as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: alignmentbusinesssolution.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alignmentbusiness/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alignmentbusiness
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/latoya-bass-8b0ab6158/