We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nicole Leavitt. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nicole below.
Nicole, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
I started my business, Alacritous Solutions, after leaving spending about 10 years in the corporate technology space. While I learned so much about business and how businesses operate, I was not good at the political game and found myself stuck. I decided to try and do something on my own to see if I could turn it into a business. That is where bookkeeping for small businesses came in. I had studied accounting in my master’s program and worked with multiple accounting systems for large companies so I knew the rules and how they applied. When I started exploring the world of small businesses I quickly learned that most small business owners did not know the power of their financial statements and the importance of using this information in order to make business decisions, not just to get your taxes done. I love data and the story it tells. Accounting tells the story of your business and is the only thing that gives you a complete picture. I wanted to give business owners a complete and accurate look into their business all throughout the year, not just when they need to get their taxes done. The more information business owners have and the more they understand the meaning, the better decisions they can make which will ultimately help them grow and meet any of their goals.
As my business started to grow I knew I was going to need to bring on employees. I wanted to create an environment where someone could have a meaningful job that they enjoyed, but also be able to leave that job at the end of the day and enjoy their lives. I started thinking about the things that frustrated me during my corporate time and how to make sure that did not happen here. I make sure my employees do not use their personal cell phones for work, no calls after hours, and they do not keep email on their phone. Our team has the option to work from home part time or come into the office and leave outside of traffic times. This includes choosing which hours work best for you: if you do your best work early morning then great! work early, if you do your best work mid-late morning, then perfect! start later in the day. Our team has dedicated time each week to choose a skill or topic they want to learn more about that will help them grow in their careers. I want my team to feel empowered to take control of their career and turn it into something they want it to be. I trust and treat my team as adults knowing that life happens and some things are out of our control. Giving people flexibility to take care of what needs to be done has kept stress out of work.
One of the things in life I care about most is the environment and doing everything in my power to reverse the negative affects of climate change. We are California Green Business certified and continue to find ways to improve at home and at work. My goal is to become a climate positive business and do so for any other businesses I have in the future. I am learning more about the circular economy and how businesses can work together to eliminate waste by turning waste into raw materials. Continuously making small changes adds up faster than people think. Our company is almost at zero trash waste and same at my home. We donate to a conversation non-profit each month, buy second-hand furniture and post consumer office supplies, and provide reusable utensils, napkins, towels and kitchen supplies. These are just a couple of the things we do. I am also in the unique position to see how companies spend money and where their raw materials come from. I want to be able to show businesses that it does not break the bank to move to environmentally friendly/sustainable materials and products. It takes a little more time for research upfront, but in the end makes a huge difference.
One of the biggest compliments I have received from clients is we “do not seem like bookkeepers”. People often tell me that they think bookkeeping and accounting is so boring and such a headache to deal with. I love that I have created an environment when our clients and potential clients can come to a judgement free and trustworthy place. Bookkeeping is something every business has to do and I want don’t want people to hate it. I am going to change that!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am 4th generation born and raised in San Diego, CA. I went to SDSU and started my career here. I have deep roots in San Diego and love this community. I knew I would stay in San Diego to build my life. I started my company after about a decade in the corporate technology space. After figuring out I wanted to go out on my own I started providing bookkeeping services to small businesses in San Diego. It started as just me working with a couple of clients and then grew through referrals to other small businesses. San Diego is big little town and is exploding with small businesses. Connections and networking can happen very easily here so growing through referrals happened faster than I was expecting. Once we started to grow I decided I wanted my company to be big enough to support myself and my husband so he could leave corporate as well. We set our goal for my husband to quit his corporate job at the end of 2020 and in October of 2020 he gave his notice and started working at my company in November. Bookkeeping for small businesses led into providing virtual admin services for business owners. Small business owners do everything with very little time in the day so I had client ask if my team could take on other items as well which led to our Admin Services. Bookkeeping and Administrative Services require strong organization, communication and data management. All of which my team loves! We bring structure and organization to companies that need help developing that. A big piece of what we do with our Bookkeeping services is clean up historical data. We get many clients who either have not done their bookkeeping or had someone do it as a side hustle. Unfortunately, bookkeeping has started to be marked as a gig-economy job that anyone can do, but it is not. You need to understand accounting principles and how the rules/laws apply to businesses. Otherwise, you can have a complete mess and your taxes are now incorrect. This could really hurt small businesses. So we have cleaned up a lot of accounting messes to get businesses back on track.
I am most proud of the communication and promptness my team provides. We make sure our clients know exactly what is going on, get answers to questions in a timely manner and make sure our clients have accurate financial statements each month so they can use this information to make data-driven decisions for their business. I chose the name Alacritous Solutions because it describes who we are as individuals and a business, not just what we do. We are ready, willing, and able to work with our clients and bring enthusiasm to our day.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
A couple of years after I graduated college and into my career I got divorced. I became a single mom at the age of 26 with a two-year-old and working full time. At that point my needs did not matter, I needed to work as hard as I could to provide for my child. I had finished my bachelors degree and was working at a company that I enjoyed, but knew I was going to need to grow in my career to make enough money to provide for a child and stay in San Diego. When my daughter turned 3 I began my MBA program. I worked full time during the day, spent the rest of the evening with my daughter and then after she went to bed did my school work. I was lucky to have a program the company paid for and I could do online so I didn’t have to find a babysitter. It was a two-year program and that was two-years of very little sleep. But it was worth it. I was able to move up in my career which provided more learning opportunities and an increased salary. And it was ultimately what gave me the tools to start my own business.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
One thing I had to unlearn is everything is not an emergency. During my time in the corporate space, everything became an emergency and urgent. I was answering emails at home and on weekends, all tasks were urgent, or if a problem or complication came up, it was an emergency. After I left the corporate technology space I found I was always on edge. I had been taught that everything was an emergency so I would treat everything as one. I answered emails the second they came in and if I wasn’t able to answer them instantly, I was stressing about needing to answer it. I had to learn that most things are not life and death situations. No one is going to die if I do not answer a work email at that very moment. We have been trained through work and society for instant results, instant information and instant gratification so when it doesn’t happen something feels off. The only thing that helped was time. I needed time to detox my brain from thinking everything was an emergency.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wearealacritous.com/
- Instagram: @alacritoussolutions
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wearealacritous/