We recently connected with Patty Saggio and have shared our conversation below.

Patty, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

While I was a Sophomore in high school I took an elective called bookkeeping. It was during that class that I decided to pursue a degree in Accounting. I went to Pace University and graduated with a degree in Accounting. Once I started working the jobs were very specific areas of accounting but eventually I landed in general accounting. It took me about 8 different jobs to get to this as I learned what I needed to at that employer and then moved on to another. After working in corporate for 12 years I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and boy did that mess with my long term plans. I was out on disability for a year and realized that if I went back to the corporate world it would have an adverse impact on my health but wasn’t sure what I would do. Once I was clear healthwise I started working for others who had bookkeeping businesses and worked with their clients. Little by little I thought I could do this and started to look for clients of my own. With the accounting degree I added a different level of knowledge and experience. Of course when starting out I took on anyone as a client but there were some that were starting to affect my health and that was the last thing I wanted. Although difficult from a financial point of view I started looking for those clients that were a perfect fit and now here we are 16 years having the business and financially doing way better than I ever imagined but most importantly I’m healthy.

Patty, 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?

My name is Patty and have had my bookkeeping business for 16 years. I have a degree in Accounting and once I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis I had to leave the corporate world but it made total sense to take my knowledge and experience and start a bookkeeping business. I work with coaches, entrepreneurs and small business owners handling the bookkeeping side of their business. I take away the stress and worry so that my clients can focus on growing their business doing more of what they love as I do what I love. I think that what I do is fun and that comes across to my clients and makes them feel less overwhelmed or scared of this part of their business. For me when a client says I don’t know how we did this before you brings such joy and happiness that reminds me how something that comes easy to me makes such a difference to them and their business.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Honestly because I deal with people’s finances the chances that someone would go to my website and hire me is pretty slim (although someone did send me a DM on Instagram looking for a bookkeeper out of the blue and now are my client). I do the usual posting on Facebook and Instagram and belonging to groups but for me personally the best place that I have gotten alot of clients is networking. I belong to a local group and they have events every 2 months and we all follow eachother so they come to know me as the bookkeeping expert and when they are ready because they have met me and have gotten to know little more about my personality from social media they hire me.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

So for me when Covid hit it didn’t really affect me personally. I was already working from home so really no change there but it did affect all of my clients. During that time I had clients in the restaurant industry as well as a teaching school so they needed to figure out what all that was going on meant for their business. Now since they were being affected it did look like it was going to affect me financially but as the PPP and EIDL were being rolled out I start taking any training that was offered by the SBA. I took what I was learning to all my clients that were being affected and could benefit from these programs and started applying for the loans that they could get so they were able to stay in business. It was a win-win situation for all of us since I was helping them and although not doing my “normal” bookkeeping it was bringing in income for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://countonpatty.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/count_onpatty/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/countonpatty
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patriciasaggio/