Episode 25: How Breakthrough Transformed a Bookkeeper into a Thriving Firm Owner with Megan Andersen

Jul 26

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Alyssa Lang interviews Megan Andersen, Owner and Founder of Rogue Bookkeeping Inc., a successful Canadian bookkeeping firm that helps both Canadians and United States business owners with their bookkeeping. Megan shares how her business grew and the pain points she experienced along the way and she shares her experience taking our group coaching program, Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants.

In this episode you’ll hear:

How she turned her pain points into areas of improvement
Her experience taking our program Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants
Where she was in her journey to where she is now
How she was able to get Breakthrough 95% refunded to her through a grant offered in Canada
Ways she involved her team in rolling out new tech taught in Breakthrough
Her experience transitioning from hourly pricing to value pricing

Resources mentioned in this episode:

👥 The WorkFlow Watering Hole Facebook Group

💻 Kickoff with Asana for Bookkeepers & Accountants

💻 Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants

💸 Canadas Community Futures Program

⚙️ Notion

☎️ Schedule a Consult Call with Alyssa Lang

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In this episode and blog, I’m SO pumped to be sitting here with one of my rockstar students and incredible firm owner, Megan Andersen. She’s been through my program Kickoff with Asana for Bookkeepers & Accountants AND our group coaching program, Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants — and now she’s here to share her experience with you.

Basically, Kickoff with Asana for Bookkeepers & Accountants helped Megan get her systems in place so she could better serve her bookkeeping clients (which is literally the whole reason I created it in the first place so, yay!). And Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants helped Megan shift from being a bookkeeper to being a badass firm owner by helping her scale with confidence to totally transform her business.

I can’t wait for you to dive into the rest of this, so let’s get into it!

Successfully Using Our Courses + Programs Internationally

One of the biggest reasons I wanted to bring Megan on was because she’s actually based in Canada! A lot of firm owners think that our courses or group coaching program won’t work for them because they’re not based in the United States, but that simply isn’t true.

Here’s what Megan had to say about her experience inside Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants as a Canadian firm owner:

“It's great because, like all the key modules and stuff like that, they're all around: How to build your business, how to structure the workflows, the SOPs, the company culture. Everything about that is just universal. It's not US specific. It's not Canadian specific. It's not anything. It's just a way to run your business.”

Everything that we offer in our programs is intentionally universal, because building repeatable systems in your firm so you can scale and profit is a MUST no matter where your business is located!

You have the power to ignore anything that doesn’t align with your country’s bookkeeping or accounting standards and use our methods as inspiration to create a system that makes more sense for you.

The Challenges of Rapid Growth + How To Fix Them

When Megan first heard about our group coaching program, she really resonated with the struggles that A LOT of bookkeeping firm owners experience. Things like:

Need to hire but don’t know where to start
Figuring out how to increase profitability of their offers
Feel like there’s no capacity to scale the business
Wish they could duplicate themselves to get more done
Dream of building a team that can run the firm unsupervised
Take time off from the business, totally unplugged

And the great thing about Breakthrough is that you don’t have to follow the content in order. So when you join, you’ll actually get a 1:1 strategy call with me and we’ll identify your biggest roadblock so I can guide you toward the module in the program that’s going to help you the fastest.

It’s meant to support you based on your bottlenecks (aka roadblocks), because one firm is going to have totally different priorities from the next based on where you’re at in business.

If you have a team, bring them to Breakthrough! We LOVE having team members inside the program to help you implement the content.

The Best Advice for New Bookkeepers

Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants isn’t for bookkeepers fresh out of the gate. You need to have a handful of clients and some kind of project management system in place before it’s a good fit.

But Megan says that she struggled to believe that her firm would ever grow to the success that it is today, which is why she was feeling so stuck before joining the program. Her advice?

When you start your own bookkeeping firm, plan for the business that you want – not the one you think you’re going to have. Just go for the dream, it’s totally achievable!

So if you set up your processes in Asana even though you only have one client, you’ll be SUPER prepared when you have 5, 10, and 20. And if you set up your backend systems and all the fun things we cover in Breakthrough, you’ll be able to move gracefully into the next level when you’re ready (aka no scrambling to figure things out and untangle a big mess).

Confidently Increasing Your Prices

One of the modules in Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants is called Optimized Offers, and Megan’s journey with pricing and packages has changed for the better after going through the program. Now, she’s able to have a conversation with her clients and offer them a pricing structure that works best for them, while keeping her profitable so that everyone wins!

The Joy of Organizing Your Business in Notion

In the World Class Systems module, you’ll discover how much is stored in your brain instead of in your company’s information system. Which is where Notion comes in!

We recommend a powerful software called Notion, something I could talk for hours about, to help you create a centralized hub for all the information you or your team could ever need in your business. This goes way beyond your project management system — it’s where you put the WHY you do everything, instead of just the HOW.

You can use it for things like:

Client nuances and processes
SOPs and procedures
Project briefs + debriefs
ANYTHING ELSE – it’s the best!

Hiring Team Members With Ease — Even If You Dread It

Megan wasn’t planning on running a team like the one she has now, but the process was made SO MUCH easier once she had the strategies that we teach in the program to guide her.

She was able to:

Create a super-aligned job description
Attract the types of people that fit in her company culture
Define her core values and let them inform her decisions

Hiring can absolutely be a headache, but it’s also necessary for building a firm where you’re no longer the bottleneck.

How To Know If Breakthrough’s Right For You

Megan’s biggest takeaways from being in the program for over a year are:

The value of the community inside of the Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants student Facebook group (one of my favorite elements of the program, too!)
Access to the coaches inside the program and regular coaching calls
Different perspectives from other members of the group
Notion templates to immediately implement a holistic system

If you can’t decide if you’re actually ready to join Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants yourself, I encourage you to hop on a consultation call with me! There’s never any pressure to join, and I’ll never recommend something I don’t think would be a great fit for you.

About our guest:

Megan Andersen has always loved numbers and entrepreneurship but if you told 17 year old Megan that she'd eventually grow up to own her own bookkeeping firm she'd have said you're crazy because she hates sales. (Just wait till she tells about the time she was a salesperson for a newspaper company...) Rogue Bookkeeping is the dream Megan never knew she had until it happened. She has an amazing team of bookkeepers who she loves working with and the best clients a person could ask for. They work with a variety of clients in a variety of industries, from a mom selling cake toppers on Etsy to a vacation rental property management firm to a business that imports and sells industrial AC units across North America.

Connect with Megan Andersen:

Follow her on Instagram: instagram.com/roguebookkeeping

Check out here Facebook page: facebook.com/roguebookkeeping

Email her: hello@roguebookkeeping.ca

Check out her website: roguebookkeeping.ca

Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram stories and tag me, @workflowqueen

For more information about the Conquering Workflows & Systems for Bookkeepers & Accountants Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:

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