Conquering Workflows & Systems For Bookkeepers & Accountants | with Alyssa Lang (Workflow Queen)
Conquering Workflows & Systems For Bookkeepers & Accountants | with Alyssa Lang (Workflow Queen)
The Power of Niching Down: The Path to a Thriving Bookkeeping and Accounting Business with Sarah Bratcher
Alyssa Lang interviews Sara Bratcher, Founder and CPA of REI Accounting Solutions, on the power of niching down, adapting processes within a niche focus, and the importance of staying updated on industry trends and technologies. Sara shares her journey of transitioning to a niche within real estate investing, the impact of letting go of non-aligned clients, and the strategies for conquering imposter syndrome and self-doubt.
In this episode you’ll hear:
- Why it's essential to focus on a niche for business success
- How Sara let go of clients not aligned with her niche to better serve others
- The importance of continuously evaluating and adapting processes within a niche
- How industry trends and technologies play a role in niche adaptability
About our guest:
Sarah Bratcher lives in Southern Oklahoma with her husband and two kids. They enjoy screen-free family time and taking walks together.
Sarah initially planned on a traditional career, but her college experience shifted her perspective. After graduating with an accounting degree, she began working at a public accounting firm but soon discovered her true passion for organizing financial records rather than dealing with tax season. Recognizing limited growth opportunities in bookkeeping within a CPA firm, she transitioned to a CFO role for a real estate developer. There, she gained valuable experience as the company grew to build 500 houses per year and manage 1,000 rental properties.
Over time, Sarah realized she wanted to focus on helping early-stage investors analyze their financial statements and grow their legacies. She started her own business and, after 8 years and 19 exams, passed the CPA exam. Today, Sarah is dedicated to organizing real estate investors' books and providing exceptional customer service.
Connect with Sarah Bratcher:
Follow Sarah on Instagram: @rei.solutions.with.sarah
Follow Sarah on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahlkay
Email Sarah: sarah@reiaccountingsolutions.com
Resources mentioned in this episode:
🎙️ Podcast: The Game by Alex Hormozzi
💻 Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants
📘 'The Way of Integrity' by Martha Beck
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:
Visit our website: workflowqueen.com
Check out our courses: workflowqueen.com/courses
Follow the Blog: workflowqueen.com/blog
Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alyssa-lang-wq
Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/workflowqueen
Connect on Facebook: Facebook.com/workflowqueen
Podcast Publishing Tools we use:
- Podcast Editing: Ian Gilliam: iangilliam.com
Hey everyone. And welcome back to yet. Another episode I'm so excited because I'm bringing on such an incredible guest. Her name is Sarah Bratcher. She's actually one of my amazing breakthrough students and she also owns a very beautiful business. It's called REI accounting solutions. In today's episode, we're going to be really deep diving into how she decided on her niche, what that looked like her process of having to let go of the clients that no longer were in her niche. Really just how she leaned fully into it, what that process looked like for her, how she leverages her niche to really connect her clients and to learn for herself as well as her and her husband actually do some real estate investing as well. And so this is such a great. Conversation. She's also going to share at the end of the episode, her experience going through my group coaching program, breakthrough and how it transformed her business. So I'm so excited for you to learn more from Sarah and I hope you enjoy today's episode. Hey everyone and welcome back to yet another episode of the conquering workflows and systems for bookkeepers and accounts podcast. I'm so pumped because I have such a special guest here today and I'm so excited and so honored to be interviewing her. I have been putting her through the poor girl has been through the ringer lately with me having to reschedule this. So I'm so grateful for the flexibility and the freedom that we have here. With running our businesses that we can kind of just like gently ask people for support. So I am so grateful for you, Sarah. Thank you for being here today. What an absolute honor. I would love for you to just take a moment to introduce yourself. I'm so excited to be diving into some topics. I think our audience really wants to hear today. So welcome, Sarah, please feel free to introduce yourself.
Sara Bratcher:Hi, my name is Sarah Bratcher. I am a CPA. But while I was going through college and right after I graduated from college, I was working for a public accounting firm and learned that taxes just weren't my passion, wasn't my passion. And I fell into a job doing controller and eventually CFO duties for a real estate investor. He was a developer construction. And he scaled his business so quickly and in the eight years I was with him, we just, we just flew. the year I left him, he had a thousand rentals in his portfolio and was building over 500 houses a year. And I had gone from doing the day to day bookkeeping with him and bank deposits to, um, To in meetings with lawyers and you know, hashing out, bonds and, you know, how to, fund these huge 50 million projects and doing all that. And I, just along the way I lost myself. I, got into doing all that. And I mean, the money was great. We had built a lifestyle around the money and I, I got very sick one year and like, I kept going to the doctors and I kept going to the doctors and they were like, well, this'll help. And this'll help. And it was all kinds of things from heart to my gut to everything. And just kind of to shorten that down, eventually I realized it was the and I just, I wasn't handling it correctly and it just, it just didn't feel like the right place for me anymore but we had built a lifestyle that we couldn't, I couldn't just walk away. I started interviewing for other jobs but we would have to move to get, everything going the same there and we sat down and we looked and we spent two years paying off all of our consumer debt. I was an accountant. I was, you know, I knew, but emotionally through all this, we were spending so much money. My husband had a great job and we were just together combined. We had 154, 000 in consumer debt, cars, credit cards, personal loans. I mean, we were living, I mean, we had an Instagram beautiful story. But stress and everything else was weighing us down. So we hungered down two years, paid off all our debt, was able to live on my husband's income and. I was like, I'm gonna start my own business and we're going to build our own wealth and I, I started it thinking, Oh, my passion is you know, doing the bookkeeping and in the books and all this other stuff. And then, you know, I'm, I'm about two and a half years in now. And I'm like, yeah, I'll probably need to fire that out. It's different when you get to where you actually own the business and your ideas and your dreams start taking shape. And it's been a wild, crazy ride and I'm here for it. I've enjoyed it the whole time. it's been amazing.
Alyssa Lang:Oh, how fun. So how long have you had? Cause you have, I don't think you dropped the name, but it's REI accounting solutions. How long have you had your firm? About two and a half years, two and a half years. So did you immediately go in? Cause I know you kind of touched on this, but so you immediately went in when you wanted to start your own firm, you were just like, you know what, I'm going to go right into REI or were you thinking another option at that time?
Sara Bratcher:I had the real estate background. So I was like, yeah, I'll do, you know, I'll do real estate investments. But at the beginning I went ahead and took on trades and you know, I kind of outside of, of, of strictly real estate investors. Because you know, you're hungry and you're like, I got to get all this stuff. And I gotta pay the bill somehow. Yeah. And but this year I have been able to, I mean, they were amazing clients, but I have been able to find them new bookkeepers so I can hyper focus on real estate investors right now.
Alyssa Lang:Yeah, I love that. So I would love to kind of talk about because I'm telling you this is like a big topic that my audience really wants to hear more about is how did you decide to niche down? A lot of the logistic questions that I get is like, what did you do with your clients? Like, did you fire them? Did you pass them on? Did you keep them? So I would love to kind of just like peel apart the niche side of things just to kind of like see what your process was like. So You had said that you worked with other types of companies and at one point like what was the triggering point or when did you like pull the trigger to say you know what I'm going all in only on REI and like getting rid of all these other clients like let's just say it's like five clients. Did you release those clients or did you keep them for some time period overlapping?
Sara Bratcher:It was overlapping and some of it was natural. one of my older service guys retired. And some of it was natural. But this year I was active in finding better solutions for them. It was you know, and a lot of it was, going through breakthrough and systemizing everything. And we got to where our real estate investing clients, we were so systemized and everything that it, I mean, it was going so smooth. And then our other service or trade client it felt like it was weighing us down. And every week we were like, Oh, we got to deal with this guy. And we got to deal with, um, cause they have like, there was one guy that had a third party. Connection with an AR that was specialized in his industry and, I would ask around and everybody's like, Oh no, that's horrible. You got to spend so much time with it. And so anyways, it just, things like that. It was weighing me down and I was getting back into that mindset of this isn't fun anymore. So I worked with them to find a better solution for them. And You know, letting those go there was a struggle, an internal struggle with it. Like I didn't want to let them go because I didn't want them to be like, Oh, she let me go. Da da da da. So I was trying to find a way to have the conversation to be like, I'm, doing good in this area and I think somebody else would do better for you. And so I did it all ended up working out. Everybody's been so happy. And you know, I still, keep in touch with some of them occasionally.
Alyssa Lang:Yeah. And sometimes though, like when you do that, you're actually doing them. And I think you touched on this, which I think is such a beautiful point is that you're actually doing them a disservice by keeping them that sometimes when you're like all in and you're putting all your production time, all your team, your time, your, your love, and your support is going towards like these types of clients, then you've got these like one or two outliers. It's like, I love them just as much, but at the end of the day, it's like, I really want to pour all in here. And it's just a distraction sometimes. I know some firms that, Brooke Swan does this really well, like inside of Breakthrough, our coach. Brooke's great at like, she handles a lot of different types of clients, but she does go for more of the trades. So I always use her as an example for this, that like, For her, it works out and if the system can work for you, but if you're all in on just one niche, I say, just go all in and just make it happen in there. And like you said, you have to let that go, but the relationship, what I always tell people is like, don't just like, let someone go. You can, you can do whatever you want, but my recommendation, kind of like what the approach you took, which is. I still want to be a decent person to still support you through this journey. So my way of support is now going to look different. My way of support is going to be, I'm going to reach out to my network. Now that I've dropped this bomb on you to tell you that we are going to go with this focus, I'm going to connect you with two people that I strongly suggest that are going to take really good care of you. And that right there on its own is just so powerful to be the connector that they need.
Sara Bratcher:Yeah, it's been powerful and you know, they I don't know who they are, but they say I'll use them for example here but you know you you choose your hard and Your hard becomes easy. So real estate investing is easy to me. You know in face groups and everything people ask real estate investing questions, and I'm like that's easy like And I'll DM him and I'll be like, Hey, here's what I would do. You know, I try to help him out and everything. And I'm like, this used to be hard for me. And like the clients I let go, that was hard for me because I didn't focus on it. And so I was able to find people that it wasn't hard for them because they know about it and they focused on it and they had that. And it just gives my brain the bandwidth to stay in my lane and, And to offer more for my clients because I can focus, you know, hyper focus and you know, move into, I can, I can, I have more time to, you know, read tax stuff. And like, I don't do tax planning per se, but I am able to suggest, Hey, why don't you talk to your tax preparer about this? And that allows me to have better customer service for mine all around. It just frees up the brain space, I guess you could say. And, to just go all in on it.
Alyssa Lang:Yeah. Especially because like, what do they say? Riches are in the niches. And I do believe that, that when you start to niche down, you ultimately get to have the luxury of, you're kind of playing in the pot of gold. But like I said, I know a lot of firms that do it really well without ever niching and like, it's, it's okay. So like for anyone like listening here, I just want to give full grace to you if it supports you in any capacity. Just because Sarah or myself, because I'm also niched as well, have chosen a certain path or chosen a certain niche. One, it doesn't need to be an industry. I think that's what a lot of people, the confusion is. It could be a type of person. It could be a revenue range. Do what feels good for you, but you also don't have to. And sometimes, like you said, you have to play in the sandbox at first and try different clients, see what sticks, what feels good. And it seems like you went back to your roots of what you originally were doing prior to starting your firm.
Sara Bratcher:Right. And you just have to choose what your passion is. And you know, some people, their passion is problem solving and critical thinking. And they get that by not having a niche. They get that by, oh, this person has a problem, I'm gonna help 'em solve it. And, you know, that's their passion and that's what they wanna see. so yeah, absolutely. you don't have to niche, but in, you know, maybe I don't know how you would market that, but, having that as your strategy of just being a problem solver and figuring this out for people is just as marketable somehow as having a niche.
Alyssa Lang:Yeah, exactly. It's just all about the way that you say it or you approach it or the way you're vetting the people. So I'd like to kind of take a step back because I think one big enticing reason most people want to niche down Is they hear a lot of people talking about if you niche down, then your processes are easier. The hiring becomes easier, like everything in the business becomes easier. So I'd love to know, is that true?
Sara Bratcher:Yes and no, I guess as with everything in a way it got me, stuck in a mindset of, yeah, we have to do it this way. And I wasn't looking, but I had a situation earlier this year and just recently I brought on a younger lady that She has an associate's degree and she's going for her full degree and I went ahead and brought her on and her energy and her mindset and her seeing the way things and seeing things differently through her eyes I'm like, okay, we could change this up a little bit And so I don't know how to put that into a quick little package But don't get stuck when you get there. I mean still still look at You And reevaluate your processes and to make sure that you're still serving you and your clients. Well, and your team, team learns and reacts in different ways. And so it can, you know, streamline and be great, but if you. input the wrong thing, then it may not work anymore and you have to revisit it, so.
Alyssa Lang:Yeah, and that's kind of like with all processes, like you said, like, it all comes down to like, yes, it helps make things a little bit easier, because like, for us, we have like a standard chart of accounts for like, the people that we serve, and it just makes it a lot easier, we only work with women, so we like, have certain ways of talking, like, there's just like a whole thing, and like, we just pick up these little traits, but at the same time, it does give us the opportunity to, um, read up on maybe articles of what's the new tech in the industry, what's kind of going on, what's the new things that are falling on their lap, like what's happening out there. And it allows your team to drill into the research. Cause it does not need to always be you. It could be your team. Like, you know, go sign up for this newsletter, go follow this person. Like a big one for my industry is Amy Porterfield. Cause she shifts a lot and she knows a lot of tech. She knows, kind of knows what's going on. And so like follow her, see what's going on, see what her new suggestions are, stuff like that. So like we're following the right people. So while it does make it easier, like you said, you can also be thrown into a real quick, like, like a rabbit hole of having to make some changes because the industry is moving together. And when the industry changes, you've got to change and you have to adapt to really quickly.
Sara Bratcher:Especially with this AI coming out and having to like get on top of that and everything. But, and another thing is, is taking, you know, you, you talk to these clients you know, once a month mostly, and you can take that in your other clients having a problem and you're like, wait a minute, I could connect them. And I have, cause well, in real estate investing, it really works out because, you know, people are always buying and selling and it's like, It's like, okay, I want to get out of multifamily and focus on self storage and I'm like, oh, these people wanted to get into multifamily and I like, I can connect y'all and, it ends up being great for that.
Alyssa Lang:Yeah. It's funny cause you sound like you're just like me where we love to connect people. So. I know some people naturally aren't like this, which I think is fine. Everybody has their own strengths. But I think I really pride myself in being what I like to call a connector. So, like, usually I know someone somewhere that's going to be able to support someone if it's not us. And so, like, I never want to just leave people be. So, I'll give you a great example. Yesterday, um, fell out of my niche, which is, uh, I actually canceled the call with them. And they booked a console. They're like, I know I'm not your ideal client, but I would love to pick your brain and this. And one console calls aren't meant to pick my brain. Like there's paid calls for that. Plus if you're outside the industry and she was super sweet, but I like, don't want to leave her hanging. So I'm like, Hey, look, I'm Tell me what you got going on in the business. I canceled the call because like these calls aren't for free, you know, advice and tips. It's an opportunity to talk about working with us. Plus you do fall outside of our niche of who we serve. So I'm not going to do you a favor because at the day, like you're going to want to work with someone who can support you, who I'm going to do you a disservice by getting on the call with me and like wasting your time. And so I reach out all the time to breakthrough students. You probably always see me like posting my like referrals needed. So I posted my breakthrough group of like, Hey, does anybody want this client? This is what they have going on. And I usually connect them. I give them like two to three recommendations. And it sounds like you're the same. When I think of my clients, we were like, yeah, I really want to run Facebook ads. Cool. We've got this ad agency that we actually work with. They're incredible. They get great results. We could see the results, like, you know what I mean? And it is so cool. So it sounds like that's what you're doing too. We're releveraging the niche. To also further connect them so that you can be well known as like the connector, not only the bookkeeper
Sara Bratcher:and the accountant. And then the cherry on top of that, my husband and I are real estate investors ourselves. So we get, we get to see the inside of, of some of the industry inside. there are a lot of influencers or, you know, big, big real estate investors out there that, that are big names and, you know, they talk about how Real estate investing is you have legal insider information, like, where the industry's going, you know, where, you know, what markets are good. And you can act on those without going to jail, like you can the stock market. And so we are able to share information like that in this industry. So it's it's special. I enjoy it and it's my unfair advantage. It's, what I knew.
Alyssa Lang:Yeah. It's so funny that you say that because like, as someone who is a course creator here at Workflow Queen, cause that's what I do. I educate, consult, and we have courses. We serve course creators at my firm. So it's just really funny that you say that because like, I get to work with like multimillion dollar, you know consulting and, and course creating business owners. Like, and I get to see Their results. So one big thing is right now. It's an election year. So things are a little bit weird as we all know, election years are usually like one of those years that people are like hesitant to spend as much because like we don't know who's going to get elected. And so I've seen this natural shift, which is funny. We do what's called launching. So launching is like a short promotion period. And it's really big, but like I would never use the word launching in that terminology if I worked with REI clients. So even the terminology, what you would be saying wouldn't make no sense to me and my clients, but it makes sense to you and your clients. You're speaking their language. You're having the conversation that they can relate to. And so for me, I could see industry insight of like, Oh my gosh, it's not just us. It's like launches aren't doing as well as normal. They're also struggling. A lot of our like bigger clients are going through this weird phase as well. And so, like you said, you kind of get like the cheat code, like you got like. The insider access to all the cool things, you know?
Sara Bratcher:it's your own portal to what, what you need. You don't have to read up on that. You just, you know, because you're in it every single day.
Alyssa Lang:I love that. And not only that, but you can be like to your clients. So give me like two, two steps. Do you like sentences of brief, like what's going on in the industry? Like they could be doing the cliff notes for you. It's great. I just love this so much. So I kind of want to talk about like the business and everything else that you have, like going on. I know that the niching has been such an incredible tool for you, but I really want to lean into, uh, You've already been transparent. I know you've dropped a breakthrough. So for anyone listening, Breakthrough is our group coaching program. We essentially help scaling firms, like really get to that next level where we're letting go of the work, hiring the right people, implementing the right systems. And I know that you've been inside of Breakthrough for what, like about a year now? Is it almost a year? I think almost a year now. Yeah. Yeah. It's been, I think September. I want to say September of last year.
Sara Bratcher:I feel like that's, I feel like that's right. Yeah, it was like the
Alyssa Lang:summer. Yeah, it was like sometime in the summer. So I want to kind of like take a step back and just like talk about one of the big things that you kind of noted on your forum when we were trying to see what kind of topics to talk about was imposter syndrome. So, This is a huge topic. I know that you just listened to a podcast episode. I talked about my own imposter syndrome. So I would love to hear from your own words. What kind of imposter syndrome have you had to really work through? And in what way have we supported you maybe inside of Breakthrough or just in general anybody in this space?
Sara Bratcher:Yeah. So by my former job, I don't want to say too much bad things and on the off chance anybody I used to work with here, they're all great people and they meant well. But it just comes from one of those you know, the jokes around the water cooler and everything. And it was like, Oh, nobody cares about accounting and dah, dah, dah, dah. And just years of blaming on accounting. Nobody ever sees them. And accounting is just a cost center because everybody knows accounting is a cost center. And even though, you know, I knew in my heart that I was doing amazing things. I didn't get validation from anybody in the company because that, that was kind of the atmosphere of accounting was, you know, a negative thing because it was always joked about and negative. And it just wore you down and weighed on you. And so I went out to start this and I was like, Oh, I'm good. I'm good. And, but I could tell when I first started doing sales calls that I was so, I couldn't add value to people because I was just like, well, we're just a cost center. I know. And, it was hard for me to find the confidence. And it actually took a while before I realized, and I connected the dots, like, Oh, Wait a minute, I've been told for years that accounting's nothing, they're a cost center, and da da da da, and from people that had that mindset, and I was like, okay, I have got to find myself, and I have got to figure out why I am valuable to these people because at one point somebody said I wasn't valuable. And that was the biggest thing I had to overcome. And it took a long time. And I, I'm still not over overcoming it. I'm, But this year I've put myself out there more than anything and I'm starting to talk to people about doing some affiliations with like huge players in the game, like huge players in the game. And you know, I got accepted to a huge podcast and I'm like, how did this happen? Who am I? I'm just a costumer. And I'm here I am doing this and people are like, yes, we need more bookkeeping because everybody in the real estate industry, the CPAs that go in, they only talk about tax strategies and they don't talk about how important the bookkeeping behind it is. And and so I'm like, okay, I could be a voice in this. And so I still doubt myself, I still have to go through at least once a week I have a list. the title will change occasionally, but it's like sometimes it's, what have I accomplished? And I have to list out ten things that I've accomplished that will defeat that voice in my head. And. You know, I have to go through those you know, routines, maybe sometimes it's a walk. Sometimes it's so heavy on me. Like I've just got to get the energy out of me because I'm like, I got to get this out. And excuse me, it still has a hold of me. So I'm not completely over it. I've just learned how to bust through and just do
Alyssa Lang:it anyways. Yeah. The coping part where it's like, I always say, Imposter syndrome never really goes away. It just changes its form. So the form can change from, you know, at the very beginning, we were all really scared of debits and credits, and I'm going to mess it up. And like, what if I don't balance it correctly? Or what if this? Or what if I actually send the wrong reports to the wrong clients? And then, you know, Like you said, you choose your heart, right? So all of a sudden now all that stuff's easy. All the things that felt hard are now really easy. But now new versions of new heart and new imposter syndrome is gonna come up and it's gonna creep on you. I know for me, like my first I did a podcast interview. The first one I ever did, I was so nervous. Like I was really nervous for that podcast interview. And then the next one came around. I was still nervous and I would get nervous and I would get nervous and then it was less nervous. And then all of a sudden, like I was no longer nervous being on the podcast. And then all of a sudden the universe does this in really funny ways where it's like, well, you nailed that one. So let's give you something bigger. And it became, do you want to speak on stage? I was terrified and I literally like think I blacked out on stage like it was really scary for me like, but it was a new form of imposter syndrome I can present all day every day in front of like people virtually, I could be on so many podcast interviews I never have to prep anymore. And for other people that's really hard but now my new heart is like. I get terrified when someone asks me if I want to go to an event and speak now, because I know what it felt like actually speaking at that time. So it's your imposter syndrome hasn't left is what I'm getting from what you're saying. It's just different experiences of it and different forms of it. And maybe in bigger capacities in ways that you never imagined would even be dropped on your plate.
Sara Bratcher:Absolutely. I do, and I, tell people all the time, I've done so many big, scary, hairy things this year that I never imagined I would, I would do, but the thing, do it, the saying, do it scared, just do it scared, do it anyway. And It's kind of, you know, I've just put myself into situations where it's, it's not about me. My son has a rare bone disease and we recently spent two weeks in Florida and it's a very expensive life to live to have to travel medically and So I just, I channel that, like these people don't pay my medical bills, I do, and I'm only gonna be able to pay these medical bills if I put myself out there and if I keep climbing up. I'm only gonna be able to afford, I mean, we have insurance and our insurance is amazing, but they still don't pay for hotels and travel and, you know, we have a one year old too, like we need care for her while we're, you know, helping him and, and, and it's just very intricate and, that's where a lot of it comes from. It's, you know, throughout building this business, it's find your why, find your why, and breakthrough you, you have a, you know, a section on that and, focus on that. And you know, my son is my why. And because I want to provide him the best life that I can give him. And the only way I do that is. If I put myself out there and do scary things and, what do they say, , shoot for the moon and you'll land in the stars, like, I'm just trying to, trying to get near them stars up there.
Alyssa Lang:Yeah, I love that so much. And I'm so sorry to hear about your son and like what he's experiencing. I know that's very, very hard and it can be a lot of pressure on the family. But it is a very powerful, very powerful why. My brother passed away from cancer and he's one of my biggest why's because like life was so short for him. And so it's crazy to see like life, how it can change so fast. And at the end of the day, it's like, I don't want to just work. And now I'm just leaving my nine to five to just come and have another nine to five in a different format. Like, I don't want that. Like I want peace. I want calm. I, if life happens or something happens to my family or something, I'm sure that just like you, you want to be able to just leave and know that the bills are going to be paid. The you know, the work the clients are still going to be cared for and you can still be there for your son and Your family as you guys navigate this
Sara Bratcher:Yeah, you know, absolutely. I just yeah, and I just I don't care what anybody thinks anymore because I only care what this little boy thinks and To get him that i'm gonna have to do stupid. I'm gonna say stupid things on podcast. I'm gonna i'm gonna Probably not i'm gonna i'm gonna Somewhere along the line, I'm going to provide misinformation, unknowingly, not meaningfully, but it's, going to happen, and I just have to accept that that's going to happen, but it's okay, because I, provide value in so many ways, outside of, you know, the one little, two little flukes, and I'm just going to have to put myself out there to give this kid what he deserves, you know. I absolutely love that.
Alyssa Lang:If anybody knows who messes up lines, I'm like known for messing up slogans and I say it all the time. I'm like, I'm somehow going to butcher this. I've gotten to a point where I've just accepted it and I'm like, I've just become known as a person who always says all the phrases wrong. And like, that's okay. It's become like my thing. So maybe your mess has become your, like, not in a bad way, like your thing, but like you get what I'm saying.
Sara Bratcher:Yeah.
Alyssa Lang:I'm like, Hey, it's fine. I say, I'll have to get back with you on that. Right. We're like, we'll make a list. It's fine. So I would love to kind of take a step back. I was, as we start migrating towards, you know, wrapping this up today. I know that you've talked about breakthrough and you've had that conversation, but. This is coming out at the most perfect time while people are listening. It's, everyone's coming back to school, all the kids, cause we do have a predominant following of a lot of women who kids are going back to school. And a lot of people start wanting to take interest inside of Breakthrough. So I'd love to hear if you've got a moment or two to share like your experience being inside of Breakthrough and really what it's done for your firm and how you've implemented it, because that's the biggest thing we're not going to implement for you. So you had to put in the work to make it happen. So I'd love to hear like what you have to say about it.
Sara Bratcher:I knew from my prior job that I needed process to scale to big heights. I, I had to get my processes and workflows down. And I thought I had enough experience to be like, Oh, hey, I'll just do this. And then, When you first say, Oh, I want to become a bookkeeper. I'll open my own bookkeeping business. You think, Oh, I'll just go do this and this and this. And then you get into the weeds and you're like, there's so much software out there that offers so much different things. And, um, you're like, where do I start? Where do I start? Where do I start? And you like start on three or four of them and everything and nothing happens. And I think the, the biggest thing is just to start. And I. I was having issues with that. Like, I would try Excel, but then I'd get so wound up in Excel. And I was in, I was just end up doing everything. And because I was like, I'm not going to do workflow to the processes because I can get it done faster than I can put it on paper. You know, I was one of those. But yet in the back of my mind, I was like, one day I'll have enough money to hire somebody to do that. I think is what I told myself. One, one day I'll have somebody that can, yeah. That can do the systems and processes. And, and then I did your, I think you had a challenge and I did it and I went through all of that and I was like, okay, , I just need to do it. I need , to get serious about this. I had Asana and I kind of halfway used it, but I wasn't implementing it correctly. And, you know, I didn't go all in on it. And I was like I need to go all in on breakthrough and I mean, it's more than just systems and processes. You go through mindset and you know, optimizing the offers and , just so many bigger things other than just the, you know, the workflows and the processes and then the bonus episodes where everybody, , talks more, it goes into more detail about specific things. If you want to, you know, Go down into it and everything, but it can also work if you aren't in a sauna or notion and that's, that's the beautiful thing about it. I mean, you do, you do go into that and I've actually adapted it around, you know, kind of did a hybrid thing , that worked better for me and So yeah, I was able to step back immensely and I was able to spend two weeks in Florida and I probably worked maybe, in that full two weeks, I probably worked two and a half hours. Because I'm not, I'm not big enough, I don't have, I mean I have the org chart that you have. That you gave us and I have all of our names. I have two part time right now and I have, you know, all of our names filled out on who does what thing and I'm still in most of them. And so we're, we're going to transition into that later this year, but we just haven't gotten there yet. But anyways so yeah, I'm, I'm still in a lot of those and I still was able to give my son the attention he needed. And, you know, clients didn't even know I wasn't at my house. They didn't even know I was. I
Alyssa Lang:love that that's the best part is like when you don't have to ask permission to your clients because you've got somebody to support
Sara Bratcher:you and this time last year I couldn't step away from my desk for you know more than two hours at a time because something was going to be on fire and so yeah that's just a quick recap of you know before and after I've it's come full circle and that's I, I was of the mindset. Oh, I have the time right now. I'm going to spend, you know, 24 hours a day and da, da, da, da, da. But no, I couldn't do that. it is a slow process. Don't expect going through breakthrough. You're going to implement it all in, you know, a day. I still to this day, well, I think a couple of days ago, I went back into breakthrough and referred back to some of the stuff in there because I needed to Because as I grow and as I fill the positions, I need to go back and remind myself, okay, what do we do over here? And what, what does everybody do about this? And so it's a, It is something that I go into at least once a week, I think right now as we're trying to shift and get everything worked out to where I can take a month off in Europe, if I want to, if
Alyssa Lang:we'll get there, we'll get you there. And I'm so excited that day's gonna, it's going to happen. You, your son, your family, it's going to be so awesome. One thing I'd love to kind of just take a step back with what you said. It's important, regardless of even talking about breakthrough, it's As different parts of your journey unfold, you're going to need different things along the way in order to support you in the business and support whatever those things are. There's going to be new things that break along the way. You could be hiring your very first employee and that is such a different process than your new hard, which might be a couple of employees at one time, or now we need to build on an onboarding system or what's going to happen. And I think the beauty is of what you said is that. Take what you need and no matter what you take it, you could be coaching with someone directly. You could just be reading an article online. Take what you need right now. Trying to implement everything is going to get you nowhere, but try to implement what makes the most sense right now. And then as you continue to grow, you refer back. And that's what you've just kind of shared right now as you're referring back to, well, I need this new problem to be solved. And that's what Breakthroughs for is. It's not meant to be in order. It's meant to be solving your problems as they come up, which is really cool that you shared that. So for anyone listening, like just identify, if you can just take the time to say, what is not working really well for me? Yes, we all want to make money and also all want to build the team and do this, but what's hurting the absolute most is Focus on that. Focus on finding a solution for that. Instead of trying to be fixing onboarding and fixing offboarding and also doing organizing this and this, it's like, we all do it. I know I can ping pong and I could scroll real quick and it gets me nowhere. If I can just heavily focus in, I can get focus. And that's what it sounded like. You went to the program for was like, I know I need to fix this. Let's get this solution. And now you're just coming back to fix new things.
Sara Bratcher:Yeah. And I, went in fast and furious and it was good for the time, but I quickly was like, okay, I can't keep this stamina up because this program is so much bigger than I thought it was. And so I was like, I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up that stamina and progress. Cause it's, I mean, it's a lot of information. It's a lot of learning and everything. after, you know, my, my, quick burst into it, I was like, okay, I'm going to just, figure out a schedule to be consistent and make breakthrough a habit. It's a task I have to do every single day. And some weeks all I could accommodate was 15 to 30 minutes, but I had to be in breakthrough for 15 to 30 minutes just to be familiar with You know, the terminology in there and where you were going and what you were doing and sometimes I'd have to go back and listen to that 15 minutes because my attention was actually over here while I was doing it, but just the habit of listening to breakthrough every single day for at least 15 minutes. Some days it was I could do two to three hours. establishing the habit really got me into it. and got me farther than anything because, it's easy to go in really excited and burn out really quickly and but if you just, make a plan and stick with it. Yeah.
Alyssa Lang:Yeah, one of the most frequent questions that we get as far as breakthrough is how much is the time commitment. So you kind of just answer that question, which I always tell people, like give yourself just one to two hours a week. However you allocate that, whether one of those hours is in a coaching call or you're just showing up or you're just listening to lessons. It's funny. We haven't really announced this to students yet so I know they're going to get very excited when I say this, we are hoping to do a private podcast for breakthrough students. So that way any of our students come in because If you're like me, I like to go take walks and like, listen to things on the side and like, you know, be doing stuff. And sometimes I don't always want to sit through a lesson that like, is going to teach all the things, but maybe I've already heard it. And now I just want to get the thing. And so sometimes when I'm walking and I can just listen into a lesson, it allows me to kind of say, well, I'm going to let this sink in, but that minute right there, I'm going to go in and like, look at the lesson, look what was on screen and go implement. So it's really exciting. We're working with someone to do a private podcast. I feel like that'd be super helpful. For students who are busy because the ideal person for breakthrough are the ones who are struggling to find time and it's like it's such a catch 22 it's like I can't give time Alyssa and go to break through I really want it but like I can't because I don't got time it's like here's another option to support you as you go through this I can't wait for that to roll out for you guys.
Sara Bratcher:I, I'm excited. I would probably still listen to it, you know, in another year or two, when I first was first starting my business, I didn't have the money to pay big bucks for a marketing guy. And so I consumed a lot of Hermosy stuff because it was free and he had the podcast. I love him so much. And I would, I would just listen to him in the car drop off and just, I would just consuming. words that he had to say as much as I could, so I could get better and better and better and better. And I would do the exact same thing with, with that podcast that you're talking there. I would probably just keep it on repeat. Just so my brain was, in that headspace and getting that information somehow. Yeah. I like
Alyssa Lang:Alex Hirose. For anyone listening, she's talking about the game, which is his podcast, right? So you're talking about his podcast. Yeah. He has such a great podcast and they're short, sweet to the point and super actionable. He's just an amazing businessman in general. He's just wicked smart. So I love that we both like him cause he's awesome.
Sara Bratcher:So he, he said that, you know, you needed a sell day. You didn't have to sell on that day, but you need to sell day for your business. And that was right about the time I took action. He is part of the reason I took action to take Breakthrough. Cause I was like, okay, if I'm going to eventually sell my business. I need Alyssa's course and to get all this down because I can't step away if, and I can't, it's not as valuable if I can't step away, so.
Alyssa Lang:Yeah, not only that, but also it's not valuable if you just purchase and let it sit there, which I tell people all the time. I'm like, don't get it if you're not going to do it. I know that you're busy, but like you have to find time to get out of the cycle. It is a very vicious cycle. I've been there. I know that as this is being recorded today, was you had mentioned that you listened to the most recent podcast episode, which for anyone listening, it happened in June on June 10th was when the episode aired. We're airing this a couple months after, but you even said like, Oh my gosh, like, I can't believe you hired so many people and like doing all these things that you're experiencing all this stuff. And it's just so nice to come back and be able to like, listen in on like, The prior things that have happened are the things that are kind of coming up for you. And so I love all of this. I just love that you've been here. I love that you shared the niche. It's such a big topic that a lot of people keep asking me to bring more guests on. So it actually worked so well. And thank you for sharing just your insight on how it's been successful for you to niche down. And I can't wait to check back in with you and just see where's the growth, how's the work chart going. Um, how are we expanding what's going on? So I can't wait for us to continue to support you because that's really Exciting. And hopefully, um, you'll be in Europe with me. We can just go frolic around together. It'd be really fun. So I am about to go on.
Sara Bratcher:Right.
Alyssa Lang:Yeah, exactly. I'm like so excited. Yeah. So as of recording today, I'm leaving for Europe. Sarah is my last call, which is such a cool honor. Cause I get to end off on a high. I love doing these interviews with people. It gets me all excited about my business again, but I really appreciate you so much for being here. So before we kind of end off here, I just want to say, how can people get into your world? Is there any way that you support this community, not just outside of the bookkeeping for your clients, but is there any other way that you support the community and also how can people get ahold of you?
Sara Bratcher:Instagram is probably where I'm most active. I do Facebook and I'm in the, the breakthrough group. Some I am in some of the real estate investing Facebook groups too, and I do like to talk to new people that are eager to learn and everything if they have any questions about that. And I do that. But on Instagram, I like to provide real estate accounting tips and stuff like that for them. I'm REI solutions with Sarah.@rei.solutions.with.sarah sorry, I forget about that.
Alyssa Lang:No, it's all good. I always forget my own and we'll link that below too for anyone listening because I know I am the worst at remembering anything. So I'll make sure to link that for you.
Sara Bratcher:Yeah. And then on Facebook, I'm Sarah Kay Bratcher. I'm, I'm in several of the bookkeeping groups.
Alyssa Lang:Yeah,
Sara Bratcher:I
Alyssa Lang:love it. Well, thank you so much. I am beyond grateful for you being here today and just sharing your story and sharing everything. Is there anything else that you wanted to end off with? Give a tip to any listeners who might be struggling with trying to pick what niche they want to be in any lasting tips before we
Sara Bratcher:end off. I mean, for anybody struggling with like, if they have to be in a niche, or if they have imposter syndrome that's preventing them to be in a niche just, just start. I mean, just do something. You don't, I mean, you can, the niche can find you, you don't have to be solution. this wasn't my original name for my company. I changed my name when I decided to really hone in and everything. So you can always change your name. You can always change your website. You can always change that. And it may seem like overwhelming and daunting at the time, but two and a half years later. it's not gonna matter much as long as you just keep going. I think Alex from Rosie says it best, uh, you can't lose if you don't quit. So just don't quit and keep going.
Alyssa Lang:I love that so much. Well, thank you so much for the last ending tip there. And I appreciate you so much. And thank you so much for being here today. Thank you.