May 16, 2025 • 40 mins
Full Throttle Finance™ | Episode 20 – Part 1 of 2
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This week, Felicia shares the raw, emotional, and powerful story behind how Clean Bee Consulting came to life. From losing her mom unexpectedly to walking away from burnout and building a thriving firm in under 12 months — this is the story behind the numbers.
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đź“Š In Part 1, Felicia reflects on:
- How grief sparked the first business
- What building the firm looked like month by month
- First clients, first wins, and the exact tools she used
- Revenue growth, industry expansion, and hiring her first employee
- Real metrics from Year One (and what we helped our clients achieve too)
✨ Whether you’re a business owner, aspiring entrepreneur, or someone in need of a fresh start — this episode is your sign that it’s possible.
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🛠️ Come back next week for Part 2 next Friday, where we break down the things that didn’t go to plan — and how we pivoted.
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💛 Thanks for being a part of this story. We’re just getting started.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Hello everyone and welcome back toFull Throttle Finance, a financial
literacy podcast geared towards takingcomplex financial topics and breaking
it down into fun, relatable discussions.
My name is Felicia, CEO, atClean Bee Consulting, and today.
Maybe not so much of the Motorsporttalk, but I am going to be bringing you a
(00:28):
super special to me at the very least twopart one year firm anniversary episode.
So we'll go through part onethis week, and then next week
will be a follow-up for part two.
It's.
Pretty incredibly wild for me tosit here and think that I started
this bookkeeping business and thisconsulting firm literally from nothing.
(00:53):
And that it started overa year ago at this point.
And here we are today, a happy,healthy, growing little business
that is on the up and up.
I can tell you how proudI am, but literally.
Proud is an understatement.
I don't think that there are adequatewords to describe the feelings that I
have inside of me on what we've done herewith the firm in literally just 12 months.
(01:20):
So if you know me, you know justhow much I value transparency.
So that's exactly what I'm planning ongiving you guys for the next two weeks.
I'm gonna lay it.
All out on the table for you.
You know, we've talked a littlebit before about the origin story
of Clean Bee Consulting and howwe became a firm, but today we're
(01:42):
going to dig a little bit deeper.
I. Into that origin story, and we'regoing to discuss some of the actual
metrics behind our first year inbusiness, which is pretty exciting for me.
then in part two, which will be nextweek's episode, we're going to chat about
some of the things that really workedfor us as a firm over the last year.
(02:05):
And then we're also gonna talkabout some of the hard truths that.
Did not and have not worked forus over the last year as well too.
So let's get started.
Over the last year, there isone question that I have gotten
asked relentlessly, and that was.
(02:28):
Have I wanted or have I alwaysdesired to be an entrepreneur?
And the short answer is absolutely not.
Like, no hard, no.
It was actually quite the opposite for me.
I. I thought that I have always thrivedbest taking direction from others.
(02:50):
Yes, I do love managing andI do love helping others lead
them towards common goals.
But I always had a safety net wherelike there was somebody above my
pay grade per se, that I could goto whenever something came up that
I just like wasn't experienced in.
And on top of that.
(03:11):
I have a very long, messy historyof people pleasing and changing
my personality to whatever it wasthat a former employer might have
wanted me to be in that role.
And that got really exhausting.
(03:35):
I would say that the wheels startedspinning in my brain back in July of 2023,
which was when I lost my mom suddenly toheart complications that I. Point in my
life actually served as a catalyst andI didn't know it then, but it, it was
(03:57):
going to start my entrepreneurial journey.
Admittedly, her passing affected me.
I. In a big way and in a variety of ways.
Like if you think of Skittlesand Taste the Rainbow, like I was
tasting the rainbow of grief withall of the feels all the time.
(04:17):
And, you know, once she passed.
That summer, I remember going throughall of her belongings at her home and I
found a one sheet piece of paper, eightand a half by 11 that had a record of
all of her teaching contract salariesthat she, for her two plus decade long
(04:44):
career as a teacher in central Floridawith Orange County Public Schools.
And honestly it made me so sad.
Obviously I work in finance and Iunderstand inflation and I understand
cost of living adjustments and whatnot.
But when I looked at that one piece ofpaper, which summed up her entire career
(05:09):
let's just say from start to finish, over20 years, her salary did not increase.
More than $20,000 over those 20 years.
So it basically equated down to shewas receiving a $1,000 raise per year
for the entire two decades that she wasserving Orange County Public Schools as
(05:33):
her employer, in fact, her highest payingsalary as a teacher, which was in 2018.
And this one pains me to say it wasless than what my starting salary was
as a retail buyer for an e-commercecompany that I started in 2015.
(05:55):
And it truly gutted me and.
Like I said, that is when thewheels in my brain started to turn.
I was looking and longing.
For a connection with her after shepassed, which is what led me to create
my first business, clean Bee CandleCompany, bees Works candle company.
(06:19):
That was inspired by the lastgift that I ever sent my mom,
which was a candle making set.
Which I won't dive into the nittygritties of the candle biz because
we've already talked about it.
Go back a few episodes to episode 16.
It's called Candle Biz.
Pit Stops and Pivots.
Give it a listen if you want tolearn about my actual first toe
(06:41):
dip into the entrepreneurial world.
But you know, I. That was my firsttaste at entrepreneurship, and I didn't
start the candle business becauseI wanted to own my own business.
That actually really wasn't evenpart of the reason why I started owl.
(07:01):
I started that business because I waslonging for creativity and something
physical to do with my hands to keepthe brain busy while I was going
through some really sticky and heavygrief, So then often the next question
that I get asked is, what changed?
(07:22):
Because obviously I went fromcreating this candle business
just for some connection really toleaving my full-time job in starting
a second business from scratch.
And the story behind that.
Is that when I built the candle business,I built it alongside working full-time
(07:43):
for another accounting firm, a firm thathas its own laundry list of issues that
bred a very toxic work environment for me.
That environment pushed me waypast my breaking point where I
(08:04):
was met with extreme burnout and.
While I was experiencing that burnout,all I could think of while they tried
to drag my mental health throughthe mud was that list of salaries
that I found in my mom's house.
Which is funny because money wasnever an issue and money was never.
(08:30):
It was never part of any of thereason why I enjoyed working
at my prior accounting firm.
I was paid well, and I had great benefits,but it was more about the principle of my
mom's entire career was on one sheet ofpaper and that there was a monetary value
(08:53):
associated to it, and the fact that she.
Devoted.
Her career to advancing the dreamsof others while never really
getting to fulfill her own dreams.
I don't know that teaching was whatshe always wanted to do, right?
(09:13):
Maybe she wanted tohave a candle business.
She was a very creative individual.
But we never got to talkabout those things because her
career kind of defined her and.
It was all on one sheet of paper, andultimately letting someone else have
(09:35):
the last say and never quite beingtreated the way that one deserves to be
treated, just didn't sit well with me.
And when I paired that with myown childhood trauma, my dad.
Was addicted to gambling and he neverreally let my mom into the finances.
(10:00):
She was left kind of completely inthe dark until he passed away, and
then she had to figure it all outon her own, like it was all this
big storm that really helped me.
I think find my footing.
(10:21):
I was faced with a pretty toughreality as a young woman in her early
thirties without any parents aroundto kind of help me navigate through.
All of the things that werehappening at that point.
it really allowed me toput life into perspective.
(10:43):
I didn't have an elaborate plan whenI started Clean, Bee Consulting and
this bookkeeping accounting firm.
All I knew was that I absolutely couldnot continue to mask who I really was
deep down inside, and that I absolutelyhad to get myself out of that toxic
situation with my prior accounting firm.
(11:06):
And I was prepared to dip as fardown into my savings as I needed in
order to find whatever it was thatI was searching and longing for.
All I kept circulating in my brain wasthat life is too incredibly short and
(11:30):
I was done working for shitty people.
So then the next question comes, well,how did the, the consulting firm start?
I would love to say that I set goals,that I planned things out and that I was
being smart in the moment in April, 2024when I decided to take this leap of faith
(11:54):
on myself and start the consulting firm.
But I was so far from the truth.
It's not even funny.
I am usually that person that sets goalsand has a plan and prepares and makes
sure that I have every box checked.
But that is what I had beendoing historically with every
single job that I encountered.
(12:17):
I. And all it did was leave me feelingunderwhelmed, exhausted, burnt out,
and all of the negative feelings.
So when I started the consulting firm inApril of 2024, I literally had no plan.
I wung it and to be quite honest, to apoint, I'm still winging it because it
(12:38):
has felt so good over the last year.
It's been very liberating and.
It's allowed me to get creative whereI don't think I normally would've
allowed myself to get creative.
Let that one stick for a little bit.
But in essence, how I got startedwas I created a bare bones
(13:01):
basic website on Squarespace.
I established a separate bank accountand a separate credit card account.
I. Set up a QuickBooks account.
So I had a financial databaseto track things in, and I set up
a project management system sothat I could keep track of all
of the tasks that I had on hand.
(13:22):
That was it.
Five things that you can doall on one hand to get started.
And I really just focused onsubmitting proposals and Upwork.
I know a lot of people shit on Upwork.
This business would not bewhere it is today if we had
not gotten started on Upwork.
(13:46):
By the end of April of 2024,I landed in my first client in
digital marketing, which was avery familiar industry with me.
At my prior firm.
I had worked with somebody in digitalmarketing for over three years, so.
It was familiar, it was comfortable,and this was on a smaller scale, so it
was definitely something that was moremanageable for me, and it definitely
(14:09):
helped boost the confidence becauseA, I knew what I was doing, and B,
it really only took me a week to getmy first client, which is probably
not the case for a lot of peoplestarting a business from scratch.
So they were a newly elected S corpthat needed payroll set up and managed.
It wasn't even a bookkeeping rolefor like full bookkeeping services.
(14:32):
But because the payroll set up andimplementation and management worked so
well, that contract ended up expandinginto a full scope of work for a full
charge bookkeeper for this client.
And it was super exciting, right?
I. I definitely had a confidenceboost going out of April
and transitioning into May,
(14:53):
So in May of 2024, the momentumcarried and I ended up signing four
new clients, which was amazing.
We opened our firm industries thatwe, I. Service currently up to
real estate, property management,wholesaling, talent agencies.
And we even got our first Motorsportclient in month two of being up
(15:17):
and operational, which was amazing.
And of those new clients, three outof four of them came from Upwork.
Again, you can see acommon trend there for me.
Just in that transition fromApril to May alone, our firm
revenue increased by 90% too.
So again, we were continuing to carrythe momentum and building that confidence
(15:43):
that like, we can do this right.
We're not just freelancers.
Maybe we're actually buildingsomething that's worth a damn.
Is what was going on in my brain.
So in June of 2024, that's when ourmetrics kind of started to stabilize.
I really wanted to make sure that thequality of work I. Did not fall away
(16:05):
to taking on too many more clients.
And two, I was pretty focusedon not working more than
20 hours a week, let's say.
So I stopped putting proposalsout on Upwork and I really just
focused on the clients that wehad at the firm at that point.
Then we start transitioning into Julyof 2024, which was another relatively
(16:29):
static month as far as new clients went.
We did end up signing another Motorsportclient, so now we're in like month what?
Four.
And we already havetwo Motorsport clients.
Before we actually even started focusingon Motorsport clients, which was pretty
cool to look back and, and see onpaper and like look at the data and
(16:52):
the metrics, but the biggest changein July was revenue, even though our
client list wasn't necessarily growing.
Our revenue was up, which meant thatour scope of work with the current
clients we had was increasing andour contract rates with those clients
were increasing from June to July.
(17:13):
Our firm had another pretty starkincrease in metrics, and our revenue
rose by 67% from June, which is.
Talk about another confidence booster.
So here we are four months into thebusiness and I'm like really chugging
along then August of 2024 came around.
(17:37):
We signed another three new clients inAugust, which expanded our industry.
Served to tech ed merchant servicesto think like credit card processing
and some coaching and authorshipmixed in there as well too.
We had another pretty big.
revenue increase that month where we saw40% revenue increase from July to August.
(17:59):
And again, two of those three newclients were of work contracts.
And the third was a network connectionthat I already had who actually
reached out to me directly afterseeing some of the social media
posts that I was posting on LinkedIn.
Moving into September of 2024, we hada pretty small increase in revenue.
(18:24):
I'd say 9% be, Hey, it'sstill an increase, right?
We're still climbing up that ladder.
The balance between revenueand quality of work was still
at the forefront of my mind.
We were really starting to growat this point, which is amazing.
And it was actually an indicatorto me that it was time to say
(18:50):
goodbye to the talent agency client.
They just were not.
A good fit for our firm, and I'll talkmore in part two next week about why.
Because I think that thatwas, that's been a really.
Big part of our success is recognizingwhen things are just not the right
(19:13):
fit and not forcing them to fit.
And I think that that's somethingthat a lot of business owners kind
of get tripped up on trying to makesomething work because they really
want it to work, when in realityit's never gonna fit just right.
So let's move into October then.
(19:33):
So now we're at the six-ishmonths in business again.
We had another small increase, 8%,so we're continuing to increase
our revenue every single month.
At this point, our clientroster stayed stagnant.
We are focused on quality of work because.
To be frank, I landed some of the biggestclients I've ever worked on at that point.
(19:56):
So it was a lot that I was tryingto juggle and I really did not
want to disappoint anybody.
I didn't want the qualityof work to suffer.
I really, I. Just wanted everythingto work well and to be like
a really well-oiled machine.
And October is actually when thecreative juices for the full throttle
finance program started to flow.
(20:19):
And so I didn't necessarily want totie up all of my brain space with
client work because I wanted that timeto be able to be creative and really.
Develop this dream for full throttlefinance that I was envisioning,
which again was a really bigimportant reason why I had to let
(20:40):
go the client the month before.
November, 2024 was the first monthwhere revenue did not increase for us.
So it took seven months of beingin business before a revenue
start stopped increasing, and itactually went down a little bit.
It decreased by 7%, whichtotally fine with right.
(21:05):
I'm still amazed that it took sevenmonths before we went backwards like
that was six months of forward positive.
Movement.
And I don't think that that is anormal story for people who start
their entrepreneurial journeys.
But it's my story, so I'm sharing it.
(21:26):
It wasn't because we lost anyclients or anything, that's not
why we saw a revenue di decrease.
It was actually mostly due to becomingsuper efficient with some of our
hourly contracts where we eithercouldn't or hadn't yet transitioned
them into retainer contracts.
(21:48):
So we were kind of making thingsmore of an issue for ourselves, be.
Because we were efficient andbecause we're badass at what we do.
So there's another lesson that we'lltalk about a little bit more in part
two next week is hourly contracts versusretainer contracts and why you may or may
(22:12):
not necessarily want one or the other.
But also in November, it wasa pretty pivotal month for us
because that's when Allie came onboard to help me, which really.
Allowed us to make full throttlefinance what it's become today.
December, 2024.
I'm gonna dub as the gamechange your month for our firm.
(22:34):
We signed another four new clientsduring December, and they were pretty
much mostly all network connections.
I had started to wean off ofUpwork at that point, since
the firm was now two people.
It wasn't just me freelancing, basically.
But we signed two motor sportclients in the month of December,
(22:58):
a copywriter and a restaurant.
Three of these clients too wereall local in Washington, which I
absolutely loved because it allowedme to dig deep into community.
And it was also weird because up untilthat point, I actually didn't have
any clients in the Pacific Northwest.
I don't even think I had clients actually.
(23:20):
In my own time zone in PacificTime Zone up until December.
So December reallychanged the game for us.
And that's all a little bit weird becauseI had only actually worked with, I.
Pacific Northwest or West Coast clientsfor probably the like three to four
years leading up to starting my own firm.
(23:42):
December was also when Ali became afull-time employee on payroll at Clean
Bee Consulting, and with that, ourfirm revenue also saw another pretty
decent increase where we increased ourrevenue by 32% in the month of December.
January of 2025.
So we're in this fiscal year now.
It was our best month on record and.
(24:05):
Which is no surprise, right?
It's closing 2024.
It's goal planning for 2025.
It's making sure all of thewheels are in motion for 2025.
It was pure chaos.
I was super happy that the revenue rosealongside all of the work because I
would've been really sad if it didn't.
(24:25):
But our revenue rose by 17% and we werechugging right along at that point.
We signed another client in who's inlike a solar farming type industry.
And January is also when we releasedour first full throttle finance course,
and it's when we launched our podcast.
(24:45):
So January was quite chaotic, to say thevery least, moving into February of 2025.
And, you know, we'll go ahead andsay February, March and April because
honestly they've all been pretty stagnant.
They've.
The revenue did dip slightly.
When you look at February through.
(25:06):
April in comparison to like December andJanuary, but that was expected as the tax
season started to come to a close for us.
Our client roster has stayed prettyconsistent while only losing one client
which that client we lost wasn't because.
They were upset with our servicesor because they weren't the right
fit for our model or anything.
(25:27):
We lost them just simply becausethey sold their business.
Which is definitely something thatwe can help with our clients too.
Making sure that those financials arenice and pretty for those potential
investors or those potential buyers andfor kind of aiding and helping you through
the sales process of your business.
So that kind of wraps up.
(25:48):
The metrics as it were for ourfirst full year in business.
As far as like looking at just therevenue side of things, you know, we've
been focusing on increasing contractrates with our current client roster and
We've really only been taking onreferral clients or one-off projects
(26:09):
for the last months, to be honest.
I think it's pretty important to bekind of transparent about that because
again, like I don't think that ourstory is the norm, but that doesn't
mean that it can't be your story,and that also shows that it doesn't
always have to be planned out, right?
Like sometimes planning forcesyou into this little bubble.
(26:33):
Where there's so muchmore pressure on you.
And I think one of the reasons whywe've been able to be so successful
in our first year of business as faras securing clients and increasing
revenue is because I didn't, I didn'tcap myself and I didn't really set
Really strict expectations for myself.
(26:55):
I just allowed me to be mebecause ultimately that's what I'm
selling to the clients anyways.
If you hire us to do bookkeeping workfor you, you're hiring this, right?
You're hiring what's in my noggin asfar as my knowledge goes, and you're
also hiring us for what's in ourhearts, the type of people we are.
(27:17):
And.
You can't really goal set withthat kind of stuff, right?
You kind of just have to showpeople and it's kind of just
something that flows naturally.
So putting the revenue metricsaside, there were some other
metrics that I thought would befun to kind of share with you guys.
(27:39):
I'm proud of, for our firm.
So at the end of April of 2025, we wereservicing roughly about 26 different
sets of books across 18 total differentindustries, which is wild to me.
we serve clients that.
Their businesses are registered ineight different states across the United
(28:02):
States, which granted, I know thatthere's 50 states in the United States.
Eight is just a small fraction ofthat, but there are a lot of firms
out there that will only serviceclients in a specific state, because
it narrows down the knowledge.
That they have to have under their belt.
(28:23):
But that's one thing for me over myentire career is that I have actually
always worked with a variety of differentstates and a variety of different tax laws
and a variety of different everything.
So I think it's pretty cool thatwe have clients that are registered
in eight different states.
Payroll.
(28:44):
We process payroll for eight differentclients on our client roster, and
across those eight clients, they haveemployees in over 10 different states,
which again, each state has its own.
Unique requirements, its owntax laws, its own everything.
(29:04):
And a lot of firms will kind of silothemselves to be like, we're only
doing California, let's say, becauseCalifornia's labor code is very elaborate
and we wanna make sure that we, you know.
Don't bite off more than we can chew.
That's not the case with our firm.
I have been processing payroll, I thinkin some, I have registered and I have
(29:25):
processed payroll between all of mycollective experience across all of my.
Accounting years in probably over 50%of the states in the United States.
So again, that's a metric thatI'm really, really proud of.
And, you know, all of thishappened again in one year,
starting from literally nothing.
(29:45):
Starting from a website that I built onSquarespace, a bank account, a credit
card account, a project management system,and a financial report management system.
And again.
The only reason why I did anyof that was because I was tired
of working for shitty bosses.
Not necessarily because I wanted tobecome an entrepreneur, but being an
(30:10):
entrepreneur has just come naturallyto me if I'm being quite frank.
So the last list of metrics that I've gotto go over with you guys today is probably
actually my favorite part of the list.
Like, yeah, our own firm metrics onrevenue and our client roster are
(30:30):
things to be proud of, but thoseare our successes that we celebrate.
We also celebrate our clients' successesbecause a lot of the times these projects
that we work on with our clients.
They only become reality for them becausewe help put the pin to the paper for them.
And these are all things that wecan help you set up and implement in
(30:53):
your own program if you need help.
So reach out to us if something that I'mabout to say really resonates with you
because that's what we love most about ourjobs at Clean Bee Consulting is helping
our clients think outside of the box and.
To help them put the money backinto their people, because that
(31:17):
makes a healthy work environment.
And when you have a healthywork environment, your employees
will show up for you better.
So some of the fun things that we've beenable to help our clients achieve during
our first year in business include.
Starting a nonprofit, which is amazing.
Uh, this particular client has a really,really big mission and they couldn't
(31:42):
just, they couldn't get the full.
Mission across the board witha poor for-profit company.
And so they started a nonprofit to runalongside their for-profit business
that really hits home on their missionand their core values as a company.
And that's why that one's at the topof the list because that's so awesome.
(32:07):
And we help them set up the booksfor the nonprofit and we help
them manage the nonprofit andmake sure that they're getting.
All of the legal things ina row for the nonprofit too.
So we don't work just withfor-profit businesses.
We also work with nonprofitbusinesses as well.
We have helped many clients that havecome our way, implement payroll and make
(32:30):
sure that their employees are gettingpaid their wages for the work that
they're doing, helping business ownersdetermine bonuses and commissions.
And everything that is encompassedwith the payroll realm, right?
Like making sure they're registered inthe states properly, making sure all
of the payroll tax filings are gettingfiled and paid correctly, making sure
(32:53):
that the software is doing it its job andmaking sure that it's syncing over to the
financial report system like it should be.
All eight clients that we processpayroll for, we've helped all of
them get their payroll in a reallysound position, which I love.
We've helped clients hire outsourceHR because they have just grown
to the point where it's not justsomething that the owner of the
(33:15):
company and myself can manage, right?
We wanted to make sure the employeeswere taken care of first and foremost,
and to do that we needed professionalsthat were HR professionals.
lot of our clients actually filedtaxes on time without an extension
for the first time this year.
(33:36):
And that was in due part to us keepingup our end of the bargain, of making
sure their financials were tidy on amonth to month basis, and making sure
that we were communicating to their taxpreparers and their CPAs that everything
was ready and that any questions cameup along the way, we were able to
answer and help that CPA or that taxrepair through whatever hurdle it was.
(33:58):
We've helped clients literally set up aformal record keeping system from scratch.
Some businesses that have been operatingfor maybe a year or two already that
just didn't have that formalizationof a full blown accounting system.
We came in, got it set up withina month or two, and then got
them on a normal monthly cadence.
(34:18):
I. For financial reporting, which allowsthem to make better, more informed
business decisions on the regular.
We've helped clients implement profitfirst methodologies, which has helped
fund other goals that they have ontheir plate because we're separating
those funds, we're assigning a purposeto every single dollar that's coming
(34:40):
in the bank account, and we're lettingthe money work for them the way that
they need the money to work for them.
We've helped clients set up properinventory systems and workflows.
I cannot tell you the numberof clients that I have worked
with over the years that.
(35:00):
The inventory system just does not talkto the accounting system, and they're
forcing the system to work a certain waywhere it is not designed to work, and it's
actually way more cumbersome and way morelabor intensive on their end than actually
sitting down doing the work, getting itset up properly and letting the computer.
(35:22):
Do the work for them, do the hardwork and the heavy lifting for them.
We have set up proper accrualworkflows with deferred revenue
and prepaid expenses and all ofthat jazz for some of our clients.
If you don't know, you either file yourtaxes on a cash or accrual basis, and
(35:42):
sometimes you find some people that havethis like weird little mix of the two.
And it's really important that.
Your tax preparer and yourbookkeeper on the same page as to
how you file your taxes and howyou keep your financial records.
That helps you pay taxes on the revenuewhen you're supposed to pay, pay
(36:03):
taxes on the revenue appropriately.
And it also helps youunderstand when the real.
Ebbs and flows in yourrevenue actually occur.
We've helped our employers set up employeebenefits like health insurance and home
office stipends and maybe cell phonereimbursements and things like that.
(36:25):
They're these benefits to employeesthat are maybe not taxable or like
pre-tax or post-tax benefits, but.
It's ways that instead of paying themoney and taxes to the government,
because that's what they would'vedone eventually with that revenue, we
put it back in their people to givetheir people a little something extra.
(36:46):
That is a thank you for showingup and, and doing the job, or for
allowing space and your own home,so where you can work remotely.
From, we've also helped employers setup company 401k plans and benefits and
making sure that compliance testingis happening and making sure that the
(37:07):
payments are getting funded appropriatelyto the employee's account and making
sure that the employer contributions areflowing as they're supposed to be flowing.
That's not something a lot of firmshelp with because they maybe don't
have experience in that stuff, but thatis something that we have experience
with and that we help our clientswith that Clean Bee Consulting.
We've helped set up really robust realestate portfolios in a platform that was
(37:35):
designed to attract investors for someof our real estate clients as well too.
We had to.
Unravel a big mess that goes overmultiple years of equity and getting all
of the ducks in a row and, uh, gettingeverything straightened and everything
aligned so that this investment portfolioactually matched all of the different
(37:57):
financial records that came in tandem.
And honestly, that is just like thesurface level of some of the things
that we've helped our clients set up.
I am just so proud of all of the workthat we've been able to do and accomplish
(38:19):
in this first year in business.
Look, I'm getting teary eyedjust even thinking about it.
but mostly it's a big thank you toour clients for trusting us, right?
For taking a leap of faith with usfor allowing us to serve them, for
giving us the space and the time todo the things that we need to do in
the ways that we need to do allowingus to change and modify the way
(38:43):
they think they do things currently.
So that.
All of the systems talk to each other likethey're supposed to talk to each other.
Yeah, it's just super humbling.
So.
On that note, I think that's probablya good spot to wrap up part one of our
special two part firm anniversary episode.
(39:03):
So I just wanted to stay, say thankyou first and foremost for sitting
and listening to me blab about howfun our first year in business has
been from the metrics side of life.
It has not.
All been rainbows and sunshine, though,although this episode might make it
seem that way, which is part of thereason on why we're breaking this
(39:28):
episode down into two parts for you.
So make sure that you tune back in nextweek for part two, where we're going to
talk about some of the things we weren'tsure about that actually did work for us.
And we're gonna talk about some of thethings that we thought were gonna work
for us that really did the oppositeof working well for us as a firm and.
(39:54):
It did not work at all for us.
As always, thank youso much for tuning in.
I hope that you've enjoyed thisepisode and we'll see you next Friday.
Bye.
Hello everyone and welcome back toFull Throttle Finance, a financial
literacy podcast geared towards takingcomplex financial topics and breaking
it down into fun, relatable discussions.
My name is Felicia, CEO, atClean Bee Consulting, and today.
Maybe not so much of the Motorsporttalk, but I am going to be bringing you a
(00:28):
super special to me at the very least twopart one year firm anniversary episode.
So we'll go through part onethis week, and then next week
will be a follow-up for part two.
It's.
Pretty incredibly wild for me tosit here and think that I started
this bookkeeping business and thisconsulting firm literally from nothing.
(00:53):
And that it started overa year ago at this point.
And here we are today, a happy,healthy, growing little business
that is on the up and up.
I can tell you how proudI am, but literally.
Proud is an understatement.
I don't think that there are adequatewords to describe the feelings that I
have inside of me on what we've done herewith the firm in literally just 12 months.
(01:20):
So if you know me, you know justhow much I value transparency.
So that's exactly what I'm planning ongiving you guys for the next two weeks.
I'm gonna lay it.
All out on the table for you.
You know, we've talked a littlebit before about the origin story
of Clean Bee Consulting and howwe became a firm, but today we're
(01:42):
going to dig a little bit deeper.
I. Into that origin story, and we'regoing to discuss some of the actual
metrics behind our first year inbusiness, which is pretty exciting for me.
then in part two, which will be nextweek's episode, we're going to chat about
some of the things that really workedfor us as a firm over the last year.
(02:05):
And then we're also gonna talkabout some of the hard truths that.
Did not and have not worked forus over the last year as well too.
So let's get started.
Over the last year, there isone question that I have gotten
asked relentlessly, and that was.
(02:28):
Have I wanted or have I alwaysdesired to be an entrepreneur?
And the short answer is absolutely not.
Like, no hard, no.
It was actually quite the opposite for me.
I. I thought that I have always thrivedbest taking direction from others.
(02:50):
Yes, I do love managing andI do love helping others lead
them towards common goals.
But I always had a safety net wherelike there was somebody above my
pay grade per se, that I could goto whenever something came up that
I just like wasn't experienced in.
And on top of that.
(03:11):
I have a very long, messy historyof people pleasing and changing
my personality to whatever it wasthat a former employer might have
wanted me to be in that role.
And that got really exhausting.
(03:35):
I would say that the wheels startedspinning in my brain back in July of 2023,
which was when I lost my mom suddenly toheart complications that I. Point in my
life actually served as a catalyst andI didn't know it then, but it, it was
(03:57):
going to start my entrepreneurial journey.
Admittedly, her passing affected me.
I. In a big way and in a variety of ways.
Like if you think of Skittlesand Taste the Rainbow, like I was
tasting the rainbow of grief withall of the feels all the time.
(04:17):
And, you know, once she passed.
That summer, I remember going throughall of her belongings at her home and I
found a one sheet piece of paper, eightand a half by 11 that had a record of
all of her teaching contract salariesthat she, for her two plus decade long
(04:44):
career as a teacher in central Floridawith Orange County Public Schools.
And honestly it made me so sad.
Obviously I work in finance and Iunderstand inflation and I understand
cost of living adjustments and whatnot.
But when I looked at that one piece ofpaper, which summed up her entire career
(05:09):
let's just say from start to finish, over20 years, her salary did not increase.
More than $20,000 over those 20 years.
So it basically equated down to shewas receiving a $1,000 raise per year
for the entire two decades that she wasserving Orange County Public Schools as
(05:33):
her employer, in fact, her highest payingsalary as a teacher, which was in 2018.
And this one pains me to say it wasless than what my starting salary was
as a retail buyer for an e-commercecompany that I started in 2015.
(05:55):
And it truly gutted me and.
Like I said, that is when thewheels in my brain started to turn.
I was looking and longing.
For a connection with her after shepassed, which is what led me to create
my first business, clean Bee CandleCompany, bees Works candle company.
(06:19):
That was inspired by the lastgift that I ever sent my mom,
which was a candle making set.
Which I won't dive into the nittygritties of the candle biz because
we've already talked about it.
Go back a few episodes to episode 16.
It's called Candle Biz.
Pit Stops and Pivots.
Give it a listen if you want tolearn about my actual first toe
(06:41):
dip into the entrepreneurial world.
But you know, I. That was my firsttaste at entrepreneurship, and I didn't
start the candle business becauseI wanted to own my own business.
That actually really wasn't evenpart of the reason why I started owl.
(07:01):
I started that business because I waslonging for creativity and something
physical to do with my hands to keepthe brain busy while I was going
through some really sticky and heavygrief, So then often the next question
that I get asked is, what changed?
(07:22):
Because obviously I went fromcreating this candle business
just for some connection really toleaving my full-time job in starting
a second business from scratch.
And the story behind that.
Is that when I built the candle business,I built it alongside working full-time
(07:43):
for another accounting firm, a firm thathas its own laundry list of issues that
bred a very toxic work environment for me.
That environment pushed me waypast my breaking point where I
(08:04):
was met with extreme burnout and.
While I was experiencing that burnout,all I could think of while they tried
to drag my mental health throughthe mud was that list of salaries
that I found in my mom's house.
Which is funny because money wasnever an issue and money was never.
(08:30):
It was never part of any of thereason why I enjoyed working
at my prior accounting firm.
I was paid well, and I had great benefits,but it was more about the principle of my
mom's entire career was on one sheet ofpaper and that there was a monetary value
(08:53):
associated to it, and the fact that she.
Devoted.
Her career to advancing the dreamsof others while never really
getting to fulfill her own dreams.
I don't know that teaching was whatshe always wanted to do, right?
(09:13):
Maybe she wanted tohave a candle business.
She was a very creative individual.
But we never got to talkabout those things because her
career kind of defined her and.
It was all on one sheet of paper, andultimately letting someone else have
(09:35):
the last say and never quite beingtreated the way that one deserves to be
treated, just didn't sit well with me.
And when I paired that with myown childhood trauma, my dad.
Was addicted to gambling and he neverreally let my mom into the finances.
(10:00):
She was left kind of completely inthe dark until he passed away, and
then she had to figure it all outon her own, like it was all this
big storm that really helped me.
I think find my footing.
(10:21):
I was faced with a pretty toughreality as a young woman in her early
thirties without any parents aroundto kind of help me navigate through.
All of the things that werehappening at that point.
it really allowed me toput life into perspective.
(10:43):
I didn't have an elaborate plan whenI started Clean, Bee Consulting and
this bookkeeping accounting firm.
All I knew was that I absolutely couldnot continue to mask who I really was
deep down inside, and that I absolutelyhad to get myself out of that toxic
situation with my prior accounting firm.
(11:06):
And I was prepared to dip as fardown into my savings as I needed in
order to find whatever it was thatI was searching and longing for.
All I kept circulating in my brain wasthat life is too incredibly short and
(11:30):
I was done working for shitty people.
So then the next question comes, well,how did the, the consulting firm start?
I would love to say that I set goals,that I planned things out and that I was
being smart in the moment in April, 2024when I decided to take this leap of faith
(11:54):
on myself and start the consulting firm.
But I was so far from the truth.
It's not even funny.
I am usually that person that sets goalsand has a plan and prepares and makes
sure that I have every box checked.
But that is what I had beendoing historically with every
single job that I encountered.
(12:17):
I. And all it did was leave me feelingunderwhelmed, exhausted, burnt out,
and all of the negative feelings.
So when I started the consulting firm inApril of 2024, I literally had no plan.
I wung it and to be quite honest, to apoint, I'm still winging it because it
(12:38):
has felt so good over the last year.
It's been very liberating and.
It's allowed me to get creative whereI don't think I normally would've
allowed myself to get creative.
Let that one stick for a little bit.
But in essence, how I got startedwas I created a bare bones
(13:01):
basic website on Squarespace.
I established a separate bank accountand a separate credit card account.
I. Set up a QuickBooks account.
So I had a financial databaseto track things in, and I set up
a project management system sothat I could keep track of all
of the tasks that I had on hand.
(13:22):
That was it.
Five things that you can doall on one hand to get started.
And I really just focused onsubmitting proposals and Upwork.
I know a lot of people shit on Upwork.
This business would not bewhere it is today if we had
not gotten started on Upwork.
(13:46):
By the end of April of 2024,I landed in my first client in
digital marketing, which was avery familiar industry with me.
At my prior firm.
I had worked with somebody in digitalmarketing for over three years, so.
It was familiar, it was comfortable,and this was on a smaller scale, so it
was definitely something that was moremanageable for me, and it definitely
(14:09):
helped boost the confidence becauseA, I knew what I was doing, and B,
it really only took me a week to getmy first client, which is probably
not the case for a lot of peoplestarting a business from scratch.
So they were a newly elected S corpthat needed payroll set up and managed.
It wasn't even a bookkeeping rolefor like full bookkeeping services.
(14:32):
But because the payroll set up andimplementation and management worked so
well, that contract ended up expandinginto a full scope of work for a full
charge bookkeeper for this client.
And it was super exciting, right?
I. I definitely had a confidenceboost going out of April
and transitioning into May,
(14:53):
So in May of 2024, the momentumcarried and I ended up signing four
new clients, which was amazing.
We opened our firm industries thatwe, I. Service currently up to
real estate, property management,wholesaling, talent agencies.
And we even got our first Motorsportclient in month two of being up
(15:17):
and operational, which was amazing.
And of those new clients, three outof four of them came from Upwork.
Again, you can see acommon trend there for me.
Just in that transition fromApril to May alone, our firm
revenue increased by 90% too.
So again, we were continuing to carrythe momentum and building that confidence
(15:43):
that like, we can do this right.
We're not just freelancers.
Maybe we're actually buildingsomething that's worth a damn.
Is what was going on in my brain.
So in June of 2024, that's when ourmetrics kind of started to stabilize.
I really wanted to make sure that thequality of work I. Did not fall away
(16:05):
to taking on too many more clients.
And two, I was pretty focusedon not working more than
20 hours a week, let's say.
So I stopped putting proposalsout on Upwork and I really just
focused on the clients that wehad at the firm at that point.
Then we start transitioning into Julyof 2024, which was another relatively
(16:29):
static month as far as new clients went.
We did end up signing another Motorsportclient, so now we're in like month what?
Four.
And we already havetwo Motorsport clients.
Before we actually even started focusingon Motorsport clients, which was pretty
cool to look back and, and see onpaper and like look at the data and
(16:52):
the metrics, but the biggest changein July was revenue, even though our
client list wasn't necessarily growing.
Our revenue was up, which meant thatour scope of work with the current
clients we had was increasing andour contract rates with those clients
were increasing from June to July.
(17:13):
Our firm had another pretty starkincrease in metrics, and our revenue
rose by 67% from June, which is.
Talk about another confidence booster.
So here we are four months into thebusiness and I'm like really chugging
along then August of 2024 came around.
(17:37):
We signed another three new clients inAugust, which expanded our industry.
Served to tech ed merchant servicesto think like credit card processing
and some coaching and authorshipmixed in there as well too.
We had another pretty big.
revenue increase that month where we saw40% revenue increase from July to August.
(17:59):
And again, two of those three newclients were of work contracts.
And the third was a network connectionthat I already had who actually
reached out to me directly afterseeing some of the social media
posts that I was posting on LinkedIn.
Moving into September of 2024, we hada pretty small increase in revenue.
(18:24):
I'd say 9% be, Hey, it'sstill an increase, right?
We're still climbing up that ladder.
The balance between revenueand quality of work was still
at the forefront of my mind.
We were really starting to growat this point, which is amazing.
And it was actually an indicatorto me that it was time to say
(18:50):
goodbye to the talent agency client.
They just were not.
A good fit for our firm, and I'll talkmore in part two next week about why.
Because I think that thatwas, that's been a really.
Big part of our success is recognizingwhen things are just not the right
(19:13):
fit and not forcing them to fit.
And I think that that's somethingthat a lot of business owners kind
of get tripped up on trying to makesomething work because they really
want it to work, when in realityit's never gonna fit just right.
So let's move into October then.
(19:33):
So now we're at the six-ishmonths in business again.
We had another small increase, 8%,so we're continuing to increase
our revenue every single month.
At this point, our clientroster stayed stagnant.
We are focused on quality of work because.
To be frank, I landed some of the biggestclients I've ever worked on at that point.
(19:56):
So it was a lot that I was tryingto juggle and I really did not
want to disappoint anybody.
I didn't want the qualityof work to suffer.
I really, I. Just wanted everythingto work well and to be like
a really well-oiled machine.
And October is actually when thecreative juices for the full throttle
finance program started to flow.
(20:19):
And so I didn't necessarily want totie up all of my brain space with
client work because I wanted that timeto be able to be creative and really.
Develop this dream for full throttlefinance that I was envisioning,
which again was a really bigimportant reason why I had to let
(20:40):
go the client the month before.
November, 2024 was the first monthwhere revenue did not increase for us.
So it took seven months of beingin business before a revenue
start stopped increasing, and itactually went down a little bit.
It decreased by 7%, whichtotally fine with right.
(21:05):
I'm still amazed that it took sevenmonths before we went backwards like
that was six months of forward positive.
Movement.
And I don't think that that is anormal story for people who start
their entrepreneurial journeys.
But it's my story, so I'm sharing it.
(21:26):
It wasn't because we lost anyclients or anything, that's not
why we saw a revenue di decrease.
It was actually mostly due to becomingsuper efficient with some of our
hourly contracts where we eithercouldn't or hadn't yet transitioned
them into retainer contracts.
(21:48):
So we were kind of making thingsmore of an issue for ourselves, be.
Because we were efficient andbecause we're badass at what we do.
So there's another lesson that we'lltalk about a little bit more in part
two next week is hourly contracts versusretainer contracts and why you may or may
(22:12):
not necessarily want one or the other.
But also in November, it wasa pretty pivotal month for us
because that's when Allie came onboard to help me, which really.
Allowed us to make full throttlefinance what it's become today.
December, 2024.
I'm gonna dub as the gamechange your month for our firm.
(22:34):
We signed another four new clientsduring December, and they were pretty
much mostly all network connections.
I had started to wean off ofUpwork at that point, since
the firm was now two people.
It wasn't just me freelancing, basically.
But we signed two motor sportclients in the month of December,
(22:58):
a copywriter and a restaurant.
Three of these clients too wereall local in Washington, which I
absolutely loved because it allowedme to dig deep into community.
And it was also weird because up untilthat point, I actually didn't have
any clients in the Pacific Northwest.
I don't even think I had clients actually.
(23:20):
In my own time zone in PacificTime Zone up until December.
So December reallychanged the game for us.
And that's all a little bit weird becauseI had only actually worked with, I.
Pacific Northwest or West Coast clientsfor probably the like three to four
years leading up to starting my own firm.
(23:42):
December was also when Ali became afull-time employee on payroll at Clean
Bee Consulting, and with that, ourfirm revenue also saw another pretty
decent increase where we increased ourrevenue by 32% in the month of December.
January of 2025.
So we're in this fiscal year now.
It was our best month on record and.
(24:05):
Which is no surprise, right?
It's closing 2024.
It's goal planning for 2025.
It's making sure all of thewheels are in motion for 2025.
It was pure chaos.
I was super happy that the revenue rosealongside all of the work because I
would've been really sad if it didn't.
(24:25):
But our revenue rose by 17% and we werechugging right along at that point.
We signed another client in who's inlike a solar farming type industry.
And January is also when we releasedour first full throttle finance course,
and it's when we launched our podcast.
(24:45):
So January was quite chaotic, to say thevery least, moving into February of 2025.
And, you know, we'll go ahead andsay February, March and April because
honestly they've all been pretty stagnant.
They've.
The revenue did dip slightly.
When you look at February through.
(25:06):
April in comparison to like December andJanuary, but that was expected as the tax
season started to come to a close for us.
Our client roster has stayed prettyconsistent while only losing one client
which that client we lost wasn't because.
They were upset with our servicesor because they weren't the right
fit for our model or anything.
(25:27):
We lost them just simply becausethey sold their business.
Which is definitely something thatwe can help with our clients too.
Making sure that those financials arenice and pretty for those potential
investors or those potential buyers andfor kind of aiding and helping you through
the sales process of your business.
So that kind of wraps up.
(25:48):
The metrics as it were for ourfirst full year in business.
As far as like looking at just therevenue side of things, you know, we've
been focusing on increasing contractrates with our current client roster and
We've really only been taking onreferral clients or one-off projects
(26:09):
for the last months, to be honest.
I think it's pretty important to bekind of transparent about that because
again, like I don't think that ourstory is the norm, but that doesn't
mean that it can't be your story,and that also shows that it doesn't
always have to be planned out, right?
Like sometimes planning forcesyou into this little bubble.
(26:33):
Where there's so muchmore pressure on you.
And I think one of the reasons whywe've been able to be so successful
in our first year of business as faras securing clients and increasing
revenue is because I didn't, I didn'tcap myself and I didn't really set
Really strict expectations for myself.
(26:55):
I just allowed me to be mebecause ultimately that's what I'm
selling to the clients anyways.
If you hire us to do bookkeeping workfor you, you're hiring this, right?
You're hiring what's in my noggin asfar as my knowledge goes, and you're
also hiring us for what's in ourhearts, the type of people we are.
(27:17):
And.
You can't really goal set withthat kind of stuff, right?
You kind of just have to showpeople and it's kind of just
something that flows naturally.
So putting the revenue metricsaside, there were some other
metrics that I thought would befun to kind of share with you guys.
(27:39):
I'm proud of, for our firm.
So at the end of April of 2025, we wereservicing roughly about 26 different
sets of books across 18 total differentindustries, which is wild to me.
we serve clients that.
Their businesses are registered ineight different states across the United
(28:02):
States, which granted, I know thatthere's 50 states in the United States.
Eight is just a small fraction ofthat, but there are a lot of firms
out there that will only serviceclients in a specific state, because
it narrows down the knowledge.
That they have to have under their belt.
(28:23):
But that's one thing for me over myentire career is that I have actually
always worked with a variety of differentstates and a variety of different tax laws
and a variety of different everything.
So I think it's pretty cool thatwe have clients that are registered
in eight different states.
Payroll.
(28:44):
We process payroll for eight differentclients on our client roster, and
across those eight clients, they haveemployees in over 10 different states,
which again, each state has its own.
Unique requirements, its owntax laws, its own everything.
(29:04):
And a lot of firms will kind of silothemselves to be like, we're only
doing California, let's say, becauseCalifornia's labor code is very elaborate
and we wanna make sure that we, you know.
Don't bite off more than we can chew.
That's not the case with our firm.
I have been processing payroll, I thinkin some, I have registered and I have
(29:25):
processed payroll between all of mycollective experience across all of my.
Accounting years in probably over 50%of the states in the United States.
So again, that's a metric thatI'm really, really proud of.
And, you know, all of thishappened again in one year,
starting from literally nothing.
(29:45):
Starting from a website that I built onSquarespace, a bank account, a credit
card account, a project management system,and a financial report management system.
And again.
The only reason why I did anyof that was because I was tired
of working for shitty bosses.
Not necessarily because I wanted tobecome an entrepreneur, but being an
(30:10):
entrepreneur has just come naturallyto me if I'm being quite frank.
So the last list of metrics that I've gotto go over with you guys today is probably
actually my favorite part of the list.
Like, yeah, our own firm metrics onrevenue and our client roster are
(30:30):
things to be proud of, but thoseare our successes that we celebrate.
We also celebrate our clients' successesbecause a lot of the times these projects
that we work on with our clients.
They only become reality for them becausewe help put the pin to the paper for them.
And these are all things that wecan help you set up and implement in
(30:53):
your own program if you need help.
So reach out to us if something that I'mabout to say really resonates with you
because that's what we love most about ourjobs at Clean Bee Consulting is helping
our clients think outside of the box and.
To help them put the money backinto their people, because that
(31:17):
makes a healthy work environment.
And when you have a healthywork environment, your employees
will show up for you better.
So some of the fun things that we've beenable to help our clients achieve during
our first year in business include.
Starting a nonprofit, which is amazing.
Uh, this particular client has a really,really big mission and they couldn't
(31:42):
just, they couldn't get the full.
Mission across the board witha poor for-profit company.
And so they started a nonprofit to runalongside their for-profit business
that really hits home on their missionand their core values as a company.
And that's why that one's at the topof the list because that's so awesome.
(32:07):
And we help them set up the booksfor the nonprofit and we help
them manage the nonprofit andmake sure that they're getting.
All of the legal things ina row for the nonprofit too.
So we don't work just withfor-profit businesses.
We also work with nonprofitbusinesses as well.
We have helped many clients that havecome our way, implement payroll and make
(32:30):
sure that their employees are gettingpaid their wages for the work that
they're doing, helping business ownersdetermine bonuses and commissions.
And everything that is encompassedwith the payroll realm, right?
Like making sure they're registered inthe states properly, making sure all
of the payroll tax filings are gettingfiled and paid correctly, making sure
(32:53):
that the software is doing it its job andmaking sure that it's syncing over to the
financial report system like it should be.
All eight clients that we processpayroll for, we've helped all of
them get their payroll in a reallysound position, which I love.
We've helped clients hire outsourceHR because they have just grown
to the point where it's not justsomething that the owner of the
(33:15):
company and myself can manage, right?
We wanted to make sure the employeeswere taken care of first and foremost,
and to do that we needed professionalsthat were HR professionals.
lot of our clients actually filedtaxes on time without an extension
for the first time this year.
(33:36):
And that was in due part to us keepingup our end of the bargain, of making
sure their financials were tidy on amonth to month basis, and making sure
that we were communicating to their taxpreparers and their CPAs that everything
was ready and that any questions cameup along the way, we were able to
answer and help that CPA or that taxrepair through whatever hurdle it was.
(33:58):
We've helped clients literally set up aformal record keeping system from scratch.
Some businesses that have been operatingfor maybe a year or two already that
just didn't have that formalizationof a full blown accounting system.
We came in, got it set up withina month or two, and then got
them on a normal monthly cadence.
(34:18):
I. For financial reporting, which allowsthem to make better, more informed
business decisions on the regular.
We've helped clients implement profitfirst methodologies, which has helped
fund other goals that they have ontheir plate because we're separating
those funds, we're assigning a purposeto every single dollar that's coming
(34:40):
in the bank account, and we're lettingthe money work for them the way that
they need the money to work for them.
We've helped clients set up properinventory systems and workflows.
I cannot tell you the numberof clients that I have worked
with over the years that.
(35:00):
The inventory system just does not talkto the accounting system, and they're
forcing the system to work a certain waywhere it is not designed to work, and it's
actually way more cumbersome and way morelabor intensive on their end than actually
sitting down doing the work, getting itset up properly and letting the computer.
(35:22):
Do the work for them, do the hardwork and the heavy lifting for them.
We have set up proper accrualworkflows with deferred revenue
and prepaid expenses and all ofthat jazz for some of our clients.
If you don't know, you either file yourtaxes on a cash or accrual basis, and
(35:42):
sometimes you find some people that havethis like weird little mix of the two.
And it's really important that.
Your tax preparer and yourbookkeeper on the same page as to
how you file your taxes and howyou keep your financial records.
That helps you pay taxes on the revenuewhen you're supposed to pay, pay
(36:03):
taxes on the revenue appropriately.
And it also helps youunderstand when the real.
Ebbs and flows in yourrevenue actually occur.
We've helped our employers set up employeebenefits like health insurance and home
office stipends and maybe cell phonereimbursements and things like that.
(36:25):
They're these benefits to employeesthat are maybe not taxable or like
pre-tax or post-tax benefits, but.
It's ways that instead of paying themoney and taxes to the government,
because that's what they would'vedone eventually with that revenue, we
put it back in their people to givetheir people a little something extra.
(36:46):
That is a thank you for showingup and, and doing the job, or for
allowing space and your own home,so where you can work remotely.
From, we've also helped employers setup company 401k plans and benefits and
making sure that compliance testingis happening and making sure that the
(37:07):
payments are getting funded appropriatelyto the employee's account and making
sure that the employer contributions areflowing as they're supposed to be flowing.
That's not something a lot of firmshelp with because they maybe don't
have experience in that stuff, but thatis something that we have experience
with and that we help our clientswith that Clean Bee Consulting.
We've helped set up really robust realestate portfolios in a platform that was
(37:35):
designed to attract investors for someof our real estate clients as well too.
We had to.
Unravel a big mess that goes overmultiple years of equity and getting all
of the ducks in a row and, uh, gettingeverything straightened and everything
aligned so that this investment portfolioactually matched all of the different
(37:57):
financial records that came in tandem.
And honestly, that is just like thesurface level of some of the things
that we've helped our clients set up.
I am just so proud of all of the workthat we've been able to do and accomplish
(38:19):
in this first year in business.
Look, I'm getting teary eyedjust even thinking about it.
but mostly it's a big thank you toour clients for trusting us, right?
For taking a leap of faith with usfor allowing us to serve them, for
giving us the space and the time todo the things that we need to do in
the ways that we need to do allowingus to change and modify the way
(38:43):
they think they do things currently.
So that.
All of the systems talk to each other likethey're supposed to talk to each other.
Yeah, it's just super humbling.
So.
On that note, I think that's probablya good spot to wrap up part one of our
special two part firm anniversary episode.
(39:03):
So I just wanted to stay, say thankyou first and foremost for sitting
and listening to me blab about howfun our first year in business has
been from the metrics side of life.
It has not.
All been rainbows and sunshine, though,although this episode might make it
seem that way, which is part of thereason on why we're breaking this
(39:28):
episode down into two parts for you.
So make sure that you tune back in nextweek for part two, where we're going to
talk about some of the things we weren'tsure about that actually did work for us.
And we're gonna talk about some of thethings that we thought were gonna work
for us that really did the oppositeof working well for us as a firm and.
(39:54):
It did not work at all for us.
As always, thank youso much for tuning in.
I hope that you've enjoyed thisepisode and we'll see you next Friday.
Bye.
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