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Hi everyone, Welcome to the local business show, the podcast that brings together some of the best business minds. I'm your host, Jeff Ostrow. Today we're going to be speaking with Laura Bedell. Laura is the founder and owner of Laura Bedell Accounting Solutions, which is based in Georgetown. Ontario. Laura is a C. P. A who has dedicated much of her 20 year career to working for private businesses. She focuses on helping management use financial results to find ways to improve their company's operations and she always tries to be more than just an accountant for her business partners. Before we begin speaking with Laura, I thought it was important that I mentioned that her accounting firm was recently recognized in the Georgetown Reader's Choice Awards, Laura, congratulations on that great achievement and welcome to the local business show. Oh thanks so much, Jeff, I appreciate it and I am so excited to be here. Yes, we've got a lot for you to share with people Now. Before we delve into your business, Laura, I wonder if you wouldn't mind sharing with our audience. Just a few words about what it means to be recognized by a readers choice award in Georgetown. Sure. So from a personal standpoint it's touching, it's incredibly touching because it means that somebody that I worked with took the time out of their day to log into a site and to to pick me out of several categories. Um but basically what a readers choice award, it's just that the community goes in into various service providers in my particular case, it was income tax, it was bookkeeping, it was accounting and I personally got recognized as the accountant, you one of the accountants that you want to deal with in town. So it's very personal, it's it's people saying I got great service and this person is who you want to know when you need that kind of service. So it's a true honor. Um My original goal was you know, if five years into my business would be a good time to start Maybe earning these awards and my business was 18 months old when it got its first awards. So it's absolutely touching from a personal standpoint that people took that time and and very rewarding from a business standpoint to know that I'm on a good track. That is very impressive, you're 3.5 years ahead of yourself. So congratulations Laura, that says an awful lot. Now let's talk a little bit Laura about your background, how did you get started in accounting? Yeah, so I was that weird kid in high school who knew what she wanted to do, I knew I wanted to be an accountant. So you know, I went to university and all that good stuff and got my first job at Unilever and if you had asked university me, I would have told you that I was gonna go out on my own and I was going to be a consultant but you know, life took over, I also got married and had kids, so I stayed with the big companies, I worked with Unilever for a while. Um they sold the plans, I stayed with that plant for a while that I was working with then I ended up at eco industries which is a fairly large family company here in Canada. Um the service the whole country roofing shingles um went onto Sofina Foods again, another big Canadian private health company and learned all the tricks of how corporations do things and how the big boys do things. Um kind of gave up for a little while on my dream of being the consultant until the pandemic hit and then I moved on from there. But you know that big company experience really ended up being what I needed because you know those big tax strategies, those ways of approaching your business in a smart way and to really look at your financials, not just for how much tax am I going to have to pay, but what can I do to operate better. So that experience was fantastic in those large companies and now to bring it to small companies where you know maybe they don't have the budget for a big financial team. But my experience means that some of the problems that are blowing their minds, I've seen it before and because I've seen it before, we can manage and handle it in an efficient way and instead of spending years and years and years struggling with something or thousands of dollars that those small businesses don't have, I can I can point them in the direction it is absolutely rewarding. I'll bet it is. And certainly having spent so many years working for big companies, I'm sure that you did get to see an awful lot. Let's now talk a little bit laura about the business that you own, how you got started in it and how you serve your clients in a way that might be different than perhaps other accounting firms serve their clients. Yes. So the pandemic hit is how I got started. I was working happily at Sofina Foods and probably on my own winter left if I'm honest right. It was nice and secure you know black benefits and all that good stuff but they decided that because of the pandemic, maybe they should try to do things without me. And so my role got eliminated which was devastating for about two days I think. And then I started to remember original me university me the one that said I wanted to help people and I wanted to you know be that consultant that business partner to the smaller businesses. And I thought if not now when so I talk to the husband talked to the kids and I said I'm gonna maybe be a bit selfish and start this business and let's see how how it plays out and it's it's been absolutely um rewarding to me but what what I think makes me different to my clients is it's a couple of things. One is I don't sound like an accountant when I'm talking to them, right? When, when they come to me, I'm not talking about P. And Ls and cash flows and if it does and stuff like that, I don't do that to them. You know, I talk about, are you better or you're worse? Are you hitting your goals? You're not hitting your goals? And when we do that, it's a conversation. It's a business conversation and I really think that's what makes me different than some of the other firms. I can charge you a lot of money and I can talk a lot of language that you may or may not understand your tax return will still get filed. You'll still be compliant. But will you have gotten anything from it? And I kind of liken it to um, you know, when you go to the doctor and they prescribe something, you know, there's questions you're gonna ask. You're going to ask them about side effects and you're gonna ask them about how long do I have to take that and what, what should I expect? But you don't necessarily ask what's in the pill, right? You don't need to know that specifically, Right? So it's kind of the same ideas where I take the time to say here's what I see here's what I think we should do. Here's how you can know what questions to ask me, your other partners, however you're doing, but it's not necessarily important for you to know whether I'm looking at a trial balance or profit and loss statement, you know, I hear you on that because I really don't want to know about that stuff either. I'm not an accountant by the way, I must say, I think it's wonderful that you were amongst from my experience, the few people who knew what they wanted to do when they were in college, you know, that's a great benefit that you had. Let me just ask you, have you heard from any of your clients that they appreciate the fact that you are speaking to them in plain english and able to have this conversation rather than talking about the esoterica of accounting, so that is probably the biggest feedback I get, and I get it right from the Discovery sessions, you know, when people call and they say, you know, we might need your service, and I asked them what they what they need and you know, they talk about, well I don't know how to describe it, but and I, you know, try to help them through that, and that is the number one I have this dog training company and they're one of my success stories, um she just was a very small business over a year ago with this dream to grow, I mean she says, but I don't know how I'm going to grow, and I said, well let's let's take some time and let's figure it out. We recently incorporated her, we're going to have some calls next week to talk about some financing strategies. And what what she keeps saying is I don't think I'd be here and I'm like, well you would have you would have found something you like, like a lot of this is your entrepreneurial ship. All I'm doing is helping you, you know, create a path, right? I have another client, she's an interior designer, she started her business on her maternity leave, she just kind of had the baby and thought, oh I really don't want to go back to work, I want to do my own thing. And She's she must she must reach out to me two or three times a week. She recently did a Google review that basically says I wouldn't have a business if it weren't for her, you have to call her and and it's it's it's a rewarding thing that you never got, like I didn't get, maybe other people do, but in corporate, um you know when they promote you and they give you these extra titles and more money. Lots more money, but you know, all these things you feel appreciated, but it's not the same. Like I actually feel like I'm touching people's lives and I think that's different than when I was in corporate, you know when I worked at Unilever, let's be honest, You know when we were making a whole bunch of dove soap. Yeah, it sounds good when you went to someone's house and you saw a dove sitting in their their their bathroom and you think, oh that's good, my my product has made it to my friends host, but it's not the same. It's really not the same. But you know, having somebody and that's where the reader's choice like tied right into that because, you know, for people to call me or for people to, you know, when you're at home scrolling through your internet, that's your time. And for people to stop and say, I got to let people know laura is fantastic. There's nothing like it, there's nothing like that. It's got to be a great feeling and I can actually relate to that the best job I had in my first career I'm in my second career, Laura was the first job when I worked for the Medicare program in the United States and I was directly helping people out individually and after that in my career, it was not like that. So I can totally relate to that. Your business has been growing and you've only been doing this in your business for about a year and a half, right? So do you think that's a key reason why your business is growing. So I'm definitely growing because I mean it's a new business that has to be growing, otherwise I can't keep doing this, so there's a certain incentive that I I need to do that. But this last month I have had, I think if I check, I'm gonna say a dozen discovery calls in one month, my reputation is getting out there and I've stopped kind of promoting myself, I'm letting my work speak for itself now and that's uh it's a change over the last two or three months where I'm like if I keep reminding people, I'm out here, I'm not gonna be able to keep up with the growth. So you know, it's still just me here and I'm actually sitting back and contemplating, you know, do I bring somebody on, how do I make sure that they keep with my values and stuff? So it's it's a bit of a tug of war with me in terms of how I'm, you know, going to keep up with that growth. But my growth now is very organic. It's very, you know, people are talking about me referring me and even today I had to go by our local Chamber of Commerce uh to drop some documents off and they said you are a buzz, like they're like we're not even trying to find out about you and we're finding out about you and it's a good thing, we already know about you. So it's been phenomenal. I think I'm gonna move to Georgetown, this is exciting. I'm getting excited, let's shift to a more serious subject and you alluded to it before the pandemic, How has it affected your business? Which apparently was born out of the pandemic? And how do you see it affecting so far your client's business? Yeah, so obviously my business came out of the pandemic. I'm a pandemic baby. I was joking with my mom last week that she always claims she's a baby boomer. I'm like, I'm a pandemic. Something, there's going to be a term, I don't know what it is, but um but yeah, my business started with the pandemic, which uh it was scary. It truly was scary because I didn't even know if businesses were going to survive and I was taking on clients who I had no idea what their futures were going to be. And when, you know, uh when Ontario was putting such lockdowns and restrictions on businesses, obviously their revenues were declining. And I think for my industry, for the finance people, we had to stay on top of things because if there were government programs, we had to know about it. And not only did we have to know about it, but we had to figure out how to get that money back into our client's hands. So there was definitely a lot of innovation and figuring it out. And honestly collaboration too. And that's one thing about maybe it's just Georgetown Ontario, but the other accountants in my community were competition, technically, but we reach out and we help each other. And when I won that reader's choice awards, the number of accountants who, who sent me emails say way to go, even though they were up for the same award. Like, you know what, it's like, it wasn't a, how could you win it? I should have won it, it was good for you. Like we're proud of you and we're gonna work together and we done that, you know, a group of us got on a webinar type lunch and learn things where we talked about the different programs and we picked the program and we talked about it just to educate the local business, three competitors working together to help the local business community. It was inspiring. It was and I was so happy to be proud of it. And it it really was a we pulled together and we I have seen some businesses who aren't gonna make it and it's tragic and I feel for them, but so many also found new ways to do things and we kind of took our gloves off and said it's not about you versus me and who they picked for their service provider. We're all going to work together to get these guys through and it's been inspiring. Let me follow up on that. That sounds great. That collaboration, I think is terrific. Your experience laura was that you were let go and you started a business. What about the people who you're helping now? Are you seeing people whose businesses were also born because of the pandemic? So definitely I of my client base probably and on 25 to 30% were either just ideas before the pandemic or kind of like a side gig that they decided to turn into a full time gig. Um I think the pandemic inspired a lot, a lot of entrepreneurial ship, admittedly, like a lot of people are sitting back saying, well my corporate job or my regular job doesn't understand that I have child care issues now because the daycares are all closed or whatever. So it forced people to be entrepreneurial and I think it, it gave people perhaps a window of time to work on some of these. So I have quite a few clients who are side gigs trying to go full time. Some of them, admittedly, you know, the last month or so, they said, well it's probably going to remain a side gig. I'm not sure I can make it full time. And we've had those conversations about, well maybe it's more of a three year plan for you rather than an 18 month plan. So there's definitely been varying degrees of how people have been able to pivot and change. But what I'm seeing is entrepreneurial ship is at an all time high and when everyone talks about, you know, the great resignation that's going on in the world right now where everybody is resigning to do something else. Businesses like mine, well we're doing not so bad as a result of it because these people are coming up saying I'm gonna start my own business and I don't know what I'm doing, Please help me. It's working out well for you. And what I could also see is you have an additional benefit that you offer that a lot of other accounting firms don't have to offer, ironically because you started your business around the same time that they did. So you can relate, you can relate to them, right? Yeah. And we're going through this together and we're sharing milestones and that's I mean, I have a few businesses where like you would think I'm in their family list, right? Like if they get a big milestone in their business, they're reaching out to me and you know, in an official standpoint, I'm their service provider, but we're but we're tight and it's partly because you were born of the pandemic and I was, I'm telling you, I got it. If I can get the phrase figured out, it's gonna be like baby boomer, but way better. But but there, but there's like the pandemic boomers, right? The people who just woke up and said I'm going to be entrepreneurial and I'm gonna go for it full force and we've by ending together and admittedly a chunk, like I said, probably about a quarter of my client base, that's their story. That's your story you've touched on this, but now I'd like it to really zoom in on it. No pun intended and that is the marketing approach that you use to get the word out about your accounting and related services. Can you share with us? What are some of the techniques that you use? So nothing I learned in university. So when I was in school and they talked about marketing and strategies and all that stuff, I mean, okay, so I'm an accountant for a reason and in part it's because I'm relatively introverted if I'm talking about things I know right, my business, I can't talk right, so it's okay to do a podcast about this, but I'm not that person who necessarily needs to be putting themselves out in front of people and saying, look at me, look at me, look at me, right, that's not who I am. So marketing was very intimidating to me because I thought, I don't I don't, I have to kind of go out there and say, here I am, here I am, here I am. And how do you do that? So, I took a very kind of quiet introductory approach. I thought, well just reach out to people I know who have businesses and then work my way up to a big marketing campaign and I had visions of, you know, traditional print ads and you know, maybe I was going to be like the real estate agents and put note pads in your mailbox and I had all these ideas and I never got there because what I did was I did a little social media and I found that you know if you have an instagram page as an example for your business people will follow it and they check you out and because as I said like I speak like a person, a business person, a regular person, not an accountant that comes across in my social media and what I find is that people businesses were kind of sitting and rolling and then when they finally do reach out for that discovery call, they're like I have been following you on instagram for like six months and I had this one life coach and she was she was one of my pandemic stories, right? Like she was in the pandemic and she didn't want to stay in her sales job and she was going to start this life coaching business and she's like I have been watching you for months on instagram and she said I just like your approach and you seem to know what you're talking about and I'm like well I absolutely know what I'm talking about and and I'm glad you like my approach because it's authentic. It's me like I I don't when you're in a corporate job, sometimes you aren't quite yourself, right? You're very formal, you're very um you know following the rules, there's a policy, there is a procedure and you know whether you're 100% love it, you do it right, you put on your smile and you do it in my business. If I don't want to do it, I'll help refer you because like I said, we're developing this accountants network here where we just want to help the businesses. So if it's not my area of expertise, I'm happy to introduce you. But but that's that instagram, that's social media. I haven't done Tiktok yet. I've heard some people say I should do some Tiktok videos. I'm not quite there yet, but you know, and I have, I've gone on and when I won the Reader's Choice Award as an example, I got on just to say thank you. Not, you know, some post that says thank you, it was me and I can't call everybody and thank you, but I'm going to thank you and and those types of being real and being yourself and putting yourself out there a little bit and you know, I challenge you go ahead, check out my accounting page, my instagram page, I'll be accounting solutions, but I'm in hoodies a lot right? I'm I'm, you know, not dressed like an accountant. You know, everyone wants me to post my Halloween costume and I've got some creative ideas that I'm going to post on the weekend, but that's its authenticity. So it doesn't feel like marketing, but it's getting my name out there and it's working, that sounds great. Now you mentioned Tiktok and videos and you're not doing that? Do you do videos though? I have done a couple small ones last Christmas I actually got um, my clients to help me with one where they all shot a segment. So I wasn't in it as much, but I rewrote the words to the 12 days of Christmas and it was you know, instead of my true love gave to me, it was my accountant gave to me and I had all my clients talk about what I had given them. So you know, it was like, I can't remember eight tax returns, seven. So we blinded that video together. Um, but like I said with the reader's choice, I got on and did a video to say, here's, here's what I want and I want to thank you and I don't want you to read it, I want you to hear it. And I've done some webinar type stuff and I'm looking to do some more of those because I think, you know, to the point where you can teach someone something and You can do a Facebook live or an instagram live or whatever. You can be on video for 10 minutes talking about something that's relevant, you don't have to charge for it. Like, and maybe that's where I'm not going to be, you know, as strong of a business leader over time because I don't necessarily feel like everything is chargeable, but you know, if a crazy new tax thing comes out and all those local businesses are going, what do we have to do, Why wouldn't I jump on the screen and say, hey guys, here's what they're really saying and if you need to understand more, give me a call, right? So I think in that sense it's going to be marketing and I am putting myself out there, which is a big deal because I'm basically introverted, right? So I don't want to be on the video. I understand that it's not like you're in pr but you're being compelled to do that and you're doing it and it's working for you, which is a perfect segue for me to ask you laura what are some insights that you can share with other accounting professionals, bookkeeping people, which of course may be applicable to anybody from your experiences which involve your current business. But I'm sure you learned some things as well going into the business because of your years of experience working for bigger companies. What are some of the key insights? Yeah, I think I said this earlier when I was university, me I wanted to do what I'm doing today and I was scared to do it. 100% scared to do it. I didn't think I had anything to offer and what I learned is all that time in corporate and doing the things that I needed to learn actually provided me that basis of what I need to learn and I think, you know, one of the things about accounting is it doesn't really change that much. Tax rules change. You know, there's little thing but the basics are the same. But I actually think we're in a in a revolutionary time for accounting right now because we've learned that we can do this virtually and we've learned that we can actually create a more efficient way of handling clients. And whereas once upon a time if you owned a an accounting business, you know, if the client wanted to see you, you had to jump in your car drive however far, probably put on a suit, sit down with them and talk about their problems and then go away. Maybe come up with a proposal to come back and now it's it's a lot more real time, more fluid. You know, I get a phone call, I get you know these this zoom technology has really changed things and it's making the accounting profession more personal, which is in many ways better. You know if a cat jumps into my lap while I'm talking to you on the phone that's Nobody even blinks at that anymore so that the whole accounting field is evolving and you know, I've said to my husband a couple of times, I wish I had done this when my kids were smaller would have given me more time with them. But I wasn't ready. Like the reality is is I wasn't ready and I needed for me, I needed the pandemic. I needed this technology? I needed things to change in a way, but to take my big corporate experience and teach these small businesses how to get wins. That really those corporations I worked for probably took them 2030 years to figure out and it was long before I worked for them. It's amazing. And I think as information is becoming more available to people and you get more people like myself saying, I can't I don't want to I don't want to be in a corporation anymore and you're getting all that entrepreneurial ship. I think we're gonna see a lot of change. I think the world is changing and certainly the accounting profession is changing. I would agree, as are many other professions and this business that you spoke about, laura being able to reach people through zoom also opens up the boundary lines of what a business can be, which is tremendous as well. It sounds like you perhaps didn't believe that you could do this at some point and that's almost an insight in itself is that you may not think you can do it and maybe the time isn't right just yet, but you may surprise yourself in that you can do it. It just may not be the right time, but don't think that you can't do it. It's just perhaps you've got to have the courage to do it. Which you did. I want to ask you one other question actually, maybe two other questions. What do you like best about what you're doing at your firm? It's really about touching real people, it's helping real people. It's not this anonymous shareholder or you know, like my dove soap example, right? These anonymous consumers, these are real people and they're real people mostly in my general town, but slowly I'm expanding beyond my town, which is crazy to me. But um but there are real people and they have real problems and I finished the day knowing whether I had wins or losses that day. And it's a very different measurements than what I had before. And I I just, I I love that. And some of the work I do is very, you know, press buttons, get work done and the work is turning out and that's fine and and it gets done, but but there's a purpose, right? Like I know there's a family at the other end of that who needs to be profitable or you know, they need that income tax refund that they didn't think. And I remember I had one client last year in income tax season. She was petrified that she was going to own like, oh, a million dollars. I don't know why I'm like, you didn't even earn a million dollars can't pay more tax than you learned and you know, talk her through it and she was just, she was just panicking and she wasn't slated to be done her taxes for a few days because of when I scheduled her and I thought I gotta I gotta help this woman. So I put everything aside, I said to my family and said okay, I need a few more minutes. I pulled together a tax return and she was getting a refund, she didn't even know money. So I reached out to her and I said, so I did your taxes early. And she's like, okay, how bad is it? And I'm like you're getting back money. And she was like, how did you do that? And I'm like that's why you give me the big bucks. But you know, it's that kind of thing. Like I helped that family, that family was worried about money and she went to bed that night not worrying about it and it's that kind of personal touch that, that is like just what's driving me to keep getting up in the morning, keep doing this. It makes sense. There's such a human touch personal touch element to what you're doing as we conclude what I would like you to do laura is say just a little bit more about what your services are because you don't just do accounting. I don't think right and give us again the spelling of your last name and the name of your business and again where you're located and all that stuff. Okay, so all right, so I'm laura. Bedell accounting solutions. So laura, traditional spelling L. A. U R A L B E D A L. Um So small business accounting and bookkeeping is kind of my my main core business. Um But really what I try to do is a little bit more than just accounting and bookkeeping. It's more of a business consulting. It's helping people manage their their her point. Where are you, where are you hurting in your business? Is a cash flow is it you know, just overall profitability. Are you charging enough for you not charging enough? And I like to show the business owners there what I call their KPI S, their key performance indicators. And it's not the same for every business, Right? And so many people think it's profit and it's not always profit. Sometimes it's it's a growth number or whatever. So we spend time I spend time trying to really understand your business, what are your goals and let's create plans to get two goals. And what I've said to so many clients is a dream and a goal. The only difference is a date. So let's put a date on it and once we do that, then we start saying, okay, now how do we get to that date? And you know, you know, my own example reader's choice awards. I put the date on it five years. I knocked that one out of the park. So now I need to go on to my next fall. So that's what I do. We do. I do do some income taxes because I think it needs to be full service, but really it's about helping you as the business owner understand your financial information in your business language. That's what you do in your, in Georgetown, Ontario laura. This has been great. Congratulations on how successful your business is already. I can feel the enthusiasm, the excitement, the award demonstrates that you're doing a great job. Thank you so much for being with us and thank you, take care of everybody. This has been the local business show.