Lesson 2: Who Are You?

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0:00 Our next section, who are you? We've kind of established what branding is, and in order to do that, we need to first get a really good understanding of who you are, what's important to you.

0:13 Why you're here, all those things. If you look at that photo on the right there, uhm, or left, I don't know which way it is for you.

0:20 Right here. This is, the very first MediaBooks, uh, that um, website. At the time we were called ProAdvisor Marketing.

0:28 But yeah, that was our first, uh, that was our first website. And, uhm, if I looked back and I could like scroll through it, it was absolutely terrible.

0:36 Uhm, I dunno. I, I feel a little nostalgic. So let's go get into who are you. Who are you? Umm, here's the thing.

0:48 When it comes to building your brand and your business, there's going to be a feeling that you need to put this face on.

0:54 You need to put on the persona of an accountant. You need to be super professional. You need to, um, talk a certain way and sound, um, very, uh, I'm trying to think of a more different word other than professional, but you need to sound a certain way online.

1:12 and here's the thing. If you are constantly filtering who you really are, you are going to find it very difficult to write content and to run your business.

1:23 And that's not to say that you need to be who you are online, who you are with, like your friends and your husband and your parents and all that.

1:30 But you do need to have a certain sense of who you are, what you are comfortable saying online, and being okay with if other people don't like it.

1:40 Not everyone is going to like it. I have had- Plenty of people tell me they don't like my work, umm, and that's okay.

1:47 You need to be comfortable and really understand, look, here's what I want to do, here's the people I want to do it for, here's what's important to me.

1:55 So, first, feel like you have a sense of side. And let's go through some questions that I want you to kind of write down and really ponder, umm, as you build your brand.

2:04 So, what is important to you? Is it having time with your family? Is it, uh, you know, having sort of, umm, this good work-life balance?

2:16 Or maybe you're on the opposite end. Maybe you're a hustler and you're like, no. I wanna, I wanna, I wanna put in the hour- I wanna work crazy hours.

2:23 I wanna make a- we have a ton of money. I wanna, you know, grow and build the next huge, big four national firm.

2:32 Um, whoever you are, that's okay. Just make sure that you know what it is. So, first thing is what is important- important to you.

2:39 Second thing is what do you enjoy? Umm, this is gonna be important in the next lesson, but really thinking about what work to you like doing.

2:47 If you don't like doing bookkeeping, let's- let's say you're a tax accountant. You don't like doing bookkeeping. There's definitely ways you can build a very thriving tax practice and not have to do bookkeeping services.

2:59 Likewise, if you like payroll, sure. You can- you can build a payroll business and not have to do bookkeeping- or tax services.

3:07 So that is the great thing about accounting is that there is enough work out there that whatever niche of the industry you like, you can probably build a really great business around it.

3:15 That also extends to who do you like working with? Who do you enjoy working with? I like working with accountants.

3:21 I've had some marketers to- tell me I am absolutely insane for liking working with accountants. But I like it. Like, I think you guys are great.

3:28 Uhm, I'm not gonna tell you who doesn't like working with you because we're not worried about them. They're weird. Uhm, what does your business need to do for you to make it a success?

3:38 If you start this business and you find yourself working 12 hour days, 7 days a week, but you just did this so you can have more time with your kids, then it's not a success.

3:50 If you did this so you can make a billion dollars, but you're given everything. Taking away for free, then that's not a success.

3:57 You, like I said in the beginning, what is important to you? Let's make sure that aligns with your business plan, with your strategy.

4:04 Your business plan, your strategy, and your brand are all going to go hand in hand together. What do you do?

4:12 In the realm of accounting, there are a million different paths you can take. I frankly think the degree and the CPA exam is too broad.

4:20 There's plenty of accountants that- there's plenty of CPAs that- don't even do their own taxes. There's plenty of accountants who don't want to touch audit.

4:27 It Excuse me. It's a very broad industry. So let's get very specific on what do you do. This does not mean you need to list out every single service or, you know, package that you have, but get really clear on what you do and what you potentially want to do in the future.

4:44 So, for example, if you offer bookkeeping services right now, have a plan for whether you want to offer tax services in the future.

4:51 It's okay if you don't know yet, but at least kind of have an idea of what's whether that is even something that is possibly interesting to you.

4:59 I've also had clients who come to me who are that I have one client in particular who I'm thinking about.

5:05 Um, and she's like, you know, I, I offer bookkeeping and tax services, but I also want to offer advisory services and I can also.

5:12 Consult on operations and I can consult on this and that and like a million HR, like a million other things.

5:17 And it's like, this is too many things to be offering to have a clear message. And it's okay if you want to do that down the road, but we need to talk about what you.

5:28 What are your values today? And what do you currently have a plan for? If you're thinking, oh, I'm open to tax services down the road.

5:36 Do you have a plan for that? Does that look like you taking a course? Do you have experience? Do you need to get your EA?

5:43 Um. As opposed to, I took a bookkeeping course. I know nothing about taxes. One day in the future I would maybe like to offer tax services.

5:52 Okay, let's worry about that in the future. Right now you're just focusing on bookkeeping services. Let's leave room and let's be a little bit realistic about where we can grow and what we can do.

6:00 Um, what do you do? What do you want to do? It doesn't need to be your packages. It doesn't need to be every service.

6:07 But I would say within the next five years, understand what services you currently offer can't, you currently can't offer and you currently have a plan to offer.

6:16 So, for example, again, you take your bookkeeper, you're doing- bookkeeping services and you're currently sitting for the EA exam. That's what I mean.

6:24 Okay. So do you offer bookkeeping advisory tax payroll? Like I said, have a- have a good high level view of that.

6:32 Do you ever want to expand beyond what you're currently launching with? Have an idea.