What Exactly is a Solopreneur and How Can You Help Them as a Bookkeeper?
Jun 27, 2022
In this episode, I’m diving into what service-based solopreneurs are and what types of examples there are in the industry. This is my favorite industry to serve, and I want to talk about why that is.
What’s a Service-Based Solopreneur?
You are likely wondering what a service-based solopreneur even is. Well, service-based means it’s a business that sells services rather than products.
Solopreneurs means entrepreneurs that are in business by themselves.
In short, this business has one owner and provides a service to its clients.
Why is Serving a Service-Based Solopreneur Simpler?
The reason I focus on service-based solopreneurs in my bookkeeping business is that it’s simpler. It doesn’t mean it’s entirely simple, but it means that you can learn how to serve them and it won’t be the most difficult bookkeeping out there. That’s beneficial because you’re able to do it without fear of making mistakes.
It is simpler because these businesses don’t have inventory and they typically don’t need to do accrual-based accounting, which is harder than cash-basis accounting.
Cash-basis accounting is recording sales when you get paid and recording expenses when you actually pay them. When you’re doing bookkeeping for one of these businesses, you’re following the bank trail and categorizing things.
That means there won’t be a lot of accounts receivable or accounts payable. They won’t be sending out a bunch of bills, they’ll be paying for things online rather than an old, historic way of chasing down bill payments.
This reduces clerical data. Additionally, these businesses typically avoid sales tax, which is very nice. Complex tax situations are also avoided, which keeps things simpler.
Many of these business owners use similar if not the same platforms for billing and payment. That means you can link them up to your own software with ease after you get the hang of it, and from there you can create a repeatable process for your clients. This makes it easy to hire and train a team under you. This is important as you grow your business.
A Service That’s In-Demand & Rewarding
You’re providing a bookkeeping service in a way that gives clear, detailed data on how your client’s business is doing. That’s what’s so valuable to these entrepreneurs.
Let me tell you - this service is very much in demand. The landscape of business is that many people are going out and doing things on their own - whether it’s their full-time business or a side hustle.
Once these people are making decent money in their business, they need help keeping track of their books. That’s where you come in.
Helping these types of clients is so rewarding. They’re fearful or avoidant of their numbers and they’re used to not feeling safe getting help. What they envision an accountant to be is someone who will make them feel like they don’t know enough or like their business is being judged or dismissed.
You can help them with something that they feel horrible about or are just not going to do entirely. They also usually have goals similar to yours - they’re looking for freedom and flexibility in their life.
They understand how you work, they feel understood by you, and that mutual understanding makes it nice to work together.
Examples of Simple, Scalable, Service-Based Businesses
Many people assume I’m exclusively talking about business coaches when I talk about this type of entrepreneur. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Here are just some examples of businesses that a service-based solopreneur can run. I’ve even had many of these types of businesses as clients myself:
- Business Coach
- Life Coach: I have a client who’s a dating coach.
- Consultants: For just about anything! One of my first clients was an insurance consultant.
- Agencies for any kind of service: One of my clients is my podcast producer and the agency she runs.
- Ads Managers: I have clients that run Facebook ads or one that focuses on Google ads.
- Web Designers: They can work on any platform setting up and designing websites.
- Course Creators: My course creator is one of my clients!
- Copywriters
- Social Media Managers
- Graphic Designers
- Health Coaches: I have three of them as clients!
- Estheticians: I have two of them as clients!
- Pinterest or LinkedIn Managers
- Virtual Assistants
- Acupuncturists: I service one currently and have had others in the past.
- Dance Studio Owners: I have one as a current client.
- Therapists: I have one on my client roster.
- Meal Prep Business Owners: I just signed a client that has a meal prep business.
- Plumber
- Landscapers
- Electricians
- Masseuses
- Yoga Studio Owners
This is just a bulleted list that I came up with, but I want you to know I’m NOT just talking about business coaches. There is still a wide array of people you can serve under the service-based entrepreneur category.
Take BABs to Learn More About this Service: The Bottom Line
My program BABs allows you to see how I work, which is in a way what reduces the number of errors you make, understand what your responsibilities are, and work efficiently while giving high-value data to your clients.
Serving service-based solopreneurs is covered thoroughly in my program Become a Bookkeeper (BABs). I cover this in three phases: learn, shadow, and apply.
In learning this, you learn the basics of accounting, bookkeeping, and taxes for these businesses. This includes a section on the complexities you avoid with these clients or what you need to learn if you’re going to take on clients in a different scope of business.
Then you shadow, where you watch me do an entire year's set up for a client. It’s as though you’re behind my shoulder watching me do all the work.
Finally, you get mock client data and you use it in a real bookkeeping platform to compare your results to mine.
If you want to learn more about how to and what you need to understand fundamentally in addition to what you need to do the work itself, BABs is the right program for you!
Ready to take action? Apply for the program that's right for you:
If you're looking for more insight on how to become a bookkeeper, and how to say hello to a more confident business model, enroll in Become A Bookkeeper (BABs).
Or to learn more about growing your bookkeeping business and hiring a team, enroll in Life By The Books™ (Libby).
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