I’m a bit of a control freak. I can acknowledge that. I have a hard time letting go, or delegating. If you’ve worked with me closely then you probably have seen this first hand; sorry about that.
But early on in my Monkeypod journey I realized that I was spending way too much time worrying about my financials. I wasn’t great at keeping track of expenses, and I wasn’t confident that I was doing my bookkeeping the right way. I was honestly losing sleep over it.
I come from a family of accountants, and so I understand the important role accounting plays in the health of a business. But, I didn’t want to simply rely on my relatives for my accounting needs, because I knew that wouldn’t scale either – and if there were an issue of any kind, well, I didn’t want to risk affecting those relationships either.
So, I was kind of stuck. I knew that I could jump in with both feet and try and find a solution, and then start what would likely be a long and arduous learning curve with whatever accounting software I settled on, but honestly, I hated that idea. In the first few months of Monkeypod I was busy enough just trying to keep my head above water, I really didn’t feel like I had time to learn everything I needed to effectively do my own books too.
And then I got a random email from a guy in Illinois, Micky Deming. Micky is an Infusionsoft user, and had heard my name somewhere and was hoping that I would be willing to be a guest on his podcast, TrepX. So, I did (here’s the old podcast).
In the course of the emails we exchanged, and the conversations we had, it turned out that Micky is also the full time Marketing Director at Kahuna Accounting. I wish there was a better story, but the truth of the matter is I sold myself on their services. Micky reached out to me to talk about small business, and about Infusionsoft, and about his podcast – and afterward I kept following up with him to learn more about Kahuna, and the accounting and bookkeeping services that they offer there.
And truth be told, I looked at a handful of other companies who I felt offered similar services, but there were two primary reasons I went with Kahuna:
- They use and understand Infusionsoft. In fact Kahuna worked closely with Workato to develop the integration that helps Infusionsoft and Xero pass information back and forth.
- The second reason was that Kahuna really gets entrepreneurship. Heck, Micky’s podcast TrepX comes from the word enTREPreneur. According to their website, entrepreneurship and small business is in their DNA.
Since signing up with Kahuna nearly a year ago, it’s been pretty smooth sailing. They make me feel valued as a customer, they appreciate my feedback, and they actively work to understand my business goals, and to provide me with resources and reporting to help keep me on track.
Honestly, I probably signed up with them too early. I wasn’t earning all that much, and my income was fluctuating dramatically from month-to-month – but I haven’t regretted it once. The peace of mind that comes with knowing you have a team of professionals handing your shiz continues to make it worthwhile each month.
Oh, and they recently were named Xero’s Accounting Partner of the Year for the USA.
I won’t sit here and tell you that every small business needs to rush over to Kahuna and sign up, but I do think there’s a lesson here in relinquishing some control. Small business owners normally get into business because they’re passionate about something, and as your business grows, you tend spend less and less time doing the thing you love most.
It can be hard to outsource something. It means letting go of some control. When you care about your business as much as entrepreneurs do, it’s hard to believe that anyone will serve it with the same passion and focus that you feel it deserves.That’s a real concern.
But what I underestimated was how liberating it can be to take one more thing off your already cluttered schedule, and how fulfilling it can be to take that time and reinvest it on your business in the areas that also deserve your focus. And how much better I sleep when I have that peace of mind.
If bookkeeping is a pain point for you, I’d encourage you to look at Kahuna (I think they primarily serve US based businesses). But if your pain point is something else, reach out to your network and see if you can find a solution that fortifies your weakness and helps you spend more time leveraging your strengths.
