We’re officially at the halfway point of 2025, and no, it’s not too late to make this year your most productive year yet!
In this episode, Danielle is joined by one of our numbers experts from our amazing Kickstart Accounting team, Account Manager Becky Teves, to talk through the biggest obstacles she sees small business owners experiencing right now, and how you can finish this year strong and strategic.
Key Takeaways:
- It’s Not Too Late to Pivot Your 2025 Goals: You still have time to course-correct and make strategic decisions based on what’s working, even if it means setting fresh goals for the second half of the year.
- Big Changes Take Time to Show Results: Don’t be discouraged if you’re not seeing immediate profits from decisions made months ago. Practicing patience is a key part of financial growth.
- Connect with Your Money Team: Email is great, but nothing beats a face-to-face call to dig into your numbers, goals, and strategies. And if you’re a Kickstart client, these calls are included in your package—use them!
- There are No Dumb Questions: Even if you're not sure what to ask your money team, speaking up opens the door to helpful conversations and solutions you didn’t even know were available.
- Prep Now to Avoid the Year-End Scramble: From making sure all accounts and expenses are accounted for to collecting W9s from contractors, taking small steps now will save you major stress come tax season as well as give you more time to focus on your business and its growth.
Topics Discussed:
(00:11 – 00:38) Why Midyear is Not the Time to Write Off the Rest of the Year
(00:39 – 01:56) How to Rework Your Goals and Practice Financial Patience
(02:07 – 05:49) The Real Value of Calls with Your Money Team and What Happens on Them
(05:49 – 07:09) Midyear Action Steps: What to Send Your Accountant Now for the Future
Resources:
Kickstart Accounting’s CFO Services | kickstartaccountinginc.com/cfo
Book a Call with Kickstart Accounting, Inc.:
https://kickstartaccountinginc.com/book
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YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@businessbythebooks
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/kickstartaccountinginc
Episode Transcript
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:08
Danielle Hayden
Hello and welcome back to Business by the Books, the podcast that teaches you how to use your financials to better manage your business. We're at our halfway point in 2025. Becky, what are some of the trends that you're seeing with clients on on your client calls in your communication and with you and your team with clients?
00:00:21:11 - 00:00:39:01
Becky Teves
I think right now, the biggest thing, and I've said this several times before, is that they think when they get to June, May and June that they just need to focus on 2026. That the year has just gone down. Oh, there's nothing left I can do for this year. That's not true at all. Like you can still, if you have a budget, let's rework it.
00:00:39:01 - 00:00:58:20
Becky Teves
How can we help you still hit those goals? Or maybe we make new goals for 2025. Just because we're midway through the year doesn't mean that you should count out and wipe away the year. You know, we should really revamp. Take a step back. What worked in the six months? Let's focus on that the next six or even smaller chunks like the next three, and then see where we're at.
00:00:58:20 - 00:01:17:02
Becky Teves
I think some business owners are in such a rush to make big changes, and then they make these big huge changes, but they're not giving themselves the grace to see everything pan out. You got to give yourself at least 90 days. And sometimes if the change is a lot bigger, you need to go at least six months. So maybe they haven’t even seen that, you know, benefit yet from the changes.
00:01:17:03 - 00:01:34:09
Becky Teves
We have a client who did a lot in Q4 2024, and she's just now starting to see the profits from it. So, but she was patient. She held course. You know, we were reassuring her. You know, brought to the table and the calls and numbers that supported like the changes. We're seeing it. You might not feel it yet, but we're seeing it.
00:01:34:11 - 00:01:59:15
Danielle Hayden
I've heard you say that a lot is practicing patience, and as a fellow quick start, it is really hard for me to to practice that patience. And you want to see? Look, I made this big change. Why am I not having a ton of of revenue come in or profit from my expense cuts? So really practicing and encouraging patience. All clients receive calls as part of their package.
00:01:59:17 - 00:02:20:14
Danielle Hayden
So they're a premium client, they have a 60-minute monthly call. Standards get a 30-minute monthly call. Basics get a quarterly financial review call. What do you think the biggest benefit is for a client to book that call? Because you're saying things like re-forecast and hold you accountable to your goals, talk about your goals. But are you doing that via email with clients?
00:02:20:14 - 00:02:23:05
Danielle Hayden
Or is that where the gold is is to book those calls?
00:02:23:05 - 00:02:38:11
Becky Teves
Looking the calls is the cream of the crop. You know, everybody, even a text message can get misconstrued. It's hard to understand really what you're trying to get to an email. And we understand our our clients are busy business owners. We, you know, it's hard to find the time in the day even to take a 30-minute lunch break.
00:02:38:11 - 00:02:57:23
Becky Teves
We get it. So usually one thing I encourage team members to do if we're seeing somebody who made big changes and they're not feeling it yet they've expressed in an email, we love sending the loom recordings, you know, and then they're still urged to call at the same time, but at least they can see our face, hear our voice, and we can still walk them through as if we're in a call.
00:02:58:04 - 00:03:11:06
Becky Teves
It still gives that personal connection that we really strive for here to show, like we get you. Here's how I can show you. And then still, please book that call, because we can take it to a whole other level with reporting that, you know, a few minutes you can't really express.
00:03:11:08 - 00:03:30:05
Danielle Hayden
So as a client, yeah, if you're listening and you haven't bought a call with a team yet this year or maybe even since onboarding, right? This is your reminder to pause, go to the Calendly link that you receive in your Snapshot emails, book the call. People ask all the time, what do we talk about on these calls? And this is what we talk about.
00:03:30:05 - 00:03:52:11
Danielle Hayden
We talk about your goal. We talk about business. We talk about practicing patience. Right. What's working, what's not working. And we'll show you the numbers. So I say we don't fix your business for you, but we'll show you the data so that you can use data not feelings to implement strategies. Is there anything else that you're hearing from clients this year, or anything that you're shouting from the rooftops right now to clients?
00:03:52:14 - 00:04:09:12
Becky Teves
There's no dumb questions. You think we might be able to help you with it? Ask us. We might not be able to give you the exact answer or the exact data you need, but we can at least maybe use our resources from our amazing team. Anybody else that has maybe a client that went through the same thing, we can kind of point you in a direction.
00:04:09:12 - 00:04:27:11
Becky Teves
So never hesitate to ask if we can help with something, because something you may think is drawn out because that's not your niche. You know, that's why we're here. Ask us because it could take us literally five minutes to put it together for you, but relieve so much extra weight that you're carrying. So there are no dumb questions.
00:04:27:11 - 00:04:45:10
Becky Teves
Use us. You know, I feel like a lot of clients don't know what to ask. So the step of of getting on the calls when we're walking through things, using our healthy percentages, giving them guidance, can lead them to be like, hey, what do you think of this? And, you know, they may have felt silly to ask that or not even know that we can even help provide that information.
00:04:45:10 - 00:04:49:02
Becky Teves
So there's no dumb questions when, you know, using your team.
00:04:49:04 - 00:05:08:16
Danielle Hayden
Yeah, I think even just saying I'm not sure what question to ask. Yeah. You know I'm not sure what I'm supposed to ask here. It doesn't feel right. It doesn't make sense. I was listening to a call and just having somebody say I don't know what to ask here, but I know that I don't understand this information.
00:05:08:18 - 00:05:18:06
Danielle Hayden
Can you rewind and just walk me through this again? So you just say, I don't know a question to ask right now, allows our amazing team to be able to pour in and be a resource.
00:05:18:08 - 00:05:39:18
Becky Teves
And also that that same token, we can learn to push recurring calls. Let's go ahead and get a recurring call set up right now, because that is what we love to do. We love to provide the knowledge and help them understand the Snapshot. And then the next call can be goal setting, or it can be I want to hire some people, and we can work through the varied resource worksheets that we have.
00:05:39:18 - 00:05:43:19
Becky Teves
So I think it just starts with that first call, that first connection. It's important.
00:05:43:21 - 00:06:06:02
Danielle Hayden
Yeah. Create the connection so we can hear your goals, and then we help you navigate it from there. You don't have to leave that call. What are your midyear reminders right now? Tactically, you know every January, February through March our team gets crazy busy. There's a lot of information coming our way. How can clients get ahead of their end of the year
00:06:06:02 - 00:06:08:04
Danielle Hayden
rush? What do you want to receive from clients right now?
00:06:08:09 - 00:06:23:11
Becky Teves
Let's run through all your accounts to make sure we have everything connected and captured. Do you have any new loans? Do we have statements to that? You know, can we set a recurring reminder if you do have a loan? Continue to upload those statements for us. It helps tax time and year-end so much easier if we're constantly reconciling all your accounts.
00:06:23:11 - 00:06:40:01
Becky Teves
We know we have all of your accounts, and we can just fly by your year-end preparation so it can help you get taxes done quicker and smoother and everything is clean and accurate. Another thing is contractors. Everything seems to fall in the beginning of January. So it's you know, if you have a new contractor, go ahead and send us the W9.
00:06:40:03 - 00:06:57:13
Becky Teves
That way, if they hit the threshold of $600 and we're able to already provide the 1099 for them without having to chase them down and worry about hitting the deadline, you know, and being late filing your 1099 so really just making sure we have all of your statements on the correct accounts and, you know, those 1099s, those W9s to those contractors.
00:06:57:16 - 00:07:09:18
Danielle Hayden
Even if you haven't paid that team member $600 yet, you don't know where this year's going. You don't know how your relationship is going to end with that person. Get the documentation that you need now at the front end of that relationship.
00:07:09:18 - 00:07:11:01
Becky Teves
Yeah, absolutely.
00:07:11:01 - 00:07:16:16
Danielle Hayden
Any last reminders or client shout outs or anything that you want to end with?
00:07:16:17 - 00:07:26:11
Becky Teves
So we're here for you. You know, we want to support you. You may think a call is, you know, heavy for us and we don't have the time but we do. I mean, it’s why you hired us. It's what we're here for and please utilize us.
00:07:26:15 - 00:07:28:06
Danielle Hayden
Becky, thank you so much for being here.
00:07:28:08 - 00:07:31:07
Becky Teves
Thank you.
00:07:31:09 - 00:08:20:10
Danielle Hayden
I hope you enjoyed today's episode of Business by the Books. Don't forget to hit like and subscribe! This is the number one way we can help other entrepreneurs find this podcast, because here at Kickstart Accounting Inc, it is our mission to help entrepreneurs understand their numbers, get access to this information, and grow and thrive in their business. So please help me, help other entrepreneurs understand their numbers so they can finally grow and thrive.