NOW HIRING: An Opportunity for BABs Grads With Bear Financial Solutions

Meet Erin!

Katie: Start from the beginning. Introduce yourself and your business and tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do!

Erin: Well, my name is Erin Reece, and I own Bear Financial Solutions.

We help businesses build healthy financial foundations so they can increase profit and maximize impact. Our goal is to help business owners financially thrive while also tending to their mental health.

I'm actually a financial therapist and an accountant by trade; I've got tons and tons of years of experience in accounting, and I also have studied mental health for the last year so that I could add financial therapy to our plethora of offerings.

When I left public accounting, I left because it was such a toxic environment. I’ve watched the people around me really struggle, and the client service really suffers as a result, because everyone is drowning. It’s really an industry-wide problem.

We tell young accountants who are going to school that they’re going to get a degree and they’re going to go work at the Big Four and they’re going to love it. We tell them everybody's going to pat them on the back, and they’ll be able to say that they made it…but that’s not actually what it’s going to be like.

Opportunities for Passionate Moms

Erin: As for why I’m looking for a mom to join the team, I actually exclusively employ moms.

I really want moms—especially moms like you and me who really love the craft—to have the opportunities they deserve.

I always wanted to be an accountant, even from a young age. In the seventh grade, I came home and told my mom I was going to be an accountant, and I never wavered from that.

It has always been a no-brainer. I’ve always been passionate about the work. I love numbers. I love math. I love the function of it. I love it.

But I also have three children that depend on and need me. I know how it feels to want and love both. So I really wanted to create a workspace where women who want both can have both. I wanted to create a way for women to work in a career they’re passionate about while also doing their mom thing.

Katie: I love that, because it’s good to be surrounded by other moms. It really helps when everyone understands each other’s needs and capacity because they’re all in the same boat.

And I mean, I'm sure that there are some people who haven't had kids that can empathize and understand. I know that I wasn't one of them, though. I couldn't understand at all what it was like until I was immersed in it.

I also found that by having moms on my team, we actually ended up more in sync, because their schedules were similar to mine. My first hires were working at nine in the evening like I was, and that was what we all wanted to do. That was the time that worked for us.

Now that my kids are older and in school, I don’t want to work those hours—I only want to work during the hours that used to be hard, because they’re no longer here during that time. And when they get back from school, I don’t want to be working anymore. Those are the seasons you go through as a mom.

The BABs Hire

Katie: So let's talk about your BABs hire. I want to know what you’ve loved about working with a BABs graduate, and why—in an ideal situation—you’d love to hire another one.

Erin: So, the BABs grad that I got to work with is also a mom, and she was working a full-time job, but she was taking your program and she wanted to learn bookkeeping. She has a background in accounting, so it's not totally new for her, but the bookkeeping piece can be pretty different.

So I could see when I started working with her that she needed a transition between working a full-time job and carrying a full load of bookkeeping clients.

There are two kinds of people who want to do bookkeeping: there are people who want to start a bookkeeping business who have little to no experience, and what they need is some mentorship to help them learn through it before they can just take on a full Rolodex of clients. And that’s totally normal.

But there’s also a type of person who wants to do bookkeeping, but doesn’t want to own their own bookkeeping firm.

Katie: I can say yes on that pretty confidently. I was just talking to my sister about this, actually; she’s a real estate professional, and she has an assistant who has all the same credentials as her, but her assistant prefers to be doing the thing instead of acquiring the clientele.

It’s the same thing for bookkeeping. There are people who want the business, and they love finding and signing the clients and onboarding and problem-solving. That’s the stuff that I love. But there are others who are like, “Look, please just give me a list and tell me what I need to do today so I can clock in and clock out.”

So there’s actually a ton of freedom and autonomy in being somebody else's bookkeeper in an ideal case. I don’t really care when my bookkeepers clock in and clock out as long as the work gets done. I don’t care if they go on vacation and do their work from the hotel. They don’t have to own their own business to still get the autonomy bookkeeping has to offer.

Let me ask you this: when you hired your BABs grad, how did that go? Did you find her, or did she find you?

Erin: Well, I have some nuanced things about my application process that are set up to weed people out, and those will communicate certain things to me that I want to see in a hire—but in her case, she reached out and said she might be a fit for what I needed. So I did something a little unusual and sent her two projects that I needed done. I gave her some general guidelines and basically said, “Clean this up. Good luck.”

She absolutely crushed it. I gave her very little guidance, and she did so amazing. The very first project I gave her, I was like, “You need you to stay with me. I need you to do more of these projects.”

That’s why I reached out to you again. I was like, “Give me another one of these,  because this is so good.”

Are You a Good Fit? Apply Today!

Katie: Can you tell us what you're looking for with this role, and where people can apply if it's the right fit for them?

Erin: So what we're looking for right now is bookkeeper. I'm looking for someone to do full close, so open to back on these books. I always have cleanup projects.

We are primarily on Xero. I know you teach Xero in BABs, so if they’ve been through BABs, they would already have that experience. But Xero is a skill you need to have.

Honestly, I love to interview people just to see what they're about, but if anyone would love to interview and they might be a fit, they can email their resume to [email protected] and put something in the subject line about learning about this position through the podcast!

WORK WITH ERIN:

Apply to join Erin’s team today! E-mail [email protected] with your resume and mention the podcast in your subject line!

CONNECT WITH ERIN:

Find out more about Bear Financial Solutions: https://bearfinancialsolutions.com/ 

Follow Erin on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erinthemoneytherapist/ 

WORK WITH KATIE:

Want a peek behind the curtain into LIBBY, my program all about what it really takes to have a simple and scalable (and successful) bookkeeping business? Get access to my free, on-demand four-part series, 6 Secrets to a Simple, Scalable Bookkeeping Business: www.katieferro.com/6-secrets

Learn how to take your bookkeeping skills and turn them into a business that allows you to replace (or surpass) your corporate salary, be present for your life, and profoundly impact your clients without selling your life in the process by joining Life by the Books (LIBBY).  

Need to boost your bookkeeping basics? Join BABs now: https://www.katieferro.com/become 

CONNECT WITH KATIE:

Website: https://www.katieferro.com/

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