What Real Students Say About BABs

podcast Dec 18, 2022

If you’re familiar with my platform, by now, you’ve probably heard of BABs. BABs is a program that teaches you the technical skills of bookkeeping: accounting, tax basics, the basics of bookkeeping, what that whole process looks like, etcetera.

The main point of BABs is this: if you’re working on becoming a bookkeeper, the best marketing strategy is just being really good at what you do. The rest is going to work itself out, but you can't really grow your business until you are confident in your skills.

I can't tell you if your experience and education is enough to make you ready for becoming a bookkeeper. It's a feeling that you have within you. If you don't have the confidence, or you really don't have the education or experience, you need this program.

Becoming a Bookkeeper: What BABs Has to Offer

When BABs students talk about this program in comparison to others that help with becoming a bookkeeper, one of the pieces of consistent feedback they give is that this program is better than other programs that they’ve purchased in the past.

They also say what they were doing before to try to solve their problem—not being able to see the whole picture of bookkeeping—wasn’t working. They wanted to work toward becoming a bookkeeper. They felt like they had the skills for becoming a bookkeeper. They had some education and experience or background that made them feel like it would be a great thing for them, but they didn't see the whole picture. In this program, you get to see that whole picture.

This is a very thoughtfully designed program built upon my hard work and my really unique set of experience and circumstance that led me to figuring out a way to do efficient modern bookkeeping, Cloud-based, using the systems that our clients actually use.

It sounds a bit egotistical, but I would wager confidently that I understand these platforms better than most CPAs simply because I've cared to do so. A lot of CPAs who do taxes are just going to run some reports and put some numbers together, but it's not bookkeeping.

Ultimately, this program's big promise is to help you solidify what you already know about accounting and tax and bookkeeping if you already know it. If you don't already know it, it's going to teach it to you so you can get further on your path to becoming a bookkeeper.

People love it all, but the thing they mention the most that sets this program apart from others is the shadow and practical application sections. I'm not just going to teach you about becoming a bookkeeper through some disjointed how-to videos covering all industries; if I did, you would walk away learning a little bit of everything, but you still wouldn’t understand the full picture needed for becoming a bookkeeper.

In the shadow section, you’ll get to watch me do a full 2020 catch-up of a real-life client. You get to see our initial zoom call and watch me work through the data using the basics that you learned in phase one.

You'll see me set up the client in Xero, you'll see how I gain access to the banks and link the data and categorize it, how I ask the clients questions, how to reconcile the data with the statements, and how to tie the data to the tax return, which is extremely important and often missed. I’ll also show you the right way to categorize payroll, which needs to be done.

That's another section people really love: the way that I break down payroll. I’m not going to be teaching you how to run it—you shouldn't be running it. You should be using a system, or your clients should be using a system, but you will need to get the information in there correctly. It's important for taxes, and it's important for your client to understand. This is an area that a lot of bookkeepers mess up; even people with experience have gone through and go, “Oh, I didn't know that I was doing that wrong. Now I do, and now I can fix it.”

That's the whole point of the program. We're going to try to help you close the gaps so you can proceed with becoming a bookkeeper confidently, knowing you know what you’re doing.

It’s very well-designed and structured. It builds on itself. You can't move on to the next sections until you've passed assessments that prove that you understand what you just learned about becoming a bookkeeper. Those also function as refreshers to reinforce what you should really walk away with. And then afterward, in the apply section, you get to do it yourself. Why? Because that's the best way to learn.

What Students Have to Say About BABs

Now, I'm going to share some information from the BABs case studies and share what people actually have to say about BABs.

Firstly, about twenty people have filled out these studies, twelve of whom have completed the program fully. Chances are good that by the time this blog comes out, there will be more responses. If you want to check those out yourself, you can go to my website to see a comprehensive report of actual student responses, and it will open it up and tell you right at the top how many responses there are.

I’m going to give you some highlights first, then I want to read through some of these answers more fully…

Did you have any accounting education and/or experience before joining BABs?

45% of people had both, 30% had experience only, 20% had education only, and one person had neither.

How likely are you to recommend this program?

Out of twenty people, 9.8 is the average rating on how likely they would be to recommend this program to someone else working on becoming a bookkeeper. On a scale of 0 to 10, that's seventeen people giving it a score of 10, one giving it a 9, and two giving it an 8. What I like about accountants is how precise we are, right? So those eights are still high recommendations.

How confident did you feel in your ability to do the work of bookkeeping before beginning this program?

Here, the average score drops very far: it comes out to a 3 on a scale of 0 to 10. That's low. I didn't think it was going to be that low, so I love getting this feedback.

How confident do you feel in your ability to do the work of bookkeeping now?

The average here jumps to an 8.9 out of 10. So they went from an average score of 3 to an average of 8.9.

What I find extra interesting about this is that at the very start of the program, every student working toward becoming a bookkeeper fills out an application. On that application, I ask people what they would rate their confidence in their ability to do bookkeeping work. On that initial application, their confidence scores average to about a 6. And after they've gone through BABs, when they reflect back on the place they were before, knowing where they are now, they go back and rate themselves a 3 instead. So their confidence in their prior ability goes down after they complete the program, because they realize just how much they didn’t know about becoming a bookkeeper. And after the program, they end up at about a 9 in terms of confidence. I'm super proud of these results; after all, it's an enormous transformation!

Are you applying the information you learned yet?

I don't expect people to come out of BABs and start applying the information they learned instantly. That's not what I'm promising you. But out of these twenty people, fourteen of them say that they are applying the information that they learned already. 70% is a pretty high amount. The next 30% say that they're not yet applying the information, but they feel ready to. 0% said not yet and they don't feel ready to do so.

I expected this to be more in the middle; that’s what I promise on the sales page. But I love hearing that so many people are already able to apply what they’re learning about becoming a bookkeeper!

Has BABs helped you realize the desire that led you to join the program?

Here, we have a fifty-fifty split. 50% of people say that they're still working toward their desire and BABs is helping make it possible, and 50% of people say that they’ve realized their desire, and BABs helped them get there. 0% said that their desire feels out of reach. Incredible.

Do you feel that someone who wants to predominantly use QuickBooks Online would benefit from this program even though it focuses on Xero?

I get asked this question a lot from those wanting to work on becoming a bookkeeper, and I think the reason I get asked that question is because people think QuickBooks Online is the leader in bookkeeping software and that they are going to want to stay there.

So, what happens in this program is that the first few pieces are not program-specific. Accounting is accounting, taxes are taxes, bookkeeping is bookkeeping. When you get into the shadow and the practicum, that's where I'm showing Xero. I do it that way because it's my preferred platform, and it's my preferred platform for a reason.

It’s not that I don't know QuickBooks; it's that I know QuickBooks and Xero, and I prefer Xero. There's a lot of reasons why; I actually have a whole podcast episode about it. Basically, you may favor QuickBooks today and think that you always will, and you may continue to favor it, but 90% of people say you're still going to benefit from this program despite my using a different platform.

How does the price compare to the value?

Here, you’ll see a lot of scores between 8-10. 30% of people say that it's just right, and two people scored it at a 4.

The range of scores goes like this: 0 would be overpriced, 5 would be priced appropriately, and 10 would say that it should definitely cost more. Most people gave it a 5 or an 8.

Some Highlights…

I’ll leave you with some final statements from real-life BABs students:

“I loved BABs. It was invaluable. I'm so glad I got over the hesitation to invest. Thank you for following your passion and creating this program.”
“Thank you, Katie, for creating this course and giving me the privilege to offer feedback. Thank you to Katie for creating this program and being able to provide your own knowledge and experience in it to help guide us through this process. I'm looking forward to growing my firm and using these resources provided in BABs when I need it.”
“I wish I would've discovered Katie sooner. I would've avoided the other bookkeeping courses and I would've been farther along on the path of leaving my nine-to-five.”
“Katie's teaching method is so transparent and authentic. This course material is easy to follow and makes learning something that may seem complicated, uncomplicated.”
“I've worked at an accounting firm for three years and learned more in this course than I ever did at the firm. Katie is a hidden gem.”

Join BABs Today!

Is BABs the program for you? To enroll in BABs and learn how to be a qualified bookkeeper who actually knows what she's doing, head to www.katieferro.com/become.

To learn about the program and get a peek behind the curtain, head to www.katieferro.com/6-secrets.

To check out current Tech Talks or to buy the Tech Talk Vault Annual Pass, visit www.katieferro.com/coaching.