Carving Out Your Niche And Discovering Your Mission with Geraldine Carter

Geraldine Carter started her business because she didn’t want to be an employee again. EVER. But when she discovered how much she loved coaching CPAs, she set a clear and compelling mission: helping overworked CPAs create the accounting firm and the life they have always wanted.

Geraldine joins me for a no-holds-barred conversation about business, money and impact:

What to do when you have to make your business work because you never want to be an employee again.

How to find your people and zero in on your mission to serve them.

Why it’s easier to make your second $100,000 than your first.

What happens when your revenue crosses over to your personal definition of “enough”.

The costs and pleasures of committing to ruthlessly staying solo.

 

LINKS

Geraldine Carter | Website | Podcast | LinkedIn

Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter| Instagram

GUEST BIO

Geraldine Carter is a business coach for overworked solo CPAs and firm owners who want to go down to 40 hours without giving up revenue. Her clients routinely shave hundreds of hours off their to-do lists and get back above water, so they can reshape their practice into one in which they thrive. Her podcast, Business Strategy for CPAs has more than 100,000 downloads and is ranked in the top ten podcast for CPAs, by Apple Podcasts.

Geraldine holds a BS in Engineering from Cornell University, is the co-founder and CFO of a company where her cashflow forecasting models resulted in millions of dollars for climate change efforts. In her free time, she can be found mountain biking forested trails or running after her two small children in her hometown of Ketchum, ID.

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TRANSCRIPT

00:00 – 00:28
Geraldine Carter: I’ve just stopped looking at the money, which is so not normal for me. Counterintuitive. At the risk of sounding however this sounds, I’ve almost lost track because it’s not the main thing that I think about in my business. The main thing that I think about is how do I delight clients? What is the delight that they want? And how do I delight them as fast as possible? Best possible results, least amount of time, best experience. Hello, hello.

00:32 – 00:56
Rochelle Moulton: Welcome to Soloist    Women, where we’re all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I’m Rochelle Moulton, and today I’m here with my pal Geraldine Carter, force of nature And business coach for overwork solo CPAs and firm owners who want to go down to 40 hours a week without sacrificing revenue. Geraldine, welcome.

00:57 – 00:59
Geraldine Carter: Hi, Rachelle. I’m so happy to be here.

01:00 – 01:22
Rochelle Moulton: Well, 1 of the many reasons that I am so thrilled to have you on the show is the way that you’ve established and grown your soloist business. I mean, I find it both aspirational and inspirational. And plus, we’re going to talk about 2 of our favorite topics, right? How to keep making more money without working more hours and staying solo.

01:23 – 01:24
Geraldine Carter: Ooh, I love it.

01:24 – 01:34
Rochelle Moulton: Okay. Great. Well, let’s bring everybody kind of up to speed. Let’s start with what made you decide to start your own business. Like was there a catalyst that sent you in this direction?

01:35 – 02:30
Geraldine Carter: I don’t want to say that I needed something to do, but I needed something to do. And I needed to put Cheerios in the bowl. And I had started a previous business with a friend that we had built and it was successful and I knew I wanted to go in a different direction and I knew that I was gonna start family and I was like okay now what do we do now what do I do what does this look like so when I started I actually wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I knew that

02:30 – 02:54
Geraldine Carter: I didn’t want to grow a giant company, or at least I thought I knew I didn’t want to grow a giant company. But I was like, all right, do I be a CFP? Cause I like money and I like managing money and investments and all that stuff. And I think my women especially need a lot of help with that kind of thing. But I went down that rabbit hole and I was like, oh, 2000 hour qualification, no thanks. And then I was like, You know, everybody says I make, I love making ice cream, sort of a

02:54 – 03:07
Geraldine Carter: terrible. It’s a, I love making ice cream and I make delicious ice cream. If we’re doing raw Geraldine, The name of my ice cream and I have labels for it is creamy cheese inappropriately delicious.

03:08 – 03:11
Rochelle Moulton: I can so see that. Oh my goodness.

03:11 – 03:17
Geraldine Carter: It turned out the minute that I wanted to turn that into a business and somebody said health department I was like I’m out.

03:17 – 03:18
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah food is tough.

03:19 – 03:46
Geraldine Carter: Yep and then at this point I forget what the other ones were, but at the end that left coaching. And I was like, well, this is the last 1 on the list, and it’s time to get some Cheerios in the bowl. So I signed up for a coaching certification program. And the minute I signed up the first class I was like, this is where I meant to be. I love this. And that was about 8 years ago. I was pregnant with my first kid. And that’s how I got into it. And I’ve just been finding my

03:46 – 03:48
Geraldine Carter: way exploring ever since.

03:49 – 04:08
Rochelle Moulton: Well, I know from some of our other conversations that it was kind of a twisty road that got you from there to here. So maybe can you talk us through what it was like entering the coaching space and especially finding your niche because you’re not a CPA and yet you serve CPAs. I’m just curious how you got there.

04:08 – 04:42
Geraldine Carter: Yeah. So Twisted Road is exactly it. And I, you know, like many business owners who hang their own shingle thought that I could just sell coaching. And doesn’t everybody want mindfulness coaching? Doesn’t everybody want to think better thoughts? Well, maybe, but it turns out it’s really hard to sell that by the session. So I had to do my own exploring to figure out what it is that I was offering and how I could benefit people or how that skill set could benefit people in a way that made sense for business. And simultaneously, I was having conversations

04:42 – 05:19
Geraldine Carter: with colleagues and we would always shocker, wander into the money because that’s where I was so at home. And we’d start talking about the money and I’d be asking them questions about whatever and it was on their balance sheet and they’re like, I have no idea. And they didn’t know, they knew very little about the, they knew very little about the state of their money. So I just sort of followed my nose and I started helping business owners understand their financials. And I would ask, where’s your accountant? Where’s your CPA? How come they’re not explaining this

05:19 – 05:42
Geraldine Carter: to you? And they would say, oh, they don’t have time for me or they talk over me or they talk down to me. And I was like, huh, that’s not like what’s going on there. And then simultaneously, I had a couple of CPAs reach out and they were like, hey, you know, I’ve heard about the work that you’re doing and I think I’m wondering if you might be able to help us. And that was a real head scratcher for me because I thought, wait a minute, you guys are CPAs, you’re exposed to business all day, don’t

05:42 – 06:15
Geraldine Carter: you guys understand business by osmosis? And once I got behind the curtains, I was like, oh, you guys are business owners just like everybody else and you have a skill and a craft, but that doesn’t mean that you can turn that around and point it at your own business and be a super duper awesome business owner. We all get sucked into the craft of our business and have a hard time seeing how to run and operate our business from the outside looking in. And so that was how I got into coaching CPAs and you know we’re

06:15 – 06:39
Geraldine Carter: like I’m snug as a bug in a rug because I have an engineering degree. So we talk money, numbers and math and we do spreadsheets all day long and it’s super fun. Whereas with the, you know, the physical therapist and the license, whatever the, the, the family therapist, there was more money and number aversion. So it just wasn’t as easy. So I feel like I landed right where I was meant to be with the numbers people.

06:40 – 06:57
Rochelle Moulton: There’s also a word you use that I love, which is easy. It’s Like, you know, when you find that intersection of what you love with the people who really need it, there’s that sense of ease that comes from that. Did you ever feel like you’d have to like get a CPA?

06:58 – 06:59
Geraldine Carter: Oh, no.

07:03 – 07:05
Rochelle Moulton: You don’t have to be 1 to understand the business.

07:06 – 07:08
Geraldine Carter: Well you don’t have to understand tax,

07:10 – 07:10
Rochelle Moulton: right?

07:11 – 07:15
Geraldine Carter: Right. And tax gives me hives. The minute someone says 1120S I’m out.

07:16 – 07:19
Rochelle Moulton: But I don’t even know what that is. So I’m with you.

07:20 – 07:55
Geraldine Carter: So I know I have learned some of these things, but tax still honestly gives me highs, but it’s not, I don’t need to know tax. I need to understand the business and the business model. And especially because accounting and tax and CPA and so on come out of an hourly billing space. There are all the classic problems, downstream symptoms in their businesses that are mostly born of hourly billing and the mentality that comes with hourly billing. And even though they maybe half, not quite, probably have moved off of hourly billing as a pricing mechanism, there’s still

07:55 – 08:09
Geraldine Carter: the mindset that is lagging, if you will. It’s still an hourly billing mindset, even if the pricing mechanism is different. So we’re doing more the high-level Business model business strategy and I don’t go anywhere near tax

08:09 – 08:42
Rochelle Moulton: You know, it’s interesting though is I think you said this earlier is that you know, these are CPAs. So they’re presumably people who are logical thinkers and plan things. And your engineering background feels like it would be simpatico with that. And I mean, that’s another thing I think that’s really helpful when we’re trying to figure out, you know, what’s our niche, who are people is where we think like our audience and then where we’re different because the difference is usually the part of the Venn diagram where you are observing them. Yeah.

08:42 – 08:53
Geraldine Carter: And that has been super helpful because we think alike enough, we get each other, but we don’t think exactly the same. And the differential between the 2 is of enormous value.

08:53 – 09:01
Rochelle Moulton: It’s kind of like saying, well, what if what you think you see isn’t really what you see? I mean, it’s a fresh set of eyes.

09:01 – 09:27
Geraldine Carter: Yeah. And there’s so many things in the accounting space that have just been done this way for years. It’s just every space has this, right? Every industry has its culture. And accounting tax is no different. So there, I wouldn’t say they’re sacred cows, but there are a lot of things that are just taken as a given as this is how we do things. And like you say, it takes a fresh set of eyes to come in and be like, wait, what you do this? How? How now?

09:27 – 09:28
Rochelle Moulton: Why do you do that?

09:28 – 09:36
Geraldine Carter: Yeah, why do you do this? Why do you not plan out your tax season and who your clients are going to be and know how much room you have and shut the door when you don’t have room for more? How come you don’t close your door when you’re full?

09:37 – 09:40
Rochelle Moulton: That just boggles the mind right there. But okay.

09:41 – 10:02
Geraldine Carter: I mean, they have rationale for it. And if you follow it, it makes sense. You can follow their logic. And yet it leads them right into the same trap of being overworked but it’s just how they do things in the accounting space so it takes the non accountant to come in and be like okay hold on a minute this makes no sense and not only does it not make no sense I

10:02 – 10:02
Rochelle Moulton: mean it makes sense in the

10:02 – 10:27
Geraldine Carter: way that you think about it. But not only can we find a better way, that way is imminently doable, you will like it better, and you will make more money and you won’t have to work as many hours. But because they’re because the force of history is so significant, and they look around and they don’t see other people doing it in a new way. All they have is evidence for the other way. It feels really risky to try anything different.

10:27 – 10:34
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, risky especially in a profession that is generally risk-averse. I mean, you want your accountant to be the steady

10:34 – 11:03
Geraldine Carter: man. They say that they are risk averse and they love this thread. I’m just gonna pick it up for half a minute. They love saying that they are risk averse, but they work long hours and risk missing their lives. They under price and they risk having to work extra hours in order to make up for it. They are generalists and risk having clients who are all over the map. Accountants love to say they are risk averse, but honestly, I can find a list of 10 ways that they are taking risks with their lives and with their

11:03 – 11:05
Geraldine Carter: business and with their profits and with their time.

11:06 – 11:14
Rochelle Moulton: I love that so much. I’m thinking of all the CPAs I’ve ever met and it describes a lot of them right there.

11:18 – 11:23
Geraldine Carter: I’m not going to any friends by saying this, but honestly, the phrase, well, we’re accountants, we’re risk averse is like a webby.

11:23 – 11:52
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, yeah, I know. I hear that. It makes sense. Well, and truthfully, they’re not that different from the rest of us, if you think about it, because we’re all risk averse when, when we think there’s only 1 way to do something because it’s the only way that we’ve known. It’s kind of like coming out of corporate and starting consulting and saying, okay, So I’m going to have an hourly rate and then I’m going to take what I used to make. I’m going to throw in the benefits. I’m going to divide by however many hours I think

11:52 – 12:00
Rochelle Moulton: is right. And that’s going to be my hourly rate. I mean, you just have to start thinking differently and experimenting, right, until you find the right thing.

12:01 – 12:35
Geraldine Carter: I think 1 of the things about my audience is part of being a soloist and being inside your niche is really understanding how they think in ways that are different than how I just assume people think. And as an engineer kind of background, scientist-y kind of background, I don’t have any problem experimenting. I learn by breaking things and trying to put it back together. So that to me, that way of doing things seems to me like the normal and of course you would do it this way kind of way. But the thing that I needed to

12:35 – 13:00
Geraldine Carter: come to appreciate about the way that my people think is that they really like guidance, they really like rules, they want to do a good job, they want to do the right thing, and they need the guidance, the in-air quotes rules in order to be able to do a good job. And it provides them some ballast, if you will, to know that they’re in the right lane.

13:00 – 13:01
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah.

13:01 – 13:37
Geraldine Carter: So, I have to appreciate where they’re coming from and be able to appreciate their way of thinking about things so that I don’t just barge in with my own sort of like let’s just experiment what’s the big deal kind of attitude because it won’t work. It won’t be effective for them. And I think if I come in with that, it might kind of, I don’t want to say scare them off, but they might be more reluctant. Rather than if I come in kind of appreciating how they view changing things, going against the grain, in air quotes,

13:37 – 14:09
Geraldine Carter: risk, and doing it in a way that feels safe, that doesn’t feel like they’re gonna blow a hole in the boat of their business. Doing things in a way that does feel like, okay, I can just run a swatch test on the segment of clients to see how this goes. And if it goes horribly, nobody will know. So there’s, I think, real value in being different from your niche, understanding, being the same as you’re, like, in some ways similar to your niche in some ways different but also really appreciating how they view the world and not

14:09 – 14:14
Geraldine Carter: assuming that your worldview is doesn’t everybody have this worldview.

14:14 – 14:45
Rochelle Moulton: Yes and I think that’s important to insert into your point of view and then you fold that into the practices that you create to actually do your work. I mean, when you were describing it, the word that kept flashing in neon for me was coach. I mean, because what you’re doing is you’re meeting them where they are, and then figuring out where they want to go and helping them to get there. It’s like you’re building the bridge, or maybe you’re bringing part of a bridge that’s already built and then you build the rest together.

14:46 – 15:18
Geraldine Carter: Yeah, and the thing that I’m, the thing that I love doing the most is help them get where they want to go, but even before that, help them know that where they want to go is actually possible. Because oftentimes, it’s very easy to think that, or here’s how it goes in their mind, is like, well, really if I could have anything, I would make 500K and take home 300K, and I would stuff my 401K, and I would work 3 days a week. But since we all know that that’s not possible, then I will just undershoot and

15:18 – 15:47
Geraldine Carter: try and make, you know, $350, 000 and I’ll work 5 days a week because we all know it’s totally unrealistic for me to make half a million dollars And you know have 60% margin so we won’t even talk about that. Let’s just do what’s realistic And my job is to help them, first of all, I’ve got to pull, oftentimes have to pull it out of them because their belief in what’s possible is so far in their distant past. Like they’ve let it go as a possible option so long ago that they don’t even remember that it’s

15:47 – 16:13
Geraldine Carter: really what they want or they’ve put it up on the shelf where it’s under an inch of dust and they don’t even see that it’s up there anymore they were just like forget about my dreams I’m just gonna shoot for what’s possible right and allowing them time because I will ask the straight-up question I’m like well what do you really want and they’re like it’s like the answer the question doesn’t even register We have to go first by what’s via what’s realistic, and then talk about it some more. And then usually like 10 minutes later, they’ll

16:13 – 16:16
Geraldine Carter: be like, well, if I could really have anything I wanted, it would be this.

16:17 – 16:18
Rochelle Moulton: Yes. Exactly.

16:18 – 16:47
Geraldine Carter: But we’ve got to wait for it, right? You’ve got to be patient. And then it usually surfaces and I’m like, oh, okay, cool. This. And they’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m like, all right, now we know where we’re going. And then understanding where we are, because oftentimes, you know, Cobbler’s children, and sometimes we don’t know exactly how many clients are on the client roster because there’s so many that we’ve lost track of who they are and where they are. And they just randomly appear on April 12th and they’re like, Oh, here’s my stuff. I thought you

16:47 – 16:52
Geraldine Carter: might want it. And they drop it off and you’re like, you’re still my client. So they

16:52 – 16:53
Rochelle Moulton: don’t, so

16:54 – 17:27
Geraldine Carter: they don’t, so they don’t always know exactly, you know, like who their clients are, who they’re not, who’s, you know, office. Sometimes some clients are, don’t always pay on time. And so there’s a giant pile of AR, and so you don’t know which clients you have to chase down to pay you before you do next year’s tax return. So there can be some amount of stuff that needs to get cleaned up, if you will, before we kind of head in the direction of designing and building the thing that they actually want to have. So I love

17:27 – 17:43
Geraldine Carter: it because it’s like this giant problem with so many variables that we just chip away at until we solve it. But what I know is that it is imminently solvable and none of it is rocket scientists. We just need to focus on 1 or 2 things at a time and just keep chipping away.

17:43 – 18:12
Rochelle Moulton: Well, it’s 1 of those things where It’s hard to do for yourself, you know, because you’ve got, especially in the scenario you describe, you’ve got people who are already working kind of balls to the wall to begin with, and there’s no like extra space. So then and then you have to believe something bigger is possible. And that And that trying to unravel the ball of yarn is actually worth the effort. So, yeah, I can see why that would be a process, let’s put it that way. But oh, on the other end, once you’re there, it’s like

18:12 – 18:19
Rochelle Moulton: you’re in nirvana and you can’t believe you got there. That’s what’s so powerful about the transformations that you deliver.

18:19 – 18:57
Geraldine Carter: And there’s no crack better than a client who emails you and is like, I just fired, this is probably not your everyday sentence, but I just fired 250 clients and I feel so amazing. Yeah. I can already see how I’m going to work a 50 hour a week tax season instead of a 70 hour work tax season and I can’t wait. Those kinds of emails are just the best. I mean, not that I’m for firing clients and I don’t take that stuff lightly because it’s relationships and you know, community and everything and I get it. But

18:57 – 19:03
Geraldine Carter: you know, we have CPAs who are working 7 days a week and it’s untenable for them and it’s not good for their clients either.

19:04 – 19:26
Rochelle Moulton: No, and you know, just as a sidebar, I just was amazed. I love tax Twitter, by the way. I love like listening into their conversations. They are so cool and so fun. But some of the stories they tell in April about people like showing up at a physical office with paper. And I’m like, I know, I just yeah, it sort of boggles the mind, but it happens all the time.

19:26 – 19:36
Geraldine Carter: Yeah, it does. It does. Yeah, you think the shoebox stories are just like representative, but they’re actually real. People show up with shoe boxes full of receipts on April 12th.

19:36 – 20:05
Rochelle Moulton: Oh, I know when I got together with my husband and we finally got married and he had the shoe box and he had, we lived in LA and his accountant was in New York and he would send the shoe box like right around April 15th. They’d file an extension and I’m like, no, no, no, no, this is not going to happen anymore. It’s like you’re, you’re worried about taxes the whole year. I laughed about that, but the CPA was used to dealing with creatives and that was his business model. So okay, good for him.

20:05 – 20:06
Geraldine Carter: If it works.

20:06 – 20:13
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. I want to talk revenue a little bit here. So you said, is it 10 years that you’ve been coaching?

20:14 – 20:19
Geraldine Carter: So I had 8, 7, it depends how you count. I had 2 kids in there.

20:20 – 20:24
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, you’re allowed some subtraction time for that.

20:24 – 20:34
Geraldine Carter: I feel like, it’s sort of like dog years, you know, it’s like you have to adjust in the opposite way. 2 kids, 2 years of COVID, plus we moved twice. But I started coaching and Hazel’s 8 now. So that’s how I measure.

20:34 – 20:42
Rochelle Moulton: Okay. Okay. So 8, 8 it is. And so do you remember how long it took you to get to like your first hundred thousand year?

20:42 – 20:44
Geraldine Carter: I think it took 4 or 5.

20:45 – 20:46
Rochelle Moulton: 4 or 5 years.

20:47 – 20:56
Geraldine Carter: Yeah. And I remember thinking that $100, 000, I was like, oh my gosh, that is so much money. If I ever made that much money, how is that even possible?

20:57 – 21:03
Rochelle Moulton: That’s what I was going to ask you. What’s your demarcation line? What feels like a lot? What feels like enough?

21:04 – 21:27
Geraldine Carter: Yeah. Those are what feels like a lot, what feels like enough? Yeah, those are what feels like a lot, what feels like enough. I mean, that’s, it’s all relative and it’s always a moving target. Well, that’s only a thought. But anyways, I think what I remember, I remember talking to some coaches and some consultants who were colleagues when I was starting out and they were like, yeah, you know, 3 years and it kind of starts to stabilize. And then 4 or 5 years, I think 1 coach was like, in my fifth year, I made a hundred

21:27 – 21:57
Geraldine Carter: thousand dollars. I was like, okay. So I kind of had my site set on that as something in air quotes normal. And I was like, wow, that just seems like so much money. And because I had only ever been salary and I think the most I made was like 70 or something. So I remember hearing out a podcast, a woman saying, and it was multiple, there were multiple coaches on an episode, and they said, your first hundred thousand was the hardest to make. And I was like, shut the front door. Like, that can’t be possible. Surely,

21:57 – 22:20
Geraldine Carter: if a hundred thousand is hard to make, then 200, 000 must be twice as hard to make. And all the coaches were like, Oh yeah, yeah, completely a hundred percent. First hundred thousands of the hardest to make. And I was like, how? I can’t even wrap my head around that. And then sure enough, I think there was a year I went from like, I don’t know, 80 to 1 50 in a year over a year. Like at some point, it’s not like I landed on 100 at the end of the year. And they were absolutely right.

22:20 – 22:47
Geraldine Carter: Like you, I just flew right by a hundred thousand by the time I got to 80, like I hit 80 or something. And then it was just like, shooom. And it was in the rear view mirror. And I was like, wait a minute, how’d that just happen? And then it just gets easier. I don’t wanna say it like, I don’t want it to come across like, oh, it’s so easy you guys, cause not. But the first 100, 000 for sure was the hardest.

22:48 – 22:59
Rochelle Moulton: So do you remember like was it sort of like until you got to the 80 was it kind of gradual or was it like a steady climb or like more like a roller coaster? Do you remember?

23:00 – 23:15
Geraldine Carter: I think it was gradual. I think it was linear and it started at minus 10. And then I think it went to, I don’t know, 40, 60, 80, 150. I don’t remember exactly, but it wasn’t roller coaster if it was more linear.

23:16 – 23:47
Rochelle Moulton: Because the other thing is, I mean, you were starting from a standing start. It’s not like you were in an organization, you had clients or you had people. I mean, you started from scratch. So it’s not really surprising, I guess, that it would be kind of linear. But then obviously the 80 to 150 was not. And that’s the thing I think the coaches were trying to say in that forum is that you get to this point where it can start to multiply. And depending on what you do to do the multiplication, it can actually be easier,

23:48 – 23:55
Rochelle Moulton: far easier than the first roughly hundred because that’s when you’re proving that you have a business model that’s sustainable.

23:55 – 23:56
Geraldine Carter: Yeah.

23:56 – 23:56
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah.

23:56 – 24:02
Geraldine Carter: Yeah. It’s exactly that. You’re trying to figure out what your business is, what it does, how to price it, how to sell it, how to deliver it, you’re figuring out everything.

24:04 – 24:08
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. And it’s all new. Every year is like a whole new thing. Remember that?

24:08 – 24:36
Geraldine Carter: The learning curve is, yeah, yeah, yeah. The learning curve is intense. And thankfully it was my second business. So it was, a lot of it was familiar. And I also knew, cause in our first business, it was the same deal. It was like the first 2 years was we’re like holy smokes and the third year we started to be like okay and the fourth year we’re like oh and then the fifth year it like it clicked right so I remembered I knew that that was gonna that was likely to be my experience so I had a

24:36 – 24:44
Geraldine Carter: little bit more calmness the second time not that you know you’re not like holy smokes is this plane ever gonna take off because I’m running on a runway

24:45 – 24:49
Rochelle Moulton: yeah that’s I mean yeah that’s the hard piece

24:49 – 25:01
Geraldine Carter: That’s I think that’s the hardest piece is to like, you’re like, is this playing at a takeoff or am I going to drive it off the end of the runway? Like what’s going to happen here? And you’re like, well, I’m going to keep going and find out because I’m not getting employed because remember how bad that turns out.

25:04 – 25:11
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, that’s what we all tell ourselves on the bad days like, oh, God, I’m not employable. I cannot go back inside of God. No, I can’t.

25:11 – 25:46
Geraldine Carter: No, I’m a train wreck of an employee. It’s terrible for everybody. So the thing about the revenue is what gets easier. So a couple things can happen. What gets easier is you know how to make the money, right? That’s the piece that gets a lot easier because you know where you create value for your clients. And that’s really because the revenue is just the shadow of the value that you create. So that’s really what you’re doing when you’re making money is you’re creating value, just measure it by dollars. So once you understand how to create value

25:46 – 26:13
Geraldine Carter: for your clients, which is what you’re doing through the first hundred thousand, by the time you get to a hundred thousand, you’ve figured it out. So you just get a lot faster at it. So that’s, or I don’t want to speak for everybody, but you get a lot faster at that. And because you get better at it, it’s more valuable. And because you get faster at it, it’s more valuable. And because you make it a better experience, it’s more valuable so you can charge more. So that’s how the revenue comes faster for the same amount of

26:13 – 26:34
Geraldine Carter: work or even less work because it gets easier because you get better at your job. But then the revenue side goes up, but then you’re like, OK, what do I do on the back end side in terms of operations? Do I hire? How do I grow? How do I scale? What do I do first? Do I hire somebody? Do I do a digital product? What’s the next thing? Because you fill up your business, and you’re like, now what?

26:34 – 26:57
Rochelle Moulton: Well, that’s exactly what happens when you usually somewhere between a hundred, 150, maybe 175, depending on their specialty. It’s you’re working, it’s all you. And then you’re saying, OK, so I have to leverage this puppy somehow. What am I going to do? So what did you do? What did you decide to do to get beyond that?

26:57 – 27:29
Geraldine Carter: So when I filled up, I was like, OK, I’m full. That’s awesome. And then I knew that I wanted to go to a group ish kind of program. I didn’t want it. I wasn’t ready for digital products yet. And so I saved up because I knew that that was gonna be a business model transition, right? I was gonna have to turn my business inside out. And I went to Mastermind and that was when I developed my Mastermind program, but in the first iteration it was called Reboot Camp. And it was all the content and it was

27:29 – 27:57
Geraldine Carter: delivered in sort of an intense format and then it was 6 months of available sort of retainer access if you will to be able to to give people access as they implemented everything and then the second round of that morphed into mastermind which is the program that I now have running And at first I called that CPA mastermind and then it became clear that what my people wanted more than making more money was to get their time in their lives back. And they all kept saying, though not they would just sort of sprinkle it in their

27:57 – 28:29
Geraldine Carter: sentences. They were like, I just love to work a 40 hour week. And I was like, Oh, you guys just want to go down to 40 hours. And they’re like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that’s how the name came around of down to 40 hours. And then because in the accounting space, it’s so normal and common and expected to overwork to work 60 hours, 70, 80, whatever. And that the idea that revenue is tied to work yes and I was like oh I need the progression to be down to 40 and then we go down to 25

28:30 – 28:52
Geraldine Carter: and that perspective I think is the 1 that kind of flips things in people’s minds. Like, oh, we’re not just getting down to a normal 40-hour work week. We’re actually going down to way less working, 3 days a week, 2 days a week, maybe eventually 1 day a week. And that there is a progression, we’re not just like getting to 40 hours and calling it good.

28:52 – 28:55
Rochelle Moulton: That’s gotta feel mind blowing to your client base.

28:56 – 29:35
Geraldine Carter: I think to some, they’re like, whoa, that’s even possible. Because work is so tied up with revenue in the accounting space that it’s like they’ve got to learn a whole new way of thinking about creating revenue. Which for them, imagine being an accountant and having an engineer come in and be like you guys are thinking all around about money. So I mean I don’t mean to say it that way. I could sort of summarize it glibly that way. But it’s, I think, when you’re in your business, and you realize that how you’ve thought about money all

29:35 – 30:11
Geraldine Carter: your life is 1 thing, but then you realize that you can take this thing called money and break it apart into so many different things. It’s not just a dollar sign with zeros and commas. It’s representative of value. It’s an exchange of energy. It’s something that lifts our communities. It’s wonderful to make it. You don’t have to feel guilty. There’s so much in it. There’s so much more. I mean, I think we have a sense that there’s so much more than meets the eye. And to take something that I think for my people, at least, they

30:11 – 30:24
Geraldine Carter: usually think of with a dollar sign and zeros and commas and reframe it in a lot of different ways and be like, let’s look at the ways that you resist this money coming at you.

30:25 – 30:27
Rochelle Moulton: Yes, yes.

30:27 – 30:56
Geraldine Carter: Let’s look at all the ways you close down not accepting revenue. Let’s look at all the ways that you feel guilty for being successful. Let’s look at, let’s talk about how you think that making half a million dollars is gonna make you greedy but 400, Did I just say half a million? Yeah. That half a million dollars is going to make you feel greedy, but $400, 000 is somehow safe. Let’s talk about what happens. Like at what point do you feel safe at $425, 000? And then where is it that it flips into being greedy? Is

30:56 – 31:27
Geraldine Carter: it $450, 000 or $475, 000? Is it $499, 000? And what happens at $499, 000 or $500, 000 when it flips over that you suddenly think that you’re being greedy? Let’s talk about not looking successful and this story about being from a small town in the Midwest where there’s just a blinking light and people, your clients are gonna think that you’ve gotten too big for your britches if you raise your prices. There’s so much more underneath it than it’s not just this transactional thing with dollar signs and paper dollar bills. There it is this whole rich

31:27 – 31:31
Geraldine Carter: topic that is so interesting to talk about with accountants.

31:32 – 32:08
Rochelle Moulton: Oh, it’s interesting to talk about with anybody who’s got a business. Yeah. Right, because I think, I mean, I see it all the time is that we actively push money away for reasons that are Intrinsic to us and our experiences and our mindset around money our blocks around money. I love your example of the You know, why is 500000 too much, but maybe 499 is okay You know, it’s we all have those those points And a lot of the people who are money mindset experts will talk about that we tend to have a set point and

32:08 – 32:39
Rochelle Moulton: over time we have to like work past the set point. So that’s what I find so interesting. So I want to just come back to the revenue for a second. So you figured out that the way to take your business to the next level was to do something you said group ish but really became, you know group right and Did you find that you as your revenue was going up? Were you feeling a plateau like did you find yourself having to push against some preconceived notion of what you could make in your business?

32:40 – 33:14
Geraldine Carter: Interesting question. I think the things that I ran into, you know, what’s happened is that I’ve just stopped looking at the money, which is so not normal for me. Counterintuitive. Well, just like I used to think about it a lot. And now I don’t even think about it. And it’s so weird to not think about it. Because now there’s just there’s enough. So it doesn’t really matter. I don’t want to say it doesn’t really matter whether or not I look at it that’s not quite it but I like I’ve almost at the risk of sounding however

33:14 – 33:52
Geraldine Carter: this sounds I’ve almost lost track because it’s not the main thing that I think about in my business. The main thing that I think about is how do I delight clients? What is the delight that they want? And how do I delight them as fast as possible? Best possible results, least amount of time, best experience. And while I do that on the delivery side, how do I get my message, my work in front of as many people as possible? Because there are 300, 000 CPAs who’ve just left the profession in the last couple of years. It’s

33:52 – 34:25
Geraldine Carter: like a diaspora. Wow. Because they’re fried. Mm-hmm. And it’s a problem, right? Accountants and CPAs are a key piece of our business ecosystem. So we need these folks and they’re suffering and I have the solution for them and I want them to know about it. So those are the things I think about, right? I think about delivery and I think about how to get my message out there as far as possible. And now the money is like this backseat thing that I don’t really pay too much attention to anymore as long as I have enough of

34:25 – 34:27
Geraldine Carter: it to keep building and growing my business.

34:27 – 34:58
Rochelle Moulton: I wanna unpack this. There’s so much juicy stuff in there. So 1 is, is, you know, I talked about that this show is about turning your expertise into wealth, which is money, free time and flexibility and impact. And what you kind of said is, once you get to the point where you have enough in quotes, I know that number is different for everyone and the enough isn’t just about the hard dollars It’s also that you have enough free time enough flexibility, you know So that you you’re treating yourself as a human being with me That then

34:58 – 35:05
Rochelle Moulton: that frees you to focus on the impact. That’s kind of what you said without saying it. Does that sound right?

35:05 – 35:27
Geraldine Carter: Yeah, it’s, and I would add onto it and say, the more free time I have, the more I can focus on creating value. And the more that I focus on creating value, the more the whole thing spirals upward. Yes. And the less I work, the more money I make, the less I work, the less I work, the more money I make. Those 2 things are inextricably inversely correlated.

35:28 – 35:31
Rochelle Moulton: Yes. And that’s the thing that’s really hard for people.

35:31 – 36:00
Geraldine Carter: That’s the thing that is so hard is at the beginning, you know, we grow up W2, the more we work, the more money we make. But at a certain point it flips. You have to make yourself work less to create more revenue. And it just, it’s such a mind bender. But once you get your head around it, once you see it, you’re like, Oh, right. And then it becomes a discipline to work as little as I work in air quotes, right, but work as little as possible in order to create maximum value for clients.

36:00 – 36:10
Rochelle Moulton: Yes, yes. It’s like a it’s like a teeter totter. You want to be like right in the center of that, where it’s all just kind of flat because it’s perfectly balanced in how you’re doing it.

36:10 – 36:12
Geraldine Carter: So you asked me about, did I answer your question?

36:13 – 36:40
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, actually, I think you did because yeah, because the other thing I was kind of curious about and I don’t think you said this yet was there a revenue point where you just kind of sat back and said yes this is really getting good I don’t have to worry like did you did you feel yourself passing through that or did you only realize it afterwards once you kind of had enough for some period of time?

36:41 – 37:08
Geraldine Carter: I think I realized it afterwards. And at some point in going from one-on-one to one-to-many or mastermind, I brought on my own fractional CFO CPA to help me with cash flow and get me set up in S corp and like regular payments and all that. So it was in that process where that was taken care of by somebody else and it was no longer on my mind.

37:09 – 37:09
Rochelle Moulton: Okay.

37:10 – 37:20
Geraldine Carter: 1 thing that I think is so different than when we grew up, not to make ourselves sound so old, But like you used to get a paycheck and you used to take it to the bank. Yeah,

37:21 – 37:22
Rochelle Moulton: I remember that.

37:24 – 37:51
Geraldine Carter: And you used to actually touch cash. And now so much is on autopay just happens behind the scenes. So as long as there was enough, like as once I hit the enough point and I didn’t have to worry about like the question, is there enough? Let me check. That was when I was, that just felt like a level of home free. It’s like you look over your shoulder and the bear is not chasing you anymore. And you’re like, oh my God, now I can just relax. And that

37:51 – 37:53
Rochelle Moulton: was, well, yeah, you focus forward.

37:53 – 38:03
Geraldine Carter: Yeah, it’s like you focus forward, but you don’t even have to worry about anything behind you anymore. And that was a level of freedom that I didn’t expect it to experience.

38:04 – 38:22
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. Actually, you mentioned your fractional CFO. Let’s talk for a minute about, like how have you dealt with the whole employees versus contractors thing? Have you had employees? Have you mostly had contract people? Do you like having other people inside your business with you?

38:23 – 39:02
Geraldine Carter: When I started coaching, I knew that I didn’t want to have employees. I knew that was my goal was if I could make what I want to make and do work I love that I find fulfilling and interesting and impactful, and it was enough money to meet our needs, and I could do it without employees, that would be heaven. Because, I mean, like I’m all for businesses with employees. I just know that for me, like I’m a good enough boss. I think I’m reasonable. Right. Most of us think that we’re better than average, But I think

39:02 – 39:25
Geraldine Carter: I’m better than average as a boss. But I still didn’t enjoy it. And it wasn’t you guys had an episode on TBOA, we’re talking about your genius zone and your excellence zone, right? Gay Hendrix and so on, the big leap. And I mean, I wouldn’t even put leading people as in my excellence zone. It’s definitely not in my genius zone. Nicole Zandana

39:25 – 39:26
Rochelle Moulton: Maybe competence.

39:26 – 39:29
Geraldine Carter: Nicole Zandana Yeah, or maybe barely. Nicole Zandana

39:31 – 39:35
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. I like that lower left-hand quadrant, I like to call it, things you suck at.

39:35 – 40:01
Geraldine Carter: Yes. Yeah. And I just, I was like, it’s just not where I want to put my time and energy. Developing people and developing myself as a leader of staff is just not where I want to put my time and energy. So if I can build a business in a way that does all the things I want without staff, that would just be heaven. And you know, when you’re hanging out your shingle and you go out on your own, it’s like pretty easy to do without staff, you just do the work and everything. But then you get

40:01 – 40:39
Geraldine Carter: limited by being the 1 who has to do the work. So then of course the scaling question comes in. And I also knew enough to know that I should hire contractors to do things that I’m really not good at, like editing my podcast and some other things like that. And then with making this transition to Mastermind, there’s a sort of backend operations that needs to get built to support it. And I needed some help with that. And I just, I couldn’t do all 3 things, selling, marketing, and delivery, and operations. Yeah. All as a soloist. I

40:39 – 41:19
Geraldine Carter: was going to just go get bananas. So I have contract help because I didn’t want to do W2. I was like, let’s just see if we can do this contract to help build out the frame, the shell, and then build the systems and get it operationalized so that I can focus on the marketing, the selling, and the delivery and not have to worry about the building piece. And that’s been enormously useful in terms of protecting my bandwidth. And now that that’s up and running, now I can run with it. And I love the idea of having

41:19 – 42:09
Geraldine Carter: and maintaining a very simple business, which takes an element of ruthlessness. Because for me to stay solo, it requires that I trade off complexity and specificity for simplicity because complexity just is going to balloon and we used to call this mushrooming pitas, right? It’s like a pain in the butt that would mushroom after a rainstorm. And we got really good at spotting like this is a pain in the butt that if we don’t pick it now it’s gonna like proliferate. So it requires an element of disciplined ruthlessness to keep things simple, because the tendency is to

42:09 – 42:47
Geraldine Carter: get more accurate, not more accurate, but more specific, more granular, and do a few more things to make it better. But then before you knew it, you’ve complicated it. And now you need people in order to handle the complication that you allowed for. So it’s not to say that that that it’s that way for everybody. But I was finding sort of like when you talk about niche, if you’re a generalist versus being somebody who’s niching, at some point you have to give up diversity of generalism for effectiveness and value creation of niching, right? So you just

42:47 – 42:52
Geraldine Carter: have to trade. If you want diverse, that’s okay, but you’re really probably gonna struggle as a business owner.

42:52 – 42:54
Rochelle Moulton: Well, especially as a soloist.

42:54 – 42:54
Geraldine Carter: As a soloist.

42:55 – 42:57
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, it’s really tough to serve everybody.

42:57 – 43:19
Geraldine Carter: Really tough to serve everybody. And so it’s just a trade-off, right? But if you like the diversity, you can just know what you’re trading off. And it was kind of the same for me in my business. It’s like I like the specificity and the accuracy and the levels of granularity and our ability to A-B test this and study the results. And before you know it, you’re A B testing 8 things and you’re not measuring any of them.

43:19 – 43:24
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, yeah, it makes me tired just thinking about it. Like I don’t I don’t want that stuff in my brain.

43:25 – 43:59
Geraldine Carter: Exactly. So it’s just it’s just a trade off of it. I don’t want to say it’s just a trade off. I think for me in order to remain a soloist, which is what I want, it requires making decisions, drawing a line of being like, nope, we’re not doing that because we value keeping it simple and protecting the simplicity and having the freedom that comes along with the simplicity. Now, what’s the trade off? The trade off might be, you know, I might, I could have a small team of a few people who help do things that would

43:59 – 44:10
Geraldine Carter: add value for clients into my business. And maybe my revenue would grow faster, who knows? But that trade off to me isn’t worth it.

44:10 – 44:33
Rochelle Moulton: Okay. Okay. Yeah, no, it’s interesting. I think it’s something that every soloist faces at some point. It’s like, what help do I get? Who’s the right person to help me? Should they be employees or should they be contractors? And you know, I always say, like, what is it that you want to do because you really have to want to lead, not manage, but to lead.

44:33 – 44:33
Geraldine Carter: If

44:33 – 44:39
Rochelle Moulton: you have employees with contractors, if you’re hiring people who are really good, hopefully they’re leading themselves

44:39 – 44:39
Geraldine Carter: and

44:39 – 44:47
Rochelle Moulton: you’re just creating this thing together. It’s a very different animal. It feels different on so many levels. Yes.

44:48 – 45:06
Geraldine Carter: I would agree with that. The contractors need to be self-leading. And that’s why I like contractors, is because they tend to be self-leading, right? You’re 1 of a handful of other clients that they’re doing work for. So they’re not coming to you for how do I do this? What do I do next?

45:07 – 45:09
Rochelle Moulton: They don’t want to be your employee.

45:09 – 45:09
Geraldine Carter: They want

45:09 – 45:11
Rochelle Moulton: to have their own business and you’re their client.

45:12 – 45:32
Geraldine Carter: Right, exactly. Which is why I’m happy having contractors come in to help me with things that I need help with. But not converting them into eventual W-2s because I don’t want the people who are looking for a W-2 because those kinds of people tend to be looking for somebody who’s gonna kind of manage and lead them, and that’s not the work I want to be doing.

45:32 – 45:37
Rochelle Moulton: There’s only so much time. We’ve got to spend it as much of it as we can in our genius zone.

45:37 – 45:44
Geraldine Carter: I mean if I want to be leading the thing, the torch that I want to carry is for women to stop overworking and being underpaid.

45:45 – 45:46
Rochelle Moulton: Shall I say mic drop?

45:47 – 45:49
Geraldine Carter: Did I lose you? I required no,

45:49 – 46:23
Rochelle Moulton: you didn’t at all. I wasn’t sure if you were going to say more. No, I hundred percent agree because I feel like now I’m new to even talking about women in business. Like I’ve never differentiated with genders in anything that I’ve done in any of the businesses that I’ve started, run, or even been an employee of. So this is all new to me. But the thing that is so amazing to me is how many of us think we have to work really, really hard to be valuable. It’s not even about people pleasing. It’s that we are

46:23 – 47:03
Rochelle Moulton: not worthy if we’re not constantly doing and working. And I feel like that translates into not charging enough, not having enough courage to put out something that has a big price tag on it that feels a little scary or a lot of scary that makes imposter syndrome start to simmer on the back or front burner. Like those are the things that when we let go of those, that’s what’s amazing. That’s when we have breakthroughs in business. That’s when we love the time that we’re spending because we’re doing it in our genius zone. We have time for

47:03 – 47:18
Rochelle Moulton: our families. We have time for all the other things that we want to do, the impact we want to make on the world, all the things that you want to do in the CPA profession, just as 1 example, while you’re raising your kids and having a great life. Like, what’s not to love about that?

47:19 – 47:51
Geraldine Carter: I mean, I come from a family of business owners and entrepreneurs. So, so for me, it’s like, how could you, I couldn’t want anything else. I think a part of it, Not to paint too broad with too broad a brush stroke, but I think there’s some cultural pressure. I think a lot of us as women, we grow up learning to stay out of trouble, right? If you stick your head out too far, you’re going to get yourself into trouble. And so I think a lot of us navigate the world of like, just don’t do things that

47:51 – 48:30
Geraldine Carter: draw attention to yourself because you’re just going to like, it’s not going to be, yeah, it’s, it might not turn out well. So, But in business, it requires, it asks of us that we take risks, that we try things, that we screw up oftentimes, or sometimes in public, that things don’t work, that things don’t work the way that we thought they were going to, that people say negative things about us, either to our faces or in emails or paper letters or on Google reviews or on LinkedIn, that we don’t charge enough, even though we choose it,

48:30 – 49:03
Geraldine Carter: and then we blame our clients for underpaying us. And like you say, that somehow our personal worth is all wrapped up in not just how hard we work, but how much money we make or don’t make, or whether our business fails or succeeds. And it can be very difficult to separate yourself from your business and think that if your business is successful that you are successful. And if your business is a failure that you are a failure. But the problem with that, if you have those tied, is that if you are trying to fill a hole

49:03 – 49:15
Geraldine Carter: in your own personal self-worth with business success, you will perpetually chase business success because there’s no amount of business success that’s gonna fill an internal hole, it just doesn’t

49:15 – 49:18
Rochelle Moulton: work. And you can substitute money for business success.

49:18 – 49:20
Geraldine Carter: Yeah, you can substitute anything you like.

49:20 – 49:20
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, yeah,

49:20 – 49:41
Geraldine Carter: yeah. And there’s this piece about not giving ourselves permission to be successful because if we do, we stand out and when we stand out, we draw attention and when we draw attention, it’s often critical. Mm-hmm. And that’s very uncomfortable. And so in order to avoid feeling uncomfortable about drawing attention to ourselves, we just avoid the success because wouldn’t that be easier?

49:43 – 49:44
Rochelle Moulton: But not really.

49:45 – 49:49
Geraldine Carter: But not really, exactly. Right. Yeah. It’s like you just play, you just end up playing small.

49:49 – 50:09
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. And I mean, if we have 1 theme for this episode, it’s don’t play small so much as possible. Geraldine, I just want to ask you 1 more question, which is if you could go back to who you were when you started this business, what’s the 1 thing that you’d advise her to do?

50:12 – 50:42
Geraldine Carter: Don’t waste energy to fretting and worrying because it’s just not useful. It might seem warranted, but warranted doesn’t make it helpful, effective, productive, or useful. And it’s really easy, especially at the beginning, or was for me anyways, to fret about all manner of things and to just want it to come faster, to want the results to come faster. But that usually ends up being counterproductive.

50:44 – 50:58
Rochelle Moulton: I just think that is such good advice. I mean, I wish I had done the same because I wasted so many hours worrying. It’s all just a waste of time in the end, isn’t it?

50:58 – 51:04
Geraldine Carter: Yes, it is. It feels so good in the moment. It feels so productive. Like I should just worry about this and that’ll fix it.

51:06 – 51:16
Rochelle Moulton: If only, right? I know. So Geraldine, before we sign off, and I’m going to put this up on the show notes, but where can listeners go to learn more about you and your work?

51:17 – 51:29
Geraldine Carter: Sure. So I have a podcast as well. It’s the business strategy for CPAs. So if you know an overworked CPA, you can send them to it. And my website is GeraldineCarter.com.

51:30 – 51:46
Rochelle Moulton: Awesome. Geraldine, I just really want to thank you. I think this is going to be our first episode. I’m really excited about that. I always feel inspired when we talk about business, about money, about potential. So thank you.

51:47 – 51:55
Geraldine Carter: You know how much a fan I am of yours. So thank you so much for having me, and I wish you the utmost success with this new podcast.

51:56 – 51:59
Rochelle Moulton: Thank you, Geraldine. So that’s it for this episode. I hope you’ll join us next time for Soloist Women.