I try to talk about “what’s in it for you” as much as possible.
A common mistake I see with a lot of people’s websites: I go to open it up with whatever link or search result I found first to get there…
…and finding a whole lot of “look at how cool I am” out of the gate.
You know what I mean?
Why the business is uniquely qualified to help me.
A history of the company, an About Us page that reads like a resume, even the person’s qualifications.
Come on, right? You don’t honestly give a “foxtrot” about that, do you?
What I want to see, before I even touch the scroll wheel on my mouse, is What’s in It For Me? (aka WIIFM).
That reminds me – I should probably take a look at my own website! But I digress…
I want to share a little bit about myself.
Is that okay, if I promise to bring it home to a useful point?
And by useful, I mean real honest advice that can help you not make a mistake that I made in the early days of my own business.
Running AND Business
I had this little thing I was doing in a network group. Every week we’d all go around the table, say our name and our company name, and practice our elevator pitches on each other.
If you don’t know what an elevator pitch is, allow me to share.
A good elevator pitch is a 20 second description of what you do, and how you provide value to your customers or clients.
In the amount of time it takes you to get to, say, the 4th floor of an office building from the lobby in an elevator.
Get it? Cool. Elevator pitch.
One morning, driving to the meeting, I got the idea to close mine with, “Owings LLC, where we love running your numbers.”
Because, you see, by the time I had this idea I had been a regular participant for a couple of months, and everyone knew my outside interest is distance running.
We love “running” your numbers.
In ways that continue to satisfy my sense of serendipity in life, running my business IS running AND business.
The allegories are elementary, for me.
Point: the first two years of an adult’s introduction to running, aches and pains will occur in new and interesting places.
Calf muscles that feel like over-tuned banjo strings. Difficulty descending stairs.
And the dreaded IT band, the long ligament on the outside of the thigh that hurts like a bastard on the outside of the knee.
Don’t know what I mean? Ask a runner. All too familiar if you do run.
Sometimes, even a literal pain in the ass. The side of the buttock, that is, where the IT band ends up.
Now switch focus to the first two years of your business.
Remember?
Your target niche was, basically, “anybody that’s willing to pay you.”
I’m embarrassed to say I took a job at hourly rate. A very low rate, and lot of hours, a thankless horrifying nuclear wasteland of a property management clean-up.
The deal was supposed to be $14 an hour for the first month, then if he was happy the price would increase to the reasonable going rate.
After giving them an additional 2 weeks at the intro rate, we had The Talk. Moving forward the price would have to be $30 an hour.
He dropped me on the spot. Not even very nice about it.
Like the dreaded IT band. A real pain in the ass.
All part of the learning experience of building a foundation.
Then, magically, your body gets stronger.
You’re running 10 miles without soreness.
And…the $30/hour rate is a distant past memory.
With experience and additional credentialing, our firm has a strong foundation.
And the body has a strong physiological foundation.
Going the distance. Never quitting.
Having a poor performance, getting over it, learning and improving.
In both running and business, the foundation phase over, the empire building begins.
The corollaries never cease to pleasantly surprise me.
Oh, and by the way? The days of believing $30 an hour for my professional services are a comfortable number of years in the past now!
Having a Life, Running. Not to Mention: Business
The year I started this business, 2017, was a year of many events that shaped those that followed, even to the present day.
The very first week of January, in fact, I started a local rock trio with a guitarist, and after rotating through two or three drummers the guitarist decided to quit 3 months later, with a gig on the books in two weeks.
I came to two friends, a guitarist and a drummer that were a long shot at the time for this. Very good friends indeed, but the drummer had made it clear his life was too busy to be in a working band.
They surprised me by stepping up, and that band endured even through the pandemic. In fact, despite my departure in 2020 they still play together.
During this time, I was also approached by a recording act that had been searching for a bass player to perform their CD live. The bassist on the album lived in San Francisco, and he had done such a masterful job for them that finding someone to play his parts had proven to be very difficult.
I ended up playing in two bands at the same time that year, and it was that second band that really was the genesis for Owings LLC.
The keyboardist and composer had lamented how much money he had laid out for the recording and for equipment the previous year. I popped up and told him I could get him a lot of it back with a tax amendment, and I became his tax preparer.
Then I started the company that is now Owings LLC with a state filing on June 26th, and by opening our business bank account with $100 of my own money on July 1st.
But that’s not all. Because…running and business, you know.
The previous year I had qualified by time to enter the Boston Marathon. I entered, got accepted, and ran the race to the finish in April of 2017.
It was a big year, and Boston is a fond memory.
In fact, earlier this year I got an idea. I really wanted to go back to Boston, and I developed a plan.
I move up one age group in early 2024, and I had intended to qualify this year at the race I attend every year in Missoula, Montana.
I’m still going to Missoula, and the training’s going well. I’ll run the full marathon the last Sunday of June, by the way, and I’ll post a tracking app, too.
I have made a very important decision for 2024, however.
I am changing the Boston plan, and no longer aspiring to enter.
Reason? They run the damn thing the same week as the tax deadline, and unlike 2017 I now have quite a few more clients.
Running a marathon in a decent amount of time and effort requires 18 weeks of training.
Basically, that would be about the first week of January.
Tax season. Plus the fickle cold-one-day-who-knows-the-next of Front Range Colorado.
But really? The decision is a sound conclusion based on the three pillars of my life.
Running is one, but the others are Business and Life.
And by life, I mean enough time to be a husband and dog daddy and homeowner.
Not to mention a musician. And a lover of books and entertainment. And travel.
Because if you’re living to work, you need to recognize you’d better be working to live, too.
Don’t get to your last days, lying in a bed, unable to do anything but ruminate, and have a single regret for the things you failed to do.
For me, running and business are life.
Life is running. And business is how I provide value to the world and make the rest of it work.
But you know how the kids used to say, “Get a Life!?” In an obnoxious-sounding and sarcastic way?
Try this: hear your own better angels in your head while saying this to yourself.
Running is my side passion. Whatever yours is, remember that, like your business, it took time to get good at it.
Work hard. Play hard. Live well, and don’t forget to love the important people, and to make damn sure you let them know they’re loved.
If you’d like to talk about the work-life-pleasure balance in your life, message me.
Because I go beyond the ordinary cold compliance of accounting, a drill down into your “why.”
I would love to hear your story, and if the fit is right, to guide you through the jungle of tax and accounting in your business.
So you can get a life of your own.
Let’s talk, soon!