199. The Work-From-Home Business More Moms Should Know About // with Melissa Broughton

What happens when a high-achieving accountant realizes corporate success is costing too much at home? In this episode, Laura sits down with Melissa Broughton, accountant, business owner, and bookkeeping coach, to talk about how she walked away from a demanding corporate job, started her firm from her dining room table, and eventually built not one but two businesses designed to create income, flexibility, and legacy for families.

Melissa shares the wild story of quitting her job while on vacation, the unexpected accident that forced her to slow down and rethink what she really wanted, and how that season led to the launch of Busy Bee Advisors and later One Hour Bookkeeper, a program helping stay-at-home moms, dads, and military spouses start profitable bookkeeping businesses from home.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

•  How Melissa went from burned-out corporate accountant to business owner 
•  Why bookkeeping can be a powerful work-from-home option, even for beginners 
•  What kinds of people already have the raw ingredients to build this kind of business 
•  How a bookkeeping business can buy back time, flexibility, and family margin 
•  Why so many people stay stuck believing they do not have a choice — and how to start thinking differently 

Melissa also talks about:

•  building a business without debt 
•  creating predictable income from a practical skill 
•  helping overwhelmed parents and military spouses find a path toward financial contribution without sacrificing family life 
•  why support, structure, and a clear roadmap matter so much when you are starting something new.

This conversation is especially encouraging for anyone who feels stuck in a job they hate, unsure how to contribute financially from home, or overwhelmed by the idea of starting a business. Melissa’s story is proof that practical skills, clear guidance, and a willingness to begin can change a family’s future.

Meet Melissa here:

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Transcript

Laura 0:01

Well, hello, legacy builders. Thank you for coming back to the podcast today. I have a special guest for you. Melissa Broughton is an accountant by trade and a bookkeeping coach by passion, dedicated to helping stay-at-home moms, dads, and military spouses build flexible, profitable businesses from home. As the owner of Busy Bee Advisors, a Northern California accounting firm, she brings real-world experience and a passion for empowering others to achieve financial independence. Through her coaching platform, OneHourBookkeeper.com, Melissa simplifies the path to starting and growing a bookkeeping business, making it accessible even for those with no prior experience. Her mission is to help everyday people create income, freedom, and a lasting legacy for their family. So Melissa- Before we get started, I'm gonna ask you the same question I ask all of my guests.

Melissa B. 0:53

Okay.

Laura 0:53

Whose legacy would you like to emulate?

Melissa B. 0:57

I'm gonna say my grandmother's. And I'll say the reason why is she was the original, I'll say stay-at-home mom- Mm-hmm or not stay-at-home mom, the original single mom. And, growing up raising a family of four, my grandfather from all tales was incredibly handsome and, you know, very charming, but he really didn't like to stay in one place for too long, so she was pretty much tasked with raising four kids on her own in Chicago in the '60s, and she really did it all and made it all look easy. One of the ways she did it, her full-time job was she was a radiologist at a hospital. She did not drive, so she walked to work in Chicago every day. And then on the weekends to kind of bridge the gap to pay for groceries to whatever, she had clients that she did bookkeeping for. And I remember as a little, little kid sitting there, next to her at her kitchen table, and she'd have the tape with, the calculator with the tape, and she'd be totaling things up and writing them down in ledgers. And I think now how much easier our lives are with, with everything that's as automated as it is with, programs like Quick- QuickBooks Online and stuff like that. But I would say she would be who I, who I would choose to emulate. If I could only have her patience, I would definitely be ahead of the game. I, I don't think I ever heard her raise her voice or really even get her feathers ruffled over anything.

Laura 2:30

My mother used to tell me all the time, "Patience is a virtue," and unfortunately it was not one that I was given in abundance.

Melissa B. 2:35

I would say that is true for me as well.

Laura 2:38

Oh, well, Melissa and I are going to be very fast friends, I can tell. For the listeners that h- are meeting you for the very first time, can you tell us a little bit about who you are- Who you serve and how you got into this line of work

Melissa B. 2:51

Oh, it's a crazy story. So I did all the things you were supposed to do. I took my first accounting class in high school. I kind of fell into it. I needed one more elective. The rumor was the teacher was, like, 1,000 years old, and it was an easy A, and so it was like, "Okay, I can figure out math." Took the class, totally fell in love with it, went to college, studied accounting and business, and graduated and got my first job for a big firm. Decided that the big firm really wasn't where I wanted to be, worked for a few mid-sized companies, worked my way up the ladder, and in the middle of that, got married, had two sons, and found that I was missing- everything. As I worked up my way up the corporate ladder, I felt like I had less and less time with these babies that I adored, and a husband that I still adore to this day. And the time just, like, flies by. And so my last position was back in 2015. I was working probably a 60-plus hour week, plus on top of that I had an hour-and-a-half commute each way to work because of traffic. And so, I had asked for time off for, like, a, I think it was a water polo game or something like that, a water polo meet for my oldest. And my boss acted like I was asking for, you know, the moon. And so kind of added a little bit of... I felt a little bit disgruntled. My husband surprised me that year for my 40th birthday. Don't do any math, anybody. For my 40th birthday to, to take me on a 10-day cruise. I had not taken a vacation. I had been with that company for about five years, so I had plenty of vacation time. Of course, I gave notice that I was going on vacation. Found a replacement to fill in for me. So we leave on the cruise. We're gone for, three days out to sea. We get to, you know, land. We land in Puerto Vallarta. I make the mistake of calling the office, and, like, all- Oh, no proverbial crap had hit the fan. The person that was supposed to fill in for me never showed up. My boss transferred a whole bunch of money out of the payroll tax account to buy some equipment. Like, it was... There were so many bad things that happened. And I'm in this, "Okay, let's fix it" mode. And my boss is like, "You're wrong. You need to come back. You failed." And I just, that spark, that patience being a virtue or not of mine, it really came out. And so we're, literally my husband and I are at a bar, Puerto Vallarta, and I just, I quit my job on the spot. And so I quit my job, and then I look at my husband, and he's like, "That's cool, baby. We can, we can figure it out." You know, I mean, married to the best guy in the whole world.

Laura 5:35

Love

Melissa B. 5:35

Got home. Of course, got all of my stuff shipped to me from my job that I had been at for five years. Like, it was such a "don't let the door hit you on the butt" kind of a thing. I mean, anyway, so leave the job, enjoy four months of summer with my kids, which was the first time that I had really ever had that freedom their whole lives. After five months of one income being gone, we were kinda hitting the point of, my husband's going, "Hey, you need to find a job." So I thought, well- What's gonna be different between this job and any of the other jobs I've had? Like, I know that I can command the salary. I know that I can that I have the qualifications and the credentials, but what's gonna be different? How is this position gonna be more fulfilling? And so I proposed to my husband that what would happen if I branched out on my own? And he said, and you know, it was such a sweet conversation. He said, "Look, I want you to do whatever you wanna do that makes you happy and that fills your heart. You need to bring in $2,000 a month." Like, "$2,000 a month is the difference between us, really having things be tight or us being comfortable. More would be great, but that's all we need to do." So I set out, kinda thinking about what that would look like, and one of the things that has always worked very well for me when I need to think about something is to go for a run. So I leave my house, I go for a two-mile run. I'm the farthest point from my house that I could be, and at full sprint, my foot hit a piece of pavement that was uneven. I was ironically running on the sidewalk so that I didn't get run over by a car. Hit a piece of the sidewalk that was under some leaves, and I face-planted at, like, full sprint. And so I broke my jaw. I shattered just about all of my teeth except for my, like, top and bottom four. I'm standing there, and I'm spitting teeth into my hand. It was awful. So luckily, my neighbor happens to be driving by, and she's like, it looked like a scene out of a horror movie because as I'm spitting I'm like, of course, wiping my hands on my face so I was covered in blood.

Laura 7:49

Ugh.

Melissa B. 7:50

So what that led me to was about six weeks of not being able to do anything, and it just gave me this place to be still and to really think about what this perfect business would be for me, what my negotiables were, what my non-negotiables were. You know, I didn't wanna have a long commute. I wanted to have total flexibility. And so in, September of 2016, I officially launched Busy B Advisors. We started it, or I started it, at our dining room table with a laptop that I had won in some like, giveaway or contest or something like that. And it was really on a shoestring budget. By our second month in business, we had hit $25,000 in revenue, and we were consistently picking up momentum from there. So we had crazy growth incredibly fast. It was like, okay, we've got 25 new clients that have come in. Now we need to figure out what the infrastructure looks like to support now 100 clients or You know, at the height of things, we had over 300 bookkeeping clients that we were working with, and I had 27, I think, bookkeepers that were on staff. So it was a crazy few years of growth. My husband actually ended up taking early retirement from nursing, went back to school. He runs the tax side of our business, so we truly get to be business partners and get to work together every day, which is awesome. So that was kind of the story up until, up until 2024. And I laugh at it now because I think I must have had an afternoon where I had a few hours that were free, and maybe I felt a little bit bored. But I thought, "I think I should write a course on bookkeeping. I think it would be really fun. I'm gonna write a course on bookkeeping, I want to help all of the stay-at-home moms that are out there, or women that are out there that are working in jobs that they're miserable in or feel like they don't have any choices, and ha- we'll throw stay-at-home dads in there, too." And then, I have this kiddo who's military, and he's got every single military spouse I know calling, asking if they can become a bookkeeper. Let's create a training course for them. So, August of 2024, we launched the One Hour Bookkeeper, and by August of 2025, we had 3,500 students go through the course.

Laura 10:16

3,500 students.

Melissa B. 10:17

The impact is truly humbling. The fact that I can have a conversation with somebody and tell him or her that, yes, you actually can contribute financially to your household and not have to, have your two kids in daycare full time to where you don't actually make any money from your job. Like, you have a choice. it's humbling, and it's been, it's been amazing. And it really is the... It's just the thing that fuels me. It's the thing that gets me so excited. Now, there's days where I question, how crazy I was by thinking, let's, essentially run two companies at the same time. But we like to say that pressure is a privilege. That's kind of our motto in our house. That's the Boye house motto of, when it feels like it's too much, know that it's a privilege. So that is something that is on my desk or anywhere that I can see it on a daily basis.

Laura 11:11

Well, it sounds to me like you have taken a job and turned it into a calling.

Melissa B. 11:19

I love the whole concept of your podcast, the whole thought of building a legacy because what I felt in previous jobs was that... and I think it's the trap that so many people fall into, was that I felt like the jobs were, it was more secure to work for somebody else. It was, I was better to get benefits for my family, and I needed to get a job so that I could have benefits for my family, or my husband needed to have a job to have benefits for our family or whatever it, it was. And, we've seen, in our lifetimes we've seen layoffs. Both of us have experienced layoffs. My husband worked construction, and he got laid off two weeks before our youngest son was born. We've just had the rug pulled out from underneath us, and of course we've rolled with it and we've made the best of it, and we've definitely survived it. But we no longer live in the times where you go to college and you start a job with a company, and you work for that company for 40 years. That's not the world we live in anymore.

Laura 12:21

Right.

Melissa B. 12:22

And I feel that, without a question that, you know, the bookkeeping industry is such an amazing opportunity for someone who doesn't have a degree, doesn't have a background, doesn't have the education in it, where they can learn the skills pretty quickly and, you know, essentially if you can balance a checkbook, which most people who are over the age of 30 know how to do.

Laura 12:50

I'm working on it, Melissa. Right. I'm trying so hard to teach them.

Melissa B. 12:54

If I can teach you, okay, there's four steps, you can grasp it. It's like chess, right? You know, it's quick to learn, but it can take a lifetime to perfect. So I can teach you those skills. I can teach you how to go out there and how to find clients and how to run a bookkeeping business. Why not take advantage of that? It's just this incredible opportunity that is, out there.

Laura 13:18

What kinds of people do you think have the raw ingredients to go ahead and do this well, even if they don't realize it yet?

Melissa B. 13:25

I will take a stay-at-home mom, a homeschooling mom, a homeschooling dad, you know, a stay-at-home dad, the dad that's been or the mom that's been kind of running it all and figuring out everything, and has that warm heart and that clean spirit, and really has a desire to help people. I would rather work with those people than somebody who is maybe what I would say in air quotes as a seasoned or a trained professional. Now, of course, I, I love getting to work with trained professionals as well. Mm-hmm. It's, it's interesting to present a different way to look at things. But I will say that what I've found is the people who have a lot of previous experience also come with a lot of baggage and a lot of maybe bad habits that they've learned, or a lot of they're used to having this big job with this big company, so they're used to doing everything for one client, and now we're telling them, "Okay, I love that. I love that you have all of that knowledge, but I need you to, like, forget, like, 85% of it, and I just need you to focus on this little, small 15% piece of the puzzle." And that's probably some of the biggest pushback that I get from some of my clients and some of my students. I have a few stay-at-home grandmas that I'm working with where life just didn't go the way that they thought it would for their kids. They now have custody of their grandchildren, and their retirement was not set up for thinking they were gonna be supporting a household of four. And so there's, there's a gap, and I just I get really excited about it.

Laura 15:05

Well, I'm actually really glad you said that, because what's going through the back of my mind is my mother, who was a bookkeeper by trade for 45 years-

Melissa B. 15:14

Okay

Laura 15:14

To the point where she ran Child Protective Services accounting for the state of Texas. Meaning hundreds of millions of dollars that she was responsible for, and she's really, really good. I mean, if you're gonna be responsible for that, you better be really, really good at numbers, right?

Melissa B. 15:29

Yep.

Laura 15:30

We've talked about her dabbling in having a business doing bookkeeping for people, because her retirement is not what we thought it was going to be, but she just has it in her mind that she can't run a business. What is it that you see in people that people can't see in themselves as capable business people?

Melissa B. 15:55

I think we all just need to be shown the path Right? We all just need to be shown the, okay, this is what you need to do now. This is what you need to do next. This is what you need to do next. And I have some students that, you know, I have one student, he's kind of one of my, I'll say one of my secret favorites, but- he's a retired trial attorney. He's a retired, he used to put bad guys away, and he's like, "I did it for 30 years, and I'm just tired of looking at the underbelly of society. I need to see the good in people." we laugh about it because I kinda go, "Did you just, like, throw a dart at a whole bunch of words and bookkeeper was what come up?" it's kind of a random choice, but it works for him. He's super happy doing it. It creates this laid back, easy pace lifestyle that he is loving. And so I think that some people need it spoon fed, and other people are like, "Tell me what to do. Give me all of the details. I'll do it at my own pace. I wanna know that I can reach out to you if I have questions." And that's where the support comes into play. So what I found was that, yes, there are other bookkeeping programs out there. You know, Intuit is the top one that comes to a lot of people's minds, and the Intuit, ProAdvisor program is fantastic. However, it doesn't teach you how to run a bookkeeping business, and really all it teaches you is how to use every single aspect of QuickBooks. So you end up going through the certification. You now know how to use all of the different aspects of QuickBooks. You really only need about that 15%, but you then are wondering, like, am I doing this right? Am I gonna, you know, mess things up for their tax person when it comes to tax time? How do I deal with when I do all this prospecting, what do I do when somebody actually calls me? And so we found that we were able to fill in the gaps. And, you know, I've just always looked at it as what is the information that I wish somebody would have told me when I was trying to figure it all out going 100 miles an hour?

Laura 18:07

You're doing not only the practical side, but also the softer skills

Melissa B. 18:13

yep. We have sections on, like, how to fire a client. I mean, that's definitely something that I've looked at a lot of the other bookkeeping programs that are out there,

Laura 18:23

gonna

Melissa B. 18:23

find

Laura 18:23

that

Melissa B. 18:24

They don't wanna talk about it. Or they won't talk about, you know, what the income potential is. I'll talk to you about your income potential. I'll show you your path to making six figures, and you can get there, like, a lot faster than you think you would. It's just, we look at the average client is a value of about $350 a month. A bookkeeper work- working full time can handle 25 clients. So 25 times 350 times 12 is, you know, over $100,000 a year. I mean, the math becomes super easy, and you're not working with 100 clients or 200 clients. You're working with 25. Right. And you're really having an impact on those 25 businesses and acting as their partner in a lot of ways. Being a small business owner can be very lonely, and they're going along and they're trying to do the best they can at doing whatever it is they do, and they don't have anybody that they can talk to. They can't talk to their employees. Unless their spouse is involved in the business, they can't talk to their spouse about stuff, so they're holding it all together. Maybe they have some friends, but if they have friends, they're probably not being honest with their friends about, "Hey, we're having a tough time," or, "I'm not sure if I'm making the right decision." And the bookkeeper becomes their, you know, their kind of partner in their business. And so we help with the, as you said, soft skills of how do you build that relationship? And as women, we are... especially women who have children, we are nurturers, and we're, you know, able to be patient, and we're able to show 'em a little love. And then we're also able to say, "Knock it off" to our clients, or, "Did you really think that was a good idea?" And kind of call them out. And not that we would ever be disrespectful to our clients, but sometimes you need to take a little bit of a, a tough approach. And it's, it seems to be what's working, and it certainly seems to be resonating with my, with my students,

Laura 20:30

there's a little piece of the coaching inside of it, where you have to... One, anytime somebody exposes their numbers to you, they're being vulnerable. Yes. You have to be willing to look at that as I'm being allowed into a vulnerable place in somebody else's life. So you have to take that into consideration, but then also you need to be able to coach them through, "Hey, we're spending more than we're bringing in," or, we're making some decisions that seem a little questionable, put your business at risk. Maybe we need to talk about it. It's hard thing to talk to business owners about.

Melissa B. 21:01

But somebody needs to have that

Laura 21:03

conversation with

Melissa B. 21:04

Somebody needs to have the conversation and say, "Hey, let's look at where, where we can cut back on costs," or, "Let's look at how we can bring in more money. Let's look at what you're doing in your business that's working and, let's push aside the things that aren't working." One of the things that we saw through the, you know, the crazy pandemic that we all lived through not too long ago, was we saw the smaller companies they knew their numbers, they knew what was working, they knew what wasn't working, and they could adjust things quickly to this world that was nothing any of us had ever seen. Those were the businesses that survived. And so we saw it with our own clients. The clients that survived through the pandemic or through tough times were the ones who knew their numbers. And we get to be our clients' partners in that, and it's a pretty exciting thing I love it.

Laura 21:58

There's so many of the businesses that I'm currently coaching that I would not have to coach if they had somebody like that in their corner already. And I'm not, I'm not I'm not trying to lose work here, but- I do, I do love that there are people, that you're teaching people not just how to run the numbers, because I'm thinking of one client I have in particular, and he has a bookkeeper that comes in once every other week and fixes his numbers and then walks away. Yep. And he's $100,000 in business debt, and he didn't realize that he was so far behind 'cause he's just, you know, playing catch-up. And when she told him one day, "Hey, this is where we're at. I couldn't make this bill go through", he was completely shocked.

Melissa B. 22:48

Terrible

Laura 22:49

that was just somebody that just came, did the books, and walked out. And granted, he's paying her next to nothing, so the fact that she was doing anything at all, was nice of her. But now he's having to pay somebody to come in and have the hard conversations and work through it, and we're working through the income and the, the numbers side. But I love that you were, the, I love that you were teaching more than just, "Here's how you do QuickBooks. Move on."

Melissa B. 23:17

I think I know some of my clients probably better than their spouses know them. I've been able to see the businesses that are, almost too far beyond saving, but there is still time to reel them back in. And also to be a part of talking to somebody in the, "Have you just kind of fallen out of love with your business? Like, what's going on?" and I'll say that's about 50% of my clients. There's the other 50% that are like the client that you were talking about, that don't want to have the interaction and they don't want to have the conversation. So that becomes a delicate dance as well, because you as the bookkeeper have to understand. I had a conversation with one of my students earlier today where she's like, "They have to understand." I'm like, "No, approach your client like he's a three-year-old." so you can bring him around to your way of thinking, but you have to do it by, gently making it so that he is incentivized to want to have the conversation. He can't feel like every conversation with you is a negative. There has to be a light at the end of the tunnel. And so what is your plan for conveying that information? And in, you know, sometimes it's just rephrasing the information, because the last thing that we want is for our clients to avoid us. And money's a hot topic, and there are a lot of people who take the ostrich approach with money, and they just bury their heads in the sand and they hope for the best. We had one client that we had been working with them for- probably two or three years, younger couple. His wife was involved in the business as well. He got into a car accident and was essentially completely out of the bi- I mean, like horrible car accident. Was out of the business for close to a year, and our role became bringing her up to speed so that she didn't just get eaten alive by all of the different... There's just some unscrupulous business people out there. And it wasn't because we wanted some award for being, you know, world's best bookkeeper. It was more that it was just the right thing to do, and that maybe I have a skill to be able to see the story that her numbers are telling her that she doesn't necessarily see. And so once we were able to help her learn that language, this whole path, you know, became opened up for her.

Laura 25:44

You talk about this business, obviously you love it and you have such a passion. I can, I can-

Melissa B. 25:51

Some days I do

Laura 25:52

hear it. I can hear it in your voice

Melissa B. 25:53

I don't, but most days I do.

Laura 25:54

I do. But you talk about this as a business that buys back your time. You said in the beginning, you didn't have enough time with your kids, and you wanted this business to be something that would buy back your time. What does that actually look like in real life to people that want to start this and take this on?

Melissa B. 26:08

Now, of course, it depends on where you live. If you live in New York City, $100,000 probably doesn't go very far. But to tell somebody who is a military spouse that she can bring in six figures working from home, working 25 hours a week, that's pretty great. And that now not only is she not working 40 hours a week, so she's cut back 15 hours, but she doesn't have to commute, she doesn't have to worry about, spending a whole bunch of money on, professional work wear and she also gets to save money on daycare because she gets to actually be the one that's raising her kids because she has a business that can work around her schedule. Now, there's no judgment there if you wanna have your kids in daycare or in play school or nursery school or whatever they call it part-time, or maybe you do wanna have your kids in daycare full time, and that becomes your choice. And that's pretty great when it's your choice. So it's the different ways of just really looking at everything and understanding that it's a choice, and you get to be an active participant in your life instead of feeling like you're just dealing with what life has dealt you. Um, and we see that a lot with military spouses.

Laura 27:35

Yeah. I see that a lot in the people that I work with, the people that come to me that are stressed out about money. They're overwhelmed. And a lot of times it's, "Well, I'm in this situation. This happened to me, that happened to me." And I'm like, "Well, what are you going to do to take control of it?" And when you start to take control, there's this study that was done recently that says 97% of millionaires in America believe that they control their future.

Melissa B. 28:02

Interesting.

Laura 28:04

And so if you want to be a millionaire, or if you just want to have enough margin to choose whether or not you can stay home with your children, you have to first decide that it's completely up to you. And so I love, I love that you said that. I knew we were gonna be fast friends, Melissa. This is great. I know.

Melissa B. 28:20

We're even moving to the same place.

Laura 28:22

I'm so excited.

Melissa B. 28:23

Crazy.

Laura 28:23

How long does it typically take for someone if they wanna start generating an income?

Melissa B. 28:27

So I've seen students that don't get in their own ways, and they, within a week of starting the program, land their first client. I've had other students that really are the people who want to learn everything, and there's a little bit more work in the what's the motivation between, behind feeling like you need to learn everything? Because in truth, I'm still learning things every day. I learn things from my students all the time, and so you're never gonna learn everything. And so what work needs to be done internally for you to accept that you're not gonna know everything, but you will know where to go to get help when those questions that come up happen? I read every book and worked with a whole bunch of coaches when I was putting the program together, just to kind of get their input on things, and one of the things that struck me as so interesting, and when I first heard it, I thought, "That's not true," but when I thought about it, I realized how true it was, was that for most of us as adults, when we set out to do something, the first thing that we hit that becomes an obstacle, over 80% of people will just throw the towel in and give up. And it doesn't have to be a huge obstacle. It can be the s- like smallest, tiniest thing, but to you in that moment, it feels like this insurmountable mountain to climb, and so you just, you quit and you throw the, you know, you throw the towel in. I'll talk to, students who are, well, they don't know they're gonna be students yet, but prospects I'll say, that have tried different bookkeeping programs in the past. And so they'll approach me from the, kind of a cynical point of view, which is fine. I am definitely not a hard sales person. I know what bookkeeping in- can do for you. I know what it's done for our life. I know the amazing things it's allowed us to be able to do. We haven't missed a water polo game. We haven't missed a rugby game. We've... You know, my husband traveled to Japan with our youngest for two weeks, and just essentially said, he marked himself out on his calendar and they went, because we found out three days before this team was supposed to leave for Japan that we had a spot. And so we were able to pay for two tickets and rooms and board for Japan for two weeks. That was awesome. It's just allowed us some amazing opportunities. Mm-hmm. So for me, I don't feel like I have to sell something. I feel like it's just something that I can prevent, pre- not prevent, present, and those who want to, you know, take me up on it, take me up on it. It is interesting when I hear about people talking about other programs and they have kind of that cynical approach, and I will- often just kind of turn the question of, "Well, why do you think that didn't work for you?" Or, "Gosh, that sounds like a pretty good plan to me. Why didn't it work?" And then they explain why it didn't work. And sometimes it's a really powerful conversation because a person who is angry and frustrated and disappointed now is able to take some ownership, and when we take ownership, we have control. And so I think those billionaires are totally right because, of course, there's always things that can happen, but there's so many things that we know will happen and we can plan for them and we can prepare for them that, why not prepare? Why not insulate ourselves the best we can?

Laura 32:07

There's a sense of, when I work for somebody else, I'm safe. But the truth of the matter is, when you work for somebody else, you have no control. If they decide to fire you, they decide to fire you. And when you work for yourself, you get to be the one that sets your limit, and you get to be the one that exceeds your limit,

Melissa B. 32:24

I watched my dad work. My dad lives in Chicago still. We've tried to get him to move out to California. For the last 30 years. He worked for the post office for 40 years as a mail carrier in Chicago. He stuck with it because that was the world he grew up in and he toed the company line and, he lives very frugally. I think looking back at his life, he probably wishes that on some level there were things that, maybe he would have done differently, that he would have realized that he had a choice, and he didn't. And there's so many people out there that don't realize that they have a choice. And so one of the things that I find that's so amazing when I get to connect with people like you is I may not be the solution. Bookkeeping may not be the solution. Like, it is truly not a fit for everybody. There are some people where it's just not gonna work. And so to be able to make those introductions to other people so that somebody can, gosh, just be a happier human, in their lives and, you know, think about the effect that that has on our world as a whole. That way everybody can stop being so grumpy.

Laura 33:37

Yes. We need a little bit more joy in the world, and when we can realize that we're in control, we have not only confidence, we have peace, we have margin, we have breathing room. I think those are really amazing things, and it sounds like what you're doing and what you're building gives not only money, but confidence and time and peace, and I think that's amazing. I just have a couple questions that I wanted to ask you before we, we wrap things up.

Melissa B. 34:03

Sure.

Laura 34:03

What would you say... Because we've talked a little bit about the numbers and, it seems to me like if you enjoy working with numbers and you enjoy working with people, this would be a really great opportunity, but what would you say to that mom that's home with her kid that just believes that taking time to build something of their own would make them feel like they're not giving to their kids, or they feel guilty for taking time for themselves to build this business?

Melissa B. 34:34

Grew up Catholic. Totally understand the guilt. Drives my husband crazy. Like, I get the mom guilt I get the guilt. And I remember feeling guilty every time I had to leave them to go to work. I remember feeling guilty every summer when it was like, okay, we have to figure out what the plan is for the kids for the summer. I get that guilt. And so what if you have a workload that you have the opportunity to break up into, you know, tiny boxes of... You block your time. You know, a 25-hour week, that's five hours a day. You can work that around your kids.

Laura 35:17

Mm-hmm.

Melissa B. 35:17

I mean, I have one student who she has nine children, and she homeschools all of them. But it's, for her, she has her school curriculum that she, sets out for her kids, and she blocks out her time for, "This is my time to work on my business." And for her, she looks at it as more of a, that, like her work time is kind of her me time for her brain. And so it's not, taking away anything for her kids. And what an awesome example you're showing for your children. To show your kids that they have a choice, that they don't have to work in a job where their boss treats them like crap or they're miserable or they hate their coworkers. At most days my coworker is a 200-pound Newfoundland that sleeps on my feet and snores. I am pretty fond of my co- and my husband. I'm pretty fond of my coworkers. You know? My, the rest of my team is everybody's remote so, those are the individuals that are in my space all day. I remember having a three-year-old and running this, and he had a desk that was next to my desk, and he had an old computer. And he would sit and he would pound on that keyboard, we have a recording of it and it's hilarious. And he would pick up his play phone and and he would do that, and it would keep him entertained for 15 minutes, but it was 15 minutes that I got to work. And then we would go to the park, and then we would come home, and he would take a nap, and I would get an hour to work. And so it's, you have to be a little bit more flexible, but it's totally workable and it's totally doable. I think the unknown is where people give up before they even get started. So they say, I don't have what it takes to start a business." Well, what is it that you think it takes to start a business? Because I wanna hear what your list is, and sometimes it's like the monster under the bed. It's the things that aren't real, but we build it up so much in our minds, and then as soon as we have a safe space to talk about what we believe is real, turns into a kitty cat that's under the bed, right? And we walk through, we have all of the different things that, the list of, of what's needed when you're starting a business. M- we have a roadmap of a plan. I started with there was no extra money. There was... By the time I launched, I hadn't worked in over seven months. There were no credit cards to tap into. There was no- Hmm savings to tap into. There was no business loan. It was I needed to make money as quickly as possible. And we, you know, we've operated our company without business loans, without debt, without anything from day one, and it's a pretty beautiful thing.

Laura 38:11

A debt-free business is my favorite kind of business.

Melissa B. 38:14

It though? Agreed.

Laura 38:14

So I'm glad you said that.

Melissa B. 38:16

Agreed.

Laura 38:17

I love this. And just to clarify, you have two different businesses. So you have one where you do bookkeeping, and do you still have women underneath you that do the bookkeeping?

Melissa B. 38:27

So we have, we have seven bookkeepers right now that all work remotely for us. We have the bookkeeping side of the company, and then we have the tax side of the company. We have an awesome office manager that holds everything together. So I still do all of the onboarding calls for all of our new bookkeeping clients, and help bookkeepers, like if they're stuck or if we need to do training for bookkeepers. I don't so much do the day-to-day operations for bookkeeping, but I definitely keep the bookkeeping side of the business moving forward, and then I am the one who's responsible for all of our marketing decisions and stuff like that. My husband runs the tax side of the business, and that would be what operates half of my time. And then the other half of the time is the One Hour Bookkeeper and everything that is under that umbrella. And we've got a whole bunch of different courses that are out there. We have courses that are priced from $9 all the way up to our top signature course, which is our Bookkeeper in a Box program,

Laura 39:32

and the- I mean, if it's in a box, that means everything is there. It's everything. You don't need anything else. I love that.

Melissa B. 39:38

It includes your first 10 clients. We essentially make the transition as seamless for you as possible. What we are doing though is we're working together so that you're working at the same time in doing those things that you need to do to build a clientele and to build a business, but you have it where it truly is spoon-fed, to you, so there's no overwhelm. Because that was really my number one, objective I think, was not just teaching the skills, but keeping the overwhelm at bay. Because I think for myself, there have been so many different things that I've wanted to try or that I've watched my girlfriends want to try or my mom want to try and, you start to look at what it takes or you start to investigate a little bit in it, and there's all these details, and you just kind of stop before you even get started. And if we can take that overwhelm away, it really is amazing what people are able to accomplish.

Laura 40:35

Fabulous. I love this. My final question for you today, and then I have some questions after we hang up the recording.

Melissa B. 40:42

This is what everybody's gonna wanna know about, is what we're talking about behind the scenes.

Laura 40:46

Well, they'll just have to call one of us and ask.

Melissa B. 40:48

They will.

Laura 40:49

My final question for you today is what do you want your legacy to be?

Melissa B. 40:56

I want my legacy to be my two sons living the lives of their dreams, whatever that looks like. I want them to know that they have choices. I want them to know that nothing, and this is a, a positive and a negative, but that nothing lasts forever, and that life is short,

Laura 41:15

that's a

Melissa B. 41:16

wonderful- And I'm crying on a podcast.

Laura 41:17

I didn't mean to make you cry, but, happy- No. And

Melissa B. 41:19

I just want them to know that their life can be anything they want it to be.

Laura 41:25

Yeah.

Melissa B. 41:27

Yep.

Laura 41:29

Melissa, thank you so much for being here with our Legacy Builders today.

Melissa B. 41:32

You're

Laura 41:33

welcome. We hopefully, Legacy Builders, hopefully if this resonated with you or if you know somebody who could use a business in a box here, and they need to reach out to Melissa, have them go... All of your information is down in the show notes. They can reach out to you there. But my Legacy Builders, this week go out and make a difference.