Episode #123 Understanding Your Niche to Increase Your Bookkeeping Profits

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• DOPE CFO – YouTube
• DOPE CFO – Website
• The CFO College – Website

Summary Keywords: bookkeeping business, business, profits, bookkeeping profits, niche business, niche

How Understand Your Niche and Increase Your Bookkeeping Profits

Angie Martin  0:01 

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to another episode of The bookkeepers voice. Today we are joined by Andrew Hunzicker, who is the founder of dope CFO and CFO college. Thank you for joining me today, Andrew. Thank you. It's great to be on. I'm really looking forward to this. This episode. It's something that Amy and I thought would be a really great idea after you guys emailed us. So for those of you who don't know, because Andrew is in the US, so some of our Australian members might not know you so well. Andrew is a CPA, who is an expert in startups, CFO services, turnaround, high growth strategies, capital sourcing, merger and wealth production. Basically, put, you're a busy man, you have two businesses. Yeah, it's impressive.

Andrew Hunzicker  1:21 

Yeah, I'm very busy.

Angie Martin  1:24 

It definitely sounds like you've got a lot on. But what I really love and what really made me really interested in having you on the podcast today was your incredible CFO knowledge within the US market and how you have honed in your leadership and incredible accounting and bookkeeping knowledge, to help our fellow bookkeepers, CPAs, CFOs, CEOs, everyone to upskill. And really understand how they can maximise their value of their businesses through the CFO college. It's amazing.

Maximising the value of your business by understanding your niche

Andrew Hunzicker  2:10 

Yeah, so really, it's interesting to be talking to Australia from the US, but it's really the same, I actually just got off the phone an hour ago with someone. At the end of the day, maybe accounting standards are a little bit different in each country. But at the end of the day, if we're a service professional, whether it's a CPA or bookkeeper, we have to be able to find really good clients, and then we have to serve them really well. And if we can do those two things, we're gonna have a good business. And we talked about this a lot, whether we're a plumber, or electrician, Doctor, accountant, doesn't matter, we've got to do the same thing, find good customers and serve them well, at the end of the day. And so to serve them well, we got to have a lot of knowledge and a lot of tools. And as we grow that we start where we are, you've got some amount of knowledge right now and you got some kind of tools in your toolbox. Maybe you've got a cool work paper or whatever that you got or something else. But you could grow those every day, every week, every month for your entire career. I'm almost 60 and I'm still doing it. So you certainly can't do it. You'll be amazed how it will grow quickly.

Angie Martin  3:15 

I love it so much. And it's definitely something that savvy is wholeheartedly behind. We love sharing knowledge really supporting our fellow bookkeepers in the industry. And I would love for you just to take a minute and tell us a little bit more about yourself and what the CFO college actually does. Because it's pretty impressive.

From a start up business to a profit building success

Andrew Hunzicker  3:43 

Yeah, and I'm actually playing around with my brand right now where I want to go because the I've been a CPA and CFO both for almost 30 years now. And I'm again, I'm almost 60. So some people would say I'm at the end of my career, but I'm, I'm planning to go the next 20 years I feel again, and I love it. I love what I'm doing now, which is mostly teaching. I love I love that. And and so we're Yeah, I was in the Big Four in the 90s. And I've founded and in part of startups, I've been CFO, big companies, small companies, almost every type, and then I got into cannabis kind of accidentally five years ago. And that's been super fun. Because it's it's a niche that really needed a lot of help. Since there was nothing, no big four there. There was no gap guidance. There was no industry guides, there's no nothing. And so everything I had to create for myself that I was using in my own practice. It was basically tool after tool after tool. But so at this point, the CFO college I came up with that name because basically, I was trying to think of something broad enough. At first I was just teaching almost 1000 CPAs and bookkeepers enrolled. Agents at this point in all 50 states, how to be CFOs. And bookkeepers in the cannabis niche that's expanded to many other niches as well. So our CFO bookkeeper programme, for example, is for bookkeepers who want to upgrade their skills to more CFO level stuff. And again, doesn't matter what country you're in, that could be the same anywhere. And then I've even taught some business owners how to be their own CFO, so, so CFO, the CFO skill set is just so valuable. If you go look at fortune 500 companies, generally, the second highest paid person is going to be the CFO, often, even above the person running operations, and marketing. So usually, that's going to be the number two person at key companies and for a reason. So think of big big companies, Nike, and Microsoft, and all those companies. They figured it out accounting and tax and CFO really matters. Some of the smaller people don't have figured it out, they think, oh, everything else matters, my marketing, my brand, my sales, but it actually can add a lot of value to your company. And do add some of the CFO level things, whether you're a business owner, a bookkeeper, whatever. And so it's really important. If you can learn these skills and gain CFO tools, you can add a tonne of value to your client. And, and the good news for you, if you're a bookkeeper, you don't need letters behind your name, it doesn't matter if you're a PhD or CPA or, or have no letters, that's fine. Because guess what the client could care less, they just care if you're giving them the value that they want. That is so true.

Angie Martin  6:40 

You know, I'm a small business owner, a lot of our community knows this. And I would not care whatsoever what initials are behind that name, as long as I know, and can trust them that they're going to be doing well for my business, then that's all that really matters. And the concept of CFO is really starting to take over in the bookkeeping industry over the last year almost. We've seen a massive influx in AI, and especially the way of virtual CFO, which I know you love the idea of virtual CFOs and virtual bookkeepers. Let's have a chat about that.

Virtual bookkeeping business tactics for start ups

Andrew Hunzicker  7:19 

Well, it's interesting, the fractional or part time CFO, is just a I mean call whatever, a freelance CFO. It's just like bookkeepers work for themselves and over this. So So CFOs figured out Oh, wait a minute, we could just normally in the past CFOs were like that meant it actually meant Chief Financial Officer for a company. So you actually had to work at a company, you'd be a CFO for that company at one job. But then we were like, Oh, wait a minute, maybe I can be CFO for five or six clients at once. And so I'm gonna be a fractional CFO. And there are many, many of those. The interesting thing is, it's kind of an interesting niche, because you got CFOs coming. There's a whole even big, big few CFOs never taken accounting course in their life. They're just

Angie Martin  8:10 

It just baffles me.

Andrew Hunzicker  8:11 

Yeah. So it's weird. Usually, you got bookkeepers becoming CFOs, you got all kinds of different skill sets, in my my contention to business owner is if I am hiring a CFO, and then deep rooted knowledge and accounting, counting is the language of business, use the foundation for every value, bowl thing, and we have like six value drivers. It's built on this foundation of what we call rock solid accounting. 90% of the companies in the world do not have rock solid accounting, they have very, very poor accounting. And if you have poor accounting, it leads to the things that we want to get higher whether the owners want improve cash flow, lower taxes, better reporting, you can't even get there if the accountings bad. And so that's where it starts with that knowledge and tools. And so that's, that's kind of where our programme started to on making sure we're doing the accounting really well, including a robust month in process where includes finding and fixing errors and doing analytics and doing tie outs and building a permanent audit trail things that most bookkeepers they just don't do. I've trained hundreds and hundreds of them. They're like, Wow, I've never seen this before. And stuff really we did in in Big Four when we went into audit companies.

Angie Martin  9:28 

Yeah. That's a thing too. And I think that's what's happening a lot in the industry is bookkeepers are wanting to upskill they're wanting to further their actual service base to really help their clients. I think, this last year with COVID. We wanted to be there as much as possible. And there was so many opportunities for bookkeepers to help keep their businesses, their clients businesses alive. So I think they're really knowing it. It's great.

The role of a CFO in virtual and start up businesses

Andrew Hunzicker  10:00 

And traditionally that that CFO role, and just even a mindset and what the business owner thinks so a lot of business owners whether right or wrong, they hear the word bookkeeper and they think commodity low level, or get them on up work, I'm gonna pay him 19 bucks an hour, no value at all, it's just a cost I have to pay, not gonna help me in my business one bit. And where CFO, most business owners think oh, that's advisor, my trusted right hand woman and my right hand man, that's going to guide me and maybe accounting or tax or HR or, or operations even, or this trusted person that's going to take take care of headaches when I have them even. And so that role is really important role that for these business owners, and so to be able to say, Hey, if you're a bookkeeper, I'm in like an IRA group, CFO, bookkeeper. I am owners like what the heck's that? Well, it's a bookkeeper that does a lot more to CFO level, there's this, there's this weird niche where business owners start to get up towards a million in sales, and they're growing rapidly and a million all the way up to 10 million. Somewhere along there, almost every business owner is gonna be thinking, I gotta get a CFO. And at first, first, when they're too low, that are 600 grand in sales are just like, I can't afford it, it's not gonna work. The fractional CFO is a lot of them want, you know, six, seven grand a month for, to come in for five hours a month to do very little. And so they think they can't get it, and then they, or they're gonna have to pay, you know, three 400 grand a year to really get a really decent CFO, if you're a bookkeeper, and you can learn a lot of CFO level skills, then you can come in and say to the business owner, look, I'm going to do almost everything you want CFO level, and I'm not going to charge you 400 grand, I'm only going to charge you 200 grand a year, yeah, they're gonna love you, or 150, you're gonna make a tonne more than you're making with one client, they're gonna be happy because they're getting better service. And frankly, a lot of those CFOs out there that are charging those eye rates are actually not doing much from my opinion, of what they should be doing to add value to these clients. And so it's a way for I tell bookkeepers, this is a way to fight back, you got everyone coming at you. The Big Four, like, I got my parents Trust Company called me, they said, Oh, we hired KPMG, to do our bookkeeping Spark, they basically do it for free. And QuickBooks does bookkeeping, Asia, all those people, I get emails will do your bookkeeping for $2 an hour. So you've got everyone's coming after your business. And they want to do it to give it away free to get the other business, the higher value work. And so why not, if you're a bookkeeper fight back, say, Hey, wait a minute, I'm going to go off to the CFOs of the world and, and go after their business, or the CPAs. And so are the tax planners or all those people. So we can we can do so much of that stuff, that the business owners really value, improving their cash flow, lower taxes, tax planning, really good reporting to help manage and run their business, we can do that with more than just data entry, bank rec, print out ugly financial, adequate books or whatever.

Angie Martin  13:18 

Now, it's, it's fantastic. And I love that you are really trying to help support the industry because there are so many incredible bookkeepers out there that actually do most of the CFO work just yet, because and they don't get any recognition for it. They don't charge for it. They don't do anything. So I think it's fantastic to really help teach bookkeepers how valuable their skills really are and how they can upskill if they want to really become that CFO, bookkeeper. And so, yes to upscale the skills and then with the skills and the tools if you have the tools to you can have confidence because we say it starts with the very first call instead of like, because I've heard the other story Yeah, there. I know so many talent. bookkeepers are doing so much already.

Bookkeeping business owners

Andrew Hunzicker  14:12 

And but it's the opposite they go in are getting not paid much. The owners just bugging for stuff. The owners treat them badly. And they keep doing stuff. They're like, Oh, I have to do all this stuff. They don't appreciate me, as opposed to coming in as a business owner on day one, saying I'm not a bookkeeper, I'm a business owner. Here's what I do, I do this, this and this, here's how we do it. Here's how I'm gonna charge you to do it. It's gonna add a tonne of value to your business and take it or leave it. And if they take it, great, they treat you correctly from day one and you add a lot of value. As opposed to feeling you got to prove yourself. Forget that. You don't need to prove yourself you've already you've got if you've got the positioning to and the and the backup to back your offer up, then you don't need to worry about it.

Angie Martin  14:58 

Now and that's something I think the industry is bookkeepers are slowly starting to get around bookkeepers by trade are usually Yes, people, they really are empathetic, they really care. And, you know, it's, it's about time that they start, you know, we I always say as well as you're not just a bookkeeper, you're a business owner, treat yourself like that treat yourself like an employee, like actually be nice to yourself. Like yourself

Andrew Hunzicker  15:32 

Who are like, so terrified to even talk to a business owner, or have imposter syndrome or whatever, they, you just don't have to worry about that if you if you get into whatever programme or whatever, and you feel like you're confident in your services, or whatever you don't be scared of the call we, we even frame that differently. Like we'll send out, we'll meet an owner somehow, either through an email or whatever. But if we get on the call, I instruct my group, we are only asking questions, we are taking control that call from the first second, we're pretending we're a doctor, when, you know, when the doctor comes in the office with me, and I'm just dying to tell them what I think I need to tell them about whatever's wrong with me. And they just stop you and they're like, No, I'm asked the questions. What did you eat, or whatever, I'm going to run this whole thing. I'm going to do this first. And this first, if we do the same thing, we're super busy, I need to ask you a few questions to figure out if it's even a fit at all we ask we then ask the questions which I tell anyone can do that makes life way easier. As opposed to being nervous, I'm interviewing for a job with a business owner, I really want the job. And he's gonna grill me or she on my resume and my how many clients I have and what I know about counting and all this stuff. And I'm nervous. So saying, Oh, no, I'm not gonna do that at all. I'm not going to talk about myself one second, I'm going to ask them questions. Sam, you send over a proposal with more information about me and my firm. And then if you want to move to the next step, we'll move there with engagement letter, collect retainer, and then we'll give you a bunch of free info or if they want references or whatever, but it makes it way easier. We don't do sales. We don't ask them what they want or need, we tell them what we give them, which is the top level accounting and tax service, and they're gonna pay for it. They'll never see us in person and take it or leave it works really good. I I'm the same way as a people pleaser, and I didn't I did the opposite all that for five years.

Angie Martin  17:28 

Yeah.

Andrew Hunzicker  17:29 

That doesn't work where you go to free work and I go in person out to their place four times before, way before getting money.

Angie Martin  17:40 

That's just nails on my chalk on a chalkboard in my head. No, and that's, that's something I really believe in as well. You know, I'm, I've been in sales for years and years, and I specialise in doing service based sales. And when you come in as a bookkeeper with your initial consult, and you're ready and prepared to tell them what they need, it makes such a different start to the relationship basically, and having that really solid onboarding process to really go through and tell them this is what you can expect. This is what I'm expecting from you. This is a relationship, I'm not your employee, I am a contractor that I'm helping you run your business, you want to be nice to me. Basically, it changes everything and it makes those really long term client bookkeeper relationships really successful. And that's what you ultimately want, right? You know, as, as an accountant, bookkeeper, CFO, you want clients that are going to last?

Andrew Hunzicker  18:50 

Yeah, and they appreciate you and then and then they'll if if you take a we haven't talked about niche yet, but if you go my opinion, whether you join my programme or not, or anyone else's programme, and I didn't learn this too late, I wish I had learned it earlier. If you want to have a long term business, if you pick a not just a niche, but a really good niche and become what we call a VIP and expert, instructor participant in that niche that will solve your marketing for the rest of your life. by year two or three of that. You will never look for clients again, and talk about when they they throw grilling you out the window. At the end of I didn't haven't taken a new client since 2008, early 2018. I don't do I push them out to my group now. But even when I was trying to stop taking clients, the last two that I actually took that I was I told him I was like, I was in the niche. The guy knew who he got referred to me this guy Leroy he wanted. He wanted me. I was pushing his emails back. I don't take clients anymore. Then he's like, Can we just do a quick phone call? And it was like I don't do clients anymore at all. He's like, What do you want? I'll pay you anything. Forget about asking me for references or what do I know about anything? He's just like, No, I want you and you're not. And, and so we ended up taking I ended up giving him later to a student, but he was paying us a ridiculous amount of money for a pretty easy job. It was still startup farm. And so it's, it's really key that I tell people, if you hate marketing, then pick a niche, become an expert, become a VIP and that and then by year two or three, if you do it right, you should not ever find great clients again, because great clients will find you. And then you're done forever.

Angie Martin  20:36 

I love that. And yeah, let's let's talk more about picking your nation, really, you know, discovering exactly who, who you want to have this clients. You know, Amy, our founder, she has a really similar concept to you, that we share with our savvy clients where you can either pick a vertical niche, and horizontal niche or a diagonal niche in a vertical niche is something that you specify in a specific industry, I horizontal niche is specifying in a specific business stage, like startups, micro anything like that. And then the diagonal is actually specialising in its specific demographic area of the type of client that they are. So there's the three different niches that we kind of teach within the savvy bookkeeper, and any of them work, it's just pick one,

Succeeding in a niche market

Andrew Hunzicker  21:39 

you know, and make sure my thoughts are made.Like all niches are not created equal. And so you can actually succeed in any niche you can succeed in nonprofits, if you want, it's just going to be more of an uphill battle. And, and that's a good thing to talk about right off the bat nonprofit since and I'm not sure in Australia, but in the US the accounting so different, if you go down that road and decide five years later, you want to switch it's very difficult, you have to really relearn everything but um, the, if you just are picking whatever kind of niche vertical or horizontal whatever, or or certain industry spend some time evaluating it because the end of the day it's either a good niche or a bad news. So on the one hand, right off the bat, I don't care what niche you're in if they are not at seven figures in sales, the average mom and pop which meaning million million dollars or more in annual revenues. The exception is startups of high tech or whatever cannabis, if they're growing rapidly, and they're gonna get there quickly. That's if they're high growth. So not like you know, across the gym or whatever, but a high growth industry and or seven figures, that means they can actually afford to pay you. If they, if you if an average mom and pop can't afford to pay a CFO bookkeeper, five to 10 grand a month, then I consider that not a great niche because you're gonna need a tonne of clients to make a six figure firm instead of one client, or maybe two. And so that's that's why I start off right off the bat I want to have and Dennis would fit the bill normally like, Oh, yeah, dentists are everywhere. And they most generally make a million dollars and they're rich. Now, then I go down to some other checkmarks Well, why are dentists not a great niche, they're very, very hard to reach. They make themselves that way. They're massively over served already by specialists for a long, long time. And so when I talk to these literally 1000s of bookkeepers on the phone, I bet almost half the people I talk to are like Andrew, I picked this niche like dentist or, or hair salon or whatever. And I wasted eight months and I'm starting over. And so since it's only kind of a one time decision is like we're talking about VIP and long term other things we're doing in our practice growing our education, that's good no matter what, but the niche decision is a decision and it's like, okay, it's a decision. Yeah, better make the right choice, or you're going to be sorry. Later. If you're if you make if you pick a bad niche, and then start over, if it literally feels like you just wasted seven months or a year I've talked to people even that two years down the line. Yeah. I tried dentists myself, because I live in a small town of 100,000 people and it seems like there are dentists on every corner. I couldn't even get a meeting with the head dentist of the place where I go to get my teeth clean. And they're like, Oh, yeah, we have a dental specialist. That's all they do. And they count and they've been doing this for years. And, and so you just want to be careful on what you you go after.

Angie Martin  24:58 

I love that and you actually do Have a list of five to six things that make a good niche. Would it be possible to talk about that because I'm very interested in it.

Andrew Hunzicker  25:11 

Yeah, and that's so I've got somewhere we got a list of seven things. Actually, this, this PDF that if we can we can share with your group. That's basically what makes a great niche. And so I've gone I'd probably make this five, but first off average, right? I just want the average mom and pop I don't want to have to, like get lucky. And I got the best client in the niche. And yeah, it was awesome. But just the average mom and pop seven figures or more gonna be there quickly. I wanted to be in a very growth fast growing industry if possible. I wanted to be underserved by accountants. And then finally I want I want the business owners to be super easy to find and reachable, because that makes it a lot easier on us as well. And then if you on top of that, if you want it to be a fun niche. So the niche I'm in cannabis, CBD is super fun. We have events everywhere. More often than not, they're in Las Vegas. They're in fun, New Orleans, and they're they have music or celebrities that attend. There are lots of fun. I don't know what dentists do it. They're fun. And, but it's always tricky, because like oil, I was in oil and gas early in the century in 2002 1001. And I was CFO, very, very hard to learn that niche. It takes a lot of time. But it's an old old niche. And so like in places like Oklahoma, Texas, where I'm from, and you know, people been doing oil and gas for 40 years as very, very hard to break in, even though it is tonnes, a multi million dollar companies, it's still pretty hard to break in and hard to learn. And so that can be tricky. And there there are so many niches that do have a problem like dentists and doctors, they're hard to reach, even though they make money and they're pretty overserved construction, I think it's actually a good one. And developers, especially like in the us right now. I'm on the west coast. And so if I was going after construction like for I'm in a resort town Bend Oregon, where we live, I could just I would easily know exactly where I go. I know people are still doing $10 million development. They're all over Central Oregon, the Portland area, people are literally pouring into Oregon they've been so for 10 years or more. So they're leaving California they're coming up this way. So you can really target those high growth areas where there's just a tonne of construction and lots of those companies are making you know even sub niching out construction plumbers electrician my my good buddy who's a plumber? Yeah, their firm's been with the growth life for 30 years here. They don't look for clients. Oh, and their seven figure firm and they're plumbers but their seven figure firm.

Angie Martin  28:00 

Yeah, yeah, we that's definitely a sweet spot here in Australia as well.

Andrew Hunzicker  28:05 

Yeah, you get that that growth area. So there are good niches I think, start. high tech startups can be good. Those can be tricky, because there's so many that are looking for money and just dead broke. And so say they don't want to pay yet. I don't go for that. I have done that before.

Angie Martin  28:26 

Yes, I think we all have at some point in our careers that we really try and get our members to not do that anymore.

Andrew Hunzicker  28:35 

And I tell people if if someone wants to pay you with equity of some guy and and give you some ownership, like I never turn it away, but but I say well, I'm still gonna get cash. And so I will like all know, my head, even if I'm talking to this person, I'm like thinking before they even bring up equity, like I want five grand a month. And they say they just offer equity, I'll say okay, I'll take four grand a month and give me 5% of the company or 2%, or whatever it is, hmm. And those can, can be hit or miss. I've had huge wins with equity and zeros also.

Angie Martin  29:12 

Now I love it. And I know we've mentioned it a little bit earlier as well that you do have another business which is dope CFO, and we've kind of been chatting around it. It's your own vertical niche that you have. So I really want to discuss it but before we go any further just because we like to make sure that we are being open with our listeners is we want to do a little semi disclaimers. So for everyone that is listening, we're going to be talking about something a little controversial, and we haven't done a controversial topic for a while since I think the last time it was Amy back in October or November last year. So we're a bit excited about this. The entire team is He's really interested in this topic and in the actual conversation because it's a great opportunity within our industry throughout the world, to be honest, not you know, it just came to Australia. It's becoming really big, but it's something that is just a really great opportunity in growth stage for bookkeepers, and CFOs. So I'm really looking forward to having this chat with you and getting a bit more in depth. With that said, as well, though, we are only going to be discussing the least legalised aspect of these emerging industry and are in no way promoting the illegal activity. That can also sometimes be thought of it as well. So I hope this little disclaimer has heightened your interest in this topic we're about to discuss with Andrew. So, Andrew, please let us know what dope CFO is, and what's going on with the cannabis industry for bookkeepers and CFOs.

Andrew Hunzicker  31:07 

Well, it's it's like you said super high growth right now for good reason. Dope, CFO, that's where we teach about cannabis and CBD hemp. And we average this for years. I don't deal with illegal companies. So you can you remember Enron or small? I've been an owner for 30 years, I've dealt with fraud. I can't even remember I've dealt with church frauds. Who different times with big church rods where and so so the The point is, there are criminals in every niche. And so cannabis now state legals is becoming legal in many countries, it's becoming legal in almost every state in the US, my guess is it will be federally legal there very quickly, though, it's going to be a legal industry, like alcohol or whatever else, or medicines. And so it should be legal, and it's gonna have a lot of regulation. And we're gonna suffer, we insist. And we know because we do such a robust IC o counting method, we'll know if, if anything is not right. And we will fire clients immediately if we think they're doing something illegal in this niche, or any other so. So yeah, I would be super careful about and that's why we build internal controls and whatnot, corporate governance, accounting policies and procedures. That's, that's in our onboarding, we do that on day one, to make sure there's controls. And we'll know there's not gonna be any fraudulent reporting or whatever. Without that we're tying out assets every month, we're gonna pretty much know if there's funny business going on, and we'll leave. And so that said, so in the US, we can serve state legal companies, if our every state in America has our own state board of CPAs. And we can, but right now, the niche is, is almost in every single state, there's only four states where it's really completely absent. There are and there's every service provider serving this niche in the US accountant, bookkeeper. CPAs, Enrolled Agents, attorneys, marketers, plumbers, electricians, Home Depot sells cannabis farms and retailers and and so it's Yeah, they wouldn't I mean, basically everyone certain lighting companies and, and real estate and realtors, so, so everyone's serving this niche, it's quickly moving legal. The science is catching up. Finally, with the anecdotal evidence that goes back 1000s of years that cannabis and CBD actually have medical benefits. Many many, many medical benefits everything from biggies, you know pain, arthritis, anxiety, sleep disorders, PTSD, autism, epilepsy, on and on and on. That were the tip of the iceberg. They're studying this all over the world, universities, hospitals, scientists, and it's real. That really works. You know, there's other chemicals CBD became legal overnight in the US. So Lee CBD and hemp are legal. So those are we serve those niches too. There's kind of sister niches. And then within the whole cannabis CBD hemp world you have the verticals are kind of farming to chemical processors. And then product manufacturers, which could be food, beverage, lotions, all kinds of things they make. And then we get to distribution labs and retail, and even delivery companies after retail. So we have a pretty very niche and often you can have all of those companies in one company many times really in one company. Oh yeah, all the time there. You'll have. It's very common to have three or four like a dispensary mix, like a client here has two dispensaries and he owns half a farm and they want to control their supply chain and make sense for him.

Angie Martin  34:54 

And accountability as well, I guess. Yeah, like and yeah.

Andrew Hunzicker  34:59 

the company becomes more valuable. So, so many do it that. So So this niche fits all those criteria, it's fun, it's insanely fast growing, the business owners are absolutely everywhere and easy to meet. And the average farm processing plant manufacturer retailer is five to 10 million just day one. And so they're great clients to have they're massively underserved by bookkeepers and CPAs. And there's high barriers to entry, it's not simple. We need cost accounting, we need a toolbox or we are or good luck trying to serve the niche, but it's, it's a great, great niche to get involved in. And I think we're gonna see it globally worldwide, it's gonna be a medicine, it's like medicine, and it's gonna be regulated, but it's gonna be everywhere.

Angie Martin  35:49 

Well, here very much in Australia, the way that it's kind of come over is it's heavily the heavy focus on the medication. And, you know, the benefits for constant, you know, pain control, different cancer, treatments, all that stuff. So, it's a very interesting market that has just really started to take off in the last year and a half here. And you're right, you know, there's so many different steps in the chain of the actual industry that a bookkeeper can, you know, specialise in all of them, some of them, they can become a CFO for it, there's so many incredible opportunities. And in dope CFO, you actually do provide that education and those tools on how to enter the industry that you were talking about, correct?

Andrew Hunzicker  36:42 

Yeah, so our programme is just a huge shortcut. If so, if someone picks this niche, and that's usually who calls me I've got to pick this niche I'm all in I want to go in our programme is a no brainer, you will not, if you try to recreate it yourself, you'll spend 1000s of hours even if you have the skills to recreate the tools, which probably many people don't, if you don't have a deep deep dig for CPA background. But to get in our programme, you know, we have a complete education in 90 days to be what we want. We want you to be that valuable expert in accounting, Tax Court cases, operations, what products rather what brands how how things may, we want you really to know that industry, then we have our marketing system for how we find these clients that we kind of talked about our methodology there. And then we have our amazing toolbox. It starts with onboarding and engagement letter, we have ready to download, put your price in, we have a price quoting tool. And then we just it goes from there. Chart of Accounts, controls documents, cost accounting templates, PVC, last month in systems reporting templates, it just over 100 word paper. So it's kind of start to finish. And we call it a firm in a box basically. Love it. We have our our community that's super active. We do lots of live calls. Were talking to each other daily, all 50 states in the US, and we actually have one member in Australia, as well. But he's and then and then basically most people are in the US. But we have every we have bookkeepers, CPAs CFOs, attorneys, Enrolled Agents and so people share work and knowledge daily, but it's it is nice for people to have that that backup to figure out what answers to questions and whatever.

Becoming a CFO for bookkeepers

Angie Martin  38:29 

Yeah, well, that's that's definitely what we're all about. That's what we do with the savvy bookkeeper in our savvy membership group. We're always there to have chats together and have that support system like you mentioned. Now, I absolutely love this concept. You know, it's an industry that has really launched in Australia, America, Canada as well. You know, I'm Canadian, there's a real we were kind of one of the forefront countries that are really ahead. Yeah, we're a bit ahead from everything. But there's just so many opportunities within this market and a real opportunity for growth for bookkeepers who are wanting to become CFOs and bookkeepers who are just wanting to get into the market itself. You know, it's it's something that whether whether you agree with the whole concept or not, that's one of those things that it's hard to deny how impactful this new industry is going to be. And how great of an opportunity it is for bookkeepers to work within it.

Andrew Hunzicker  39:37 

We've had some people start with the sister niche they're like, well, I don't believe in cannabis but but my doctor just gave me some CBD and so I'm taking CBD and Tom fine doing so you can learn on the CBD hemp side which is pretend cannabis went away tomorrow it just disappeared from Planet Earth. CBD hemp is a massive niche it doesn't get anywhere. Hi but it is Madison hemp is amazing. And it's the same deal we got farmers processors, product manufacturing opportunities as well. You know, you can think about not even getting involved in something that's digestible. It can be something like hemp socks hemp clothing, fashion like that is so massively growing as well. So there's different aspects within the industry. And yeah, so outside that's kind of on the horizontal way without the verticals. hemp is just its own niche. There was no CBD or cannabis or THC or whatever. hemp would be a huge, huge worldwide net which is going to be CBD on its own. There's going to be other CBD like chemicals done. Don't get anyone high but have medical benefits. You look at just even the pet markets, what they're doing with CBD. It's It's nuts. But my mom's a great example. She absolutely hates cannabis. She's an Oklahoma, she's 85. But her doctor gives her CBD for her arthritis. And she likes it. So it's just CBD is just another chemical in the same plant. It's in a cannabis plant too. And so yeah, THC can get you a little bit high, but but they can really microdose and downgrade. So you don't maybe have those, those things that you don't want to have if you're but but the market, the medical side is going to be here, it's gonna grow big, we need a good medicine in the US we have a massive opiate crisis. This industry also provides jobs, huge tax dollars, which our governments need. And so there's lots and lots of good reasons. But and I don't know if Australia but the US we're ageing, I'm almost 60 the baby boomers, and we need, we need a reasonable thing. When my mom was grow, we you know, when my age, like when she was in her 50s going through 80s guess what the doctors did then and why we have the OB, they were handed out volumes and all these pills left and right, I'll take that pill, take this pill. And it's like, you know what, we're smarter, I think we're getting over, we want a solution for pain, and sleep and anxiety and all these things you get when you're older. But we want it to be a reasonable solution that we're not going to be addicted to. And we're not going to, you know, have all that craziness. So you say controversial, but then it's like you look at what's actually been done legally with in the 70s and 80s. And you had all these women, you know, taking volumes and drinking wine. And

Angie Martin  42:24 

Gosh, we've learned a lot. definitely learned a lot. Now, I love that you've created dope CFO and the CFO college to help support bookkeepers and really just make that acknowledge and kind of concept of Nietzschean in creating that virtual business to succeed no matter the niche. I think it's just really fantastic. And it's definitely something that we're all about. We're so happy that you're doing it as well. Now, I know that you've just offered your actual PDF of your really great, what makes a great niche concept because it's really, really helpful. But I know you've also offered a free resource that is the four keys to building a 100%, bookkeeping, remote bookkeeping practices as well. So that is going to be all available, including the PDF that you've already mentioned, as well on our actual podcast description. All of our podcast channels, whether it's on me, whether it's the Spotify, or iTunes or whatever. So we'll include both of those into our episode notes today so that our listeners will be able to read a bit more about what you have to offer and how they can learn how to niche and create that really successful bookkeeping practice.

Andrew Hunzicker  43:59 

That's awesome. That's the game. Yeah, yes. And I, we've been talking I'm actually going to launch a new likely a new platform ran just the idea dope CFO with what does that mean? dope. See if I was Oh, that means marijuana, or we have a dope CFO. We were joking around like, it's also cool. But I was thinking it's dope. Cool. Cool. And it's like, we're all accountants worldwide, most of us are nerdy and introverts and, and whatever. But we think of the dump CFOs where they're going to be the cool nerds, we're going to be the nerds that are going to be cool. But also we're going to try to build that just the whole mindset of just, yeah, you can be a dope CFO to whether you're in a programme or not just having an attitude of being confident being a business owner, doing the right thing, doing good work, you know, making a difference for your clients. That's what we all want to do. And so we'll be adding that here pretty soon as well.

I love it. So for anyone who wants to learn more about Andrew and both of his businesses, we're going to have all of his links available, we're basically going to be having a link chain for you and our podcasts notes as well today. So we're going to have his actual personal LinkedIn page, because it's quite an interesting page to actually go on and read, we're going to have the Facebook pages Twitter, Instagram, both websites, as well for dope CFO and for the CFO college. So you guys can really get in there and learn more about Andrew and what he's doing. And we also will have the link to our Facebook group, which is the I heart bookkeeping Facebook group. So you guys can join Now make sure, again, I always say this to you guys, you have to answer the questions, or else we can't accept you. If you have tried to go in and we haven't accepted you is because you haven't answered the questions. So make sure you answer the questions, and then we can let you in. And Andrew has just joined this Facebook group as well as a member. So you'll be able to chat with him as long as well as the rest of the savvy community to really get to know more about these opportunities within the CFO area and within the medical cannabis and actual industry itself. And yeah, so just a reminder, if you don't put any answers, you don't get entry to the Facebook group. You answered the questions do. You got to do that?

Angie Martin  46:36 

Because you can't do it that way we have. That's why we have such a great community in there. No, thank you so much for joining me today. Andrew. I think it's a really exciting industry for bookkeepers to get into and I love what you're doing helping fellow people within our industry to become CFOs and really having successful businesses that we can be proud of. So thank you so much for all your work and joining me.

Andrew Hunzicker  47:06 

All right, well, thank you so much.

Angie Martin  47:08 

Now thank you and as always guys, stay safe, sane and savvy.