Episode 222: Episode with Parker

On today’s episode of the podcast I chat with Parker Stevenson, co-owner and Chief Business Officer of Evolved Finance, a bookkeeping business for online business owners. 

To hear Parker’s previous episode, check out Episode 130 - Your Tax Write-Off and Bookkeeping Questions Answered

Look for a bookkeeping service that focuses on online business owners and knows the ins-and-outs of online business and can work with you to help keep you profitable. If you focus on building your profit you can get paid easier, you can focus on stabilizing the business,you can have cash to invest back into the business without going into debt, and more. If your books aren’t accurate and timely, you will have a difficult time being able to track this growth and be more profitable. It’s Parker’s passion to help business owners see the importance of tracking where your money is coming from, where it’s going, and what’s left over. 

To give an example, the computer game Roller Coaster Tycoon shows you the revenue and profit per hour and seeing which rides are the most profitable so you know which rides to put more of in your park. 

When you start to understand the numbers, you start to understand the story behind your business. For example, our labor costs are this much, where your money is coming from, what you had to do to get it , and therefore understanding the clarity of what is generating most of your profit. Not paying attention to these numbers is like getting a car with no dashboard. You can drive it, but you won’t know if you’re speeding, how much gas you have, and you will incur additional costs in speeding tickets, towing fees if you run out of gas, time if you are always at the gas station filling up to be cautious, etc. You need tools and resources as a small business, especially if you don’t have the CFO, CTO, etc. roles that large businesses do. 

When onboarding a new client, Parker looks to review and clean up past books if needed to get caught up before starting your first month’s books. When working with a new bookkeeper, they may move around your expenses to be efficient, the same way you would move around supplies in a new kitchen to make it run efficiently for you to cook. 

The biggest areas of improvement Parker experiences are; 1) from an expense standpoint, the only things he really sees break a business are labor costs and ad budgets. You don’t want labor costs going up at the same rate as revenue, you want to stay profitable 2) the way you position and package your offer has huge implications on the rest of your business expenses. How do we charge the appropriate price to deliver the quality level of service we want to offer our client without having to price it so high no one wants to work with you and maintain that quality as you scale. From looking at so many P&Ls over the years, Parker has found it’s better for your revenue and your profitability to get better at selling more of less things. You want one main offer to market around. Ask yourself, what are you charging for your offer, how much support are you providing around your offer - it’s either not priced right or the support around it is not priced appropriately. For service providers, you can’t offer an $8,000 service at a $4,000 price point. You either need to up the price or edit the service offered. In order to raise your price you’ll need updated work product to show and there can be an incrase in expenses to keep in mind surrounding raising your price. 

Get in Touch with Our Guest

Parker Stevenson, Co-Owner and Chief Business Officer of Evolved Finance

Get the free Financial Foundations Audio Course

Listen to Parker’s Podcast, The Bottom Line

Check out Evolved Finance's website

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