From Corporate to Entrepreneur with Heather Moreland

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it. Hey there, welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs, brought to you by Action Coach Growth Partners. I'm your host, Bill Gilliland, and in this podcast, you'll find three things.

0:46You're going to hear real stories from real entrepreneurs that will help you along your entrepreneurial journey. You're also going to get business tips to help you scale up faster, and you're going to get actual coaching to help you get better real world results to be the best entrepreneur you can be. Hey, and if you like the podcast, remember to subscribe. And now, enjoy the show. I'm Heather Moreland with Lakeside Accounting. I do accounting, bookkeeping, and tax service for individuals and small businesses. and we primarily focus in the small businesses from solo entrepreneurs up to, I don't know, probably 10 or 15 employees, big enough that the owner is ready to say, I need somebody to come in and help me.

1:36And sometimes that's a solo entrepreneur. Sometimes that's more employees than that. So how'd you get in this business in the first place, Heather? Okay. So I kind of grew up with this mentality of, you know, just do whatever the next right thing is. And what that left me with is I didn't really have a whole lot of a plan for my life. So I went to Covenant College in Chattanooga, outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee. It's actually up on Lookout Mountain. I thought a business degree would be relevant. So I took business classes. I took an accounting class. I did better in the accounting class than most of my peers.

2:13I liked it. I took another one. And 10 classes later, I had an accounting degree because I just kind of kept doing what made sense. Along the way, I started working for a wonderful box making company in Chattanooga, Southern Champion Trey. They are nearly 100 years old, family owned. And I loved being there. They taught me so much. I discovered that I really liked the accounting applied. cost accounting, variance reporting, accounts payable, all those things. And so I was there. I went to University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, got my MBA there and just loved the leadership training. I did well there.

2:59It was a great company culture. I thought I was going to be a lifer. They thought I was going to be a lifer. um and then in 2022 I was diagnosed with Lyme's disease and my doctor said hey this is a stress disease and if you want to be healthy you need to cut out some stress and she helped me as I'm working through these things realized that I loved being there but it was a very stressful job to be working in corporate, you know, in the corporate world, not working for myself. And I couldn't stay. And so I was just as surprised as my manager was when I went in and put in my notice and said, I have to go find something else to do.

3:42So I spent four months finishing out my employment there, helping finish, complete some projects. As I figured out what do I do instead, I have this accounting background, but I don't really want to go work for somebody else. Maybe I'll be a financial coach. So I thought I'll go be a financial coach. I like helping people with budgets. I like helping them get out of debt. Discovered there wasn't really a huge market for that. So I kept figuring things out. I thought, oh, maybe I'll learn bookkeeping because that's kind of what I was doing before. I didn't have a whole lot of confidence at the start.

4:19Like I didn't really know what value I brought. There was a CPA that wanted to pay me$16 an hour to cover all of his bookkeeping and tax. And I thought there's no way I can pay my bills on that. Maybe I don't have value. And then I started finding there were some people that they were running businesses, but they didn't understand what their numbers were, how they were informing their business. So I realized there's this huge gap. There's the business owner that hopes that they get tax returns done next year because their CPA will kind of put everything together for them, but they don't really understand what the CPA is doing.

4:57The CPA might think that the business owner is doing it all, but they're not. And I realized that there are these huge companies, not huge, but bigger than, you know, they're$5 million a year, let's say. And they have never reconciled their bank accounts. And I thought, that's a big hole. They need to understand that. I can fill that hole. I am equipped to go in. I understand how inventory works, you know, payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable, all those things. I've done that. I can go in and I can connect those people that really aren't communicating very well. And there's things that are being missed.

5:34So that's kind of how I ended up here. Um, for the past year, I've been really trying to find my stride in that space of what really does add value for my clients in a way that I only, I can give it to them. Yeah, I think that's awesome. I mean, I think adding value is a big deal. So I do agree with you. I think there is a gap. I think a lot of business owners just want to get their taxes done. And then there's a lot of business owners who actually think that their CPA is going to give them business advice. And so, I mean, that's where we come in as business coaches and you come in as a, on the financial side, the same thing.

6:19I mean, I think it's a nice, nice team to be able to go into businesses and say, well, hang on, this is, this, this is what the numbers are telling us. This is the decisions you should be making. Cause, cause I, I mean, the most of, I mean, I love accountants. Most of the accountants that I know really don't want to do business advice. They want to do tax advice, which is, which is what they should do. So, I mean, I think getting the numbers in order and understanding what they are and teaching people how to do it. I think that's awesome. I do have a question about the stress. So, you know, there's, I mean, are you kind of over the line piece or is the, I mean, because being in business has its own stress.

7:02It may be different than corporate stress, but it's still stress, right? It is. So thank you for asking. Yes, I completed treatment. My doctor had said, I went through about five months of treatment and she said, I don't see any markers for it. I believe that you have kicked it. But I knew that was really an indicator to me that I needed a whole lifestyle change. And so when I would tell people I'm starting my own business because it's less stressful. They nobody believed me, but I had blood work done about after I went to part time at my old job, as I started taking on my own clients and then and then I eventually left entirely I had more blood work done and it came back just perfect and even in just 30 days there was a significant improvement on my cortisol my other hormones that the things that are indicators of there's something going on that's a problem um and and what I tell my husband when he's like you know you still seem stressed sometimes.

8:02It's a stress that I choose. And I, if there's a stressor, the joke is if a client's being really stressful, I just charge them for that because, you know, like it's going to take more time, more effort, whatever. That's, that's how it goes. But also if something, if there's a process that I really don't like, I have the authority to say, this process is broken. We need to make it better because things shouldn't be painful things. It's like the idea of if you I don't have children but I've heard other parents say if your child is doing something you don't like well then there's you can you have the authority to teach them a different way and that's how it is with the business too um yeah you get you get to choose I mean you can choose yeah and there's you know not all stress is bad no I mean there's there so the stress that people think about that's bad is distress think there is something called eustress, E-U, eustress, which is good stress.

9:01It's sort of like the same stress you would use if you were lifting a weight. You would build up the muscle in your arm. That's good stress. And so it's interesting. So I think you're looking for those. So I think some stress is good and helps you stay on your game and actually get better. And so it is. And I I've I'm really nerdy. So I'm a bookkeeper. I can't hide the fact that I'm a nerdy person, but I've always loved board games. We grew up playing a bunch of board games. It was how a big part of our education. And I love board games that are resource management types of things. And I explain it like when I'm working, my my brain turns in a certain direction.

9:43But board games and other things make me think the other direction. And so sometimes starting my own business is allowing the gears to turn in a way that feels much more natural than trying to sit in a space or in a pattern that just doesn't fit right. I don't know how else to explain that, but it is all, I feel energized when I'm getting to feel accomplished that I've fulfilled the thing that I promised that I would do. I just love that feeling. Yeah, I think board games are great. we have my family. I'm probably the least board gamey in my family, and I still play. Their board games are big, but games are a reflection.

10:28Life's a mirror. So I think board games bring out who people really are. It's pretty interesting to see games. It just doesn't have to be a board game. It can be any kind of game. You figure out who people are. So I think that's awesome, and there's probably a whole podcast on you know how board games you know mirror life or whatever um so what have been some of your wins in business what have what have been some of your wins so far i want to say that one of the best things that has happened is when i realized that i had more work than i was able to comfortably do on my own i got to bring on a friend um he's now one of my team members and pull her out of a work situation that he was not excited about and say, I don't entirely know how I'm going to give you enough work at the beginning, but I'm just going to, if I can teach you how to do things and give you a better work life balance and use the skills that you have, I will just go out and say yes to more people.

11:32And that learning how to bring on and start delegating, which is where coaching really has helped me the most, I think is getting things out of my head onto paper so that I can give it somebody else to do. And she's capable of doing it on her own if she wants to, but she would rather follow somebody that's just, I'm starting to catch my stride. We're figuring out the processes together and she just loves getting to be part of it. And so I think a huge win has been starting to build a team that not only do I get to pour into my clients, but I get to pour into her and the other people on my team now.

12:06And that's just really rewarding. um it really is it's super cool to see other people excel on your team yeah it's it's it's so fun and you can have a bigger impact too right yeah and i and i want to pay and i want to pay my team well and i do and i you know want to give them things to achieve so that i can continue to pay them more because i they're valuable they're valuable as people but also as my team members And I want them, the freedom that I've experienced, being able to step away from my nine to five, I want them to feel that too, because I think it's important. And so I get to sit on the front seat of being able to just create a great space for people to be in.

12:53And that's a blessing that the Lord lets me see. Yeah, no, that's awesome. I think, you know, a lot of people or we talk to a lot of people that say, well, I just want to be here. But once they begin thinking it through and realizing that they can have they can take those skills and have a much bigger impact on the world and change more lives and help more people if they are willing to build a team. So I do think it starts up here to decide like, hey, this is a decision I'm going to make that. Yeah. So congratulations on that. I mean, that is, yeah, I think the, you know, the, I know that was nerve wracking and because bringing that first employee on is, um, I mean, it is the hardest one.

13:40I mean, once you have, once you have an employee, then it's easier to get the second. Once you have 10 employees, it's way easier to hire three or four. So, well, with wins, there's always challenges. So tell us about a challenge or two that you've faced and how you, how you overcame it. How'd you like to learn from the best? How'd you like to network with the best? How'd you like to be the best? Well, the key to being the best is to hang around with the best and to learn from the best. We're going to make that possible for you this August in Asheville at the Asheville Business Summit. I want you to stay tuned.

14:19We're bringing in speakers from outside. We've got a lot of good events planned. It's going to be amazing. We got more information coming, but if you'd like more info on how you can be involved, how you can attend, or how you can be a sponsor for this event, it's going to be over 350 entrepreneurs in one place right here in Western North Carolina in Asheville. For more info or to be a sponsor, I want you to reach out directly to Beth Limmel, that's L-E-M-M-E-L, at actioncoach.com. That's Beth Limmel at actioncoach.com. We look forward to seeing you there. It's going to be amazing. So I would say first, my first challenge is one of my first clients, I got in way over my head.

15:08I now tell people that somebody's accounting books or lack thereof are like an onion. And you peel a layer and we cry a little bit and we keep peeling and we keep peeling until we get to the bottom of everything. and sometimes a client will tell me oh yeah it's in order I just need you to kind of spruce it up a little bit those are the ones I need to be most concerned about sometimes because they think it's in order and it is just in shambles and not because they've tried to make it in shambles it's just they don't know and they don't know what they don't know that's that's just how it goes so I got in way over my head I over committed and I finally had to go to him and say if this is going to take way longer than what I thought, because here are all the things that I did not realize were issues and we just have to clean them up in order.

15:55And now I know that when I go into somebody's books, I need to be more realistic about, Hey, you know, you have eight months or 12 months or three years. Recently, I brought on some of the three years of books that have never been done. Your taxes haven't been filed. This is not going to be a cheap project, but we're going to get to the end of it and it's going to be better afterward and uh i just have to be more realistic about what can i give somebody and in what time frame um you know going to the dentist is a really important thing for our health but it sure does not feel good in the meantime and that's kind of the role i feel with people like this yeah i look i mean it sounds like to me you handled it pretty well i mean just leveled with them and said hey you know i can't continue to dig into this thing then i mean yeah this is how much money it's going to cost i mean i don't really know there's there's sort of no end in sight here until we get this thing right out and so yeah i i think that i think a lot of things get handled with clear communication so um admittedly i had to admittedly i had to learn to um to not just be anxious about it and say this is something that I just need to be transparent about it and have good integrity because it just keeps getting worse.

17:14And it does. It gets worse before it gets better. Yeah. And at the end of the day, if they are not willing to pay for it, I mean, they're going to pay somebody. So otherwise, otherwise. So if they're not willing to pay you, that's OK, because there are other people who will. Yeah, sure. So seems like that was a great lesson. It was, it was. And the other piece is when I first brought my team member on and we started getting everything set up, I realized my IT group or not my, I didn't have an IT manager at that point and manage services. and it was started telling me you need an admin to do that and I said I'm the admin what am I not supposed to be doing so I messed up all my IT had to hire somebody to come in and put it all in order for me because I just started getting locked out of all my stuff and I wasn't able to complete work for clients and it was it was a challenge it was an opportunity for sure so I learned that I do not want to do an IT manager role and I respect that entirely.

18:17Yeah. So, so be, you know, so be epic is a acronym and I'm just going to hit the epic part, but so what I'd like, and maybe some, like some quick answers to this and I'll just go through the thing. So E stands for education. So what do you believe them? I mean, you're obviously well-educated. What do you believe the importance of education is in business? So, yes, it's important for me to have good education to be able to help my clients. But when I think about education in my business, it is my job to educate my clients. They need to know this stuff. This is so critical to their business succeeding that I need to be the one that in simple terms, in warm.

18:56I don't want to be a cold, stodgy finance person. I am warm. I'm friendly. And I will help them learn because they need to know. Some people just want to delegate it to me. And that's OK. I'll do that. But my goal is always to give them what they need to help their business succeed. And sometimes that requires the hard truth of we have to teach you this. So a great client for you would be someone who actually wants education. Yeah, absolutely. That's awesome. That's good to know. Because I believe that it's more than just am I being compliant with the IRS? Yes, your taxes are important. I'm going to help make sure that those are correct.

19:37but that's just a side effect of good bookkeeping that allows you to run a good business. Awesome. Awesome stuff. So the P in EPIC stands for planning. What do you believe the importance of planning is in business? It's one of my weaknesses that I'm learning. I really growing up didn't have a firm plan. I just kind of did the whole keep doing the next right thing. But now I'm learning that that only gets you so far. So having a plan for that's defined helps me evaluate whether something is actually working and whether I need to pivot. So early on, when I thought I was just going to be doing budget counseling for individuals, turned out that the market did not support that.

20:18I had to go find something else. And I'm glad to know now I have a budget that I go run my numbers against every month. Am I hitting my goals? How do I need to change? But the other thing about planning that I think is important is that I still leave room in my schedule for the relational needs that I want to be able to handle. So when my friend's nanny is sick, I go babysitter kids sometimes because I can do that. I don't have to ask anybody permission for that. And that's a big reason why I wanted to start my own business too. Yeah. A plan. I mean, you had a plan. The plan was do the next right thing.

20:50Right. But I mean, it wasn't the traditional plan of set a target and figure out the steps to get there but it was still a plan that you know i i have this theory that you know action probably trumps everything and so as long as you're moving you'll figure out some stuff so sitting around you know just thinking about it is great for a time but at some point you got to take action so doing the next right thing until you know what the right thing is is probably a good plan sure yeah so i wouldn't definitely don't beat yourself up over that so the i stands for inspiration where do you find inspiration um so i came from i come from a family of entrepreneurs my dad's a tile setter my brother's a mobile mechanic my uncle's own restaurants so i was actually the weird one going to work for somebody else for eight years um i i love yeah i mean people are like what do you mean you have to ask permission to come home for a family birthday party, you know?

21:51And so when I finally found that stride again and got out of it, I realized the Lord has given me the ability to take on the responsibility to work with excellence. And when I serve my clients with integrity and excellence, and when I create a good environment for my team, that like, that's my highest calling is to take care of my family and the people around me. And so when I get to, I'm now getting to serve people and network with people all over my community that I really disconnected from when I was working a corporate job for somebody else because I had no reason to engage with them and I had no bandwidth for that.

22:30So I just picked up a client that has known me since I was five years old because they're now part of my life again. And I get to re-engage with this whole portion of my life that I find really important. And that's to me, that's inspiring. Well, that's exciting. And that's that's that's awesome. All right. So the last is C, which stands for commitment. Yeah, I can tell that you're a committed person. And when you decide to do something, you're just going to you're going to you're going to figure it out. So let's talk a little bit about commitment. What does that mean to you? When I started bringing on team members, I decided that I needed to define what are the values that I hold really close so that I could then say this is not just Heather's values, but these are Lakeside's values.

23:15What are we going to hold ourselves to as a standard? And so there's three public ones and one that's really more for the team. But the first one is we work with integrity. That's we keep our commitments. You know, what we say we're going to do, we're going to do. If something changes, we're going to let you know. The second thing is we keep short accounts. So that's kind of a pun because we try and reconcile every month. But also we're going to keep short accounts with each other. And that's a commitment that we make to each other. And one of the best things that my manager at my old job told me early on was, you can assume that you and I are good relationally until you hear otherwise from me.

23:52And so even though I was anxious often about, you know, oh, no, something stressful. Am I the problem? She told me, you just ignore all that. You're doing great until I tell you otherwise. Um, and so I try and do that with my team, both you assume that you're fine until I hear you hear from me or, and you can trust that when there is a problem, because it will happen. Sometimes I will come to you and I will bring it up with you because that's integrity to me. And then the third one is we are warm and friendly and encouraging to our clients and to each other. So if somebody has says, Hey, I don't understand this.

24:28We're going to explain it to you. We want to educate. We want to be a team member that is like, you need a cheerleader in your corner. We're going to do that with you. And then the fourth one that's a primarily internal thing is we balance the flexibility of we are running our business. We have responsibility, but also we have families and we need to take care of ourselves. And it doesn't get to be something that consumes our lives, even though as the owner, I'm kind of struggling to balance that sometimes. Yeah, well, you probably have the hardest time of anyone. Yeah. Because there's more responsibility there.

25:03So I usually ask a question like for people who've been in businesses like, what is something you wish you had known before you went into business? Or, you know, what do you wish somebody had told you? I wish somebody had told me that how much value there was going to be in networking, and making people the focus. And I knew that in a subconscious kind of way. My parents taught us to be personable. Even from a small age, we talked to adults. We were expected to be very social. In fact, I now believe I'm more introverted than I grew up thinking because I learned how to be social. But that was an indicator that my parents taught me of like people need to be the focus.

25:57And after that, everything else kind of comes naturally. Starting out, I did try to network, but I didn't know how to do it very well. And so that's been a learning curve of how do I make people the focus? And then the rest of it pans itself out later. That's awesome. So do you have any last thoughts or anything else you'd like to tell someone who's in business or thinking about being in business or going the entrepreneurial route, I guess? I would say there is no shame in not doing, for your accounting and your bookkeeping to not come naturally. That's okay. IT does not come naturally for me.

26:40Marketing does not. All kinds of things that I've had to learn or I've had to bring somebody else in. There is no shame if you need to ask for help because it is more important that you learn it and that you haven't done well, then that you just kind of don't tell anybody that you struggle with that. Because most people, in my experience, do not like it. I'm the weirdo that likes it. That's why I'm here. That's why I have a job. But I do it to help take care of the people that don't. So that's the main thing. No, that's awesome. I think, yeah, everybody's got their strengths. And I think that's how, and that's why you need a team, whether you're a million employees or one employee.

27:24You still need a team because you can't be everything to everybody. So super awesome. Well, thanks for being on. This has been great. This is super. There are a lot of lessons in here. Thank you, Bill. For people in business. Thank you. So until next time, all the best. Hey, thanks for listening to the Epic Entrepreneurs Podcast. Here's three things that you can do. Number one, remember to subscribe to the podcast. It takes very little effort on your part. It's going to help you and your fellow entrepreneurs. Plus, you guys know how it works. The more subscribers we get, the more cool things we can offer to you.

28:04Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com. That's giftfrombill.com. Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly. Just send it to williamgillilland at actioncoach.com. That's my personal email that I read. No one else reads it first. It's not screened. It's my real email. Just send it to me. I can't wait to talk to you. Hey, and until then, all the best. Hey, thanks for listening to the Epic Entrepreneurs Podcast.

28:48Here's three things that you can do. Number one, remember to subscribe to the podcast. It takes very little effort on your part. It's going to help you and your fellow entrepreneurs. Plus, you guys know how it works. The more subscribers we get, the more cool things we can offer to you. Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com. That's giftfrombill.com. Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly. Just send it to williamgilliland at actioncoach.com.

29:36That's my personal email that I read. No one else reads it first. It's not screened. It's my real email. Just send it to me. I can't wait to talk to you. Hey, and until then, all the best.