Using AI as Your Financial SideKick
This blog is a little different than most of the super educational blogs I usually post each month. But I promise it still has value. If you like this format, I'd love to know.
One of my big (and slightly scary) goals this year is to grow my DIYBooks Membership to 20 new members by the end of 2025.
It feels doable, but for some reason, it’s been a challenge to promote it. I’m committed to showing up for it anyway, because I know it’s so needed — especially for those who aren’t quite ready to hire a bookkeeper yet. I’m excited to have an offer that truly helps people at that stage until they're ready for a bigger step.
On a more personal note, another goal of mine is to record an EP this year with the music I've written. 🎶
I've taken a little break from open mics and performing to focus on life and business, but I'm not letting go of that dream.
And how am I getting the word out about my membership?
This month I’ll be speaking at the AI Unlocked Summit & how online businesses can use AI as their financial sidekick.
How do you use AI as your financial buddy?
So as a little sneak peak of what I’ll be talking about in the summit, I want to encourage you to
A: schedule a money date with yourself
each month where you sit down and finish your books, and look at them, using AI!
Yes… I’m going there. I know a lot of my industry (or every industry, really) is afraid of AI taking our jobs. And they might come for me for this!
But I’m embracing AI in my companies, and I know many of you aren’t at the point yet of hiring me as your fractional CFO, but that’s no reason why you can’t start to strategize with your numbers better. So…
B: Run your P&L and pop the PDF into ChatGPT.
The better your data, and the type of reports you use, the better your results will be with this.
Ask it to
Act as if you are my fractional CFO and give me 3 areas we can start to strategize on my business to [ACHIEVE THIS GOAL].
For example, if your goal is to increase your profit margin and hit a certain dollar amount in profit, insert that in the [achieve this goal] section like this:
Act as if you are my fractional CFO and give me 3 areas we can start to strategize on my business to achieve a 40% profit margin and a $200k net profit this year.
⭐️ Bonus: If you’re feeling brave, DM me on Instagram when you’ve done that and let me know what you learned!
If you are needing more accountability as you begin this process of getting closer to your numbers or support, join the DIYBooks Membership!
And, if you attend the AI Unlocked Summit, you’ll get access to 5+ more prompts you can use as your financial sidekick to understand your numbers better.
Make sure you subscribe to our email list to stay in the know about it HERE>
What I learned from doing this for my other brand
The Ambitious Bookkeeper®️, was which products I should be focused on promoting/growing and which metrics to track.
Now…
It didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t know, because I do look at my reports frequently and i’m kind of strategic and analytical🤓.
But it did give me the reassurance that I’m focusing on the right areas, and reminded me to stay focused on those metrics and anything that will feed into those high margin products.
Here’s another piece of data that tremendously helps once you have the areas to focus on: where your people/customers/clients are coming from.
Last year, I implemented one very valuable data point collection to the onboarding form when a student starts my course:
WHERE DID YOU FIND ME?
…and from this, I’ve been able to find out how people initially find me, enabling me to double down & stay focused on the ways most buyers are finding me forThe Ambitious Bookkeeper®️:
Youtube
Podcast (which is most of the content on my Youtube channel, coincidentally)
I will caveat that this data is solely from evergreen course sales not from launches. My launches actually bring half my leads from cold Meta ads traffic.
Let’s circle back to my big goal from the beginning of this blog. The idea that a 20-person membership seems scary to me is comical, and not lost on me—given that I’ve launched my other brand’s courses to hundreds of people and currently serve thousands in my courses, but a membership is different… and so is the audience. Ad so is the approach I’ll be taking to build that audience.
Because it’s a different time (it ain’t 2020 anymore).
It’s a different offer.
What’s my strategy this time?
Podcast Guesting
Speaking Opportunities
Relationship Building (in person events)
Last month, I sponsored an event for Podcasting Moms in Nashville, and it was a blast!
If you have a podcast you think I’d be a great guest on or an event I could speak at shoot me an email, would ya?
Serena