Yes, I said it.  Chip and Joanna Gaines are experts, not DYIers.  Millionaires don’t mow their own lawns (unless that’s something they just enjoy doing).  The DYI Mindset is endemic in Utah, where I live, and I hate it.  Let’s take a look at what this means.

Let’s say you’re an electrical contractor.  Wires and switches are your life.  You make a lot of money installing electrical fixtures for other people.  And then you find out that your neighbor decided to do his own wiring.  You go take a look at it, and it is awful.  Ugly.  Even dangerous. The wires aren’t grounded properly, and you’re afraid the whole mess is going to fall out of the ceiling.   You ask how much time they took installing this one ceiling fan – and you could have wired their whole house in the time it took.  After all, they had to look up (on bad YouTube videos) how to do this work that you can do in your sleep.  Even worse, you find out that your friend nearly electrocuted themselves in the process, spent way more money than you would have charged, and they hated everything about it.  You could have saved them money, time, and frustration.

Why on earth didn’t they just call you?

It’s common for people to be afraid of losing out – we even have the FOMO acronym to remind us.  We get on Pinterest, and look things up with ease on the Internet, and expect that we could do just as well as the people who produce these goods and services for a living.  In some cases, that may be true – we eat at home a lot because both my boyfriend and I are excellent cooks, and we enjoy cooking.  I even enjoy baking (he doesn’t).  Because I treat homemaking as a job, we live in a clean, comfortable home with yummy homemade goodies, and eating out is a treat.

Our friends who do not enjoy cooking, eat out a lot more.  Why spend time doing things you don’t enjoy, when you can have someone else do it?

Women are even worse about this than the guys (or maybe just over different things).  We feel guilty over hiring a house cleaner and not being able to do everything perfectly.  The fact is, that is an unattainable standard.

If you are not an accountant, you probably should not be spending a lot of time learning Quickbooks.  I learned it and love it, and love it enough to make a career of it.  Most of the prospective clients I talk to have not had that same experience – they would rather poke themselves in the eye with a sharp stick than learn accounting, deal with the IRS and state tax authorities, and remember all the little details that need to be handled.  Many times, though, they think that they can do the bookkeeping themselves.  I don’t recommend that – even if they are a CPA!  – simply because usually  we can do it in a fraction of the time needed, we don’t have an emotional connection to the books, and we can keep things simple.  Often having a fresh take on the books can help business owners keep things under control.

We know you don’t like doing your bookkeeping yourselves.  Why not hire us and get it done right, the first time, and every time?

 

Donna Harris holds a BSci in Accounting and is the owner of Bookkeeping Made Simple.  She expects to complete her MBA by May, 2022.