Fergie

Recommended Resources – hover and click

Barbara’s Book: J.K. Lasser’s Small Business Taxes 2020

Barbara’s Book: J.K. Lasser’s Guide to Self Employment

Barbara’s Linked IN

Barbara’s Twitter

Barbara’s Instagram

Barbara’s Facebook Fan Page (Big Ideas For Small Business)

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Speech Transcript

Hey, time to shine today varsity squad. It’s Episode 45. And today I get to interview actually a neighbor, Barbara Welchman, she lives about 15 miles away. But a lot of my interviews are people all around the world. So it’s kind of cool to interview somebody that’s kind of local to me, here in South Florida. And Barbara is a fantastic person. She is an author of a bunch of books to help you level up your small business. So if you are a small business owner, make sure that you break out your notepad breakout. Make sure you break out time allotment for this, because she’s going to drop some serious knowledge nuggets about outsourcing, specifically getting a virtual assistant. Also, don’t be timid or afraid. Everyone makes mistakes. If you’re going to fail, then you’re going to fail forward. She wrote a great book on that as well. So without further Do let’s level up and bring on Barbara Wellman.

Hey, time to shine squad it’s Scott Ferguson and I am super privy to have a top selling author with us today, Barbara Wellman and I’m going to just get into a little bit of Barbara’s bio here and then we’re going to be offering away with fantastic knowledge nuggets a Barbara is going to lay on you. Barbara woman is an attorney and nationally recognized expert in small business matters. She is the author of many top selling books on taxes businesses, including the JK laughters small business taxes, cheeky lashes guide to self employment, Second Edition and smooth failing. I can’t wait to hear about that. As the founder of big ideas for small business, Inc. She publishes big idea of the day and big ideas for small businesses. She is also a contributor to that sba.gov in a number of Fortune 500 sites and is quoted regularly in major outlets, including the New York Times marketwatch and the Wall Street Journal. Wow, that is some serious credentials right there. So welcome to the show, Barbara. And if you could please share with the time to shine today squad your favorite color and why

my favorite color is probably people can see from looking at the screen is blue. And it’s just that’s it. There’s no there’s no rhyme or reason to it. It’s just I like,

No, you know, squat. Barbara is funny. I mean, I interview people from all over the world. And Barbara is literally right up the road from me in our version of paradise. Right, Barbara?

Absolutely.

Do us a favor and kind of share your story and how you came about maybe from law school, school forward and what you’ve built.

Well, I have my own law practice and I worked with small business owners. I helped them to Incorporate to do buy sell agreements to do succession planning. And over the years, I found that the same questions came up over and over again, you know, can I do this? Do I need to do that? And so, after a while, I like to say when my kids were off the payroll, I was able to close my law practice and segue into having my own business where I provide information, primarily text, financial and legal information to small business owners across the country. I provide a lot of this information for free. And it’s kind of a mission for me to share this this information. While at the same time as you mentioned earlier, doing this creating my idea of the day which goes out, it’s a daily tip to my manager. subscribers and it’s on my website. And my blogs which get accumulated into my monthly newsletter big ideas for small business, I have attracted the attention of many fortune 500 companies that engage me to create content for them, or to create content with their message on my website. And in addition to that, I do my books and I have numerous books besides that you mentioned them and getting into ebooks and just having a great time.

So that’s amazing. So you started it with small business law practice? Is that what we were saying? Right. Okay, so you started there and so you’re helping the small the smaller businesses to grow in the grow the right way and put them in the right direction. But you have this awesome blog, and awesome website and your presence is is fantastic. What was your aha moment to start that

Well, I’m not sure I had an aha moment, it was kind of just a gradual thing. As I said, I was able to hearing the same questions over and over again, and also loving to do research and keep up on things. It was kind of a win win for me that I could provide the information to my subscribers, my readers, well, at the same time, taking the time every day to stay up on what’s happening, and it’s, it’s just great. I love it.

I love that. That’s excellent. So you took something that a lot of small business attorneys will just go through the redundancy of the same thing and answering the same questions every day, but you elaborated on it and you actually put content out there for people to go to, and just even read in there, because people that aren’t small business like myself, I’d like to read about stuff all the time and pick up the next knowledge now. gets this going to level up my life in my business. So that’s fantastic that you did that?

Well, one of the one of the things that I knew is that small business owners have very limited time. And so what I tried to do is provide these ideas, which are just a sentence or two with links to resources. So if you’re a reader, maybe two or four of them a week might be applicable to your business, but you can certainly delve deeper if it’s if it’s relevant. If not, how long does it take to read a sentence or two. So

that’s so true. In your I’ve read a couple of your blog sign on the website that you have here, and I actually have it open in front of me, and I’m a subscriber. So what’s the biggest mistake that you see small business owners make?

I think many small business owners donors are great at their core activity. They they know how to do what their business is all about. But they often overlook. What you might think of is kind of like the back office chores that are a part of your responsibility as a business owner, whether it’s taxes or just compliance, you got a taxes is a daily thing. And you certainly don’t want to get behind. It’ll cost you money, you can get in trouble. You can have sleepless nights, you want to do things, right. You want to make sure that everything that you doing back office, whether it’s determining, you know, so many businesses operate from home, well, you got to make sure that that’s legal, whether it’s your zoning laws, or if your homeowners association or Co Op, you know, can you do it should you know, so you want to make sure that you that you’ve done everything correctly, and that’s kind of where I see small business owners making mistakes they kind of either ignore or think well, I’ll do it later. And they don’t really address their responsibilities on an ongoing basis, which obviously would make things so much simpler.

Sure. And what kind of support system do you have within your within your company, helping you with the tedious data because you’re putting out some solid content, who is in your support staff that is there to support Barbara.

I write all the content. And after so many years, I write a lot of content and I write it fast. Okay, but I have a great support system. I have a virtual assistant that you mentioned that I’m in Florida, my virtual assistant is in St. Louis, and we’ve been working together for over 12 years. We’ve never met in person, but she handles everything. When I had my radio show for 10 years. She was the producer and arrange for the guests and Everything she posts everything on social media. She reminds me of things. She’s vital. And I think this is a great opportunity for small business owners who are struggling to manage all of those responsibilities. We just talked about to think about getting a virtual assistant, another another person that that is vital to my business is my IT person maintaining a website and is essential and things go wrong all the time. It’s not just having a webmaster. It’s really who can work with the website. It’s really an IT person who can help when there’s problems with email or there’s problems with

I got mine and

that’s really all you got. You’d be that that is that’s an essential and another person I use even though I’m an I’m a tax expert, and I know what to do. I outsource my bookkeeping and I think outsourcing is a lesson for many small business owners don’t you know don’t spend your valuable time on chores that other people can do that that’ll cost you less than time than your time. And they can probably do it better than you can anyway. So certainly think of creating a team that will support your business.

I love that. I love that. So if I was sitting around or a networking event, and I’m talking to, you know, people working the room, I’m saying this with air quotes around me, who is a good prospect or a connection that I could refer to?

Well, I’m not really looking for what I got, I go to a lot of networking events, and I go there to kind of stay up on what’s happening locally or in a biz in, in an industry or something like that, but so I’m there to kind of listen and learn and not so much Make business connections that will provide me with business because I provide the information for free to the business to the small business owners I’m meeting at the networking event and the fortune 500 companies aren’t there. They just they just kind of find me. So I got a lot of networking events because I, I love to get out and meet other business owners and find out what their challenges are, what their what’s happening, what’s new and and that’s kind of my connection

or even how they got to where they’re at.

Sadly, right. Everybody has a great story.

So how long? How long have you been? How old? How long have you been blogging and kind of stepping out of just more of the one on one helping the small businesses? How long have you had this blog going?

Well, I started a my I started a print newsletter 20 years ago and then I segwayed into an AI At that time I had a website, I had a web, I’ve had a website for a very long time was gone through a lot of a lot of different changes and looks

at your old website.

screenshots of that. Yeah, even different names that changed.

Three different names. So anyway, that has, that’s kind of where I started, but print was too costly and kind of dead. And then I segwayed into the online newsletter. And then what I do now is I post two blogs weak and accumulate those blogs into my monthly newsletter for people who don’t necessarily come to the site to read the blogs

of it. Love it. So you’ve been doing this a little bit. You said 20 years. And so what would the barbel weldment of today tell the 25 year old Barbara Wellman about life In leveling up

that’s a wonderful question. In fact, I did a I had to do a blog post for a fortune 500 Company A couple of years ago on notice to younger self and I think that the biggest thing is, you know, I was very timid and afraid and and and went slowly and I would just say, just go for it go Don’t let you want it you know, don’t be afraid. This This brings me back to it that you’re going to make mistakes you’re going to that’s what my book smooth sailing is all about. And you’re gonna have problems but just don’t be afraid.

Right in in squad I’m always telling you out there that when you fail, you fail forward, and I cannot wait to dig in to the book smooth failing. That’s That’s fantastic. I’m telling you tell me. If you not your cell phone is Leave the cell phone out of it. What are three things that you cannot live without Barbara?

Well, personally, I can’t live without living in where I do where I can get out every day and be out with nature every single morning before I start my business day, I just recharges my soul and allows me to sit in front of my computer all day because I’ve already experienced nature and and friendship and and all of those things early on in the day. So I couldn’t live without that. Okay. Another thing is I couldn’t live with a without a lot of my business connections. I’ve been active for a very long time and I have connections for people 40 years, 30 years, 20 years and we talk not necessarily about Daily, but regularly, sometimes several times a week. And it’s just, it’s just a way to stay connected and to feel that what I’ve been doing all these years has been meaningful that I’ve been able to stay connected with these wonderful people. And I guess another thing I couldn’t live without is the internet. I just, I just I just can’t I research everything there. I find that everything there. And it’s just been, I used to live in a lot. I mean, back in the day, I would live at the library, and now I just live online.

Right, right. It’s funny you said with the business connections is that when you’re meeting with them, I have a few of them myself that actually started as mentors. Now, we’re kind of colleagues. We were always talking about business, right? You’re talking about the other aspects of life with your family. And your recreation in your dreams. And that’s great to come together and collaborate and almost be like a mastermind, right that you’ve grown through the years.

Absolutely, absolutely. We’ve gone through, we’ve gone through marriages, divorces, births, deaths, you illness, success moves, you name it over the course of a lifetime, you experience a lot of these different events. And as you pointed out, you do share them with people that you know, for a long time,

Russia, your history,

right. And the thing is, is they vibe kind of at the same level as you do. Sometimes you might talk to somebody that’s really not and I’m not saying make any judgments or anything like that. But sometimes you’re just not. It’s great to have that mastermind in those colleagues. Thank you for sharing those three. And I’m going to ask you something that I’d asked all my guests, but what is your definition of a life well lived.

See that’s

considering them closer to the end in the beginning. should certainly know what that is. But I, I’m satisfied in knowing that my work has been valued by a lot of people appreciated by a lot of people are respected by a lot of people and I think you can’t be that.

Love that. Okay, we’re going to move into what we call our level up lightning round. We’re gonna have four or five questions. And you and I could talk for 20 minutes on each one of them. But I need a five to seven second answer. And that again, squad listen to what Barbara is putting out here because not only did she drop some solid knowledge nuggets with regards to her business and how small business operators should operate, but also we dug a little deeper and we’re seeing lots of nuggets, knowledge nuggets of wisdom. So Barbara, we’re going to get this lightning round started. You’re ready. I’m ready. All right, what’s the best level of advice you’ve ever received?

This is from a person that I’ve been working with for 35 years. He’s kind of my mentor although we’re partners in a lot of projects and he has always said to me, do the best you can and the time that you have love it. I think that you know, most of us are a type perfectionist, but we got to

get to it. Sure one of your personal habits that contributes to your success.

I think going out and exercising every morning before work,

love it, please take care of that trouble other than your own websites and of course time to shine today calm. My little recommend to us an internet resource where we could go to the level of our life.

I go to IRS every day. It’s vital for my business stuff

in taxes, baby and then how about a recommend a book outside of your books. A book that I read that maybe changed your life.

I love the book grit by Angela Duckworth, which is all about that you don’t have to be the smartest person in the room to to succeed. It’s really about your determination and grit.

Gotcha. And our last question, what is the best decade of music the 60s 70s 80s or 90s?

Well, having gone to Woodstock I

love it. I love that. All right. We’re before we end share with us one knowledge nuggets that you want our time to shine squad our listeners out there to take with them.

Well, I have a quotation tape to my screen from Benjamin Franklin’s that says an investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

I love that investment knowledge pays the best interest. All right. And how can we find you by rather than what’s going to be in the shownotes? Everything’s mean the show next year. books coming out you want to tell us about or any events or speaking engagements.

Just go to amazon.com and look at all of my books which are there. They’re also through my website big ideas for small business calm. Excellent, excellent.

Well, time to shine squad we’re always talking about surrender I saw with top vibing people who stay humble, stay hungry, who always leveling up their health, and leveling up their wealth, all while serving people at the same time. And Barbara, you are the epitome of that. I am humbled and honored to have you as part of our squad right now. So thank you so much for coming on.

It’s been a pleasure.

Hey, thanks so much for listening to this episode of time to shine today podcast. Proudly brought to you by Southern Nugent real estate, real estate excellence who can be reached at 561-249-7266 and online at www dot Sutter in nugent.com. If you’re a business owner or professional who would like to be interviewed on time to shine today Please visit time to shine today.com flash guests. If you like this episode, please subscribe on Apple podcasts, Google podcast, Stitcher, Spotify, I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast. There’s a link in the show notes to our website. Also there you will see a recommended resources. We hope that you will support our show by supporting them. If you like what you’ve been listening to, it’d be great if you could just give us a five star rating and tell your friends to subscribe while you’re at it. I’m your host, Scott Ferguson. And until next time, let’s level up. It’s our time to shine.

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