When Bookkeeper Girl was founded in 2008, founder and owner Kim Pollard knew the business would grow quickly. Just a month after starting the online bookkeeping company, the business moved from her home into an office on the Square.
As the company hit a major growth pattern in 2011, Pollard expanded with offices in Dallas and Austin. In the past few years though, she hasn’t been able to pay her employees enough while keeping the cost of the services low.
Instead of continuing to expand the business, she decided to start licensing out the business name and model instead. Now, women from all over the country can own their own Bookkeeper Girl businesses and receive training, clients and tools with Pollard’s help.
“I’ve always dreamed of branching this company East Coast to West Coast, so I started discussing this with some business mentors of mine,” she said. “We thought, ‘why wouldn’t we start branding what we’ve done successfully, and brand that out East Coast to West Coast, and let other very talented book keepers come on board and let us brand them in their cities.’”
The service is designed for small business owners, and has an extensive client list in the food industry, like Which Wich sandwiches.
Instead of hiring an employee to manage the books of expenses and incomes, a small business can contract with Bookkeeper Girl, and have all of their reports managed online. This takes the stress off the business owner, and costs less than hiring a full-time employee, Pollard said.
For the licensing, people who want to own their own Bookkeeper Girl business apply with Pollard, who makes sure the applicant is a good fit for the brand. Then, the applicant pays Bookkeeper Girl to help start up the business and use the brand. This includes training, a launch party and memberships to the American Woman Business Owner’s Association and the local Chamber of Commerce.
They also get a first time client, who is an existing Bookkeeper Girl client. They are called incubator clients, as corporate still manages the account and uses it as a training tool to help the new Bookkeeper Girl owner get a feel for how the company works.
“For businesses, if they can get $100 or $200 off a month just for being an incubator client, most people love that idea, and because their books aren’t affected, they really love that idea,” Pollard said.
In turn, the bookkeeper learns the ropes of the system, and gains a client referral right off the bat.
The new licensees will also have access to the internal system that employees use to chat, train and work together remotely.
Seven women have already joined with Bookkeeper Girl for the licensing, and are from Texas, Illinois, Iowa and Kentucky.
As the brand continues to grow, Pollard hopes more people will join in as well to make the company well-known throughout the country.
“My vision is to be America’s bookkeeper,” Pollard said.
“It’s very simple for me. I envision the world when they think of bookkeeping, I want them to see that girl in their head. To me that is so clear, and that goal represents all of us.”
JENNA DUNCAN can be reached at 940-566-6889 and via Twitter at @JennaFDuncan.
