It has been awhile since I've had a promo post. Go ahead in the comments and share what you are working on now. Let us know all about it. One link allowed. So show off your Skool, your website, your social. Whatever you like!

You know the one. They complain about the invoice, then pay it late. They want a "quick call", at 8pm, on a Saturday, that turns into a 45-minute whine-fest. You've been trying to figure out how to be nice. How to make it work. You really need the money. Or do you? I still remember the first time I fired a client. Rude, bossy, never happy, and also my largest monthly invoice. I was shaking when I told them I couldn't work with them anymore. (I may have rehearsed it in the mirror a hundred times, but it still wasn't easy!) They didn't pay their last invoice. For a hot minute, I thought I'd made a huge mistake. Less than a month later, their spot was taken by a wonderful woman who became a dear friend, and paid double what he did on time every time. So fire that client. Free up the time, the money, the energy. And make space for the client who doesn't need a Saturday night intervention to pay on time. 💜☮️💰

Has anyone ever called you a sellout for charging for your work? Working with creatives, I see it all the time. 🎨 Made a beautiful piece of art and put a fair price on it? Sellout. 📖 Wrote a book and didn’t give it away for free? Sellout. 💻 Started a Skool community and charged for membership? You’re greedy and “just another guru.” Excuse me? What gives you the right to expect people to give their work away for little or nothing? Who are you to decide that someone’s hard work doesn’t deserve a fair price? So why do people say it? Casey Neistat nailed it: “Sellout is a term invented by jealous quitters.” 🎤 Somewhere along the way, that person had a dream too. A book, a band, a business. Then it got hard, and boring, and it took too long. So they quit. And there you are, still showing up, still doing the work and (gasp!) getting paid for it. 😬 You are a walking reminder of the thing they gave up on. It’s easier to call you greedy than to admit, “I wish I had stuck with it.” And some of it is plain old entitlement. People get used to free stuff and act betrayed when you put a price on it. But free is not a business model, and your bills don’t pay themselves. So what can you do? Get paid a fair price. Period. 💰 Charging for your work does not make you a sellout. It makes you a business owner. Your price is not just the time and materials it took to create your product. It’s the years you spent getting good at it, the money you spent on tools and training to become an expert, and the family time you traded to take care of your customers. A fair price keeps you in the game. It lets you create better work, help more people and give generously on your own terms. Free work will burn you out, and then nobody wins. And the folks yelling “sellout” in the comments? They are not your customers, and you don’t want them. If you give in, lower your price and offer the discount just to land them, chances are good they’ll become a PITA (pain in the ass) client. I know, I’ve been there! 🙋‍♀️

What would you do? I am working on a really cool tool for new business owners. It is an all in one place for all the records and backup you need to make your tax person love you at tax time. It is almost perfect, almost ready to launch. There is just one calculation that Is. Not. Working. I've been working on it for days. Do I give up, start over, or keep banging my head against this problem until I break through? I really want to make this available to people as soon as possible so they can go into tax time feeling fully prepared. What would you do?

Happy Friday! It's Freebie Friday, and this week I want to talk about a tool I think every bootstrapper should have on their radar: Zoho. Specifically — Zoho Books, their free bookkeeping app. (Not sponsored!) What you need to know upfront: Zoho Books is free if your business earns under $50K/year in revenue. So this post is really for the early-stage bootstrappers in here, if you're past that, keep reading anyway because there's a natural upgrade path, but this particular deal isn't for you. What you actually get on the free plan: - 1 user + 1 accountant seat (so you can loop in your bookkeeper or tax preparer without paying extra) - Up to 1,000 invoices/year - Expense tracking - Bank reconciliation - 50+ reports - 1099 tracking and W-9 management - A mobile app For a $0 tool, that's a lot. Recurring invoices, payment reminders, 1099 handling, this is a real bookkeeping system that will get you through your start up phase. Now the downside that might make it worth paying for the upgrade, bank reconciliation on the free plan is manual. No automated bank feeds pulling your transactions in for you, you need to import them yourself. If you've got a low transaction volume, that's a minor annoyance. If you're running a lot of transactions every month, it'll get old fast, and that's usually the moment people upgrade to Standard ($15–20/mo). Who should probably skip this: if you're already set up and comfortable in QuickBooks or another system, I wouldn't switch just to save money. Migrating your books has its own time cost, and "free" isn't free if it costs you a weekend of data cleanup. The other Zoho apps worth knowing about, since a lot of solo bootstrappers end up needing more than just bookkeeping: - Zoho Invoice: a separate, invoicing-only free app if you're not ready for full bookkeeping yet - Zoho CRM (free tier): track leads and clients without paying for a CRM - Zoho Mail: free custom-domain email for up to 5 users - Zoho Sign: free e-signatures for contracts - Zoho Sheet / Writer / Show: a free Google Workspace alternative if you want to keep everything under one roof