Money, Mindset, and Magic: A Healthy Relationship with Your Business with Michelle Cooper

In this episode of Spark It Ignite Your Marketing, we sit down with Michelle Cooper, the powerhouse behind Alchemy Accounting and Bookkeeping. Michelle shares her incredible journey from corporate finance to building a million-dollar business that transforms entrepreneurs’ relationships with money. With over 14 years of experience, she reveals how overcoming self-limiting beliefs and embracing boundaries can lead to financial empowerment. If you're ready to shift your money mindset and unlock the full potential of your business, this episode is for you!

Three Key Takeaways:

1. The Money Mindset Makeover: Michelle shares how self-limiting beliefs about money hold entrepreneurs back and how to build a healthy, empowering relationship with finances.
2. From Burnout to Breakthrough: Discover Michelle’s journey from a toxic corporate environment to creating a life-changing business by embracing authentic connections and clarity.
3. Scaling Smartly: Lessons in Sustainable Growth: Learn from Michelle's hard-earned lessons on replacing herself within her business and creating a client experience that exceeds expectations.

Don’t miss out on this insightful conversation!

Follow Michelle Cooper:
https://michellebcooper.com/
Michelle Cooper | LinkedIn

P.S. Ready to spark your unique opportunities and ignite your marketing? Here are three ways to work with us.

1. 📞 Schedule a Complimentary 15-minute Call and let’s delve into your goals and answer any questions you may have.
2. 📘 Read Beverly’s book Marketing for Entrepreneurs a quick guide filled with actionable steps to help make your brand and business shine even brighter. 🎙️ Listen to Beverly’s Marketing Podcast where she interviews entrepreneurs to get inspired and gain new business and marketing insights.
3. 🎓 Learn more about marketing and Enroll in Our Marketing Courses designed to bring clarity to your business efforts. They’re easy-to-understand and self-paced, perfect for busy entrepreneurs like you.

Transcript

Beverly: 0:09

Did you know that 82 percent of small businesses fail due to cashflow problems? Yet for over a decade, our guest today, Michelle Cooper, has been transforming the financial trajectories of countless businesses, ensuring they not only survive, but thrive with purpose. Welcome to Spark It Ignite Your Marketing. I'm your host, Beverly Cornell. And today I'm thrilled to introduce Michelle Cooper the powerhouse behind Alchemy Accounting and Bookkeeping. Michelle is not just your everyday financial strategist. She's a business mentor, author, podcast host, and international speaker, leading a mission to shift the trajectory of wealth one entrepreneur at a time. What began as a journey of self awareness for Michelle has evolved into a million dollar business empire, and she's here to help us tidy up not just our money, but our entire relationship with it. Michelle, thank you for joining us today.

Michelle: 1:02

Oh, thank you for having me, Beverly. It's a topic close to my heart, and so I'm glad to share whatever value I can.

Beverly: 1:10

Awesome. I'm excited to talk about this. This is something a lot of the entrepreneurs that we work with have self limiting beliefs and all kinds of things around it. So talking about the relationship of money I think is really important for my listeners. In the scope of superheroes, we talk about the origin story. So what's your origin story? Talk about like the little spark that like really created the business idea and it became a reality. Talk about some of that.

Michelle: 1:36

Yeah I would love to say there was this really ah, inspirational moment. But there, for me, there wasn't really, it was just a natural evolution of something that was unfolding in my life. I spent my career life in corporate finance, in strategic growth and analysis for really large companies. But when I had kids, I struggled with. That balance of little people and work life and everything. I basically burnt out of a job that was a pretty toxic environment but left with a great little paycheck from that. And from that, I decided I wanted to do something fun. I opened a little boutique like a ladies kind of fun boutique. I had never been an entrepreneur before. I had no clue what I was doing. All I knew was that I wanted to do something that felt fun in my life. I realized that entrepreneurship Isn't always fun. And that boutique was, it was a great place for two years, but and I realized looking back, like they say, you connect the dots looking back. It was such an opportunity for me to learn. And I learned all about sales and how sales was about building relationships with people. I learned about marketing and how. Marketing was about being authentic and, showing up, and it just taught me so much. I learned all about this very big difference between cashflow when it's a corporate money and it's your own and it's going to put food on the table. And all the stressors that are involved in entrepreneurship. And so I closed, I made a decision to close the business two years after I opened it because it felt like I couldn't step away from the business. If I stepped out of the boutique, I saw sales dropped, right? I saw some struggles that happened. And so I decided this isn't the business that I want to be spending my time in because I still had little people at home. However, that two years I got to know so many entrepreneurs, all the local businesses around me, all the people involved in the chamber and all that stuff, these people I didn't have any contact with before. And the one thing. You get to know somebody, they ask, what's, what did you used to do before you had your business? And, talking about my history and stuff. I realized that none of them knew their numbers and a lot of them were struggling with cashflow. They didn't understand their margins. They thought their sales were good, but why didn't they have any money in the bank? And I saw the real life pressure in all of them of I don't know, Putting food on the table when you have a small business and it's real, right? And it created stress in their lives. It created stress in my own life, but I saw it creating stress. And so it's it's easy to say, Oh, this must just be me. I'm an idiot. I don't know what I'm doing. But when you see it with so many people, they started asking me, can you help me understand this? And at first I was just doing it, for fun like fun for me, cause that's what I like to do, but not for them and not charging them. And then when I closed the business, it was actually my husband at the time. He said you're charging people for this. And I was like, Oh, not really. He's this is a business. Like you're providing a real service to these people. You're helping people like, like totally change their business and their financials, Michelle, you should be charging them. And so that was the creation of my current business, alchemy, accounting, and bookkeeping. Now. The side piece there is that I don't do accounting and bookkeeping. I never worked as an accountant or a bookkeeper. I was always involved in strategic planning and growth and all of that kind of stuff. So I, at first was connect, I was finding really good bookkeepers, accountant, and connecting them with the business owner.

5:51

And

Michelle: 5:51

then I was like, Oh, hang on, these people can work for me and I can offer this service. So that's how my business came to be. It wasn't this like light came down and, Oh, this is your future. It was more like an evolution of something that I was doing.

Beverly: 6:12

So how long have you been doing it now? How long has the business been around?

6:15

14 years.

Beverly: 6:16

Okay. I'm, My, my business is 13 years. So very similar lifespan of that. What have been some of the biggest transitions or challenges along those 14 years? There's like always like some key markers on the journey. So talk about some of those and how you've handled them.

Michelle: 6:34

Yeah, for sure. I think one of the biggest was trying to replace myself. So if you're listening to all the people out there giving you business advice, they'll be like, you've got to replace yourself. You have to, back your time kind of thing. Which I totally agree with, but I did it. The wrong way several times. You think I would have heard it learned the first time we're stubborn.

Beverly: 6:58

Entrepreneurs are very stubborn. Yes.

Michelle: 7:00

So I didn't, I wasn't looking closely at my own numbers. I wasn't analyzing my own pricing well enough. And so I started to replace me with clients like with people to work with my clients. Now there was two things there. It was I was no longer going to be able to claim that money for myself. So what was that? How was I going to get paid? The price didn't reflect appropriately what I was, the total of what I was having to pay out for a team member. Like it's easy to go, Oh, I pay this person 50 bucks an hour. And so I'm going to charge a hundred. That's not even close to what you should be charging. And the other part is that I. Was bringing in clients so fast that I, even though I was, putting my team onto client work, I wasn't, I didn't have the time to supervise my team's work and I hadn't created quality control. And so the client experience sucked, to be honest, right? Like they were used to me. And then they felt like they got handed off to this person. Yeah. And it like, it was a disaster. Yeah. Nearly broke my business, so I had to really scale back and go, okay, what are we doing here?

8:20

Yep.

Michelle: 8:20

And how are we doing it? And so my business grew really fast and then I pulled it back down. Yep. And then I did it again and I pulled it back

8:29

down.

Michelle: 8:30

And. That was just it was really stressful to be honest, right? Because you've got cashflow problems in there. Of course, you're the business owner, most likely you're the person who doesn't get paid. Yeah, for sure. And how do you explain that to your husband? Who's it's all the money, right? Like you got this, you're doing all this stuff. Where's the paycheck. And you got to talk about that. And yeah, it was I learned. Like the cash flow problem and the profitability, the margin problem, even though this is what I do for other people, I learned that lesson in my business three distinct times.

Beverly: 9:14

It's so funny because I feel like that's what I did as well. Like I was doing marketing for everybody else and was not marketing for myself and my business and had to like, as well. Like just because I do something well for other people doesn't mean I shouldn't be doing it for myself. In fact, I am the best case study that there could be. So when talking to other entrepreneurs and talking about where I lacked and the mistakes I made, it shows I've been there, I've been in your shoes, literally in your shoes. So when you're scared to go on video because you don't, maybe you don't think you look right for video. I've been there. And I've, so now when I talk about some of the things I think they should do, I come from that place of real understanding, empathy lots of great things about being a business owner, but there's also some really challenging things. And especially when it comes to something that you do for others that you don't do for yourself, which is. And I think it's really common for entrepreneurs I wish I could tell myself 14 years ago to do something a little different, but I think I had to learn the hard way too, Michelle. Like I'm stubborn and that is. Those moments of realization of, I thought I could do everything and figure it out. Also taught me like the value of people who really do things well and why, and I had to learn it all the hard way. I just did. I just, that's who I am and that's how I had to learn too. So you work in the area of money and I feel like there's so much to it. What really frustrates you about your industry and how would you, or do you fix it? Do you think?

Michelle: 11:34

Yeah, oh, I know this. I can. I could talk for hours on this. So the piece that I hear now, it might be, my audience kind of thing. So I'm not saying, I'm not going to generalize and say, this is for everyone, but for so many people that I talk to, they feel intimidated by this part of their business. They feel Often guilty because they've neglected it. They feel embarrassed, maybe, right? They can feel really, I'm confident around the money people in the world, the accountants, the bookkeepers, the financial advisors, the, all of the people, the bankers. I was just at a meeting last week with a client with their banker and he was freaking out before we were going in there. I was like, dude, you have a 10 million business. This guy should be courting you. You have 10 million going through his bank. Stand up. And so it's, to me, I've seen it with men and women. I've seen it at all ages. I've seen it at all business levels and

12:42

it

Michelle: 12:43

holds people back. And underneath there's some kind of, limiting belief. There's some self sabotage going on. There's stories and there's conditioning. But it's a significant enough problem for me to say, we are taking a stand against this. Like one of our core values in my business is no judgment. And I, I am adamant when we're hiring people, you have, that has to be something you're in alignment with because you don't know what's going on for this person. I don't care what their financials look like. I don't care. I don't care any of that. We don't judge people. At any point in their client journey with you

Beverly: 13:29

meet them where they are. Yeah, you have to with every service. I think you provide we've been doing this for how long we know a lot. We speak to speak all the things, but that's not where everybody comes to us. And so they need us and. There is no judgment. You meet them where they are. Like that's our kind of philosophy. You don't, and everybody's at the right place at the right time. That's that's where they're at. So let's get them to the next place. Yeah.

Michelle: 13:54

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And so by, that's why I think we do solve a problem because for the business owner who is feeling like that. We are their person, right? And we'll figure it out for them, right? Like it's just, there's just some cleanup that needs to be done. And, and then we get them on a steady path. That's all they need. It's not, they don't have to so many people I hear that they're like, Oh, I need to go do an MBA or I need to learn accounting or bookkeeping. It's no, you don't. No, like I'm not going to go get a BA in marketing. I'm going to hire an expert. So

Beverly: 14:36

if you made me do bookkeeping and accounting, you would suck my soul dry. Okay. And so like I remember taking accounting for my associates, I got to take two accounting classes. And at the time, this is going to date me, but it was all handwritten. There was no, so you made one, one mistake on the balance sheet and you had to like, start all over again. And it was a form of torture for a creative soul.

Michelle: 15:01

Totally.

Beverly: 15:02

So one of my clients is, has a CPA background and she's just please do the marketing. That is like soul sucking for me. I don't have the time, the patience. I don't. Even no. And so there are things that people do really well and love and have a passion for. And yes, get those people on your team because they're way smarter than I could ever be. I appreciate the value of numbers and understanding the picture, but the process. No, just getting me organized as half the battle. No, I can't, but I know there's so many other businesses that they just want to do what they love to do and not have to figure out one more thing. Because when you become an entrepreneur, You have to be a peep, understand HR and you have to understand marketing, you have to understand operations, you have to understand systems, you have to understand tech, you have to understand there's a lot of pieces that have to come together and hiring somebody who knows it, understands it, plus I feel like there's a whole legal side of it. I don't want to do anything that I'm not supposed to do. That gets me in trouble with the IRS. There's all kinds of things that are involved. So I'm like, just, so one of the very first services that I hired was a CPA. That was like. The first time I invested in somebody that was like, Specific to my business was having a CPA because I think there is something really powerful about helping you with your money and how it works optimize it as much as possible. Yes. And I'm not going to know all that no matter how much I read.

Michelle: 16:27

You want to build a team of people who are helping you understand this language, right? Because that's all it is. It's I look at it like it's a foreign language for some people.

Beverly: 16:41

So who are your customers? And what problems do you solve for them?

Michelle: 16:46

So our customers at alchemy are small business owners. They are at a point where they're having some questions around cashflow. They're like, I, there doesn't seem to be enough money or why isn't there any money in the bank? Like they're starting to question, is this business viable? And they realize that maybe they've been neglecting this part of their business. And they're Oh, shoot. I like, I need to look at this. They often feel, like I said, embarrassed or guilty or like some kind of like I should have looked at this a long time ago kind of thing. And Yeah, it's usually service based businesses. We do have some product based businesses, but most of our businesses that we support our service based businesses and they're across North America. So Canada and the United States.

Beverly: 17:41

Talk a little bit about what makes your business unique in the industry. How are you different?

Michelle: 17:47

I think that the piece that makes us different is that our, one of our taglines is we're not your dad's accounting firm, right? You're not going to find an old guy in a brown suit sitting across the table from you with a pile of papers. So we work at a completely cloud based platform. My team is completely remote. They're young, they're energetic, they're highly qualified, they're very smart and they are You, we are using technology to our highest advantage. And so we're able to respond fast to things. We're able to answer questions to deliver results and. And again, in a nonjudgmental way, right? Like it's very, it's a very casual environment. Like obviously, I've got like a flashing neon sign behind me and stuff. Like it's not a corporate firm. It's not a, we're like your real life version of accountants and bookkeepers.

Beverly: 18:48

Okay. We'll talk a little bit about how, I think one of the things that you mentioned in your biography was about overgiving and how it's a significant challenge, a challenge for entrepreneurs and how there's a need for establishing boundaries and shifting your approach in business. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Michelle: 19:06

Absolutely. So I found this. just in my own personal experience, right? I'm an over giver. I lived many of my years. It's only very recently that I've gotten very clear that I lacked boundaries for in all areas of my life and that I realized through a lot of work that the over giving came from. A lack of valuing myself and of like worthiness, right? So I would overgive of my time. I'd overgive of my energy in my business. I let a scope creep sink in all the time, right? Just, and I would even tell my team members, just make the client happy. Now that's not fair. To me, to the client, to the, and the team members, right? Because there, there needs to be a fair exchange of value. And one of the things I found is that when we, okay, we want to. We want to deliver great results, but I don't really, I have a hard time with the term over deliver, right? Like over delivering, because I feel like there's a piece there of do whatever it takes at your own expense.

20:28

And

Michelle: 20:30

then what happens is you set a standard that is maybe unrealistic and is not fair to other people either. So when we go out of scope on a client file, at some point, Like that's not sustainable in the business for one, right? So a little bit here, they're not really that big of a deal, but if it's consistent and it's it's happening a lot, it gets established as the new norm. And then if that client were to go around and shop for similar services, it's not actually fair to the other businesses either, that we're doing all this stuff and we're not charging the fair rate for it. And so I realized like it created this like incongruent kind of energy, right? And it didn't serve anybody. Yeah, sometimes having conversations around boundaries or scope. In our business or, price point or whatever can feel uncomfortable. Like I, I don't know anybody who feels totally at ease having that conversation. Yeah. But I think that it's important for everyone because I also feel like we're setting an example. For we're leading by example for our client, right? Like, how can I sit there and talk to my client about their profitability? If it sucks because they're outside of the scope. If I'm doing exactly the same thing, right? I'm not in integrity then. It's I think it's something that we all need to look at on a personal level. And if, when we start building a company with team members and stuff like that, it becomes even more important because it's like you can affect other people with your own issues.

22:23

Yeah.

Michelle: 22:24

Yeah. All of a sudden your issues become their issues and that's not fair.

Beverly: 22:27

Share a customer testimonial that perfectly captures the essence of who you are, Michelle, and your business. We want to hear those memorable moments

Michelle: 22:37

We've had some really incredible transformational stories and one that I'd love to share, it's a bit dramatic, but I'll share it because I think it's it can be a lot of people's experience. So we had a it's actually a friend of mine come to me I met him for lunch and he said, we, You either help me figure out what's going on in my business because things are not good, or I'm just going to declare bankruptcy like tomorrow. So like you're my last ditch. He said, I feel so embarrassed by all of this, but I know you do this work. And it's really embarrassing for me to say this to you, but I'm either going to declare bankruptcy tomorrow, or I don't know, you're going to figure this out and work some kind of magic. He's, he was my friend. So I just jumped in, and he became a client that afternoon now by jumping in and looking at his finances, we discovered some really significant things.

Beverly: 23:42

Okay.

Michelle: 23:43

This business had grown. It's sitting at about a 3 million revenue mark. Okay. And when your business gets over that seven figure mark, it can be a little hard to control the, like the financial piece because there's so much, there's such a high volume of transactions, right? So you had theft. He had a team member who was stealing. It was awful. And this team member was his first ever person he hired. He actually considered this person a partner. And so it was hard for him to come to terms with that person. Yeah. He also had an issue with AR. So accounts receivable. So he was chasing money and I switched him to a subscription. I'm like, Nope, these people pay you every month.

24:35

This

Michelle: 24:36

is ridiculous. There's no reason you get a card on file. It's just going to process. You remove the AR problem. He also had suppliers that were charging him for services in duplicate. So by look, and there was a lot of money, right? It was like, I think it was 22, 000 a month. Sheesh. Excess duplicate charges and even stuff he had signed up for. He didn't realize he had signed up for, you free trial of this. And then you like all of that, went through those with a fine tooth comb, eliminated them in all right. We turned the business around. Within a year, which is pretty quick to be honest, I know it sounds like a long period of time, but

Beverly: 25:19

from bankruptcy, that's pretty,

Michelle: 25:20

yeah. One of the things I said to him early on was that this is going to get, you're going to get to things that we have to do that are hard. And it's going to One of the ways you can get through the hard things is by reminding yourself why you're doing this. Having a really good kind of goal thing or outcome. And so for him, he wanted to take his wife on a trip to the Caribbean for their 25th wedding anniversary. And so it's okay, so take a picture of that and put it on your wall. Whenever there's a hard conversation that you have to have or a hard decision that you have to make, you're looking at that picture because that's why we're doing this. Cause he had to let people go. He had to, there's this guy who was stealing from him. There was hard things that had to be done. So the, one of the best moments was him FaceTiming me from the Caribbean with his wife

26:23

from the

Michelle: 26:23

balcony of their hotel saying, thank you so much. That was awesome. The second best thing was his wife calling me when they got back and saying, thank you for giving me back my husband because he disappeared somewhere along the way. Yeah. Zombie. Now, a couple of years later, he sold the business. Great. He got a multiple of his revenues. He walked away with many millions of dollars and that was awesome. Going out to dinner to celebrate. I lost a client cause they didn't need us. That doesn't matter. He got a great result, but the thing that he said to me was so impactful is that he said, Michelle, when I told you that I was going to declare bankruptcy, I actually meant. I was going to kill myself.

Beverly: 27:21

So many stories

Michelle: 27:21

like this. Yeah. And he said, and I just, you were my last ditch hope. He said, I prayed to God. And I said, what do I need to do? And I had this call Michelle. And so that's why I say it's very dramatic, right? It sounds very dramatic, but it is it's, but it's real life. And that's, that was when I realized, Sure. It's great. We can clean up people's finances and we can make them more money and stuff. But if we didn't do that for him, His two little girls would have been without a dad. His wife would have been a widow, but life would have been very different for them. Yeah, for sure. And so I'm really proud that we were able to help for sure.

Beverly: 28:09

So that's a great story about the power of, even the conversations we tell ourselves about money, the idea that's so important that he would take his life over that that is a very. Powerful influence that money had on his life for him to feel that way. Like I

Michelle: 28:28

think there's so much shame that can be attached to money or lock up. And I think that so many entrepreneurs feel that they get backed into a corner.

28:40

Yeah.

Michelle: 28:40

And the, their loved ones would be better off if they just went away.

Beverly: 28:45

Which is not true. It doesn't matter the money, it doesn't matter anything like you matter. Your personhood is so much more important than any dollar you can bring to the table and that it'll, you'll figure it out. Like with the right team, you can figure it out whether it is to declare bankruptcy and start over. But you can, if you have built a business once, you can build it again, I promise you, you have that skill. No matter what, like nobody can take that away from you. And in so many ways, those mistakes are tuition and we can learn from them and grow from them and create something so different and better. If you are a business owner and an entrepreneur struggling with money, just know that you are important beyond your bank account. So please. Just ask for help because we would most, most definitely try to help you out of a situation like that. You are way more important than any dollar sign you can bring to the table. Can you share a marketing mistake that you've made in the past and what you've learned from it?

Michelle: 29:40

Oh, gosh. My business is, has been heavily dependent on referral marketing word of mouth and from people meeting me and my relationships. And that has been. Heavy, right? If I don't go and do the things I don't go and show up, the leads dry up. And so I, I feel like, yeah, it's a great way to build your business at the beginning and stuff. But I think that I hung on to that for too long and didn't invest soon enough on marketing experts and strategy. Like just relying on me sure, that's great. I can bring in leads and stuff, but if I don't do it, it doesn't exist. And that's not a way to grow my business sustainably. So yeah, that's probably the biggest one I've made. We waited too long.

Beverly: 30:48

When would you have done it? If you could go back, like when would you have done that?

Michelle: 30:52

I think I would have done it really early, right? To find, I know there's lots of marketing people out there, but to find the right person who really gets you and your business. And your personality and understands value that you're providing and the impact that you have I think it takes a while for you to find that person, and build that relationship. And the other thing I would say also. It's it's not like a, Oh don't just jump around between people and strategies and stuff go deep with somebody, be willing to put the time in. Like it's a relationship, right? I think in the early years I did that. It was like, Oh, try this. Oh, try that. Oh, listen to Gary V. And he's talking about this. this. And somebody's talking about that. And it was like, No, just find somebody who you jive with and really sink your teeth into that and go for it. And I wish I had done that way sooner. I feel like my business would have hit that seven figures. Way earlier, if I had done that way earlier,

Beverly: 32:03

all the money that was left on the table because of that decision. Oh, totally. Yeah,

Michelle: 32:07

totally. And you think you can't afford it, right? You're like, Oh, I think you can't, you can afford whatever you want to invest in when money expands and contracts as your your belief in it being possible. I just, I've seen it over and over again.

Beverly: 32:25

I would agree. What's one unconventional marketing tactic or campaign that you've tried and were surprised by its success?

Michelle: 32:35

I guess now I don't know how unconventional this is, I remember, my God, would've been like 2014 maybe. Going live on Facebook. Ooh. Yeah. It was huge. And I was like, and I did this little challenge or something. It was like 30 days live or something. And I was shocked, I was shocked that people were following and that they were listening to what I had to say and that like they were picking up what I was throwing down kind of thing. And it led to business yeah, I was shocked. I didn't at that point. I wasn't using social media for my business. It was like my personal life.

Beverly: 33:20

Interesting. Okay. So our next segment is the lightning round where we ask you some questions to get an insight up to how you make decisions, who you are, your business. Totally. What about your business brings you the most joy?

Michelle: 33:37

Oh showing people what's possible.

Beverly: 33:40

Share a fun fact about your business that even your most dedicated clients might not know. We're talking about those like behind the scenes, quirky little traditions that make you and your brand unique.

Michelle: 33:51

So I bring, my team is complete remote. I bring them all. I fly them all in somewhere. And we, once a year. And we do some fun things like amazing race. Oh, cute.

Beverly: 34:06

What is the one business challenge that you are the proudest of overcoming?

Michelle: 34:12

Keeping my business going when I broke my leg and my ankle and I had to be 16 weeks, non weight bearing. At that point we had a brick and mortar office.

Beverly: 34:21

Oh geez. Okay.

Michelle: 34:23

With stairs, no elevator.

Beverly: 34:28

Okay. I've had hip surgery, so I know a little bit about that process. I had a seven month old baby. It was non weight bearing for eight months. And how do you take care of a baby when you can't carry the baby? Like it was a very big challenging time. And yes, lots of stairs. I crawled up a lot of stairs.

Michelle: 34:44

Yeah.

Beverly: 34:44

What is your favorite way to network and meet new clients? Is there like a specific type of event or activity that you enjoy the most? I have a little assistant here who has an opinion about this. Sorry, listeners. So yes, she has a little opinion here. I think the UPS man might be at the door. But yes, what is your favorite way to network and meet new clients?

Michelle: 35:06

I love in person live events that are inspirational, motivational.

Beverly: 35:12

So like talks, like you go to a talk kind of thing. Okay.

Michelle: 35:15

Yeah.

Beverly: 35:16

Is there like some, something local, like an organization locally that, that does a lot of that? Or?

Michelle: 35:21

So I was just at the powerhouse women event in Phoenix in Scottsdale, which was amazing. Jamie Curran Lehman was the keynote speaker there. That was awesome. And I just try to. Get out to as many things as I can live. I don't know if it's like post pandemic, but I just want to be in rooms with people.

Beverly: 35:41

You want to be where the people are like little mermaid. If your business. Had a voice, what word or emotion would resonate from its core

Michelle: 35:50

gratitude?

Beverly: 35:53

What's your favorite quote, book, podcast, or entrepreneur that has left that mark on you that you hear it when you're doing things like whether overcoming stuff or getting through stuff, what is there been a person, a podcast, a book that, or even a quote, like like you just, it's like your mantra.

Michelle: 36:13

Be the change you want to see in the world. Mother Teresa,

Beverly: 36:18

right? Mother Teresa. Yeah. What's one unconventional tool or app that's become your secret weapon?

Michelle: 36:27

Oh, chat GPT lately.

Beverly: 36:30

Oh yeah. There's so many ways to use that. What are the three most important ingredients for your recipe for success?

Michelle: 36:39

Self care, for sure whatever that means to you. But for me, self care is nature. It's every day, walking my dogs in the woods grounding my energy in nature. Sleep. I learned the value of sleep in my health. And not, having the courage to do only What lights you up? Because we can do a lot of things, right? But it, you need to have courage to say no.

Beverly: 37:13

How do you keep your entrepreneurial spirit alive? What do you feed it?

Michelle: 37:17

I feed it through learning. And growth, right? Expanding my own knowledge on a variety of things, whether that's a data piece or it's a personal development piece,

Beverly: 37:33

how do you stay grounded and maintain your sense of purpose? Like doing the thing that lights you up

Michelle: 37:41

time away from my business.

Beverly: 37:43

If your business was an animal, which creature would it be and why?

Michelle: 37:49

Oh, my

Beverly: 37:49

God.

Michelle: 37:51

I never thought of that. Okay, this is gonna sound weird. I'm gonna say a raccoon. I love raccoons. They're little fingers, right? Like they're and they're so like inquisitive and they're like, they want to find the thing, like they look in all the places and stuff. Yeah, I think it's a raccoon.

Beverly: 38:09

The curious little critters. Yes. So I'm going to challenge you. I do this with all my guests. How can you use the raccoon and like the things that you use to describe the raccoon somehow in your marketing because oh my god that's so fun yes and very powerful if you can do it right so that's a challenge I throw down to like How do you use that word, emotion of gratefulness, as well as the idea of the raccoon, it doesn't have to be a literal raccoon, but there can be pieces of it that kind of influence some things in your marketing messaging or whatever. So definitely could explore that because it's a fun idea. For sure. That's a

Michelle: 38:46

that's awesome. I'm gonna I'm doing that. That's

Beverly: 38:49

what so now I I want to talk about I call this the blaze portion. It's like the things that like, are the advice, the wisdom side of entrepreneurial journeys. What practical advice would you offer someone who's just seizing their opportunity? Like maybe they're just starting or they're just at a different, like a different level of their business, cause there's always, you said three different times you had to go through something. There's always these moments of, I go forward, I go backwards or I stay. There's these, Like opportunities, forks in the road, I think, in your entrepreneurial journey. So what is a tangible strategy or approach that you can put into action, like right away that can make a difference for someone?

Michelle: 39:34

I think that so having. Having a clear vision and goal about both short term and long term, right? So that might short term might be 3 months long term might be a year or 3 years. I don't know but having clarity on what that is and asking yourself how you're going to measure that. And actually measuring it I think we can get so caught up in our business that we're not working on our business in that way. And it's not about whether you achieve the goal or not. It's actually just about being in the process of it.

Beverly: 40:11

I

Michelle: 40:12

think.

Beverly: 40:13

I think something tangible is so it's, that's a grounding thing for your business. So having that goal, that tangible thing, like the picture of the Caribbean, whatever the tangible thing is that you're describing you forward that kind of like grounds you and routes you in a different way. I have a time machine, and I want to understand, I want to go backwards first and go back, let's turn on the time machine and go back to when you were 18 years old, Michelle, and you were just going into college or university or just entering that adulthood portion of your life. What pivotal piece of advice do you wish you had received at that age that would have saved you maybe time, resources, or headaches along the way?

Michelle: 40:56

I didn't take life seriously at all, like at all. And I think that if I could give 18 year old Michelle a piece of advice, I would be not to take life seriously, but to know that is worthy of great success. Just because of who she is, she doesn't need to prove it with crazy behavior and being the center of attention and the party girl and all of that stuff.

Beverly: 41:28

Good advice. Okay, now we're going to fly forward through time and look 10 years down the road. What is your long term vision for your business and how do you plan to continue to evolve and adapt? Maybe there's trends that are changing, maybe AI is part of it, like looking ahead, how, what do you see for your business? What's the vision that you see?

Michelle: 41:50

I see bringing in more dynamic, amazing people who can eventually own part of the business. I'm looking for like the next generation of what we do to take alchemy to out into the future.

Beverly: 42:10

So I have that model. I have a brokerage model, like a real estate brokerage model so that it's my umbrella. But my associates all worked like almost like real estate agents or like a lawyer at a law firm. So before we go, I love that you've traveled in time through me. I love that you've shared all these really cool tidbits with me. I've really enjoyed our time together. There's no question, but before we go share where our listeners can learn more about alchemy, accounting, and bookkeeping, and they can keep up with your latest projects.

Michelle: 42:38

Totally. So they can follow me on all of the social media at Michelle B Cooper. Okay. Website is alchemyaccounting. ca or they can find me all the things that I do personally at michellebcooper. com.

Beverly: 42:54

Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining me today, Michelle. Thank you, Beverly. This is awesome. I am sure that are my listeners are going to walk away with some fantastic ideas and hopefully maybe a little shift in their money mindset today. I hope you feel motivated to try out what you've learned today. If you have any questions, you want to chant more, don't hesitate to reach out to Michelle or to myself, but please stay tuned for more insightful conversations and practical tips to light up your business and inspire your marketing on future episodes of the Spark It Ignite Your Marketing Podcast. But until next time keep sparking and igniting.